Encouragement
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But, I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:31
Intro: Your teenage son doesn’t complain about coming to church.
He is not rebellious.
You are pleased with the progress he is making in school.
You are a really proud parent.
He is dating a girl from a good family.
They even come to church together,
Then you find out she is pregnant
and you are disappointed.
Your husband promises to take you on a dinner date and to the movies.
You are really looking forward to spending some time with him.
Then, you get a phone call, he has to apologize:
He can’t make it; there is something that came up at work again.
You help a recovering addict who has been sober and clean for some time.
She seems so sincere and likeable
You want to help her get back on her feet and get her life back.
You help her get a job.
You help her get an apartment.
You help her get her utilities turned on.
She comes to church for several weeks.
You start to have a real relationship with her.
You take her out to eat after the service.
But the next week you look for her but she doesn’t show up.
You find out she went back into an abusive relationship.
She fell off of the wagon and misses work and loses her job.
You invite a co-worker to the Friends and Family Day at church.
They say they will be there.
You are so excited and tell everyone they are coming.
You wait for them as long as you can in the church parking to walk in together.
You look for them to come in even after the service starts but the couple never shows.
The next day, the man explains that his wife was worn out, and they just decided not to come.
You are in charge of recruiting volunteers for a church event.
You have people sign up to be there at a certain time and to bring food and snacks.
A volunteer seems enthusiastic and sincere,
but now she doesn’t show
She does not call in advance
and you are left with a big hole to fill
no one to work that hour and not enough food or snacks for the children.
Other volunteers who are there have to do double work and rush out to buy more supplies.
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What do you do with unreliable, inconsistent people?
Jesus Christ had an associate like that.
His name was Simon Peter.
Simon meant well,
but he blew hot and cold.
He was walking on water by faith one minute,
and then the next minute he was up to his neck in seaweed in doubt.
He was calling Jesus the Son of God one moment
and then spouting Satan’s line the next.
Simon was so loyal to Jesus that he courageously attacked a host of soldiers with a single sword
and then, a few minutes later, he cowardly denied to a lowly servant girl that he had even met Jesus.
Simon may be our favorite disciple,
we all like him because we can identify with his failures.
But, we don’t appreciate having undependable people like Simon on our committee or other areas of our life.
They disappoint us and leave us holding the bag.
This morning, let’s study how Jesus encouraged Simon to overcome his inconsistency.
This is one of the qualities that made Jesus such an outstanding leader.
He helped people like Simon reach their full potential
and become a consistent and dependable influence in the church.
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The first lesson is this:
I. Be discerning.
We talked last week about the difference between a hypocrite
and someone one who is sincerely struggling to become a better person.
There is a difference between someone who wants to change and wants to help themselves
And someone who has learned to manipulate the system
They know how to play on your sympathy
There was a big difference between the way Jesus responded
to the religious leaders that we talked about last week
and the way He responded to Simon Peter.
Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisees was harsh.
He called them “whitewashed tombs” and “blind guides” and “brood of vipers.”
But, from the beginning, His words to Simon Peter were kinder, much more positive.
He calls him blessed, and says, “You are going to be a rock.
I am praying for you.
I am going to give to you the keys to the kingdom.”
Jesus was so much more tolerant of the inconsistency of Simon Peter
than he was the phony Pharisees and religious hypocrites at the temple.
What is the difference?
A hypocrite is someone who deliberately wears a mask to hide the real self.
The inconsistent person is transparent.
The hypocrite really doesn’t intend to do the right thing.
Their motives are evil.
The unreliable person is well intentioned, but doesn’t follow through.
The hypocrite has a hard heart and feels no remorse over sinful attitudes.
The inconsistent person deeply regrets his failure.
The hypocrite is very difficult to change.
The inconsistent person is more moldable, reachable.
You are more likely to be able to help them grow and transform into a steadfast believer and servant
if given the right guidance and opportunity.
You know what?
That may be the difference between Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter.
By the time Judas betrayed Jesus, he was a hard-hearted
He disguised himself and his real intentions to betrayed Jesus with a kiss.
His life ended in disaster.
Peter was a softhearted…, but an unreliable disciple of Jesus
Yet, Jesus molded him into a rock-like character who became the leader of the early church.
It takes real discernment to know when to shake the dust off your feet
and distance yourself from somebody
and when to patiently encourage them.
We can only pray for discernment, +SLIDE+
but I would suggest that if you are going to misjudge, misjudge on the side of grace.
+SLIDE+
Here is a second lesson:
II. Be realistic – some people are more susceptible to falling than others.
Look at Luke the 22 chapter.
Just prior to His arrest, Jesus predicted that Simon Peter was going to stumble and fall. +SLIDE+
Luke 22 beginning with verse 31: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.
But, I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.
