July 24, 2000

• Peter

  

  Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Peter, Part 1

  Selected Scriptures

  "And it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.  And when day came He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as Apostles: Simon whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor."

  We all understand the word "qualified."  That's a word that's used an awful lot in the English language, particularly in our society which has set standards and qualifications for almost every enterprise.  The highest paying jobs, at least on the surface, demand some qualifications in the area of personality or character, skill, education, experience, self-motivation, social interaction, intelligence, stress management and many more qualifications.  

  The Bible is very clear that God's standard for those who are most responsible for His eternal work are extremely high.  (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, Hebrews 13:7) Those are the standards for those who lead in the church only because they're to be the model of God's standard for everybody else.  God doesn't lower the standard with the rest of us.  He says this is the standard for the leaders because you have to manifest the standard for everybody else.  Not a different standard, really, the same standard.  In fact, if you want to know what the ultimate qualification is, Matthew 5:48 Jesus said, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."

  Humanly speaking, nobody qualifies to be in God's Kingdom, nobody qualifies to be in God's service.  Scripture is very clear that nobody on his own can meet the least of God's standards.  An amazing aspect of God's grace is that He must save sinners, He must sanctify sinners, and then He must work His ministry through the unworthy and the unqualified.  Very encouraging to meet the Twelve because like all the rest of us, they are selected from the unworthy and the unqualified. 

  God picks the humble, the lowly, the meek and the weak so that there's never any question about the source of power when their lives change the world.  Power is in the Word...power is in the truth that we preach, not in us.  Apart from one person, one human, God's Son the Lord Jesus Christ, the history of God's work on earth is the story of His using the unqualified and the Twelve were no exception to that.  Jesus took the unworthy, the unqualified and transformed them into mighty servants of spiritual power and laid the foundation of the church upon which all these centuries have been built.  They became great preachers, healers, expellers of demons, writers of the New Testament.  They were the real foundation of the church, according to Ephesians 2:20.  They were the agents of divine revelation, according to Ephesians 3:5.  They were the teachers of true doctrine, according to Acts 2:42.  In Ephesians 4:11 it tells us they were the builders of the church.  They are called holy apostles in Ephesians 3:5 and Revelation 18:20.  They were examples of godliness.  And they were granted the ability to do mighty signs and wonders, according to 2 Corinthians 12:11-12.  These Twelve, very plain, common men were elevated to a uncommon calling.

  Galileans were the low class, rural, uneducated, as far away as you can get from the literate and the educated in Jerusalem.  They were the commoners, the nobodies.  They had gathered around Jesus as disciples, the word is mathetes, learners.  But here Jesus picks out twelve of those learners and says,  "I'm going to train you to be Apostles, you are disciples, you will be Apostles.  You have come to learn, you will go to preach."  And here they begin their formal training.  Only two years from this point Jesus will be crucified, three days later He shall rise, forty days later He will ascend to heaven and they will be on their own and the gospel will be in their hands and the Kingdom of God will depend on their preaching, and the power and conviction and truthfulness of their preaching.  Only two years time is left to prepare them and so right here we begin the training of the Twelve.

  Here we meet the twelve handpicked men, the first disciples of Jesus to become the true Apostles.  Let me give you some general observations.  All of them were common men from Galilee with the exception of Judas who was from a town called Kerioth in the south.  They were really rural people from the part of the nation of Israel that didn't really have much prestige or nobility.  The Lord had ignored the Pharisees, none of them was a Pharisee, none of them was a Sadducee, none of them was a priest, none of them was a scribe.  None of them was any prominent person, they were all very common, common men.  As I told you about their commonness, four of them were fishermen, one was a tax collector, one was a terrorist, and one was a traitor. 

  Some general observations about the list.  Would you look at the list?  There are four lists of the Apostles in the New Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts... Matthew 10, Mark 3, here Luke 6 and Acts chapter 1.  In these lists the names are always the same, so that we know exactly who these twelve were.  But the names are in identical order in the lists...with some exceptions that I'll point out to you.

  The first name in all four lists is always Peter.  And then you have three groups of four...group one, group two, group three.  The first group is Simon called Peter, Andrew, James, John.  In every list they are the first four.  Peter, James and John's names get mixed around in the list, Peter's is always first but they're always in group one.  Group two is Philip, Bartholomew, or Nathanael, sometimes called Nathanael...Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, that's always group two in every list.  And the names of Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas get mixed, but Philip is always the first name of group two. Group three, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James and Judas Iscariot, always the same...the names may be mixed a little bit, the two middle names, the names of Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James get mixed, but James the son of Alphaeus is always the first name in group four and Judas is always the last name of the Twelve.

  What have we learned by that?  Well we learn that the Twelve were divided into fours...group one, group two, group three.  Four--Peter, James, John and Andrew...the second group as we identified them, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas.  The other group, James, Simon, Judas and Judas.  These groups had leaders.  The leader of group one, obviously Peter.  The leader of group two, Philip.  The leader of group three, James the son of Alphaeus.  The name at the top of the list is always Peter who was the leader of everybody.

  These groups of four are in decreasing intimacy with Christ.  Group one always around Christ...Peter, James, John and Andrew, the most intimate group. They were the first disciples that Jesus called back in John 1:35-42, the first group He called to be disciples, here he identifies as Apostles.  They've been with Him the longest and they are the most intimate with Christ.  Throughout the rest of the story of the ministry and life of Christ, Peter, James and John in particular are very intimate with Christ, and Andrew is close.  Group two is a little bit more distant but we do know quite a bit about Philip and Bartholomew and Thomas, as I mentioned they are group two...and also Matthew.  Group three seems at a distance.  We don't know much about them at all.  The only thing we know is about Judas because he betrayed Jesus.  So Jesus had twelve, but He could only have very intimately three and sometimes four and they kind of move away in terms of intimacy.  But as Mark 3:14 says they were appointed that they would be with Him, so they were all there, all twelve, but with certain degrees of intimacy with Christ.

  They had varied backgrounds, as I said, in terms of their employment, or their career...tax collector, fishermen, etc.  They also had varied temperaments.  Peter we call the Apostle with the foot-shaped mouth...eager, bold, aggressive, impulsive, very verbal.  John on the other hand spoke very little.  The first twelve chapters of Acts he and Peter are companions...John never says a thing.  There is Nathanael/Bartholomew, a true believer, openly confessing his faith in Christ.  And he's sort of matched up with Thomas who is a skeptic and a doubter and has to have proof for everything.  Their politics were different.  There was Matthew called also Levi.  Matthew was the most despicable person in Israel.  He was a tax collector who had taken a job with Rome to exhort taxes from his own people to pay an oppressive invader, the Roman Empire, pagans who didn't believe in the true and living God.  They were despicable, those tax collectors were, and here was Matthew/Levi, one of the Apostles, a betrayer of his own people for money. Another of the Apostles was a man named Simon called the Zealot.  The Zealots were those who hated Rome. That was the name of a group of people in Israel who wanted to throw off the Roman yoke.  Many of them were terrorists.  They didn't have an army that declared war on Rome, they did terrorist acts.  Some of them carried a sword and they went around stabbing Romans in the back.  And here was the most hated Jew, one who had betrayed his nation and become a tax collector for Rome in the same little group of four with Simon who was a terrorist.  Apart from the presence of Christ, Simon may have well stuck a spear in the back of Matthew.

  The first one in the first group and the one who is the leader overall, verse 14, Simon.  Simon, by the way, is a very common name.  You have another Simon down at the end of verse 15 who was the Zealot.  Simon whom He, Jesus, also named Peter.  Now this is always the first name at the head of every list, and I'll tell you why.  Not only because we assume he was the leader but because Jesus said he is the leader.  Matthew 10:2 it says that Simon Peter was the first, the protos, meaning the chief, the leader.  Scripture in Matthew 10:2 says he was the leader.  There's no question about it.  He was a fisherman by trade.  He lived with his brother Andrew, also a fisherman.  They had a family fishing business. They caught fish on the Sea of Galilee, a certain kind of fish that exists only in the Sea of Galilee which you might know today is called St. Peter's fish.  And if you ever go to the Sea of Galilee, you can have it for lunch.  If it's cooked right it's very good, if they get the bones out. 

