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By Pastor Glenn Pease
1. SAVED FOR SUCCESS Based on Matt. 14:22‑33
2. THE SUCCESSFUL FAILURE Based
on Matt. 16:13‑26
3. HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL NOBODY Based on John 6:1‑13
4. GROWTH IS SUCCESS Based on I Cor. 3:1‑9
5. THE BATTLE FOR SUCCESS Based on I Cor. 3:1‑15
6. THE MOTIVATION TO SUCCEED Based on I Cor. 3:1‑15
7. FRUIT IS SUCCESS Based on II
Peter 1:8
8. A GOOD START IS NOT ENOUGH Based on Gen. 3:1f
9. PREREQUISITES FOR PURPOSEFUL LIVING
Based on Prov. 2:1‑3
10. TAKING LAUGHTER SERIOUSLY Based on Eccles. 2:1‑11
11. FUN IS FUNDAMENTAL ZECH.
8:1‑19
12. PRACTICING THE PRESENCE Based on Acts 17:22-31
13. STEPS TO CHRISTIAN MATURITY
Based on I Peter 2:1‑10
14. FELLOWSHIP IS FUNDAMENTAL
Based on I John 1:3
15. TRUTH IN ACTION Based on I John 1:6
16. WALKING IN THE LIGHT
Based on I John 1:7
1. SAVED FOR SUCCESS Based on
Matt. 14:22‑33
Most of
us probably have some money in a saving account where it is insured by the
Federal Deposit Insurance Cooperation, or FDIC for short. This brilliant idea which saved the banks
after the depression, and saves all savers a lot of anxiety is a gift God gave
to the American people through a Christian banker in Philadelphia. His name was Leon H. Sullivan. When black
Monday hit on March 4, 1933, and closed the banks, he went to prayer and
labored long over a plan to reopen the banks.
He thanked God for the idea which led to the banks being able to
open. It was the FDIC idea.
He came
to Christ as a boy of nine, and by twenty five he was the youngest bank cashier
in the U.S. Banking was his life. But like all successful Christians he had a
struggle with pride. He began to crave
more power, prominence, and possessions.
He began to have social parties in his large house with champagne. He stopped going to church, for his new goal
kept him too busy for the God who had saved him. He got so greedy that he went into partnership with a non‑Christian. His wife warned him, but he would not
listen, for there was a fortune to be made.
The entire real estate deal collapsed, however, and he lost everything. He was one hundred and fifty thousand in
debt, and had no reputation and no friends.
He was sinking fast, but unlike Peter who cried out immediately,
"Lord save me," he held on for twelve days in pride.
After
twelve days of living on corn flakes he finally cried out to God in brokenness,
"Lord save me!" It took
years, but he was saved and restored and became a successful investment broker
who helped Christian colleges and other Christian causes raise millions. By his fall and failure he learned to be
successful as a Christian in the world of business. Successful Christians often have to fail so they can be saved for
success as Christians. Their success
becomes an idol and leads them away from God, and only by means of failure can
they be brought back to God to succeed for him. Christians only need to be saved once for eternity by putting
their faith in Christ, but they need to be saved many times in time, as they
begin to sink because of their lack of faith.
Peter
was a saved man as a hand picked disciple of Christ. If he would have drowned in the storm, he would have been
welcomed into heaven. He was a saved
man, yet, we see him here crying out, "Lord save me." It was not the sinners prayer. He was not crying out to be forgiven and
reconciled with God. That was not his
problem. He was already saved that way,
and you never need to be saved that way again.
When Jesus is trusted as Savior you are saved for eternity. But here is Peter still calling out,
"Lord save me." A saved man
can still use some saving when he is sinking.
Balzac,
the Sir Walter Scott of France, wrote a famous short story called Jesus Christ
in Flanders. A ferry‑boat is
carrying a mixed crowd of passengers when a furious gale strikes and throws
everyone into a panic. A stranger with
a glow on his face is calm and serene as if he knew he would not die. As the boat begins to sink the stranger
speaks, "Those who have faith shall be saved! Let them follow me."
He then stepped out upon the waves and walked on the water. A young mother took her child up in her arms
and followed him. A soldier and two
cousins also followed and walked upon the sea, and they came safely to the
shore. The stranger vanishes, but they
recognize he is Christ. Balzac's story
is obviously an adaptation of our text.
