You Too Can Be A Rock

Peter

You Too Can Be a Rock

Introduction

A. How many of you have ever thought about Rocks?

B. I admit it does not come up in every day thought process with me

C. I do not sit there thinking about Rocks

D. But this week I did think about Rocks

E. If you were to grind as fine as you could you would have dust

F. If you were to take a bunch of dust and add a little water you would have dirt

G. You take that dirt along with some other chemical processes you have a Rock!

H. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand

I. Build your house on the Rock

J. Rock of Ages?

K. There are tons of references to Rocks in the Bible

L. Probably one of the most famous is Peter. Peter means Rock

M. Let us look at Peter and find out how He became a Rock

I. Peter the Dust

A. Explanation

1. Obviously Peter did not start of as a Rock, I would say he was dust

2. Peter was a rough Fisherman

3. Defiantly a blue collar hard working man

4. I guess what you could say would be a modern day equivalent of a factory worker

5. Defiantly would not be considered a polished individual

6. Had a temper, liked to shoot his mouth off

7. Basically was heading down a path of destruction

8. Along came Jesus

9. Jesus looked at him and said (Read John 1:42)

10. Understand that back then names meant a lot more then they do today, it is not like looking at Peter and calling him Fred just for the fun of it. It was important

11. Jesus called him Cephas – Which is translated Peter – Which means The Rock

B. Application

1. Let us apply this to our lives in two different ways.

2. First, we realize that Peter is not some sort of extraordinary person

3. He was a fisherman, and a rough one at that

4. God can use anyone to do his work,

5. You do not have to be of royal blood, you do not have to be the Son of a CEO of a fortune 500 company

6. God uses common people,

7. Hey, God is using me!

8. Second we look at Jesus calling Peter the Rock

9. Giving a young person that little bit of encouragement made a huge different in his life

10. Jesus saw something in Peter and choose to take a risk

11. We need to do the same with the younger Generation

C. Illustration

1. I was at District conference this week. Here I am sitting as a colleague of many people who have encouraged me along. There were about 100 people there that have encouraged me. People who might have taken a chance and be willing to support me. Look what happened!

2. Be willing to risk possible rejection, possible pain, and invest your life into young prospective rocks.

3. Peter started off as a Dust, he then gets upgraded to dirt

II. Peter the Dirt

A. Explanation

1. Peter was not always the brightest bulb on the string in fact he made some huge mistakes along the way

2. (Read Math 16:21-23)

3. Jesus called him Satan,

a) Understand what Peter did was try and make Jesus Happy

b) Peter just did not get it though

4. That was not Peter’s only blunder (Read John 13:7-10)

a) Peter did not want his master to wash his feet (that was a job for servants)

b) Yet notice that Peter was not willing to wash everyone else’s feet (pride sneaks in there)

c) Again Jesus tells Peter he is wrong

5. Oh there still is more (Read John 18:10-11)

a) Peter was trying to defend his master

b) Once again Peter did not understand what was going on

c) Jesus had to correct him again

B. Application

1. What can we gain from Peter’s examples?

2. Two different takes we can have on it

3. The first is personal. We all make bonehead decisions like Peter

4. We think that we know what is best and basically would like to tell God how to do his job

5. We are rash and do not think things through

6. We jump into situations without weighing the consequence

7. We need to understand that we do not know everything and be willing to still be taught

8. Which leads us to the other take?

9. Jesus could have given up on Peter

10. Obviously Peter probably caused a lot of frustration

11. There were days that Jesus did not want to deal with Peter any more

12. However, Jesus saw that raw potential and trained Peter

13. We need to do the same.