  That's what Simon and Andrew did.  They were fishermen and they were originally from a small village called Bethsaida, but later moved to Capernaum.  We also know about Simon that he had a wife.  He was married.  We know that because in Luke 4:38 Jesus healed his mother-in-law.  We also know it because the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:5 says that Peter on his apostolic mission took his wife.  We also know that his name was Simon Bar-jona.  That is indicated to us in Matthew 16 by Jesus.  Jesus calls him Simon Bar-Jona and in John 21 Jesus calls him Simon, son of Jonah, or Jonas, or John...it can be any of those when transliterated.  His father's name then was John, or Jonas, or Jonah, any one of those would transliterate the original language.  So his original name was Simon, as typically, Bar--meaning "son of."  When someone gets a Barmitzvah they become a son of the law.  "Bar" means son of.  So his father's name was John or Jonas or Jonah.  That's really all we know.

  His father probably starting in the fishing business when he was young and that's the way it was for life for him, he thought till he met the Lord.  And you remember in Luke 5 the Lord said, "You been fishing for fish, but now I'm going to make youfishers of men."  You're going to come after Me, you're going to follow Me, you're going to catch men for My Kingdom. The Lord, it says here, gave him another name.  I think this is important to note the language, "Whom He also named Peter."  He didn't say you have a new name to replace the old one.  He also called him Peter.  He was Simon and he was also Peter.  When Jesus first met Peter, John 1:42, He said, "You used to be called Cephas...that's the Aramaic...used to be called Simon, from now on you'll be called Cephas...that's the Aramaic word for Peter.  The Greek word is Petros, both words mean rock.  His new name was rock...Rock Bar-Jona.  That was his name.  That's exactly what Petros means, Cephas means.

  The Lord has a purpose in mind.  I mean, by nature he was brash, he was vacillating, he made great promises of what he would do and didn't do it.  He was one of those kinds of guys that goes whole-hearted into something and then bails back out of it.  First one in, first one out, vacillating.  The Lord changed his name, I think, because He wanted to work on him and He wanted to work on him in an immediate way.  And it was very easy to do once He gave him the name Rock because by what Jesus called him He sent him a message.  If He said to him, "Simon," then he was acting like his old self.  If He said to him, "Rock," he was acting the way the Lord wanted him to act.

  Even after his name was changed you can see a consistency in how these names are used.  Whenever he is called Simon, it is in one of two contexts...a secular context, first of all.  It refers, for example, in Mark 1:29, Luke 4:38, I think it's Acts 10:17, to Simon's house.  Simon's house, nothing to do with spirituality, the Kingdom ministry... Simon's wife's mother, Simon's mother-in-law, Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38...Simon's boat, Simon's fishing partners, Luke 5:10.  So when referring to Simon in purely the secular element, he is Simon.

  The second category in which he's called Simon, first secular, second sinful.  Whenever there was sin there he was dubbed Simon.  You find that even back in Luke 5, "Simon answered...in verse 5...we worked all night, caught nothing, at Your bidding I'll let down the nets."  This is old Simon the fisherman.  But finally he starts to make some spiritual responses and in verse 8 he becomes Simon Peter.  So we see him there in transition.  "Simon Peter fell down at Jesus' feet, Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, O Lord."  Simon who was saying..."Oh Lord, I've been fishing all night, what kind of a ridiculous thing is this?  You tell me to throw the nets on that side of the boat, do You think the fish know the difference.  I mean, we know what we're doing out here."  That Simon.  "But, Lord, I'm a sinful man," that's Peter...that's the man who sees himself the way God wants him to see himself.

  So when you see "Peter," it's a good environment, it's a good experience.  John 21 Jesus says, "Okay, you go to Galilee," He's risen from the dead now, He says, "You go to Galilee and I'll appear to you there," post-resurrection, "stay there, wait for Me."  They go there.  Peter says, "I'm not going to wait any longer, this is getting ridiculous.  I don't know if I can do this.  I'm going to go back and take up my fishing business."  He goes down, gets in his boat, gets his nets, all his ropes, the whole paraphernalia and they all said like a bunch of rubber ducks, "We're going with you."  And they all waddled down to the shore, got on the boats and went back to fishing.  And Jesus showed up and rerouted all the fish so they couldn't catch any.  And they came into shore and Jesus made breakfast...you know how Jesus makes breakfast..."Breakfast."  So He made breakfast, the disciples come to the shore, Jesus looks at Peter and He says this, "Simon, Simon, do you love Me?" 

  Luke 22:31, "O Simon, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you like wheat."  So when you see "Simon," you're seeing elements of the sin, or elements of the secular.  So when you go through, look for Peter, those are the good times. In Mark 14:37, Jesus in the garden, you remember, and He asked His disciples to pray with Him, remember that.  And He comes back and He found them sleeping and He says to him, "Simon, are you asleep?"  It must have gotten to the point where whenever the Lord said "Simon," Peter just cringed.  "Please call me rock."  To which the Lord could have replied, "I'll call you rock when you act like a rock." John knew him well, really well.  So seventeen times in the gospel of John, John calls him Simon Peter.  I love that.  John couldn't make up his mind because he saw both sides all the time.  So he just decided "Simon Peter."  Sometimes Simon, Sometimes Rock.

  Peter was like all of us, wasn't he?  Carnal and spiritual, functioning in the flesh sometimes, functioning in the Spirit sometimes.  Sinful sometimes, righteous sometimes.  So manifestly so that the Lord even gave him a name to try to reinforce what He wanted him to be, He wanted him to be a rock.

  This vacillating sometime Simon, sometime Peter guy, this is the leader of the Twelve.  Nothing about Peter is self-righteous.  This is the greatest and most prominent preacher of the Twelve.  This is the man really who more than any other Apostle laid the foundation of the church, followed up by that late coming Apostle Paul.  Peter is the hero in the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts.  And this man, this man was as much Simon as he was Peter.  And I say again to you what I'm going to say through the whole series, if God couldn't use the unworthy and the unqualified, He wouldn't use anybody. 

  Peter was the leader, no question.  The Lord chose him to be the leader.  The Lord equipped him to be the leader.  The Lord shaped him to be the leader, trained him to be the leader.  When you look at Peter you can see how God builds a leader.  Nobody speaks as often as Peter and nobody is spoken to by the Lord as often as Peter.  No disciple is so reproved by the Lord as Peter, and no disciple reproved the Lord but Peter.  No disciple ever so boldly confessed and outspokenly acknowledged the Lordship of Christ as Peter, and no one denied it as boldly as Peter.  No one is so praised and blessed as Peter, and no one else is called Satan but Peter.  The Lord had harder things to say to Peter than He ever said to anybody else and that was part of making him the man He wanted him to be, the leader Christ desired.  God took a common man with an ambivalent, vacillating, impulsive, unsubmissive personality and shaped him into the leader of the Twelve, the greatest preacher out of the Apostles and in every sense the real power of the first twelve chapters of Acts, the birth of the church. 

  There has to be three elements for the Lord to make a leader.  The first one is the right raw material.  There's always this age-old question, are leaders born or made?  I want to fall on the side of the fact that they are born...and then shaped.  Peter had that God-given fabric woven into his personality to make him a leader.  He was the right raw material.  And the Lord wove that in his mother's womb, to borrow the words of the psalmist.  The Lord put together the right stuff to make him the man that could be shaped into a leader.  There are just sort of personal features of his personality that are critical to leaders.  They cannot be developed, they are inborn. 

  The first raw material  is inquisitiveness.  When you're looking for a leader, find somebody who asks a lot of questions. Curiosity is critical to leadership.  People who are content with what they don't know, what they don't understand, what they haven't analyzed and with problems they haven't solved can't lead.  In the gospels, Peter asks more questions than all the other Apostles combined.  

  That takes me to the second point, initiative.  He has to be the kind of person that makes things happen.  Peter not only asked all the questions, he was always the first one to answer any question posed by Christ.  And he would just dive in where angels fear to tread.  Jesus said, "Who do people say that I am?"  "Oh, they say You're Jeremiah, one of the prophets..."  No, no, no.  "Who do you say?"  "You're Christ the Son of the living God."  The other guys are still processing the information.  Peter was very fast.  That's a part of leadership, fast on the trigger.  And sometimes he had to reel back, undo, unsay, be rebuked, but it's part of leadership to grab initiative by the throat. 