But it is a focus on the fact that even saved people; people who already
have faith in Jesus, still need to be saved from storms, and all kinds of
threats to life and health.
Jesus
could say, "How do I save thee, let me count the ways." And they would mount up to a high
number. The point is, this prayer of
Peter as he began to sink is a prayer that needs praying often because even
saved people need perpetual saving in this storm tossed world. Let's look at just some of the ways we need saving as suggested by Peter's
experience. First of all we all need to
be saved‑
I. FROM
LITTLE FAITH.
Whenever
a Christian begins to sink, you can trace the trouble back to little
faith. The negative realities of life
begin to overwhelm you. You take your
eyes off Jesus and look to the wind and waves, and fear takes over and reduces
the power of your faith. You can't get
far walking on water, or even on land for that matter, when your faith gauge is
pointing to empty.
Peter
had enough faith to get him into the middle of a miracle, but then it began to
run out. There are few things more
embarrassing than half a miracle. To
walk on water for a few feet and then drown is not all that impressive as a
whole. Peter needed to be saved from
his half a miracle due to his little faith.
To sink in the middle of a miracle, and make this his terminal trip was
not what Peter had in mind. We all need
to be saved from the half way projects we get ourselves into. We make a commitment to go all out for
Jesus, and then after awhile we lose our enthusiasm and our faith falters. We find ourselves half way through a
commitment beginning to sink.
I see it
in Christian marriages all the time.
People make a commitment to be loving and loyal through sunshine and
shadow; for better or for worse, but like Peter, they get out into the sea of
matrimony and discover it is more frightening than they realized from the
boat. Their resolve begins to weaken,
and they begin to sink. They need to
cry out, "Lord save me."
Christians need to be saved and restored to their marriage vows.
Christians say, "I'm going to read my Bible through this
year," and they take the leap. But
after they get through Genesis and struggle through Exodus they come to
Leviticus, and their faith wavers. I
wonder how many have sunk in their resolve in Leviticus? They had no idea how hard some parts of the
Bible are. They need to be saved from
this little faith that lets them sink in the midst of their new adventure for
Christ. Christians also resolve to
witness, and then they come up against a skeptic who is clever, and they begin
to sink back from their commitment. We
could go on and on dealing with areas of life where Christians need to be saved
because their little faith lets them down before they complete their
commitment.
The good
news is that Jesus will hear the prayer for salvation even when our faith is so
weak we are sinking. Peter's prayer,
"Lord save me!" is the shortest
prayer in the New Testament, but it was just as effective as a 20 minute
prayer, for Jesus reached out and saved him from drowning. A 3 word prayer, and all 3 words of only one
syllable. Thank God he does not
evaluate prayer by its length, but rather by its earnestness. Peter never prayed a more earnest prayer
than this. His faith was little in his
own ability to stay on top of the water, but his faith in Jesus was still
strong, and he cried out for Jesus to save him.
There
was no time for praise, adoration, or intercession. This was a purely self‑centered prayer, yet it was answered
instantly, for Jesus chose to save Peter from a watery grave. He saw, even in Peter's failure, the seeds
of success. Peter's prayer was a
confession of his own inadequacy, and of his awareness of Christ's all
sufficiency. Lord you can save me, and
so do so, for I cannot save myself.
Spurgeon
points out that little faith tends to get Christians in trouble because it is
always seeking for signs and wonders.
He feels that Peter may have leaped out of the boat in the first place
because of his little faith that he needed to bolster up by this awesome act of
walking on water. Some people need to
do the remarkable thing to keep their faith from collapsing. This moves them to attempt great things, but
they do it in their own power, and they end up collapsing anyway. But even there failure can be good if it
leads them to stop trusting in themselves, and to trust in Jesus only. Peter did it here and was saved from his
little faith in himself by his adequate faith in Jesus.
John
Hodges was the number one Pontiac dealer in the world. He was a member of the First Baptist Church
of Indianapolis. But he let his success
go to his head and began to throw parties with booze and gambling. He began to cut back on church life, for it
was interfering with his business life.
Besides, you can't serve 2 masters, and his business became his
god. He bought 5 used car lots and
poured a lot of money into advertising.
He got caught in a squeeze and lost half a million in 2 years. He started to drink and life began to fall
apart. He had many Christian friends
praying for him, and he was finally persuaded to go to a Graham crusade. There he saw that he was sinking because of
his own pride and little faith. He
repented and cried out, "Lord save me!"
