Thank you very much, Brad. I'd
love to hear the scripture read, especially by someone who believes
it. And that is a compliment to the
Lord's grace, isn't it? That we would believe Him. We're going to be taking two
verses from the gospel of John chapter one, and then we're going
to be taking many verses from various places in the New Testament. So turn with me to John's gospel
chapter one, and beginning at verse 40. I want you to see these
things that God has taught us in the life of the apostle Peter. I know when I was a child growing
up, we were not raised in a Catholic church, but the Catholic people
consider Peter to be their first pope. This is false, and it's
actually very maddening that people would do
such a thing. Peter would himself be extremely
opposed to such a false doctrine. that directly opposes scripture,
but in any case, they do, and I would often hear jokes or some
kind of riddles about people standing to enter heaven and
having to go through Saint Peter, as they would say. They have
some story about that. This is, I mention all that to
debunk those things in the strongest possible way, that Peter is not
the way into heaven, and he's not going to be standing there
admitting or rejecting people into heaven. But we are going
to see some things about the Apostle Peter that the Lord has
taught us from the New Testament. But it's not for us to learn
so much about Peter the man, but to learn of God's grace to
the man named Peter. And so what we're going to see
here is the great grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life
of a sinful man named Peter. And we'll see that as it begins
here in John chapter one, and I've entitled this message just
what Jesus said here in these verses of scripture, thou art
Peter. He says in verse 40 of John one,
one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother
Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which is being
interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.
Andrew brought Peter, his brother, to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld
him, he said, thou art Simon, the son of Jonah. Thou shalt
be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone. All right, so that's what I wanted
to read to you here, a stone. The word, the name Cephas, in
the Greek language is the name Peter. So those two names are
the same. And when Jesus saw Peter coming,
he told him, your name, they call you Simon, and you are the
son of Jonas, but you shall be called Peter. Now, I don't know
if you've ever met anybody, and you usually ask them or they
introduce themselves by their name. Hi, my name is Fred, or
whatever their name is. How many times have you ever
met someone and said, hi, your name is Fred, you're gonna be
called Joe, or something like that. That'd be rude, wouldn't
it? It'd be very presumptuous. I
don't like your name, Fred, I'm gonna start calling you Joe. That would be funny, and like
I said, inappropriate. But this was the Lord Jesus.
And it's very appropriate, it's very appropriate for the Lord
to know us. I want him to know me in this
way. And to give us a name, which
name describes us as he would convert us to be. To be this,
Peter, that's his name, Cephas, or Peter, the same thing. And
so I admire the fact that the Lord looked upon Peter when he
came to him and gave him that name. This is your name, Peter.
Simon, this is your name, Peter. And in fact, in scripture, in
the New Testament, he's often called Simon Peter. In fact,
when he wrote the two books with his name, first and second Peter,
he gives the name, he opens the book, Simon Peter, an apostle
of Jesus Christ. So he didn't drop the name Simon,
but he did have this name Peter, and he was often referred to
this. But notice here that Andrew was first brought to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Andrew was Peter's brother, and
it seems like that Andrew must have been either less open, not an extrovert like Peter,
if you want to think of it that way, as his brother Peter was. Andrew was more reserved or something. But I love the fact that Andrew
first, after he came to the Lord Jesus, found his brother Peter.
And this is a very important principle that's taught by that
act. And the principle is this, is
that if we know the Lord Jesus Christ, if we know who he is,
then we're gonna want those we love to know him too, okay? So that shows us that that's
exactly what happened to Andrew. And Andrew said this when he
found his brother Simon, he says in verse 41, we have found the
Messiah. Now that seems like they discovered
him, or they discovered who he was. Really, it should be the
latter. But when the Lord brings us to himself, to us, it's like
we've discovered the truth. We've discovered it for the first
time, the truth about who Christ is. And this is, in fact, emphasizing
the essence of true and saving faith. True faith in Christ is
understanding, with God-given understanding and persuasion,
and trusting who Christ is, who he is. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Andrew knew that, and
when he found Simon, he said, we've found him who is the Messiah. We found the Messiah. The Messiah
had been promised in the Old Testament for all those centuries. Even from the beginning of creation,
God had told Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would bruise
the head of the serpent. That's the Messiah, that's the
Christ, that's the one God had promised. So all of the Old Testament
scriptures could be summarized, someone is coming. And as Henry
Mahan pointed out years ago, I heard this for the first time
from him. And the New Testament, when we read the Gospels, is
the someone who is coming, that was promised by God, is here.