  During the Garden of Gethsemane, John 18, here comes the Roman soldiers from Port Antonia, 500 of them, let's say, including the high priest and all the retinue from the temple, they've come to take Jesus.  Peter's there.  Peter immediately, the crowd comes...swish...pulls out his sword, takes a swing at the head of Malchus, the servant of the high priest, the high priest is out in front because he was the dignitary of dignitaries, so he's in the front, beside him is his servant.  Peter tried to cut his head off, he ducked, lost his ear.  The Lord says, "Put your sword away, Peter.  You live by the sword, you die by the sword."  He was essentially saying if you take a life, you're going to give a life, thus affirming capital punishment as a divine law.  But I mean, just think about it. There's a whole Roman army there, what does he think he's going to do?  Go through the whole group?  One at a time...shick, shick, shick.  I mean...sometimes this initiative doesn't take the long view, or the broad view.  It's just...boom.  But that's the stuff of leadership.

  I'd rather recover somebody like that than try to motivate somebody to take initiative.  There are some people you just have to drag kicking and screaming in any forward direction.  Not Peter.  He always wanted to know what he didn't know.  He always wanted to understand what he didn't understand.  He was the first one to ask a question and he was the first one to answer the question, take the initiative, charge ahead and that's the stuff of leadership.  But it's got to be shaped.  What I'm talking about here is raw material.  It's going to be very critical for Peter, he's going to have to have some kind of moxie, some kind of chutzpah, as the Jews would say, some kind of courage to stand up in Jerusalem on Pentecost and preach the gospel in the face of the population that had just executed their Messiah.  That's going to take tremendous courage but that's the kind of guy He is.  By the time the Lord has shaped that initiative, its been transformed into boldness.

  There's a third element of raw material that leaders have and that's involvement.  A true leader,is in the middle of the action, not sitting in the background telling everybody what to do while he lives a life of comfort away from the fray.  A true leader goes through life with a cloud of dust around him.  And that's why people follow him.  People don't follow somebody somewhere else, they follow somebody in the fray.  Jesus comes one night, He's walking on the water.  And who out of all the disciples jumps out of the boat?  Peter.  There's the Lord, I'm here, I've got to get where the action is...bang, out of the boat.  And he's walking on the water.  And the rest of the disciples are just looking over, just kind of adjusting, trying to make sure they don't fall overboard in the storm.  And he's out on the water.  This is involvement, serious involvement.  Jesus was there, he was here, he had to close the gap.

  You say, "Yeah, people look at this incident, they criticize Peter's lack of faith, he got out there, he looked around...oh, what am I doing...he started to sink.  Yeah, he had weak faith."  Let me tell you something about his faith.  Where were the other eleven?  They never got out of the boat.  Talk about weak faith.  Before you criticize Peter, remember where he was when he began to sink.  People look at Peter's life and they say...Well, he's around the fire, you know, and he denies Jesus and he denies Jesus and the cock crows," you remember the story.  But before you condemn Peter too quickly, he was alone in a position where such a temptation could hit him because he was doing his best to stay as close to Christ as he could.  That's a leader.  Everybody else may bail out, he stays as close to the action as he can get.  

  ---

  

  Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Peter, Part 2

  Selected Scriptures

  In choosing those whom He calls to do His supernatural, divine, miraculous, spiritual, eternal work He has to deal with human beings.  But He bypasses the upper echelons, the elite, the noble, the influential, the wealthy and He goes with the people at the bottom of the ladder.  In that way, He puts to shame the wise and also brings glory to Himself because when you look at the people He uses, the only conclusion would be it was God and not them.  It's always been God's way.  He has nobody to use but imperfect and sinful men and women and He seems to choose those who are so unlikely that the power may clearly be of God and not of us.

  What made the Apostles powerful is the same thing that made the rest of the heroes of faith powerful, all of those that would be listed in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.  What made them all heroes was not what they were in themselves but what God made them into.  It comes down to two things...they had tremendous spiritual power, and they were the agents of the truth.  And that is essentially what ministry is all about.  It's all about divine truth empowered by the Spirit.  It's all about the Word and the Spirit for us.  It's all about the Word of God, the Bible, Spirit empowered through the agent, the instrument. 

  When the methods of men are elevated, the Word of God is diminished.  When the power of men is elevated, the power of Christ is lowered.  It is when men are nothing that Christ is everything.  It is when men have no strategy and no method that the truth prevails.  As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12, he rejoiced in his weaknesses because in his own weakness, Christ's strength was effective.  The Lord always seemed to be content to choose the weakest and the lowliest because they would be the most disposable to Him so that His power and His truth would prevail. 

  When we look at the Twelve here in the sixth chapter of Luke, we meet twelve very common men. They were not prominent in society, religion, politics or education.  We don't have any of that information whatsoever because qualifying for this job was pretty simple.  You just needed to be a person who was available to speak the truth of God in the power of the Spirit of God.  The truth is in the...the power, I should say, is in the truth and in the Spirit.

  The last time I told you there were three necessary components, or elements, or features within a leader.  One is the right raw material.  Two, the right experience.  And three, the right character or virtue.  Last time we looked at the raw material.  Long before Peter was ever born, way back in the councils of eternity, God had determined that the whole redemptive plan was going to come to pass, that the Lord would come to earth and be incarnate, that He would have Apostles, their names were well-known to God, they were written down.  Peter was planned into the program.  And so whatever genetics had to be done to get Peter the raw material, it was there.  Peter had all that leadership raw material.  And I said essentially it boils down to three things, inquisitiveness, initiative and involvement.  

  All right, let's look secondly at the right experiences. The Lord takes the right raw material and obviously it's raw material, very raw and it has to be refined.  And the Lord is going to refine it by shaping his life through experiences, critical experiences that Peter needed to have for Peter to become the man he needed to be.  Leaders are born with the raw material, but shaped by experience.

  Peter was going to be given a tremendous responsibility to proclaim the gospel.  Jesus--die, rise again, 40 days later go back to heaven and the whole future of the gospel is in the hands of the Twelve and predominantly in the hands of Peter who was the leading preacher.  He's going to have this tremendous immense responsibility.  It's going to take dedication, resolution and endurance.  It's going to take clarity of thought, self-discipline.  It's going to take a tremendous work ethic to do this and to keep doing it against all hostility and odds, right on down to death.  It's going to take a lot to do what Peter's going to be asked to do, and the rest as well.  So the Lord has to put him through experiences that shape and mold the man.

  The first experience that I want you to notice is in John 6.  It starts out with the feeding of what we know as the five thousand.   Jesus feeds them, He makes the little boy's lunch of loaves and fish multiply and feed the whole crowd and have enough left to feed the Apostles as well.  And after that He teaches them...this is bread that perishes, this is physical food, but I'm the bread of life.  You eat this bread, you never hunger again.  And He turns the whole thing toward Himself and He's talking about you have to eat My flesh and drink My blood. And what He means by that is you have to take Me in totally, you have to receive Me totally if you want to have eternal life.

  Some of the people who were following Him weren't ready for that.  In verse 66 we read this, "As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew, were not walking with Him anymore."  He had a split in His congregation.  The message got too serious, it got too complete, too demanding, too exacting, too singular and they said, "We're not interested in that," and they were gone.  No more.  Jesus said therefore to the Twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?"  Or you could word it, "Do you also want to go away?  Are you ready to leave Me because of the stringency of what I've said, because of the demands of what I've said, because of the total commitment that I've asked for, do you want to leave?"

  "Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go, you have words of eternal life and we have believed and come to know that You are the holy one of God.'"  Wow!  What an incredible statement.  "You...where we going to go?  Where are we going to go?  You alone have the words of eternal life and we already believe in You and we know that You are the holy one of God."  What a statement.  It's my own feeling that Peter probably when he said that grabbed his mouth and said, "Where did that come from?"  I mean, that is a profound theological crystalogical statement.  Whoa...  That was a revelatory experience and that's the first experience, his great revelation.

  The Lord wanted Peter to know that he was going to get his message from God.  He wasn't going to have to think it up, dream it up, scheme it up, make it up.  He's going to have material provided for him, revelation from God.  In Matthew 16 Jesus asked the disciples in verse 15, "Who do you say that I am?"  And immediately in verse 16 what does Peter say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  And I'm sure he had the same experience.  Whoooo, where did that come from?  Whoa...  "And Jesus said to him, 'Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you, but My Father who is in heaven.'"