He got
his life style back in order and went on, as Peter did, to be a fisher of
men. He used his business connections
to witness to men about his Savior. He
was another Christian who needed to be saved.
He needed to be saved from little faith, from worldliness, from pride,
from failure, and from self. This is
the battle of the Christian life and what the whole New Testament is all
about. It is about saving saved people
from sinking so they can help save a lost world. Christians need a lot of saving before they can help save the
world. A sinking Christian is not a very
useful tool. But a sinking Christian
saved from sinking, as Peter was, is often the best tool, for he has by that
experience learned to forsake his self‑confidence, and put his confidence
in Christ as an all sufficient Savior.
We
sometimes have to fail and be saved in order to really know who Jesus is as our
Savior. Nancy Spiegelberg wrote,
Lord
I crawled
across the barrenness
to you
with my empty cup
uncertain
in asking any small drop of
refreshment.
If only I had known you
better
I'd have come
running
with a bucket.
This whole incident was designed by Christ to teach
his disciples that if they really knew who Jesus was, they could not only be
saved from little faith, but also‑
II. FROM ALL
FORMS OF DISCOURAGEMENT.
The
whole context is one of discouragement.
They were buffeted by the wind and the waves, and could not get to
shore. It was in the middle of the
night and they were tired and anxious for their lives. It was a discouraging situation, and they
were a down bunch of guys. Then to add
to the tension Jesus comes walking on the lake and they are terrified. "It's a ghost," they cried, and
they were fearful that this was a sign they would not make it. A demon of death is what their fearful minds
saw, even though in reality it was their Savior from death.
What a
major difference there can be between objective faith and ones own subjective
fears. They interpreted the scene as
evil omen when in reality it was their only hope. How wrong can Christians be in reading the events of their day
and experience? Here is a clue. Christians need to be saved constantly from
the spirit of discouragement they bring on themselves by their false fears and
misreading of events. Their fears had
them in the grip of some evil spirit, and they were terrified. Christians often need to be saved from their
subjective fears that put their emotional system into a turmoil. There was a spirit of pessimism reigning
over the lives of the Apostles in this setting. They were safe, but they felt like they were sunk.
From the
point of view of Jesus there was nothing to be discouraged about at all. From his perspective it was as pleasant as a
Sunday walk in the park. These men
needed to be saved from all their fears and doubts that made them blind to the
power and presence of Christ in their midst.
They were just like God's people in the Old Testament. God could do wonders and miracles to protect
them, deliver them, and provide for them.
But the next time they faced a crisis they were full of fear and doubt,
and begging to go back to Egypt. No
number of miracles could ever get them beyond their little faith and
discouraged spirit of pessimism.
The
disciples had already seen Jesus still the storm, and do wondrous miracles in
nature. He had just fed the 5000 hours
before this storm, and yet, all that is gone from their head, and they are
overwhelmed by their present crisis.
What we need to see is that these men were finally saved from this
spirit of pessimism, and this is just one of the key lessons on the way to that
final victory. They eventually became
men who could say with the unknown poet,
I will not doubt, though all
my ships at sea
Come drifting home with
broken masts and sails;
I shall believe the hand
that never fails
From seeming evil worketh
good for me,
And though I weep because
these sails are tattered,
Still will I cry, while my
best hopes are shattered,
I trust in Thee.
But
they were not there yet. They were in a
terrible mess, but they were saved, and Jesus turned this catastrophe into a
major success. The key word in this
story is a big word in the ministry of Jesus.
The word in the Greek is tharseo,
and it is translated, "Be of good cheer, or take
courage." This is a special word
in the vocabulary of Jesus. He is the
only person in the New Testament to use the word. On one occasion it is used to encourage blind men to come to
him. Jesus used this word often to
encourage those who were discouraged.
They were in what seemed to be hopeless situations when Jesus would come
and say, "Be of good cheer."
His
most universal use of the word is in John 16:33, "In this world you will
have trouble. But take heart, or cheer
up, I have overcome the world."
The one thing that every person needs to be saved from at some point in
life is discouragement. The contrary
winds get to all of us at times, and we are ready to sink. Jesus says this is just when you need to
hear his favorite word and be encouraged to be of good cheer. He is saying that he is already overcome,
and so trust in me. This is where Peter
comes through a hero, even though he was sinking. Because of his little faith he was going under, but the fact is,
he never cease to trust in Christ for he shouted out, "Lord save
me!" And Jesus did save him. The whole scene ends in victory and
worship.