And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
On the surface, that doesn’t sound like very good leadership
– telling one of your followers that he is going to fail.
Shouldn’t Jesus preach success?
Shouldn’t He be boosting up positive self-image?
One of the reasons that Jesus inspired people to greatness was that He was realistic.
He knew Peter’s temperament and personality.
He knew Peter’s past and his weaknesses
and, just as God had given permission to Satan to attack Job,
so Satan was allowed to attack Peter individually.
Jesus knew that Simon was going to experience the greatest pressure and temptations within a few hours
like he had never ever experienced before in his life.
So, Jesus was very frank with Simon Peter about his weaknesses. +SLIDE+
“Simon, Satan is going to sift you like wheat and you are going to fail.”
The rock was going to be reduced to a pebble.
+SLIDE+
Verse 33, Simon replied: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
The other Gospels have Peter saying, “Everybody else may fail you, but I certainly won’t fail you,”
+SLIDE+
and Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter,
before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
We have to be real.
Everybody is goes through difficult times.
Everyone is tempted to sin.
Everyone has moments of weakness
Everyone is susceptible to making the wrong decision…, to stumble…, and fall,
but some are more susceptible to stumbling than others.
Why is that?
1. +SLIDE+ The crowd you hang around with
2. +SLIDE+ My daily relationship with Christ scale from 1-10
3. +SLIDE+ Stress and pressure points in your life—reduce the number of things on your calendar etc.
Reduce stress
Understand the emotions and cycles of stress.
Let me give you one example:
You are stressed out over bills and debt.
You work harder to pay bills.
The harder you work the more you realize that hard work deserves to be rewarded.
You spend money on to either buy things or entertainment as a reward.
Your entertainment costs forces you to work harder to make more money
Which brings you back to being more stressed out over bills and debts.
+SLIDE+
Look at the toys in your life.
We live in a world that is built around entertainment.
People who live in pressure cooker situations are more vulnerable to inconsistency
It is no coincidence that this spills over into our attitudes about church.
A pastor loved to golf.
You know every year they come out with a new golf club that is better than the one last year.
The newest…, latest design…, is supposed to increase your driving range.
The pastor was bragging to his friend he had the newest g-force 400 driver
His friend laughed and pulled out a g-force 700 driver.
Anyone here still using and Iphone 3 or 4?
NO it is the Iphone 6,7,8, X
4megabyte
8megabyte
16megabyte
32 megabyte
64 megabyte
128 megabyte
Do you know that people spend money inside games to buy pretend jewels, and hammers and swords.
People spend real money…, to buy pretend items…, inside games
That is the culture we live in today.
And that same culture spills over into the church.
People come to church to be entertained.
I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say “Maybe not on a conscience level.”
But people often come to church and leave feeling disappointed.
I didn’t like the music or the song.
I didn’t get anything out of the service.
Guess what you don’t come to church to be entertained.
You don’t come to church to get what you like.
+SLIDE+ You come to church not to be entertained
But you come to church to entertain God.
That is what worship is.
The is the right reason to be here…, is to please God…, and worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
When you do that you will leave here feeling blessed.
You will leave here prepared to face the week.
The Word of God rebukes and reproves the sinner to repentance.
The Holy Spirit offends and convicts the believer unto righteousness.
+SLIDE+ Be real—a good pastor preaches from the bible
And the Word of God convicts and reproves…, rebukes…, exhorts and encourages.
2 Timothy 4:3 says, “The time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine,
But they will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.”
+SLIDE+A good worship service will point out sin.
It will cause you to feel bad and guilty for not doing more.
A good sermon will rebuke and warn you that if you don’t repent of your sin
Your life is heading straight for a wreck.
+SLIDE+A good sermon will exhort and encourage.
There is always hope and forgiveness.
Christ has the power to change your life
Whatever the situation your life is in Jesus is what you need.
+SLIDE+ Here is the third lesson:
III. Be honest – inconsistency needs to be confronted.
Luke 22 beginning with verse 55 reports that Peter stumbled and fell just as Jesus had predicted.
+SLIDE+ “But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard
and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them.”
(Remember the back story, the other disciples ran away in fear.
Peter turned around and courageously followed at a distance
and now he sits down with the devil’s crowd…., just on the fringe of the trial.)
+SLIDE+ Verse 56: “A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight.
She looked closely at him and said, ‘This man was with him.’
But Peter denied it. ‘Woman, I don’t know him,’ he said.”
Maybe Peter rationalized that he was working undercover.
Do you know any undercover Christians?
I am Christian but I don’t let anyone know, I don’t want to tell anyone that I am Christian.
As Christians we must not conceal and hide our true identity.
+SLIDE+ Verse 58: “A little later, someone else saw him and said, ‘You also are one of them.’
‘Man, I am not!’ Peter replied.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.