  At the outset of his training Peter needed to know that he would be given a divine message.  You see, that's essentially what ministry is.  We just pass on a divine message.  We don't think this stuff up and if you do, you've prostituted your calling. Peter needed to know that he could do this, that he could go out and do this job of preaching.  Being an Apostle is really being one sent to preach.  You can do it, Peter.  Peter might have said, "I'm not educated, I'm not trained, I haven't been to school, I haven't been to seminary, I don't very much."  "Don't worry about it, you're going to get it from God."  His great revelation.  What an incredible promise.

  God wants to use your mouth, Peter.  God can speak through you.  The Lord gave him the experience of revelation.  That great day came when he stood up and preached on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:14-40, three thousand people were converted.  He preaches again and thousands more and thousands more and thousands more are converted through those opening chapters of Acts.  He didn't have to worry about what he was going to say. 

  Some people say that the greatest fear that some people have is the fear of public speaking.  I'll tell you why it's especially fearful because you don't know what you're going to say.  I don't have that fear because I don't have to make up the message.  And I can preach it with authority because it comes from God.  I don't get it into my brain the way Peter did, I get it from the pages of Scripture because what came to Peter and the rest of the Apostles is now written down here.

  Peter needed to know that if he was going to be a leader and he's going to represent Jesus Christ, that he's going to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and all of this kind of thing, there was a natural fear built in..."I'm a fisherman, what are You going to do with me?"  "You don't have to worry about it.  You're going to get revelation."  What an amazing calling, take this common, blustering fisherman and put the revelation of God in him.  And he did and he preached it and he wrote it when he wrote First Peter and Second Peter and most likely assisted Mark with the material in his gospel. 

  In Matthew 16:18 we read of his great reward. This too is pretty astounding stuff.  This is a very common fisherman now.  This isn't some high priest.  This isn't some Pharisee, some scholar, some great rabbi in Israel.  "I also say to you, you are rock, you're rock, petros, rock, and on this rock I will build My church."  A little play on words here.  You are rock, petros, on this rock, petra, different word, I'll build My church.  You are rock but on this rock I'll build My church. 

  Peter is a stone, but this rock, petra means rock bed, it means a massive bedrock.  You're a stone, but on this bedrock I'll build My church, the bedrock of...what?...I think it's Peter's confession in verse 16, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," that's the bedrock of the church, isn't it?  The church is built on Christ as the Son of the living God.  And that the Father has revealed to you, and it's that bedrock truth that you've articulated on which I'm going to build My church.  You're a stone and you're going to be a firm and strong stone and I'm glad for that, but it's on the confession that you've just made I'm going to build My church.

  Then He says, "And the gates of Hades shall not overpower it and I'll give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven and you're going to bind and you're going to loose."  This is incredible.  Listen to what the Lord is...this is his great reward.  His first lesson was about his great revelation, then his great reward.  This common, plain, ole fisherman with no training and no stature and no status is told here the message that came out of your mouth when you preached that message is going to bar the gates to hell and open the gates to heaven.  People talk about ministry being the highest calling because the truth of Jesus Christ shuts the gates of hell and opens the doors to heaven, doesn't it?  Can a man have a greater influence than that?  Here's an incredible thing the Lord says to Peter.  "Peter, through the message that you're going to preach as a stone, the gates of hell are going to be barred in the sense they're not going to prevail, and the doors of heaven are going to be flung open through you.  This is your great reward."

  I mean, it must have been satisfying to pull in a pile of fish, but that sure pales compared to this.  Peter did unlock the doors to heaven for the Jews.  On the Day of Pentecost he preached that great sermon, three thousand Jews believed and thousands more and thousands more and thousands more in the next couple of chapters under his preaching.  And then in chapter 10 he preached to the first Gentile, what was his name?  Cornelius, and he believed.  He threw open the gates of heaven, he opened the Kingdom to the Jews and he opened the Kingdom to the Gentiles.  This plain, common man, it had nothing to do with his technique, it had nothing to do with his education, it had to do with the power of the Spirit of God and the truth.

  While you're there in Matthew 16, this is his great remission, or transgression, if you will.  So amazing, boy, I think Peter was feeling pretty good after this.  "I have the keys to the Kingdom."  Pretty exciting stuff. Go down to verse 21, "From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, scribes, be killed and raised up on the third day."  Huh?  This isn't the plan...nah, this isn't the plan, not in the minds of the disciples, any way.  "Hey, the Messiah's here and it's just going to get better and better.  He's going to knock off the Romans and He's going to purge the people and we're going to have the Kingdom and all of that.  And what Jesus is talking about, that's not going to happen." 

  The apostate form of Judaism is going to collect itself, the elders, the chief priests, the scribes are going to come and they're going to kill Me and I'm going to rise from the dead on the third day.  What is Peter's response?  Verse 22, "Peter took Him aside, 'Lord, can I talk to You for a minute?'"  He didn't want to discredit Him publicly.  "Just come over here, you know, behind the tent.  Bad idea.  No.  Can't let it happen, Lord, sorry, and I'm the leader.  Can't let it happen. Sorry.  God forbid, it's not going to happen.  It will never happen to You, I wouldn't allow it."  You give a guy a little bit of leadership and it goes to his head, doesn't it?  I mean, he's talking to the creator of the universe.  He's talking to the Messiah, the redeemer, the Savior, God in flesh.

  It's a real danger in leadership, you don't know where your limits are.  You get the feeling you're a bit invincible and then you wind up overstepping your bounds.  You're never going to lead effectively with God till you understand that your plan doesn't matter, His alone matters.  God doesn't want your strategy, your better plan.  Peter says, "As long as I'm in charge, nothing is going to happen to You, I'll promise you that, read my lips, it will never happen." You just don't know your boundaries, do you, Peter?  You don't have a better plan than God.  How can people go into the ministry and think they do?  Just do the plan and this is the plan.  Well the answer that Peter got must have rung in his ears until he died.  "He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me Satan.'"  Pow!  See, Peter was just as available to Satan as he was to the Lord.  We all are, aren't we?  Don't ever estimate your abilities, he was just as available to the devil as he was to God.  The greater your potential to be used by God, the greater your potential to be used by the devil.  "Don't want your plan, Peter.  Just want you to follow Mine.  If you try to thwart My plan, then you're on the devil's side."

  He said further, "You are a stumbling block to Me, for you're not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."  That's the whole point.  You're looking at this thing from the human viewpoint.  "Oh, you've got a better plan, do you?  That's the human view, you are hindering My work.  And the great hinderer of My work is Satan, so get thee behind Me, Satan."  Brash self-confidence.  He had to really be knocked down some notches, hadn't he?  Go revelation, Peter, God's going to speak through you, you're going to speak the Word of God, you won't have to worry about the material, it's going to be divine revelation.  Great reward, you're going to have so much power that you're going to be able to bar the gates of hell, as it were, to defeat the gates of hell and throw open the doors of heaven.  This is going to be the influence of your preaching and your life, it's going to be powerful in the truth and in the Spirit.  Peter starts to feel good about that and then oversteps his bounds and the Lord has to cut his legs out from under him and saying, there's something you've got to watch for, you're just as likely to be used by the devil as you are by Me.  This ought to put fear in his heart.

  There's a fourth experience that came into his life,  his rejection of the Lord.  This is on the night of the Passover, the night of the betrayal of Jesus.  They sang a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. "Jesus said to them, 'You'll all fall away because of Me this night, for it's written I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep and the flocks will be scattered,'" that's a prophecy from Zechariah, that when the Messiah was taken captive, all the disciples would flee.  And He says, "You're all going to fall away, you're going to be run, scared to death and you'll come back and I'll lead you to Galilee." 

  Verse 33, "But Peter answered and said to Him, 'Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.'"  I'm not like all men.  I'm a cut above the rest.  I don't know about these other eleven, I wouldn't do that.  Never would I do that.  Jesus said, "Yes you will, I'm telling you right now, this very night you'll do it.  You'll do it before the cock crows and you'll do it three times.  You'll deny Me."

  Peter said to Him, "Wrong again, Lord.  Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You, and all the disciples said the same thing, too."  Do you think he was the leader?  Sure, they all quacked right after him the same way.  I would do it, great confidence.  Overestimating your spiritual strength is deadly.  The Lord says, "No, Peter, you've got to learn not to trust yourself.  I've already tried to teach you that your plans don't supersede Mine, don't offer Me your plans, follow Mine.  You've got to stick with My plans.  Don't trust your plans.  Now I'm going to have to teach you, don't trust your resolutions, don't trust your own strength.  You will deny Me and you'll do it on three occasions."  And Peter says, "No."  He denies that he will deny.  "I'll die first," he says.