This
was not their final education. They got
discouraged again, and their faith failed again, and they needed to be saved
again from their human weaknesses. But their
salvation here did raise them to a new level, and by it they were able to avoid
a lot of falls they might have otherwise had.
Every lesson they learned was a necessary step to get to the point of
the victorious Christian life. Every
victory prevented some future failure.
Someone
said that high heels were invented by a woman who was kissed on the
forehead. She wanted to avoid that
mistake in the future, and so invented high heels. True or not, it illustrates the point. Failure can lead to success, for it motivates us to do what
avoids the same failure in the future.
The disciples were a pathetic lot in this whole scene. It was a comedy of errors. The men Christ picked to change the world
are seen here as nervous wrecks. They
were of anxiety and fears, and their leader was sinking in the middle of a
miracle. It is not likely the angelic
choir was inspired to fill heaven with a new song of rejoicing.
Nevertheless, the end result of all this failure was success, because in
the final analysis they looked to Jesus and were saved, and every time they
were saved they needed less and less saving.
Each step of failure was a step up the stairs of success. Dr. John, president of Stetson University,
tells of the farmer who only lost a few hogs during a severe cholera
epidemic. The county agent asked him if
he had learned anything about the disease.
He said, "Wal, I've noticed that them as gets it and lingers a
spell have a better chance of livin then them that dies right off." Peter failed a lot, but he never went down
for the count. He never gave up and
sank. He always lingered awhile and
looked to Jesus. The result was that
Peter was saved every time. Judas, on
the other hand, when he failed, gave up and died right off,
and went and hanged himself.
If we
are going to have a successful year in spite of our weaknesses and failures, we
are going to have to pray Peter's prayer often‑"Lord save me from myself, my subjective fears and
discouragements, from my little faith.
Save me daily from all the things that rob me of my vision of your love
and presence. Every year a Christian
should aim to be more saved than the year before. That means to be more secure, more sanctified, more willing to
believe the Word of God. Peter said in
Paul's writings there are some things hard to be understood, but sometimes the
problem with Paul is that he is too easy to be understood. He makes the requirement of optimism so
plain and clear that we are embarrassed by it.
It may
sound crazy, but I am convinced that sometimes we need to be saved from
success. Success is a test that many
Christians have failed to pass. They
get successful and, like Israel of old, they neglect the Lord and conform to
the world, and lose their way. Many of
the scandals of Christianity are the result of success that Christians could
not handle. It is also the reality of
life that success leads to a decaying of relationships. Bette Middler put it so honestly when she
said, "The worse part of having success is to try finding someone who is
happy for you."
We go
through life asking, what is the will of God, and Paul says what is the
mystery? We know what God's will
is. In I Thess. 5:16‑18 Paul
writes, "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all
circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Whenever you are not joyful, or not praying,
or not thankful, you are out of God's will, and need to be saved from that
state of disobedience. "Lord save
me," is about as relevant a prayer as you find in the Bible, for as saved
people we need, just as Peter needed, a whole lot of saving to be a
success. We need to examine our lives
in the light of this truth, and when we see we are sinking in some area of
life, look to Jesus and pray the saved sinners prayer, "Lord save
me." We need to be constantly
saved from our failures, and saved for success.
2. THE SUCCESSFUL FAILURE
Based on Matt.
16:13‑26
Apollo
13 was one of the biggest flops in the history of our space program, and yet it
was also one of the most celebrated.
Can a catastrophic failure also be a colossal success? Just ask the
three astronauts of that ill fated flight.
It was 1970, and they were on their way to the moon when an explosion
changed their plans radically. For the
next 6 days it took all the ingenuity of these three men, and a vast ground
crew, just to keep them alive. Everything went wrong, and they could have died a
number of different ways. They could have
frozen to death, but they learned that in zero gravity air does not move, and
so if they stayed very still their body would heat up the air around them, and
form a sort of cocoon of warm air. Had
they panicked and moved about they would have frozen.
