This is our fourth installment of our series on the Bible’s Biggest Losers, number four out of five, so we’ll wrap it up next week. But today we have finally worked our way into the New Testament. In the Old Testament we’ve talked about Adam and Eve and their disobedience, Samson and his pride, and David and his covetousness. Now that we are in the New Testament, there are a whole host of people we could choose from to perhaps put on the list of the Bible’s biggest losers. But the man I picked for my list is one who is widely recognizable, because he was one of Jesus’ disciples. The apostle Peter is number four on the list of the biggest losers of the Bible.
Now before we start bashing him, let me defend Peter just a little bit. I really identify with Peter, not because he was such a wonderful disciple and not because of all he did in the book of Acts to lead the church. I identify with Peter because as one of Jesus’ disciples, he messed up a lot and was kind of loud and brazen. He opened his big mouth a lot. He asked some stupid questions, but they were the stupid questions that everyone else was thinking but were too embarrassed to ask. I like that Peter had guts. He wasn’t exactly a Rhodes scholar, but he was honest. Peter was real. What you see is what you get, and I like that about Peter.
But we’re not here to sing Peter’s praises! We’re here to learn from his mistakes, and his biggest mistake was read for us earlier. This is a story you usually hear around Easter. The conversation that Peter has with Jesus in Matthew chapter 26 occurs in the upper room on Holy Thursday. Jesus is giving them the somber news that on that very night, the night of the first communion and the night before his death, all of them, all of the disciples will fall away and become deserters. And Peter speaks up and says, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.”
Peter simply cannot imagine a scenario in which he will leave Jesus’ side. Think about this: Jesus had rescued Peter from the life of a poor fisherman and had brought him up to be one of his closest disciples and friends. For three years Peter had walked by Jesus’ side. He had seen him perform miracles. He has learned more from him in those three years than he had the whole rest of his life. He had left everything to follow Jesus and he had no intentions of leaving his side.
But Jesus, who by the way is way smarter than Peter, knows better, and he replies to Peter, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” This is even worse than deserting Jesus! Jesus tells Peter that Peter will deny that he even knows Jesus. And not just once, but three times. But again Peter assures Jesus that this cannot be true, and he says to Jesus, “Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.” Again, Peter has devoted his life to serving Jesus, how in the world could he ever deny that he knows him?
Of course, after Jesus says these things, they all go to the
But he doesn’t leave entirely. He follows at a distance to he home of the high priest and Peter waited in the courtyard, trying to find out what would happen with Jesus. He probably heard some of the yelling coming from inside and that he was being accused of blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. On top of that, a couple of hours earlier, he had assaulted one of the high priest’s servants. He was probably starting to get a little bit nervous, when a servant-girl came and said, “Hey, weren’t you with Jesus earlier?” He said, “I do not know what you are talking about.” Strike one. Another servant-girl came up and said to Peter and everyone around, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth!” This time Peter swore an oath and said, “I do not know the man!” Strike two. Finally, a few bystanders came up and said, “You have a Galilean accent, just like Jesus. You must be one of his followers.” And he swore another oath and said, “I do not know the man!” And in the distance, a rooster crowed. Strike three.
So what happened here? Peter went from sitting next to Jesus at the first communion, to standing by his side in the garden ready to fight, to being on of the biggest losers in the Bible, all in one day. What a roller coaster ride! So how did this happen to Peter? How could he have dropped so low so fast?
First, Peter didn’t heed Jesus’ warnings. Guess what, if Jesus tells you something is going to happen, even if it seems ridiculous or impossible, chances are really good that that thing is going to happen! That’s why we take the book of Revelation so seriously! It might sound crazy in parts, but if Jesus says it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen! So when Jesus told Peter that he would fall away, though it seemed impossible to him, instead of saying “no way, Jesus,” he should have just asked for forgiveness on the spot for the sin that Jesus told him he would commit.
Because it all comes down to faith and faithfulness. If Peter truly believed in Jesus, he would have known that what Jesus said would come true. But it seems to me that Peter had more faith in himself than in Jesus. He had more faith in his own self-control than in the prophecy of Jesus. So when Jesus tells Peter it gets worse, you are also going to deny even knowing me, Peter lashes out at Jesus, and says, “I’d sooner die than deny knowing you.” And put yourself in Peter’s shoes. Would you have said any different? Here is a man who had given up everything, his whole life, to follow Jesus. His entirely life was devoted to serving Jesus. And Jesus tells him that in a few hours he will run away and deny ever knowing Jesus. I think Peter just refused to believe it.
