Peter
Man, am I confused right now. They say, “when the goin’ gets tough, the tough…go fishin’.” Well, that’s where I am; I been fishin’ since I was 2 years old, me and Andrew; it’s the only life we ever knew…’til like three years ago.
Pete’s the name; means “rock”. Yeah, that’s me, okay, “steady as a rock”…what a joke. More like a pebble, you know, maybe a little speck of gravel. I followed Jesus for, like, three years, man; Jesus takes me into His inner circle, right, like one of the guys He really let in on some stuff. I sure don’t know why He did that; I messed up so many times I quit countin’. But He never gave up on me, at least not yet, but I don’t know ‘bout this time, man, I just don’t know.
See, we go to Jerusalem with Him, thinkin’ that this was it, you know, like His coronation or somethin’. I mean, we was walkin’ along, talkin’ about how good it was goin’ to be, Jesus reignin’ on the throne in Jerusalem and us bein’ like his helpers, but things sure didn’t turn out like we planned, man, they sure didn’t turn out like we thought they would. He got Himself crucified, man, and stupid me, instead of fightin’ for Him, man, I tell people I don’t even know who He is…start cussin’ and stuff and tellin’ people I don’t run with Him. I mean, I said some stupid things in my time, but…
Now Jesus is dead and we don’t know what to do. And I’m a traitor, man, like a coward; yesterday, I couldn’t even stand up to a little girl and tell her I was with Jesus.
Ya’ever wonder if, maybe, you’ve like crossed a line or somethin’, like you’ve done so much…stuff…that you can’t ever be forgiven? That’s me, man, that’s where I am right now. And it ain’t too good, let me tell you…it ain’t too good.
Look, I gotta go. Maybe the fish will take my mind off things…
SERMON
Peter
John 21
April 27, 2003
Few characters in the New Testament arouse such empathy as Peter. We see in Simon Peter a follower of Jesus in all of his humanness, soaring to great heights at one moment and wallowing in the gutter the next. Consider
I. What Peter did
A. Followed closely
Peter was one of the “inner three”, along with James and John the disciples whom Jesus took with Him on certain occasions when the rest of the disciples were left behind. Only these three were there to witness the raising of Jairus’ daughter from death. Only these three were there at the Transfiguration of Christ, as the Shekinah glory surrounded Him on the mountain. Peter was privy to Jesus’ identity in a way few others were. And my, when Peter shined, didn’t he shine?
B. Faith-fully identified Jesus
Jesus asked the disciples, as is recorded in Mark 8, “who are people saying that I am?” And different answers were given. But then Jesus put the question to the disciples, “but who do you say that I am?” It was Peter who identified Jesus, saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus praised him, telling him that he hadn’t understood this except as God had revealed it to him. Christ went on to establish the foundation of the church, which incidentally was not Peter (as no doubt some of you have been taught). There is a play on words here, for Peter means “little rock”, while the word Jesus uses when He says, “On this rock, I will build my church” is the word for a large boulder. It is not on the little rock of Peter, but on the solid rock of the revelation of God in Christ that the church is built. He is Himself the Cornerstone, as He is God revealed in the flesh, the Savior of the world. But Peter’s response was one of incredible insight and faith, insight and faith given to Him only by God.
C. Fearfully failed
When Peter shined, he shined bright, but when he failed, he failed miserably, didn’t he? Immediately on the heels of Mark’s recording of Peter’s wonderful confession of faith, we read this, as the NLT records it:
31”Then Jesus began to tell them that he, the Son of Man, would suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the leaders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and three days later he would rise again. 32As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and told him he shouldn’t say things like that.
33Jesus turned and looked at his disciples and then said to Peter very sternly, "Get away from me, Satan! You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s."
What a juxtaposition! Jesus commends Peter for his insight, and the next words out of Peter’s mouth earn Jesus’ calling him “Satan”, indicating that Peter’s words were motivated by none other than the devil himself. Peter hardly understood that Jesus’ overarching purpose in coming from Heaven to earth was to die on the cross in our place and rise again. And so Jesus rebukes Peter’s human point of view, instead of his looking at things from God’s perspective.