  Jesus was in the area being tried in a mock trial before Annas and Caiaphas and there was a courtyard in that area of the high priest's home.  And Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard and a certain servant girl, this isn't some tribunal, these aren't people who have come to arrest Him, it's just a girl and she said, "You too were with Jesus the Galilean."  She recognizes him.  "He denied it before them all saying, 'I do not know what you're talking about.'"  That's sad. And so he slipped away to the gate.  Another servant girl saw him and said to those who were there, "This man was with Jesus of Nazareth."  And he again denied it with an oath, "I do not know the man."  And a little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, "Surely you too are one of them for the way you talk gives you away."  He had that funny Galilean accent.  This is really sad, verse 74, "Then he began to curse and swear, 'Oh come on, I don't even know the man.'"  And immediately a cock crowed and Peter remembered the words which Jesus had said, "Before a cock crows, you will deny Me three times."  And he went out and he wept bitterly.

  He should have, shouldn't he?  Did the Lord let this happen?  Sure.  Did the Lord make this happen?  No.  Why did He let it happen?  Because no man is ultimately useful to the Lord until he has absolutely no trust in himself.  He rose to the highest pinnacle of his own self-confidence...I will never deny You, I will die first, everybody else may deny You, I will never deny You.  And that very night, that's exactly what he did repeatedly, repeatedly, over and over and over again...so much for self-confidence.  This is the crushing of Peter.  No man ultimately is useful to God until he has been so crushed.  Peter's failure was necessary.

  Before you're too hard on Peter, at least Peter was hanging around the trial.  At least he had the courage to be there.  But the Lord allowed for Peter to be in that position because this crushing of Peter's self-confidence was critical.  He was a broken man at this point, he was never the same after this.  He wasn't the bold, self-confident, brash man anymore.  His great rejection was part of the experience the Lord used to shape him.  The Lord needed a man who received revelation.  The Lord needed a man who by the message he preached could bar the gates of hell and throw open the gates of heaven.  The Lord needed a man who recognized his own sinfulness but the Lord also needed a man who was crushed and had absolutely no trust in his self-confidence.

  You have to get to that point in ministry where you literally don't trust yourself, your ideas, your thoughts and you lean hard and heavy on the Lord.  You had to have a man that followed the plan, His plan, not Peter's plan, and He had to have a man who had no confidence in his flesh. Paul was useful because he thought he was the chief of...what?...sinners.  So it made him so useful.  Peter never got over this.  Blatant, "I will never deny you, Everybody may deny you, I'm not like everybody else, I'll never do it.  I'll die before I do it."  And he went right out and did it and he made this bold, brash claim in front of everybody.  I think he spent the rest of his life kind of a sheepish broken guy who probably said, "I only know what the Lord tells me, I can only function in the power of the Lord, I can only do the plan as God has laid it out."  He was broken.

  At this point you could understand if the Lord said, "You know, I've had enough of this guy, I'm knocking him off the top and bumping up John one notch.  Really, this is getting old, Peter."  But that wasn't the Lord.  Go to John 21, here's his great recommissioning, last chapter in John.  HIs great recommissioning, Jesus says to the disciples, prior to this, "Go to Galilee," He has died, risen again, the Lord is alive now from the grave, 40 days and He's meeting with the disciples and speaking to them of things pertaining to the Kingdom. But He sends them to Galilee.  He says, "Go up there and wait for Me."

  So they're up there in Galilee and they're just hanging around waiting for the risen Lord to come.  Simon Peter's there, verse 2, Thomas, Nathanael, James and John, Philip and Andrew.  Peter says, "I'm going fishing."  What is this?  It's not recreational.  "I'm going back to my fishing," that's the intent of the Greek.  You know, I think he's a broken man, I think he's saying, "I can't do this." I don't think he's the brash man that he always was, I think he's...I've got to go fishing.  But he's the leader so they all said, "We will also come with you."  He's the leader and they follow, they all go fishing.  They got in the boat, probably his own boat, but they couldn't catch fish anymore cause the Lord wouldn't let them.  I don't think Peter had any confidence in himself anymore.  I mean, he just probably thought, "I'm not up to this, I'm just going back to my old life."

  They had breakfast.  Jesus showed up, you remember, confronted them.  They had breakfast.  Jesus says to Peter...He could have said, "Peter, you know, you're just absolutely hopeless.  I tell you to come up here and do nothing and you can't even do that.  I tell you to just come up here and wait and you can't do that."  He doesn't, He says, "Peter...Simon, actually, verse 15, son of Jonah, calls him by his old name cause he's acting like his old self.  Do you love Me more than these?  More than these other disciples that you said you loved Me more than and you wouldn't ever deny Me even though all of them did, or maybe He meant more than these nets and these boats and all the stuff that goes with fishing, do you love Me more than these?  'Yes, Lord, You know I love you,' he said to Him. 'Feed, or tend My lambs.'"  This is commissioning, this is the ordination of Peter right here and it's really wonderful because the Lord had every reason to give up on him, and He said to him a second time...why do you think He does this three times?  Because there were how many denials?  Three.  He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?"  He said, "Yes, Lord, You know that I love you."  He said, "Then shepherd My sheep.  Do what I told you. Shepherd My sheep, tend My lambs."

  He said to him a third time, "Simon, son of John," continue to call him by his old name, "do you love Me?"  And this time Peter was grieved because he said to Him the third time do you love Me, he's getting tired of answering the same question because it indicates a certain amount of doubt on the Lord's part.  And he says, "Look, Lord, what can I tell You?  You know everything, You know I love You.  Look at my heart."  Jesus said, "Tend My sheep.  Do what I told you, Peter."  This is a recommissioning of a man who from all intents and purposes was once too strong for ministry and is now self-proclaimed too weak for ministry, but because he's too weak for ministry, he's exactly what the Lord wants.  When he was strong, he was useless.  Now that he's crushed, he's useful.  So the Lord picks him up to use him.  But he's still Peter.

  "Okay, Peter, I'm telling you, when you were young you used to gird yourself and walk where you wished."  This is sort of a little characterization of Peter.  You know, you used to do whatever you wanted.  Put your clothes on, go where you want, do your own thing, that was you.  "But the day is coming, you're going to grow old, you're going to stretch out your hands," that's an expression referring to crucifixion, "and somebody is going to tie you up and take you where you don't want to go."  He said this, John writes, "Signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God."  He told him he was going to die, he was going to stretch his hands, be crucified.  Jesus told him that.

  You know what He was telling Peter.  "Peter, you are going to be faithful, you are going to be faithful to the very end, you're going to go all the way down to the end and you're going to be crucified, you're going to be faithful to the end, Peter, I'm telling you, you can do this.  You can tend My lambs, you can shepherd My sheep, you can feed My sheep, you can do this and you will do it all the way to a martyr's death, Peter.  You are finally become the man that I wanted you to be because you're a man who doesn't have any confidence in himself."

  "Just the kind of man I want, follow Me."  He's where Paul was in 2 Corinthians 12, when he's weak, he's strong.  "Follow Me."  Triumphant moment, well kind of, you have to know Peter.  Peter takes about two steps and turns around.  He sees the disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John, he'd rather call himself that than John, following Him, the one who leaned back on His breast at the supper.  John, calling himself by those words, and the one who said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays You?"  John's referring to himself in that verse.  Peter sees John, says to Jesus.  "Lord, what about this guy?  Well You just told me I'm going to be killed, what about him?"

  Oh Peter, you are just relentless.  Jesus said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?  Follow Me."  What He's saying is, if he lives till the Second Coming, it's none of your business.  And so a ridiculous rumor went around, verse 23 says, that John would live to the Second Coming, which wasn't true. This is Peter.  The Lord's taking him through his ordination and his recommissioning and he's broken and crushed and the last shattering experience, caught in another act of disobedience, he's fishing, he' gone back to his old life because he's a broken man, doesn't feel he's capable.  But the Lord restores him.  He takes a couple of steps and he already gets off track.  And the Lord says...I'm sure in exasperation...what does it matter to you if he lives till the Second Coming, just follow Me?

  He did.  He became the man the Lord wanted him to be.  Look at 2 Peter 1:12, Peter writing says, "I always shall be ready to remind you of these things, the things concerning the gospel, even though you already know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you, I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me, and I will also be diligent that at any time after my death or departure you may be able to call these things to mind."