They
could have died of poisoning, or been lost in space, or blown up. It took 24 hours a day of thinking and
improvising just to stay alive. All
over the world people were praying, and they were able to get back to earth in
the lunar module, which was never even designed for anything but taking them
down to the surface of the moon. It was
like crossing the ocean on the Queen Mary, and half way over deciding to make
the rest of the journey in a canoe.
They did not get to the moon, nor did they do any of things they were
suppose to do. None of the goals were
achieved. All they did was to get
through dozens of hopeless situations, and survive to tell about it.
Commander James A. Lovell said of this amazing flop of a flight,
"We could've been assured a catastrophe.
But the dedication and knowledge of the ground and the flight crew were
such that we were able to make it a successful failure." President Nixon awarded them the Medal of
Freedom for their successful failure.
Peter is the great example in the New Testament of successful
failure. He made the most blunders of
anyone, and yet he survived, and like a cat tossed in the air, he landed on his
feet, and became a loved hero.
In our text
we see the flight plan of Peter blow up in his face. He thinks he is in control of the situation, and has such a grasp
of the way life should go that he has the audacity to take Jesus aside to set
Him straight. Talk about aggressive
leadership. Here is a disciple telling
the Master the score. Peter has put his
foot in his mouth before, but never up to the knee. He has become a megalomaniac, that is one who has grandiose
delusions. He has just confessed that
Jesus is the Son of the living God, and that he is the Messiah, yet he begins
to rebuke the Messiah because he does not like what he is saying. Jesus is telling it like it is, and the
truth is not pleasant. He will suffer,
be rejected, and killed. That is not an
acceptable program to Peter, and so he takes Jesus aside to reprogram the plan
of God.
There is
only one other person in history who had that kind of pride, and that was
Lucifer. No wonder Jesus said to Peter,
"Out of my sight, Satan!"
Peter had become a tool of the devil in trying to reprogram the plan of
God. Can a Christian fall so low they
can become an agent of Satan? Yes they
can, and it is not just by falling low, but also, as we see here, by rising too
high. Peter was exalted, not just to
the moon, but to the very gates of heaven.
Jesus gave him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and He had the power
to bind or loose on earth, and that would lead to binding or loosing in
heaven. Peter's promotion went to his
head, and he began to think that he now had the authority to even alter the
course of the Messiah, and set policy on the plan of salvation.
Peter
was a mere fisherman, but Jesus chose him to be a spiritual astronaut, and he
sent him soaring to the heights of leadership and power in the kingdom of
God. And what does he do? He blows the mission to pieces by abuse of
power. How many other leaders do you
know who were called Satan by the Lord?
There were no others. Peter was
the greatest failure in his abusive power.
And yet we see that he not only survives, but he does so quite
successfully. He is able to stay on top
as the leader of the 12. He does
everything wrong, and still comes out a winner. He is the most successful failure in the New Testament. Consider this record of his failure:
1. He lost faith
while on the water, and began to sink.
2. He
rebuked his own Messiah, and received the strongest rebuke of anyone.
3. He
refused to have his feet washed, and had to be forced to cooperate.
4. He cut
off the ear of Malchus in Gethsemane and needed to be rebuked.
5. He went
to sleep when Jesus asked him to watch with Him.
6. He denied
his Lord 3 times.
7. He
refused to believe the eye witness testimony of the women who saw Jesus after
the resurrection.
8. He fell
back into prejudice against the Gentiles even after Pentecost.
9. He needed
to be rebuked by the Apostle Paul for his inconsistency.
These
are just his major mistakes and blunders.
He had a number of minor ones as well.
You cannot come up with a list like this even for the scoundrels in the
New Testament. Yet, this walking comedy
of errors is not made to wear a dunces hat and sit in the corner. He is made the leader of the group. Tragen was one of the greatest of the
Caesars, and the senate raised a towering column to record his victories, but
today in Rome you will no longer see the Emperor on top of that column raised
to his honor. You will see instead a
statue of a man with two large keys in his hands‑the man called
Peter. Peter fumbled and failed his way
to the top, and by so doing, he reveals by his successful failure just how
fallible man can be, and still be used of God.
Consider, for example, that Peter was‑
I. AN
EXTREMIST.
Keep in
mind, Peter was no intellectual scholar like Paul. He was a man moved by feeling rather than reason, and feelings
can be changed a lot faster than the mind.
It takes time to think through an issue, and weigh the values, and
change one's convictions. But it only
takes seconds to go from hot to cold in ones emotions. Peter was always going from one extreme to
the other.