Peter lied, “I don’t know Him.”
+SLIDE+Verse 59: “About an hour later, another asserted,
‘Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.’
Peter replied, ‘Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!”
(Matthew’s Gospel says he called down an oath…, he cursed saying, “I don’t know the man!”)
Anyone ever have a problem cursing…, we so did Simon Peter.
The cursing and lying seems to have worked. (A follower of Jesus wouldn’t curse and lie.)
The circle around the campfire believed Peter and seems to be satisfied that he is not a Christian.
But, somewhere…, in the night…, a rooster stretches its neck, shakes its feathers, and crows an indictment.
Think about that. Just as Peter curses and lies and says, “I don’t know Jesus”
the rooster crows
and then apparently Jesus was being escorted by at just that moment
and Verse 61 says: “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.”
Think about that, the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.
There was a situation about Church Sunday School Teacher
who had attended a University of Kentucky/Florida basketball game,
as he was leaving…, it was kind of an ugly mood because Florida had won.
In the concourse he saw two opposing fans in a shouting match against each other.
They were screaming at each other
using profanity and threatening to fight.
The closer he got, the Teacher realized that one of the men was a member of his Sunday School Class.
He had the worst possible attitude.
He was using the worst language imaginable.
What would you do?
Would you duck your head and slide out.
Thinking I don’t want to embarrass him by letting him see me?
Or think I don’t want the pressure of confronting him. I just let it slide.
+SLIDE+
What would you…, what would your Jesus do?
Jesus could have pretended He didn’t hear Peter’s denial.
He could have simply looked the other way,
but Jesus was more concerned about Simon Peter’s future
He was concerned about Simon’s soul.
Jesus deliberately turned and caught Peter’s eye to be sure that Peter had to face his sin.
What kind of look do you think Jesus gave to Peter:
total disgust
– shaking his head in exasperation,
seething anger,
clinching his fists,
growling with deep disappoint?
“Peter, you have abandon me, How could you after all I have done for you? I am so hurt.”
NO. I think that it was a look of compassionate understanding.
He predicted exactly what was going to happen.
Jesus wasn’t surprised.
Jesus Himself had been under the attack and sifting hand of the devil.
Jesus had been there too for forty days when Satan tested him in the wilderness,
Jesus knew how cunning and ruthless the adversary could be.
He knew Simon’s heart. I think that it was a look of sympathetic understanding.
When someone has hurt you.
They may have even attacked you and angered you.
The temptation is to be offended.
But that feeling
That emotion of being offended is a trap the devil has laid to snare you.
The devil loves to divide and defeat God’s people.
Wouldn’t it be a great witness
of the love…, and mercy…, and grace…, and forgiveness…, of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour
That when someone hurts your feelings…, that you turn to them with love
and restore them as your friend?
An eleven-year-old boy gets up to bat.
The bases are loaded.
The score is tied up.
Any ground ball hit into the outfield would win the game.
He swings and misses.
He swings and misses.
He strikes out.
The boy walks into the dugout,
he looks up and glances to see his father looking at him from the bleachers.
What kind of look does a father give his son
—disgust? anger?
I am so mad…., I want even speak to you again.
You figure out how to get a ride home.
No, it is a look of sympathetic understanding.
“That was a lot of pressure to be under, Son,
everybody strikes out.
You will have another chance.”
The father probably couldn’t wait to get arms around his son and encourage him and love one him.
Jesus looked at Peter with a sympathetic look of an understanding father.
+SLIDE+ Verse 61 says: “Then Peter remembered the Word the Lord had spoken to him:
‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’
And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.”
Eugene Peterson in The Message paraphrases it like this:
“He went out and cried and cried and cried.”
Max Lucado wrote, “Had Peter not felt the conviction and guilt in the courtyard,
he never would have proclaimed the forgiveness and grace on Pentecost.”
+SLIDE+ Learn this lesson:
Encouragement does not happen until the person who has failed and fallen is confronted.
You can’t encourage someone if you just turn and look the other way.
If you just ignore and excuse the sin.
The person may never repent and may never be forgiven.
If we are going to disciple people
If we are going to help people grow up, we need to encourage one another
He wants the weak to become strong,
He wants the blind to see.
He wants the deaf to hear.
He wants the lame to walk again.
He wants the inconsistent to become dependable.
He wants you to become a rock that others can build up on.
The Lord wants us to help people…, and to be part of changing lives.
In order for encouragement to be meaningful,
it is often balanced with identify…, confronting…, and correcting a problem.
+SLIDE+ Titus 2:15 says that this is what we are to teach, “Encourage and rebuke with all authority.”
A good sermon convicts people of their sin.
But it does not leave them in despair.
As a Christian you should never just point out what someone has done to hurt you.