But of course, we know of Peter’s biggest screwup, don’t we? As Jesus was with His followers on the night of His betrayal, He again told them that He was going away. We read in John 13 that Peter pledged his devotion, saying, “’I am ready to die for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Die for me? No, before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.’”
Peter was so sure of the depth of his devotion; Jesus was so sure of its shallowness. And we know the end of the story; Peter cursing denied Jesus not once, but three times, prompting him, the Bible says, to go and weep bitterly. What failure! What incredible cowardice! Peter, how could you?
No…how could we? Reality check, please! Time to get a grip, folks. Ready for this?
I am Peter. And so are you. I don’t know of a single Christian who can’t identify at some points with Peter. I don’t know of a single one of us who can’t identify with guilt.
We struggle with guilt resulting from
the frequency of sin (“I just can’t seem to stop doing it!”),
the effects of sin (“I hurt so-and-so so badly!”), and
the seriousness of sin (“what I did was so bad!”).
And yet, while we classify sins and rank them (everyone has a different ranking; in fact, while Americans might have a particular ranking, and American Christians might have another), likely there are others in other parts of the world who would rank them differently. Further, are our “rankings” Biblical? And can sin be easily categorized? Our Catholic friends divide sins into “mortal” and “venial”; that’s not a Biblical categorization.
Homosexuality. Drunkenness. Adultery. Lying. Stealing. Doing drugs. Prostitution. “Biggies”.
Gossip. Pride. Gluttony. Telling a little “white lie”. Materialism. A critical, judgmental spirit. Oh, these are faults, to be sure, but really, everybody does it, don’t they? Hmmm… And things like
unconcern over the spread of AIDS? “They had it coming, sleeping around like that!” In sub-Saharan Africa, a generation of people is being wiped out; orphans are wall-to-wall.
fudging at tax time? “Well, Uncle Sam takes too big a bite, you know!”
stinginess? “Hey, if I stick it in the plate, or give to charity, well, I’ll have to do without!”
prejudice? “All these people are going to ruin our country!”
the feeling of satisfaction you get when an enemy suffers? “Well, he got what he had coming to him!” Where would I be if I “got what was coming to me”?
Remember, Jesus was the friend of sinners. The drunks and the tax collectors and the whores were glad to see Him. His condemnation He saved for the better-than-thou, snide-remarking, down-the-nose-looking Pharisees. Do you look at Peter as though his sin is one you would not have committed had you been in his place? How self-deceived can you be?
Are you like the Sunday School teacher who told the story of the Pharisee and the publican? Remember, the publican, the tax collector, humbled himself before God and said, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner”, while the tax collector stood proudly on the street corner, and said, “God, thank you that I’m not like the publican”, and then recited his deeds. After the Sunday School teacher told her students the story, she then looked at them and said, “now, class, let’s bow our heads and thank God that we are not like the Pharisee!” Are you saying, “God, thank you that I’m not like that Pharisee”? Perhaps another inventory is in order for you if you believe that!
“The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Your sin stinks, it is awful, it is high treason against God, it is wicked and ugly and a thing of surpassing shame. You have absolutely no right, none, to condemn another, to condescendingly look down on another person as a great sinner as compared with yourself. Wow, not gonna hear that in Bob Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, are you? You know how I know your sin and mine are that bad? I look at the cross! I see the agony of Jesus Who died on that cross, experiencing not only the excruciating pain and the humiliating shame, but also, and much, much more significantly, the unfathomable agony of being made to be sin for us, He Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!
Your problem isn’t poor self-esteem or tough luck or a bad home situation or anything else; your problem is the wretchedness of your sin. Those who don’t come to grips with the exceeding sinfulness of sin can’t come to grips with the amazing nature of grace!
You don’t need a little makeover or a tune-up or a new leaf turned over, and you sure better hope God doesn’t give you your just desserts; you need God’s grace and mercy!
When we are honest with God and with ourselves, we know that we are Peter. We all struggle with guilt and shame at times, and we all need
II. What Jesus did
What did Jesus do for Peter? There is much in John 21 to exegete; there are deep truths to mine. That isn’t my purpose here this morning; rather, I want to speak in simple terms of the great lengths to which Jesus went to reconcile Peter.