  He became the man the Lord wanted him to be.  He was the leader of the church in the first twelve chapters of Acts.  He was the one who moved to replace Judas with Matthias.  He was the spokesman for the church on the Day of Pentecost.  He with John healed the lame man at the temple.  He defied the Sanhedrin.  He dealt with the problem of Simon, satanic false healer in Samaria.  He dealt with the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira.  He healed Aeneas and raised Dorcas from the dead.  He took the gospel to the Gentiles.  And he wrote two epistles, 1 and 2 Peter.  He was the leader God wanted him to be. 

  Now to make a leader, there's one other element.  You not only have to be broken and crushed, and no where your power comes from and where your message comes from but you have to have the right character.  I'm going to take you back through the life of Peter with another sweep and show you how the Lord developed the right character, the right virtues. 

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  Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Peter, Part 3

  Selected Scriptures

  You have to have the right raw material you have to have the right experiences.  The third element, you have to have the right character.  Character causes people to respect you and respect causes people to trust you and trust causes people to follow you.  Character makes consistent leadership possible.  Where you have no character, you can't really be the leader, all you can do is make the other people who have no character feel better about themselves.  

       If you look at what just makes up natural, just human leadership, you're going to hear words like "trustworthy, respectable, unselfish, humble, consistent, self-disciplined, self-controlled, courageous."  And those are virtues that society recognizes belong to real leaders, and certainly they are a reflection of the amagio deo, they are a reflection of the image of God in man for all of those things are attributes of God and Christ.  Christ is perfectly trustworthy, perfectly respectable, perfectly unselfish, perfectly humble in His amazing humiliation He demonstrated, that perfectly consistent, perfectly self-disciplined, self-controlled, perfectly courageous and has perfect integrity...that is to say absolute consistency with Himself so that all the truest and purest and highest and noblest attributes of mankind are simply reflections of the attributes of God demonstrated in Christ. 

  If one is to be a leader spiritually, then the objective is to bring people to Christ's likeness.  In order to bring people to Christ's likeness, that is to manifest the same virtues that characterize Christ, one must therefore set an example for what those virtues are.  The spiritual goal of all spiritual leadership is Christ's likeness.  If we want to lead people to be like Christ who was trustworthy, respectable, unselfish, humble, loving, self-disciplined, self-controlled, courageous, holy and all of that, if you want to lead people to be like that you have to set the pattern, the example of that like Paul who said, "Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ."  And that's why the standard for virtue in leadership is so high because the goal is that.

  It goes beyond natural leadership.  Natural leadership is characterized by self-confidence, spiritual leadership is characterized by confidence in God and no confidence in oneself.  In natural leadership, we look for somebody who knows people.  In spiritual leadership, we look for somebody who knows God.  Natural leadership, we want somebody who makes his own decisions.  Spiritual leadership, we want somebody who seeks to know the will of God.  In natural leadership we want somebody who is ambitious, who's driven.  In spiritual leadership we want somebody whose only desire in life is that God be glorified.  In natural leadership we want somebody who originates his own plans and methods, an original thinker.  In spiritual leadership we want somebody who understands the Word of God and obeys it.  In natural leadership we want somebody who enjoys commanding others.  In spiritual leadership we want somebody who enjoys serving others.  In natural leadership we want somebody motivated by personal considerations, motivated by success.  Spiritual leadership, we want somebody motivated by the love of God.  In natural leadership we want somebody who is independent.  In spiritual leadership we want somebody who is totally dependent on God.

  What I'm talking to you here is not natural leadership.  To be a leader for the Lord requires some natural raw material.  Peter had that but there's a very serious work to do to shape that into spiritual leadership and it comes through experience and it comes through development of character. Character is more critical in spiritual leadership than anywhere.  It's critical any way but it's more critical in spiritual leadership because the goal of all spiritual leadership is Christ's likeness and if you're going to move people toward being like Christ you have to pattern for them what that is.  As a Christian this is really all you want to live for is to be like Christ, right?  And so the leaders of the church must have that as their objective and that must be the standard by which they live their lives.

  God had plans for Peter.  Peter wanted to be used by the Lord but there was an awful lot of work to be done to make him into the man he needed to be, and that involved the development of right character, the right virtues.   Number one, a spiritual leader requires submission.  You have to be submissive, that's contrary to the world's definition, a natural leader needs to be dominant, predominant, dominating.  In the spiritual realm we need to learn submission because everything we do as spiritual leaders is a submission to God to His Word, His plan, His Spirit, His purpose.  Leaders tend to be confident, overt, eager and aggressive.  They tend to dominate.  Peter had that in him.  He was just fast talking, fast acting.  He was the guy, he was the man, he was in charge, he could grab the bull by the horns, right, wrong or indifferent.  Jesus had to teach him the lesson of submission.

  There are a number of ways in which Peter learned submission but here is quite an interesting one.  Matthew 17:24, "When they came to Capernaum," that's the headquarters of Jesus' ministry in Galilee, also the hometown of Peter and Andrew, "those who collected the two drachma tax," that's two days work, a substantial tax, some kind of poll tax, "they came to Capernaum," that was Peter's hometown as well as the Lord's hometown, "so they ran into the tax collector and those who collected the two drachma of tax came to Peter and said, 'Does your teacher not pay the two drachma tax?'"  They're referring to Jesus, "Does your teacher pay the tax that's been levied by Rome?"

  "And he said, 'Yes, He pays it.'"  Which I think was a bit of a problem for Peter.  They hated the Romans and they hated the Roman taxation system.  It was bad enough for them to have to pay the tax to the idolatrous pagan Romans, but to imagine the Lord of glory, the Son of God paying tax to Rome was probably unthinkable to Peter.  And so it may have been hard for him to admit that he had to say yes.  "When he came into the house there in Capernaum, Jesus spoke to him first saying, 'What are you thinking, Simon?'"  He called him Simon because his thoughts were not good.  "What are you thinking, Simon?  I know what you're thinking.  You just got back from a conversation with the tax guy and what you're thinking is why should I be paying taxes?  Why should Jesus be paying taxes?  Why should I be paying taxes, we're not a part of the kingdom of Rome, we're not even a part of the kingdom of this world?  He is my King, Jesus is my King and I'm a son of the King and I'm in a heavenly kingdom that's not of this world and why should I be paying taxes?"  Of course, every Jew who was at all patriotic loathed the idea of paying taxes anyway and now that Peter had been promoted to the Kingdom of God and had the Lord Jesus, the Messiah as his King, it was even more unthinkable to him that he should pay tax to Rome.

  Jesus picks up on his mental state and says to him, "What do you think, Simon?"  Rhetorically He knew exactly what he was thinking because the question indicates He knew what he was thinking.  "For whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll tax, from the sons or from strangers?  And upon his saying from strangers, Jesus said to him, 'Consequently the sons are exempt.'"  Jesus said, "Do the king's kids pay tax?"  No, no, it's not fair, it's not equitable but the children of the King don't pay tax, all the rest of us pay tax, strangers pay tax, not the King's family.  "And isn't it true that the sons are exempt?"  It is true and that's sort of maybe Peter's thinking...Yeah, He's thinking like I'm thinking.  "And You're my King and I'm You're son and we aren't paying."  Kind of like that kind of train of thought.

  It is true, I mean even in the world the king's kids don't pay the tax that everybody else pays.  You are right and I am your King and you are My son...but, sorry, Peter.  Verse 27, "Lest we give them offense."  We don't want to be offensive.  You go down to the sea, the Sea of Galilee, and throw in a hook, take the first fish that comes up and when you open its mouth you'll find a stater, that's four drachmas, enough for both of them.  Take that and give it to them for you and Me."  Go pay the tax.

  This might be a little confusing to Peter.  He just made the point that the King's sons don't pay the tax, I thought You were agreeing with me.  Yeah, but that's an offensive thing, isn't it?  Doesn't it offend you that the King's family don't have to pay the tax that everybody else pays?  Doesn't it bother all of you when you know somebody is not paying their tax and you are?  Peter said, "This sounds good...like good thinking to me, Lord."  And the Lord says, "But we don't want to be offensive, we would offend them if we didn't submit to this.  So I am your King and you are My son and we are not a part of this kingdom and we shouldn't have to pay this tax, but we need to submit...we need to submit."  Peter learned his lesson.