So to compensate, Peter made some big promises. Everyone else might leave, but I will not. Even if I have to die, I will not deny you. Jesus, I’m here through thick and thin. I don’t care where you go, I’m following. A short time later when they are in the garden, Jesus asks Peter, James, and John to keep watch while he prays. It’s late at night, they had just eaten, and so they rest their heads and eventually fall asleep. Jesus comes back and finds Peter asleep and he wakes him up. And Jesus says the famous phrase to Peter, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
And that phrased turned out to be true throughout this whole story. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Peter had over-estimated his own faithfulness. And in doing so, in proclaiming so boldly how faithful he was to Jesus, he uncovered his true unfaithfulness. Someone who was truly faithful to Jesus would have seen the big picture. They would have seen that is was necessary for all of them to fall away and for Jesus to be arrested and to be condemned to die for the sin of all humanity. But Peter was so caught up in himself and proclaiming his own faithfulness, he lost sight of that bigger picture, or maybe worse yet, he never allowed himself to see the big picture in the first place.
Folks, why do I tell this story? Why do we study Peter in such a manner? Why don’t we look at all the nice things that Peter eventually did, like leading the early church and the disciples? It’s because there are two valuable lessons that I believe we have to take away from this story about Peter. First, we must be careful not to over-estimate our own faithfulness. Peter made some pretty bold claims about how faithful he was, and as it turns out, he bit off more than he could chew. Do we ever do that? You bet!
A survey was recently taken asking Americans if they had been to church in the last week. Over 40 percent said yes, that they had attended church in the last seven days. But when records were looked at, the actual number of Americans who had attended church in the last week was about 20 percent.
Often times when I counsel people for various reasons, I like to ask them about their priorities, and almost to a person, they put God as the number one most important thing in their life. And I tell them that’s wonderful, that’s where God should be! God should be number one. But as we go on talking, I find that the amount of time, money, and energy they spend on their relationship with God probably would not make the top ten list in their actual priorities.
And I suspect that’s the same for many of us. We know the right answer: God is number one. But do we live it? Or have we like Peter made a promise and a claim of faithfulness that we cannot keep? The danger of over estimating our own faithfulness is that it often puts us in the position that Peter found himself in, with our unfaithfulness being exposed. This is often called hypocrisy. We say one thing and we do another. I’ve quoted this before but I think it is so true, it’s from a Christian band called DC Talk, and it says, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Ouch. And we do it all the time. We claim to be Christians everywhere we go, and we blow it, because we over-estimate how faithful to God we are. We put Jesus fish stickers on our car bumpers, and then go out and drive like the devil! We invite friends to church, and then criticize what they wear! We speak out against the other political party for not being Christian enough, and so we call them every name in the book.
Second, we can see from the story of Peter that our faithfulness must be focused on the big picture Christ has put before us and not on ourselves! We live during a time when Christianity has become very personal for some people. People are very pious. But I’m afraid what’s going to happen is that someday these folks are going to meet Jesus up in Heaven, and they’re going to say, “Oh Jesus! I have devoted my whole life to you! I read my Bible every day. I was in church every Sunday. I always tithed ten percent. I kept all of the Ten Commandments. So…where’s my mansion?” And Jesus will say, “Well, what did you do to help other people find me? What did you do to grow the kingdom? How did you serve others in my name?” We lose the big picture and like Peter, our vision of what it means to be a follower of Christ is confined to our own little bubble. Just me and Jesus. And while there is a place for that, and while it is important to develop and grow your relationship with Christ, we cannot lose sight of the big picture, which is to glorify God and to help his kingdom to grow. Peter was so happy that Jesus saved him, that he forgot about Jesus saving the rest of the world. That’s what made Peter a loser. Peter didn’t have Jesus number one in his life, even though he thought he did. Peter had himself at number one, and Jesus made Peter feel good, so Peter wanted to keep Jesus around. If Peter would have had Jesus at number one, he would have carried the cross up to the top of the hill and hammered in the nails himself.
What does your faithfulness look like? Who is number one in your life? If you
need a good example of what a faithful life looks like, you need to look no
further than to Jesus himself. His faithfulness is unfailing. And he calls us
to come, and to be faithful to him.
Van Buren United
Pastor Dan Metzger