Someone is coming, that's the Old Testament, he's here. That's
the Gospels. And then in the Epistles, he
is coming again. It's about him. It is about him. The whole of Scripture, especially
in the Gospels, when you read them, just read through them
or listen to them being read, whatever you can do, Let it wash
over you, and what you'll find is that it draws out your focus
of attention to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it's meant
to do. Now, in the process of doing that, it has an effect
on us. It makes us low in our own sight, as Brad was just reading
there. And that's what we want to see
here, is how the Lord made a disciple, brought Peter to himself, and
kept him, made him his own disciple, and called him this name, and
fulfilled his work of grace in Peter that Peter became the one
he named here. And that's true of all of God's
people. We become the children of God. We become the followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ by his work. Now notice in the same
text of scripture here in John chapter one, he says this in
verse 43, the day following. Now this was after Andrew had
come to Peter, came to Jesus and spent the rest of the day
with him. And think about what that was like. Andrew came to
where Jesus was staying and spent the rest of the day with him.
What do you think was going on that day? with the two, with
not only Andrew, but the other disciple who heard and came to
Jesus, and Jesus told them, come and see, what did they do? Well,
they came, and they saw, they spent the day with him, and you
know what they were talking about, don't you? It's whatever Jesus
had to say. They were interested in him.
They wanted to hear from him. Now, look at verse 43. He says,
the day following, Jesus would go forth to Galilee and he found
Philip. Christ found Philip. And he said
to him, follow me. And notice the next verse. Now,
Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip
then findeth Nathanael and said to him, what did he say? We have
found him. of whom Moses and the law and
the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
So Philip's message to Nathanael was, we have found the one Moses
and the prophets have written about, but yet it was Christ
who found him. And so the effect of Christ finding
us is that we discover who he truly is, and that is the essence
of faith. And that's the message here that
we're going to get. When Christ made disciples, he
made himself known to them, then they knew who he was and they
followed him. Look at John chapter 9, looking
ahead. John chapter 9, the entire chapter
is about this one miracle that Jesus did to heal a man who was
born blind. But near the end of this chapter,
beginning in verse 35, Jesus, it says in verse 35 of John 9,
heard that they had cast him out. The blind man he had just
healed, the scribes and the Pharisees cast him out because Jesus had
healed him and he was speaking about how Christ was the one
who healed him and that they needed to give attention to this
and honor him as he deserved to be honored because he obviously
had performed a miracle. He must be of God. And so in
verse 35, Jesus found that they had heard that they had cast
him out and when He had found the blind man. He said to the
blind man, does thou believe on the Son of God? Now, the blind
man had his eyes open. He had seen Jesus. But the point
was, do you believe on the Son of God? Do you know who he is? Do you believe who he is? And
verse 36, he answered and said, who is he? He was honest. Who
is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? This blind man was extremely
straightforward, wasn't he? They asked him, who opened your
eyes? How did he do it? He said, I don't know. He said, one thing I do know,
I was blind and now I see. Okay, deal with it. But they
couldn't deal with it, they were offended. Jesus finds them and
said, do you believe on the Son of God? He answered, who is he,
Lord, that I might believe on. Always be honest with the Lord
when you read scripture. because he knows what you are,
and you know you need him. Verse 37, Jesus said to him,
thou hast both seen him, and he it is that talketh with thee.
He made himself known to the blind man, and he said, Lord,
I believe, and he worshiped him. That's the only response, knowing
who he is. Look at 1 John, not this gospel,
but the epistle of 1 John, which is near the end of the New Testament. Notice here in 1 John, in chapter
5, notice how important this is, how this is the essence of
faith, knowing who Christ truly is. He says in 1 John 5, in verse
1, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. This is a fantastic statement.
Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? You didn't come by
that knowledge on your own, not by your intellect, not by your
innate spirituality. This is something you cannot
make happen. God has to reveal him to you. Whoever believes that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God. You've been born of God. That's
why you believe. This is the evidence of being
born of God. You believe Jesus is the Christ. And he says, and everyone that
loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of
him. But look at verse five. Verse 4, he says, For whosoever
is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh
the world? But he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. He's the Son of God. He's the
Christ. And that belief, that belief
in that truth of who Christ is, is a God-given life and birth
by His Spirit from the Gospel declared to us. That's how essential
it is. Now, the Apostle Peter is held
up to us in Scripture as an object lesson of the operation of God's
grace that the Lord Jesus Christ, to every one born of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ, in who He is as Christ and as the Son of
God, and what He did, is the object of our faith, and that
faith is God-given. He is the subject of Scripture.