  Turn to 1 Peter 2:11.  The Peter of the gospels can hardly be the Peter of the epistles.  The only explanation for that is that a tremendous metamorphosis went on in this man's life.  He admits that the people whom he's writing are aliens and strangers, back in verse 1 of chapter 1 he's writing to aliens...this is believers scattered all over the Roman Empire.  You're all strangers, you're all aliens, you don't really belong, strangers and aliens you are.  But verse 12, "You have to keep your behavior excellent among the pagans so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers they may on account of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation."

  In other words, what you want to do is make sure you live your life so men can't scandalize you and the gospel.  They can't really honestly slander you.  How do you do that?  Verse 13, here it comes, here's Peter, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers in the praise of those who do right."   Submit to everybody in authority from the king down to the governor, to everybody who represents him...submit, submit.  Pay your tax, do what's right.  And we conclude that Peter learned submission.  And when you do this, verse 15, "Such is the will of God that by doing right you will silence the ignorant of foolish men," you'll shut the mouths of the critics.  You are free men in one sense, verse 16, but don't use that freedom as a covering for evil.  Use it as bondslaves of God.  You are free.  You're free from human laws and human kingdoms in one sense, but don't use that as a way to cover up your greed.  You don't want to pay your taxes because you don't want to part with the money.  Do what's right to honor God.

  Honor all men, verse 17.  Love the brotherhood, sure.  Fear God, yes.  But also honor the king.  It even says in verse 18, "Servants are to be submissive to their masters."  Hard for a leader naturally dominant, naturally forceful, naturally aggressive, naturally out front, on top, calling the shots to submit himself...that is very hard to do, particularly to government.  A true leader is one who has learned to submit, even to the most likely authority and that is the pagan secular authority.  If you can learn to submit there, you can learn to submit to that which is from God.

  Second, Peter had to learn restraint.  There's an element of leadership that leaders have anger.  It goes with being a leader that you just are not easily thwarted.  You're not easily restrained until you get to the goal.  Anger plays a part. That was true of Peter in John 18.  Here comes the say 500 people, including the Roman soldiers, to take Jesus.  Remember we covered that last time.  They come into the garden, as John records it, and they're going to take Jesus captive and Peter gets angry at the thought of that.  Pulls out his sword and starts into the crowd.  The first guy in line is named Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, he takes a swing at his head, misses his head, he ducks, he loses an ear.  He's just one ear into the crowd.  This is not rational.  This is 500 people and many of them are Roman soldiers armed to the teeth, they were skilled fighters.  The Lord reaches over and gives Malchus an ear.  You would think that would have created some conversation among the people.  Apparently it didn't, they were so resolute. And the Lord says, "Put your sword away, Peter," this is not how you deal with these things.  "You live by the sword, you'll die by it, put it away, this is not the plan."

  Peter lost his temper at that point, he was so angry at what was going to happen that he went into an irrational conduct.  He needed to learn to restrain himself.  He did.  First Peter 2 again, verse 21, "Christ suffered," he's looking at the cross and Christ's suffering, in the middle of the verse, "Christ suffered for you leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps."  Sometimes we have to suffer.  Sometimes we have to be taken captive.  Sometimes we have to be put in prison.  Sometimes we have to be executed.  And he says in the case of Christ, He set an example because He was suffering though, verse 22, He committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth...and he's borrowing words from Isaiah 53.  He was innocent. 

  Sometimes you're not guilty of anything but you're being vilified and you're being thwarted or you're being hindered and maybe you're being imprisoned and maybe you're being tortured, persecuted.  And so was Jesus.  And verse 23, "And while being reviled, ridiculed, mocked, He did not revile in return, while suffering He uttered no threats, He didn't pull out a sword, He didn't call a legion from heaven, He didn't do anything He just kept entrusting Himself to the One who judges righteously," that's God.  He just committed Himself to God.  You know the situation, it's not fair, it's not right, it's not just...I don't deserve it, I didn't do anything to get this.  This is how it is, Father, I will not revile, I will not threaten them, I will just entrust my soul to You.  That's the attitude.  That is sometimes very difficult for a leader to develop.  You want to grab your sword and whack your way through the opposition.

  Thirdly, he had to learn humility.  It is just kind of natural for leaders to be proud because they're followed, because they're praised, because they're lauded, because people look up to them, because they're admired.  And Peter also, and this is true of leaders too, had a tremendous amount of self-confidence.  In Matthew 26:33 Peter says, "If everybody else denies You, I won't do it.  I 'm not like the other people, I won't do that.  In fact...he says in two verses later...I'll die before I do that."  Tremendous pride, self-confidence. 

  Jesus said to him, "Yeah, you'll do it, you'll deny Me on three occasions."  Many, many denials but on three occasions, three different locations he made these denials right after he said he wouldn't do it.  He had to learn not to trust in himself.  He had to learn not to be proud.  And when he wrote his epistle, same epistle, look at 1 Peter 5, "Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another for God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time."  Isn't this great coming from Peter?  He's writing and he's saying, "You have to learn, you elders, you pastors," he's writing to them in this chapter, "You have to learn how to humble yourselves."  "Can't belording it over your flock."  You have to be submitting to your elders, humbling yourselves before one another, humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God.  He learned submission, he learned restraint, he learned humility.

  He also learned love.  Typically natural leaders don't love.  People are a means to their end.  They use people.  They set people up in a structure that gets them to their goal.  It can even be true in church that people are simply pawns on the chess board, a means to an end.  Leaders tend to be task oriented rather than people oriented.  They tend to plow over people to achieve their goals.  Peter needed to learn love and the Lord taught him that.  Back to John 13, this is one of the most beautiful scenes between Jesus and the Apostles in the upper room the night of His betrayal.

  In John 13, they had come to dinner in this upper room they had rented for the night to hold the Passover.  They were in Jerusalem, Jesus would be betrayed that night by Judas.  He would then be arrested and you know the rest.  But they were gathered for the supper and supper was a long event.  I mean, hours and hours and it was a drawn-out affair and you reclined, you sat on sort of a reclining couch so that your head was near somebody's feet.  And in those days the roads were either muddy or dusty so feet were dirty.  And the common custom was that when you went into a house for a meal like this there was a servant who was the lowest servant of all servants who washed the feet.  The least desirable of all jobs.  But there wasn't a servant, apparently, there.  It was a rented room and nobody was there to do that and so they were prepared for supper, there hadn't been any foot washing which was very appropriate in that setting.  It hadn't been done.  So Jesus Himself, verse 4, rose from supper, laid aside his outer garment, took a towel, wrapped it around Himself, poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples feet and wiped them with a towel in which He was girded.

  This is Jesus taking on the role of the lowest of the low of slaves.  He's washing the dirty feet of these guys.  You know what they were doing, by the way?  If you compare the other accounts they were arguing about which of them was the greatest. And in a time when they're arguing about who is the greatest, nobody is going to become the servant and wash feet.  They're all trying to convince each other that they should be elevated, not humiliated.  So in the midst of their self-pride and self-exaltation, Jesus does what none of them would do.  So He comes to Simon Peter, and you can imagine that it was pretty quiet until they got to Peter.  They were stunned by what He was doing, he said to Him, "Lord, do You wash my feet?"  What do You think You're doing?  This is again the brash and bold Peter. 

  Jesus answered and said to him, "What I do you do not realize now but you shall understand hereafter."  You don't get it, Peter, you don't get My humiliation.  You think this is too lowly for Me, you think this is too humble for Me, this is a task that is beneath Me, you haven't seen anything, wait till you see Me arrested, wait till you see Me mocked and spit on and crowned and crucified.  If you think this is low, you haven't seen low. You don't yet understand the humiliation.

  Peter said to Him, "I don't know about that...in effect...never shall You wash my feet."  This is...Peter is the master of the absolute statement, "I will NEVER deny You...I will die first...You'll NEVER wash my feet."  There's no gray in Peter's life, everything is absolutely black and absolutely white, not going to happen.  Jesus said to him, "Well, if I don't wash you, you don't have a part with Me."  Jesus said, "If I don't do this, our relationship is over." Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head."  This again...there's no middle ground with Peter.  He's the first guy out and the first guy in...all out, all in...no gray.  "I want a relationship with You."  He was showing him if you can't accept My humiliation, if you can't accept that I'm coming down as a servant all the way down, we can't have a relationship. 