And not offer a solution…, or a way to make things better.
You may be thinking, yea, but you don’t know how bad they hurt my feelings.
Well you definitely need to be here next Sunday for the sermon “How to Forgive the Rapist and the Murder.”
+SLIDE+Here is the final lesson:
IV. Be encouraging
– the inconsistent frequently need boosting up.
As soon as Jesus rose from the dead,
the Lord began to single out Simon Peter for encouragement.
+SLIDE+Mark 16:7 relates that when the women discovered the empty tomb, the angel said to them,
“You are looking for Jesus…but He is not here, He has risen.
+SLIDE+Go tell his disciples and Peter that He is going ahead of you into Galilee
and there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Peter must have felt very pretty bad after the he deny Jesus and rooster crowed.
When the women came and told what the angel at the empty tomb said,
Peter probably thought, “Did the angel really say me, specifically?”
That would be a much-needed boost to his ego.
First Corinthians 15:5 says that Jesus made a special, individual appearance to Simon Peter.
That would go a long way toward assuring Peter he was forgiven and restored.
John 21 says shortly thereafter, the disciples went to the Sea of Galilee and waited for Jesus,
and they became restless.
And Peter said, “I am going fishing.”
All the disciples got in the boat and went fishing all night and didn’t catch a thing.
At dawn, there was a strange, silhouetted of a figure against the shore.
And the stranger on shore called out, “Have you caught any fish?”
Now, when you fish all night and haven’t caught anything,
that is not a question you want to be asked.
I love Peter’s answer—“no.”
And the stranger said, “Throw your net on the other side.”
They complied and they caught 153 fish in one cast.
They couldn’t believe it.
Simon Peter said, “That’s got to be the Lord. Only Jesus could perform a miracle like that!”
And in the style of Peter…, he dove in the water and swam to the shore,
leaving the others to row the boat and drag in the fish.
When they got to the shore, there was Jesus cooking breakfast for them.
There are two fires in Peter’s story—the first fire was built by men, the second was built by Christ.
At the first fire, Peter denied Jesus three times.
At the second, Peter is given three opportunities to confess Jesus is alive and is the risen Lord.
In the middle of the conversation around the fire,
Jesus turned to Simon and questioned his loyalty.
Just as Peter had denied Him three times,
Jesus gives the opportunity to confess Him three times.
John 21:15: “When they had finished eating,
Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?’”
(Remember, Peter had said, “Everybody else may deny you, but I won’t deny you.”)
+SLIDE+ And Jesus says, “Do you still say you love me more than the other disciples?”
+SLIDE+Jesus used the word “Agape,” which means a love deeply committed
that will do the right thing regardless of feeling.
+SLIDE+Peter answers with the word “Phileo” +SLIDE+– “Lord, I love you like a brother.”
+SLIDE+Jesus asked Peter a second time – “Do you Agape?” (Do you love me?)
Peter answers again using the word “Phileo” (Love you like a brother).
+SLIDE+A third time Jesus asked him,
and Jesus uses the word “Phileo” – “Do you really love me like a brother?”
and Peter says, “Lord you know all things, you know that I have that kind of love for you.”
Some criticize Peter for not using the stronger word,
but I think he is now honestly admitting that his love is shaky at times.
“I can’t always promise you God that I am going to do the right thing.
I know I can stumble
I know sometimes I will fall,
but I will still love you like a brother.”
I think the Lord was pleased that Peter was honestly admitting his failure and weaknesses.
Jesus said, “Okay Simon, now you are ready – feed my sheep, feed my lambs.
I am going to give you the keys to the kingdom.
You can open the door and start preaching the gospel in the church.
I believe in you.”
You see, Jesus spotted something in Peter’s heart that was right, and He encouraged it.
He not only gave him a second chance,
he entrusted him with a key responsibility.
That trust was not in vain.
Peter became a solid citizen of the Kingdom of God and a dependable witness for Christ.
It is a tremendous encouragement to know that people still believe in you even after you fail.
+SLIDE+Hebrews says: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds
and let us not give up meeting together
as some are in the habit of doing, (not coming to church)
but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
The Lord may be offering you another chance as we sing our song of invitation this morning.
Maybe you have blown a time or two.
It may be just few little sins in your life, but you know you are guilty.
Or maybe you have blown it big time.
And you need to completely rededicate your life to Christ.
Either way
Whether it is the first time or the one hundred time
Come to Jesus Christ, to be instated into His kingdom or maybe to come to Him the first time.
Or to be restored into the right relationship and restored into the Kingdom again.
I invite you to come.
If you are already a Christian
and you want to make this your church home,
I also invite you to come as we stand and sing.
+SLIDE+ Be Discerning
+SLIDE+ Be Real
+SLIDE+ Be Honest
+SLIDE+ Be Encouraging
