“And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for
you, that he may sift you as wheat’” (Luke
22:31; cf. Matthew 16:23).
He wasn’t exactly a great prospect. His resume had some
rather obvious “gaps” in it. He was an uneducated (Acts 4:13) fisherman (Matthew
4:18). He was quick-tempered (John 18:10; Matthew
26:50-51), impetuous and impulsive. He was prone to break
his word (Mark 14:29; Matthew 26:74).
He made promises that he didn’t keep; in fact, he lied. He started things that
he didn’t finish (Matthew 14:28-30). He was prone to fear and doubt (Matthew
14:30-31). He couldn’t always be counted on in a pinch (Mark 14:53-54). He
could be cowardly (Luke 22:54-60a) and undependable (Matthew 26:40-41; Mark 14:37). He couldn’t always control his tongue
(Mark 14:71). He couldn’t always see the “big picture” (Matthew 16:23; John 18:11), but was often preoccupied with the
urgent and immediate. He was a narrow-minded racist (Acts 2:39; 10:13-14; Galatians 2:11-14) and a male chauvinist (John
4:27).
Let’s be brutally honest—Simon Peter (Matthew 16:17; John 21:15-17) wasn’t “the right man” for leading
the early church. Right? The Lord needed an entirely different breed of man. He
required an uncommon stock—a man with minor blemishes, a near-perfect specimen,
a spiritual giant. He needed a man with a long track record of spirituality and
maturity—or did He (Luke 6:12-14a)?
At Pentecost following the resurrection of Christ, there
was Peter—boldly preaching the first Gospel sermon with his fellow apostles
(Acts 2:14, 38)! Yes, Peter! However, it didn’t stop there. The very same man
who fled for his life when he was identified as a disciple of the Lord was the
very same man who, despite the threat of imprisonment, fearlessly proclaimed
the risen Lord (Acts 3:11-4:20, 29-31). When the counsel commanded him not to
speak or teach in the name of Jesus, this once reluctant disciple replied, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to
listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard” (cf. Acts 5:29).
Think for just a moment; how can we account for this
incredible transformation? How did this milk-toast Galilean fisherman become a
notable force in the kingdom of the first century? How did he get from catching
fish to catching men? How did Simon get to be Cephas (cf. 1 Corinthians
1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Galatians
2:9) the Aramaic for “stone” (John 1:42)? How did this
common man with an unsubmissive personality become a rock-like leader—one of
the greatest preachers among the apostles and in every sense the dominant figure in the
first twelve chapters of Acts? Most significantly, what does Peter tell us
about ourselves? Consider the following:
1. No matter what your previous background, the Lord
can use you as a vessel in His service. Our faults can be molded and
fashioned into virtue. Failure yesterday is not necessarily fatal tomorrow.
Weakness can become strength. “Mustard-seed faith” (Matthew 17:20; Mark 4:31; Luke 13:19;
17:6) can be enhanced to move mountains. “[The Lord]
specializes in transforming hearts, redirecting our selfcentered energy, and
reshaping our raw talent and abilities to achieve His purposes in the world”
[Gene A. Getz, “Peter,” The Apostles,
21- 22]. This He did for Peter, and this He can do with/for you. “For we are His workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk
in them” (Ephesians 2:10; cf. Isaiah 64:8).
2. It takes time to become the person Jesus wants you
to become. Evolving a Christ-like spirit is a l e n g t h y process (1 Peter
2:2; 2 Peter 3:18; cf. Hebrews.
5:12ff). No one is shaped into a leader overnight. Peter certainly wasn’t. In
fact, approximately twenty years after his service during the Lord’s personal
ministry, Peter as an apostle, a Gospel preacher and an elder (1 Peter 5:1)
still needed some “internal refinement” (Galatians 2:11-12). Whenever the Jews
came to visit, Peter only ate with the Jews. However, when the Jews went home,
he practiced open fellowship with his Gentile [uncircumcised] brethren and ate
with them. Paul immediately recognized Peter’s hypocrisy and rebuked his fellow-apostle
to his face (Galatians 2:14). Isn’t that ironic? In Acts
2, on the birthday of the church, Peter had taught, “...For the promise is to you and to your
children, and to all who are afar off [i.e., Gentiles]…” (v. 39). Then some
eight-to-ten years later it took a vision from heaven (Acts 10:9-16) to
convince him that God, in fact, accepted all men—including Gentiles—into the
faith (Acts 10:34-35; 11:18). Later yet [perhaps another eight-to-ten years] in
Galatians 2, Peter still
struggled with the concept of the Gentile equality. He was a slow learner. You
might say he suffered from SADD—spiritual attention deficit disorder. Growth
was an incremental element for Peter. The same is true for each of us today.
3. Jesus seeks a willing spirit. Peter’s problem
wasn’t his lack of desire and
zeal; it was how he employed these
qualities that often got him into trouble. One of the reasons Jesus
chose Peter was because he was a man of devotion, determination and passion.*
Granted, his passion was misdirected at times, but once Peter came to terms
with the concept of the risen Lord (1 Peter 1:3), that same fervency was
channeled in a very constructive and powerful way.
The good news is—the Lord sees beyond what we are
to what we can become. We see spiritual resumes
that are tarnished by transgression, failure and neglect (Romans 3:23). We see
rank sinners; Jesus sees holy saints. We see humiliation; Jesus sees
exaltation. We see despair; Jesus sees a living hope. We see Simon the
crumbling disciple; Jesus saw Peter the rock-solid leader who would help
stabilize the first century church. Dear friend, are you looking for a job? Do
you feel incapable? Is your work-history marred by defeat? Yes? Great! You
automatically qualify. The Lord is hiring new laborers at this very moment! You
can start your new work now (Acts
2:38; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 4:16).
*
“...With all his brashness, Peter had the raw material from which a leader
could be made. Better to work with a man like that than to try to motivate
someone who is always passive and hesitant. As the familiar saying goes, it is
much easier to tone down a fanatic than to resurrect a corpse. Some people have
to be dragged tediously in any forward direction. Not Peter. He always wanted
to move ahead. He wanted to know what he didn’t know. He wanted to understand
what he didn’t understand. He was the first to ask questions and the first to
try to answer questions. He was a man who always took the initiative, seized
the moment, and charged ahead…” [John MacArthur, “Peter,” Twelve Ordinary
Men, 42].
The Right Man for the Job