  So He washed his feet.  And He said, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet but is completely clean and you're clean but not all of you."  He says...You know, this is sort of a spiritual symbol here.  You've taken your bath for the day, I'm just cleaning your feet so we can eat.  The same is true spiritually.  You've been washed, you've been converted, saved, but you need this daily foot washing that I'm going to give to you.

  Jesus washed all their feet, including Peter's.  In the meantime Judas has been revealed, Jesus has identified Judas, Judas has left, filled with Satan, gone out to betray Jesus.  Verse 34, Jesus says to the Twelve, now eleven, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you also love one another."  What were they doing?  What were they arguing about?  Which of them was the greatest.  They were arguing about who was the best, who was the top.  Selfish, selfish, selfish.  He says, "Look, you've got to stop this and love each other, even as I have loved you that you also love one another."

  How had He loved them?  Washed their feet.  You love by going all the way down and humbling yourselves, sacrificing yourself to meet a need at the lowest level.  You've got to love each other, you can't be fighting each other for prominence.  You have to love each other.  It's hard for leaders to wash the feet of those who are perceivably below them.  But He said in verse 35, "If you do this people will know you're my disciples, if you have this kind of love for one another."

  Did Peter learn to love?  He did.  In 1 Peter 4:8 he wrote, "And above all things have fervent love among yourselves for love covers a multitude of sins."  Here he is commanding his readers to love each other fervently, ektenes in the Greek, stretched to the limit, love to the maximum of your capacity.  It's not about emotions.  It's not about feeling.  It's not about being lovable.  Jesus was loving men who were unlovable, fleshly, selfish, and He loved them anyway.  And He's saying that's the way you need to love, to love those with dirty feet and go right down and clean them.  Peter learned that and he told the aliens when he wrote the letter, the believers in the Roman world, to love each other.

  Another attribute that Peter needed to learn was compassion.  At the time of his denial, the Lord said to him, according to Luke 22:31-32, the Lord said, "You're going to deny Me," and all of this, but He said...He said it in interesting terms, as Luke records it, "Satan desires to have you that he may sift you like wheat."  What's going to happen is, you're making all these claims and you're faithful and you'll die before you deny Me, well I'm telling you, you'll deny Me, Satan will get a hold of you and he'll shake you just like wheat is shaken to be purified to have the chaff blow away and the kernel fall to the bottom.  You're going to get shaken.  But I'm going to let it happen...He says...so that you when you come out of that, Luke 22:32, can strengthen others...strengthen the brothers.

  Leaders tend to be short on compassion, short on being comforters. They tend to be driven by the goals and driven by the objectives and driven through the process.  They don't stop very long to care for the wounded as they go.  Peter needed to learn something.  The Lord could have said, "I'm not going to let Satan do this to you, Peter, you're going to stay strong."  But He didn't, He said, "I'm going to let him do it, I'm going to let Satan shake you to the foundations of your life, sift you like wheat down to the nub.  I'm going to let him shake you until there's nothing left but the reality of your faith.  Your faith will not fail."  He said, "I promise you that because faith can't fail, it's a gift of God for eternity, saving faith, it won't fail.  But I tell you, you're going to be shaken down to the nub." 

  Why?  "So that when it's over you can strengthen the brethren."  What does that mean?  "That means for the rest of your life you will have compassion on people who struggle, you'll have compassion on people who think they're stronger spiritually than they really are.  You'll have compassion on people who struggle with temptation and fall into doubt and sin."  Leaders need that.  They need to be compassionate, tender-hearted, gracious, kind, comforting to those who struggle with sin.  I hate to see self-righteous people brutalize somebody who falls into sin, as if they themselves had no sin.  Peter, you need to learn that even the best and the noblest can be crushed cause you're going to be crushed.  This is going to give you compassion, a leader with compassion.

  He learned it well.  I Peter 5:7, "Casting all your anxiety, or all your care, upon Him because He cares for you."  He says your enemy, your adversary, verse 8, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  He says...I understand it, I've been there, I've been consumed, as it were, by that prowling lion, I've been there and I can only tell you I understand that I'm just telling you that when you get there pass all your care on Him because He cares for you and resist that enemy firm in your faith.  And I know something else that after you've gone through this temptation, after you've gone through this failure, after you've gone through this struggle, after you've suffered through this, I'll tell you what will happen, the Lord Himself, verse 10, will perfect, confirm and strengthen and establish you.   This is a leader who understands human weakness.  This is a leader who has been to the bottom.  This is a leader whose weaknesses have been thrown in his face and he understands what men and women go through.  He's like our good High Priest, he's been touched with the feelings of our infirmities, he knows what it is to be human.

  A spiritual leader like Peter had to be submissive, restrained, humble, loving, compassionate, and one more...courageous.  In the end you must have courage to be a spiritual leader because you're going to have opposition.  The kingdom of darkness is set against the kingdom of light, lies are set against the truth, Satan is set against God, the demons are set against the holy purposes of Christ.  And so there's going to be difficulty when you go...Jesus said to Peter, "When you go now and feed My sheep," in John 21, "you go and shepherd My sheep and feed My lambs, I just want to tell you this, you're going to die.  You've done what you've wanted, you put your own coat on, you went were you wanted but...in John 21 He says to him...you're going to go and somebody is going to tie you up, take you where you don't want to go and you're going to die.  This is the death you're going to die to glorify Me."

  The price of preaching will be death for you, Peter, martyrdom.  Promises him that, John 21.  So you're going to have to have courage. Peter hadn't exhibited a lot of courage, had he?  He denies Jesus in front of various groups of people, no courage there.  But when you get in to the book of Acts, something different has happened seriously.  Acts 4, Peter and John come before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling counsel.  The Sanhedrin says you're not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus.  I think some of their grandchildren run the school system in America.  You're not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, it's forbidden, Acts 4:18.  Peter said, along with John, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, you judge.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."  Peter says it's a very simple decision, you tell me, shall we obey you or God?  And he went ahead and preached.

  In Acts 5, one chapter later, they were again brought before the Sanhedrin for not obeying their order to stop preaching.  And again they told them the same thing.  You're not supposed to be doing this.  To which they replied, "We ought to obey God rather than men."  Spiritual leader has to have that kind of courage.  He's not a compromiser, he doesn't vacillate.  He's characterized by courage.

  These are the character components that were necessary to make Peter the man God wanted him to be, to turn him from Simon into Rock.  Peter learned submission, restraint, humility, love, compassion, and courage from the Lord Himself and from the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart.  And he did become a great leader.  He was the one who made the move to replace Judas with Matthias in Acts 1.  He was the spokesman of the church at Pentecost, as I told you last time.  He along with John healed a lame man.  He along with John, as I said, defied the Sanhedrin.  He dealt with the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira in the church.  He dealt with the problem of Simon the magician, healed Aeneas, raised Dorcas from the dead, took the gospel to the Jews, took the gospel to the Gentiles, wrote the two marvelous epistles, 1 and 2 Peter, in which he repeated, as we've seen, the lessons that he had learned from the Lord about character.

  What a man he was.  Perfect?  No.  Read Galatians 2.  He acted hypocritically.  He was eating with the Gentiles, having a big time up in Antioch eating with the Gentiles and some Judaizers showed up, some of the circumcision.  And he stopped eating with the Gentiles to try to please the Judaizers.  And Paul says in Galatians, "I withstood him to the face."  That's wrong, Peter.  Peter was confronted by Paul himself.  What was interesting about that text in Galatians 2:11-13 is it says that when Peter did it, everybody else did it too because he's a leader.  So crucial that leaders do what is right because they have followers.  He wasn't perfect, but he responded to Paul's correction.

  But how did it end for him?  Well unanimous tradition of the early church tells us that Peter was crucified as the Lord predicted he would be in John 21.  But according to Eusebius in ecclesiastical history, Eusebius wrote, the early church father, "Before Peter was crucified he was forced to watch the crucifixion of his beloved wife and he had to stand at the foot of her cross till she died."  Eusebius writes that Peter stood at the foot of his wife's cross and kept repeating to her, "Remember the Lord, remember the Lord, remember the Lord."  After she died it is said that he pleaded to be crucified upside-down because he wasn't worthy to die as his Lord had died.  And he was crucified upside-down because he wouldn't deny the faith.

  Peter's life could be summed up in the last words of the last epistle he wrote, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."  And that's what he did and he became rock, the great leader of the church. 

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