He is our God and our Savior, and all that is set forth in
Scripture is held up to us in the gospel, and to believe on
the Lord is to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
In John chapter 20 and verse 31, this is the reason John wrote
the gospel. of John, that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing,
believing that, believing Him, believing in Him as the Christ
and Son of God, you might have life through His name. And so
we can see how this comes about when we read here how Andrew
brought Simon to Jesus, which is always what we ought to do.
to bring our loved ones to the Lord Jesus Christ, to tell them
He is the Christ, to tell them He's the Son of God. What does
it mean that He's the Christ, that He is the Son of God? What
does that mean? If you ask people today, do you
believe that Jesus is the Son of God? I suspect that most people
who profess to be Christians, even those of cults, like Mormonism
and Jehovah's Witnesses and others, Catholics and Armenians, all
these false religions would confess, well, of course, Jesus is the
son of God. But what does that mean? And
they might have trouble answering the rest of that question, wouldn't
they? Do we know what it means that
Jesus is the son of God? What does it mean to you and
me? Well, scripture tells us precisely what it means. It means
that he's God over all. It means that the fullness of
the Godhead dwells in him bodily. In His manhood, He is God. He is God and man. The man is God. And the God,
who is the Son of God, has taken our nature, only a perfect human
nature, into union with Himself, and He is the Son of God. The
one that the people then saw, Jesus of Nazareth, that one is
the Son of God. The Son of God. The Apostle Paul
says, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Those
words are showing us what it means that he is the Son of God. The one who is the heir of all
things by nature, all things that are God the Father's are
his. God has not only given them to him as the mediator, but they're
his by his relation to God as God himself. Equal with God in
every way. And yet He is the Son of God
and He has taken our nature to save His people from their sins.
He's the Son of God. He is God over all. He is the
fullness of the Godhead. He's the express image of His
person, the outshining of the very brightness of God's glory,
the Son of God. Now Peter learned this and he
learned it through a progression of interactions with the Lord
Jesus Christ through the words of the Lord to himself. It says,
and I want to take you to some of these accounts in the New
Testament. Look back at the book of Luke.
This is one of the first accounts. It's hard to say precisely what
the chronological order is here, but it seems like the first thing
that happened, the first encounter here, is that Peter was brought
by Andrew to the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus said, you are Simon,
son of Jonah, you shall be called Peter. Look at Luke chapter four. In Luke chapter four, and in
verse 38, It says that the Lord Jesus, he arose out of the synagogue
and entered into Simon's house, okay? Now, he had just left the
synagogue and he went to Simon's house. So Simon had a house and
he had a wife. And the next part says, and Simon's
wife's mother, his mother-in-law, was taken with a great fever
and they besought him for her. So they asked Jesus concerning
his mother-in-law. Who were the they that besought
Jesus, that begged Jesus concerning her? Well, it would have been
Peter, obviously, and probably his wife. She lay there with
his great fever. She couldn't move. Very, very
sick. But the synagogue event that
he refers to before this just comes before. And notice in verse
18 of Luke 4. In verse 18, the Lord Jesus Christ
had come into the synagogue. This is the very beginning of
his ministry. It was given to him when he came
to the synagogue to read from the prophet Isaiah, that's verse
17, but in verse 18 he says this, the spirit of the Lord is upon
me. That's a fantastic statement,
what does that mean? It means he's the anointed, that
he's the Christ. Because this is required, the
anointed means God's spirit was on him. He has anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor, sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed the book. He gave it
again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of all them
that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began
to say to them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."
Amazing, isn't it? He read from scripture that God,
the Spirit of God would be on Christ, and he's reading this
to them. He said, this is fulfilled today
in your ears. I'm reading from scripture telling
you it's fulfilled in me. And all that bear him witness
and wondered, And all bear him witness, and wondered at the
gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said,
Is not this Joseph's son? And he said to them, You will
surely say to me, This proverb, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, Verily I say to you, No prophet is accepted in
his own country. But I tell you of a truth. Many
widows were in Israel in the days of of Elijah, it says Elias
here, it's the same one as Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land, but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta,
a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow, and many lepers
were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none
of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. Okay, so what
is he saying by all this? God showed mercy to these Gentiles,
a widow in Sidon, a captain of the Syrian army in Syria, a leper,
and a widow. And that was it. There were no
other widows that Elijah was sent to in those days, and no
other lepers were healed, but the one that Elisha came to and
healed in those days. And they asked him to do the
same miracles. He's telling them, God's grace
is distinguishing. He has mercy on whom he will
have mercy. And now, right after that, he
leaves. They tried to kill him. They tried to throw him over
the cliff. He walked through the crowd of these people, and
he left the synagogue, and he went to Peter's house. What was
Peter then? He was one on whom the Lord had
distinguishing mercy and grace. You see that? And so he's in
their house, and Simon and his wife most likely are the they
here in verse 38, who asked him, who prayed him, who besought
him for her, their mother. And notice in verse 39, and Jesus
stood over her and rebuked the fever and the fever left her
and she immediately arose and ministered to them. See, amazing
miracle. That's distinguishing mercy of
the Lord. He had compassion on Peter's
mother-in-law. He healed her, she got up, she
was immediately freed from that fever. Not like when you take
Tylenol or Advil or something like that, takes a while. She
just got right up as if she wasn't sick at all. And she took care
of them. She ministered to them. Now that's what happened first.