1. On the
stormy sea he shouts "bid me come to you Lord on the water," and a
few moments later he is crying out "Lord, save me!"
2. When
Jesus came to wash his feet he cries out, "You will never wash my
feet." For an emotional guy like Peter, never is not very long, for he is
soon at the other extreme saying, "Not my feet only, but my hands and my
head." Jesus had to slow him down and explain that the feet alone are sufficient.
Peter is not one to be straddling the fence. He is totally on one side or the
other. He is never middle of the road, but usually in the ditch on one side or
the other. Ask Peter where he stands, and he says 100% on this side, and while
he is saying it, he may be moving to the other side where he will stand with
equal conviction. This sounds like a terrible weakness for a leader, but it is
a weakness that can be helpful when going through radical transition. The world of Judaism was being turned upside
down, and the pagan world would be next, and Jesus needed a leader who was not
locked into legalism, but who was open to change, and who could lead others to
accept radical change.
It was a
troublesome aspect of his personality that he was such an extremist, and so
inconsistent. Yet it was a necessary
ingredient for what Peter had to lead the church through. He was even inconsistent in his
inconsistency. On one occasion after
shifting from being closed to Gentiles to being open to them, he reverted back
again to the old way, and needed to be rebuked again. Peter must have felt as frustrated at times as a chameleon
crawling across a plaid shirt. He was
not sure what color to be, but he still comes out smelling like a rose, because
his first loyalty was to the Rose Of Sharon, his Lord and Master.
An
impulsive personality like Peter's is bound to get you into trouble, for you
take every feeling of the moment too seriously. You are moved by some
conviction, and you follow your emotions as if it were the essence of the ages,
and in fact, it is only temporary. Peter feels it so strongly that he will
never forsake his Lord that he proclaims, "I will never be offended because
of Thee. All others may be offended, but you can always count on one, and that
is me." Then the next thing we know, Peter is denying with oaths and
curses, "I never knew the man."
Peter is
one of these guys who is always so enthused about something. It is the answer
the world has been looking for. It is the greatest discovery of our day, the
discovery of the decade; the milestone of the millennium; the highlight of
history. Then the next time you see him, he has forgotten and forsaken the
whole thing. These types are on the mountain top, or down in the valley, and to
one extreme or the other. Peter was always the first in everything. He did not
stop to think things through. While the
others were doing that, he was already first on the water, or first with the
sword out, or first with the words of wisdom, or of folly. As an impulsive man of emotion, he was
faster on the draw than the thinkers. This led to his shooting himself in the
foot frequently, but as J. Oswald Sanders points out, "He was an extremist,
attempting the impossible and often achieving it."
Peter
failed more, but he also succeeded more, because he was always doing something.
It may have been wise or stupid, but the more he did, the more likely he was to
do what was wise. He illustrates the
fact that life is a matter of percentages.
If you try a lot you may fail a lot, but you will also have more
success. The man who calls on 100
customers may fail to sell 75 of them, but the 25 he sells to is far greater
than that of the man who only calls on 50, and only has 10 successes. Babe Ruth struck out more than anybody, but
he was also the home run champ of his day.
The point is, failure and success are opposites, but they are linked
together. There is a direct connection,
for the rate of failure is often the key to the rate of success.
It can
be said of some, he made no mistakes, but then it is likely that he made
nothing else either, for mistakes are the stepping stones to achievement. Successful people are those who have made
plenty of mistakes, but they have learned from them. The biggest mistake of all is to so fear making mistakes that you
never try. Prov. 14:4 says, "Where
there are no oxen the manager is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an
abundant harvest." If you want a nice clean barn, that can be easily done
by just not having any animals. But the
goal of the farmer is not a clean barn, but a barn full of harvest, and to get
that you need to struggle with dirt, manure, and one mess after another. The road to a full barn may mean stepping in
a lot of manure, and the road to success in any area, may be a road where you
step into one mess after another. If
you are not willing to make mistakes and messes, you will never get to the
harvest.
The cost
of success is the willingness to endure failure. Most of the successful people make a lot of mistakes as they
climb, and could be called successful failures. A dairy farm with no cows looks clean and smells nice, but it is
a flop compared to the messy, stinky farm of the man who has cows, and who is
producing milk everyday. The successful
life is not the mistake free life, or the mess free life, but the life where
even the messes and mistakes are incorporated into a plan to reach goals. It may seem wonderful to have a factory
where there is no waste, but it will be of no value. Better is the messy factory where there is a product being
produced.