A. He died on the cross
Having read the passage we did, we might be tempted to skip straight to it for our evidence of what Jesus did for Peter, but that’d be a mistake, for the very first thing which Jesus did for Peter is that most important of all works He has done for us: He died on Calvary. In John 13, we read that Jesus, having loved His followers who were with Him, began that work of demonstrating to them the fullest extent of His love for them. Here is the central feature of Jesus’ reconciling of shameful Peter: He took every one of Peter’s sins to Calvary’s cross. He died on that cross, Jesus, the One Who knew no sin, in order to reconcile Peter back to God.
B. He sought Peter out
“You did not wait for me, to draw near to You…” This was certainly true for Peter! Peter and a few others had gone fishing. Was it to make some money for his family? Was it more to get back to something familiar in order to relieve the tension of the previous couple of weeks in Jerusalem? We don’t know, but we know that they went fishing, and that their venture was spectacularly unsuccessful. The men recognize someone on the shore, but it isn’t clear just who this is; perhaps the man was obscured by darkness or fog or mist on the water. He gives them an instruction: “cast your nets on the right side of the boat”. They had done that, no doubt, many times already that day, and it had yielded nothing. But what had they to lose? Though they didn’t know who gave the command, they did so…and promptly landed so many fish that the fear was that the net would break.
At this point, John recognizes that it is Jesus Who has given the command, and Peter, who has stripped down to a loincloth, likely, puts his garment on and jumps into the water to swim toward Jesus. This might sound awkward; today, we’d remove clothing before taking a dip, and we’d think that the equivalent of swim trunks would be perfectly-suited attire. But in that culture, greeting someone was something of a religious act in itself, and protocol demanded proper clothing. Peter tossed on his garment in his best stab at proper protocol at a time like this!
But Peter wouldn’t have had reason to jump out of the boat had Jesus not come seeking him out. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save the lost”; Jesus had said that earlier. He told a wayward woman at a well in Samaria that “God seeks worshippers to worship Him.” He does not wait for us; He takes the initiative. If He does not, we don’t come to Him. Think you’re chasing after God today? Be sure of this: any following of God that you do you only do because He has taken the initiative and come to you first! But notice He does something else:
C. He gave Peter the privilege of a task
After they all made their way to shore, they shared breakfast together with Jesus. Then, Jesus turns to Peter, and extends to him the call to ministry. Fumbling Peter. Failure Peter. Foot-in-mouth Peter. We will save for another time a more delicate parsing of Jesus’ questions, Peter’s answers, and Jesus’ call to him. There is some meat there for the studying; this text could occupy us for several Sundays with ease. My point today is simply this: Jesus calls to ministry, to key ministry, this total failure of a shameful traitor of a man. It is the task of caring for the followers of Jesus. Peter had been there with Jesus when He had described Himself as “the Great Shepherd”. But now, the Great Shepherd entrusts to this failure the awesome task of shepherding the early church.
We sometimes wonder whether or not our failures disqualify us from serving God. To be sure, there are qualifications for certain arenas of ministry which God has set in His Word. But there is work for all of us to do for His glory, and there is no failure in your life past, present, or future that puts you beyond the scope of usefulness to the Kingdom of God.
And how did Peter respond? It was Peter who boldly preached at Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit came upon the believers. It was Peter who boldly proclaimed Jesus despite threats from the religious leaders. It was Peter who led the early church. It was Peter who died, according to legend, the martyr’s death of crucifixion upside down, which, if true, accords well with Jesus’ prediction here at the end of John 21.
Do you struggle with unrelenting guilt, with a deep sense of failure, with shame which seemingly won’t go away? Erich Fromm, in The Sane Society, “It is indeed amazing that in as fundamentally an irreligious culture as ours, the sense of guilt should be so widespread and deep-rooted as it is.” Is that true of you? Take heart from the example of a man who turned his back on Jesus at the moment of His passion and death—but who, because of a Savior Who went to the cross, and then sought Peter out and restored him, was delivered from his guilt and failure and shame, and used of God in a mighty way!