The
elder brother made no foolish mistakes, as did the young Prodigal, but was he a
better man for it? He stayed home and
did all the right things, and ended up a self‑righteous brat. The Prodigal blew it, and was a fool, but he
learned from his folly, and came home to live a life of humble gratitude for
love and forgiveness. Which brother
would you most prefer for a friend, neighbor, or relative? Give me the mistake filled life where there
has been victory, rather than the proud life of one who has no messed up past,
but who is about as much fun as a boil.
The mistake ridden life leads to humility, and a breaking down of that
pride that makes one a judgmental legalist.
Jesus loved the publicans and sinners, because they were more open to
grace and forgiveness. The Pharisees
were too proud. They did not need grace
and forgiveness. The man who makes no
mistakes does not need a Savior. You
can't help the man who never fails, for he does not need help. It is the fallen who know their need of the
helping hand. The Pharisees were
failing successes, but far superior was the Publican who knew he messed up, and
prayed for God to be merciful to him as a sinner. He was a successful failure, like Peter. And Peter was not only
an extremist, but he was also‑
II. AN
EXAMPLE.
Peter,
with all his weaknesses, was still an example of a type of leader Jesus is
looking for. It is not all the blunders
he wants, but He wants a man of action who gets things done. James and John
were the other two extremists in the group.
They were ready to call fire down from heaven because of the lack of
hospitality on the part of the Samaritans.
They were rebuked for their lack of a loving spirit, but the fact is,
these two hot heads along with Peter, the lead hot head, became the inner
circle of Jesus. It could be
interpreted that he kept these three closest to Him because they were the three
who needed constant watching. There may
be some truth to this, but the evidence supports the idea that these three were
more aggressive leaders, and Jesus was training them for special tasks. They were hazards, to be sure, but Jesus, by
choosing them, makes them examples of what the kingdom of God needs.
People
who would rather make a mistake than do nothing for Christ is what He is
looking for. He wants people who may
fail, but who are always ready to act rather than be just passive
spectators. We don't want to take it
lightly that Peter is an example of just how far a believer can go astray. Peter was a channel of God's truth, but he
was also capable of being a channel of Satan's lies. The whole point of the temptation of Jesus was to get Jesus to
take a path that avoided the cross. Use
your supernatural power so you don't have to live on a mere human level. By miracle you can make stones into bread,
and by miracle you leap off the temple, and have the crowds eating out of your
hand. Just bow to me, and take a short
cut to rule the kingdoms of the world.
Why go the hard way, when the easy way is open?
When
Jesus heard Peter rebuking Him, and rejecting the way of the cross, he was
hearing Satan again. G. Campbell Morgan
has Jesus responding, "Peter, I know that voice, I know that
philosophy. I have heard that
suggestion, not once or twice, but through the years.." Peter was a mouth piece for Satan. He was trying to get Jesus to bypass the
cross. Peter was being used as a tool
of Satan. He was saying, if you
eliminate sacrifice from your plan, there will be a better way. Jesus had to rebuke him, and make it clear,
there is no easy or better way. The
cross is the only way.
It is
important that we see an example like Peter, for it reveals a Christian can be
totally off base, and convinced that a satanic view of reality is the
best. A Christian can be a stumbling
block and a hindrance to the kingdom of God.
This example is a powerful tool of education if we use it. Christians often assume that if one is a
great Christian leader they have to be right in all their convictions. A Christian leader could never promote what
is contrary to the mind of God, they think.
Wrong! No Christian is above
doing what Peter did, and the more power a Christian gets, the more likely he
will do what Peter did. His example is
for our warning. All Christians, and
their views, need to be examined along side the mind of Christ. Nobody is Lord but Jesus, and He alone is the
supreme authority, and everyone needs to be evaluated in the light of His
example.
The world is full of damaged disciples who have given their loyalty to a fallible leader rather than to their Lord. Christian leaders fall, and take wrong turns in their teaching and theology, and their followers are hurt, and often end up falling away. This does not happen to Christians who know Peter's example, and know the best can fall and become obstacles. Where loyalty is to Christ alone, there is little danger for any leader to lead you astray. It is not on Peter the solid rock I stand, bu