And Peter had to know this. It says in the next verse, when
the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with diverse
diseases brought them to Jesus, and he laid his hands on every
one of them and healed them. Devils also came out of many,
crying out, saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of God. And he
rebuked them, suffering them not to speak, for they knew that
he was Christ. All right, so when the day was
spent, he went into this desert place, and he said, I must preach
the kingdom of God to other cities, and he preached in the synagogue
of Galilee. Now we see, we're entering in chapter five of Luke,
where Brad just read to us. What happened here was another
event, yet again, a second time, where it talks about Jesus' encounter
with Peter. And here, we see the effect of
the miracle that Jesus performed. Peter is in the boat, the other
disciples are not with them in that boat. Jesus gets into the
boat because he's preaching to this multitude of people. And
then after he's done preaching, he asked Simon, Peter, to push
out and to let down his net. And Peter said, well, we've done
this all night. He says in verse five, Simon
answered and said, master, we've toiled all night and have taken
nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word I will
let down the net." He had been with Jesus when he healed his
mother-in-law. Now he's with him in the boat.
He heard him preach. He saw him delivering these people
from the devils and healing the sick. And now he's going to see
another miracle. When they had done this, they
enclosed a great multitude of fishes in their net break and
they beckoning to their partners. They were in the other ship that
they should come help them. They came, they filled both ships
so that they began to sink. But we've been laboring all night.
What happened? The Lord spoke. The Creator speaks
to the fish. They get in the net and so many
that the nets were gonna break. They got another ship. They filled
both ships. The ships were about to sink.
There was so many fish. But they labored all night and
caught nothing. But when the Lord spoke, the fish got in the
net and the disciples were catching the fish. And so at the end of
this, he said in verse 10, fear not from henceforth thou shalt
catch men. There's the lesson, right? When
Christ sent his disciples to preach the gospel, that was just
parallel to him telling them, you cast the net on that side
of the boat. And when they did, it was full
of fish, so when they preached the gospel, Christ called his
people to get into the gospel net, and they were brought to
him. You see? That's what Fishers
of Men has to do with. But when Peter, in this account,
saw what Jesus did, he recognized then in his own personal conviction
that he was the Christ, the Son of God. You see, when God gives
us faith, it comes sometimes initially as a conversion, but
then it also comes as a repeating of that, doesn't it? We're made
aware of it again and again and again, and it has an effect upon
us. In fact, we are dependent upon
not only the first revelation of Christ to us of himself, but
of every revelation of himself after that. And notice how the
effect of that knowledge of who Christ was, what that had on
Peter. Notice the effect in verse 8,
when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees. Picture
this, this burly extrovert of a man who was impetuous, if you
will. He ran without thinking many
times into a scene, and he just had confidence that he could
deal with it. Let's just do it. It's that kind of a guy. There's
something to be done. I'm doing it. I'm going for it.
And he didn't stop and think about a lot of the consequences.
He just ran forward. But when he saw who Jesus was,
he fell down at Jesus' knees. utterly submissive, and he said,
Lord, depart from me. I am a sinful man, O Lord. That's the effect. You don't
want to have anything to do with me. But by God's grace, the Lord
didn't leave him. That's our reaction when we see
Christ. What would he have to do with
me? I am a sinful man. You see how
the operation of the Lord working in Peter's life had an effect
on him? It brought him down. Not just
this time, but many other times. Look at chapter 14 of Luke, or
actually Matthew chapter 14. Another account here of Peter
and the effect of, and the teaching. This is Christ the master teaching
him. In Matthew chapter 14, it says
in verse 21, that's where I'm going to start reading, the effect
of Christ's work to teach and to bring Peter to himself. He
says in verse 21, when the crowd had eaten, The day that had eaten
were about 5,000 men beside the women and children. In straightway,
Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go
before him to the other side while he sent away the multitudes.
And when they had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain
apart to pray. And when the evening was come,
he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst
of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. Notice
the setting. The Lord has arranged it. He's
not with his disciples, he's praying. Who is he praying for?
Well, obviously he's praying to his father, but he's the high
priest who was taken from among men and he was ordained for men
in things pertaining to God. He's praying as the intercessor,
the mediator for his people. He's praying for his disciples.
So the ship was in the sea, the sea was tossed with waves, the
wind was contrary. How are they going to make any
progress? How are they going to be kept from drowning? The
Lord is praying for them. And in verse 25, in the fourth
watch of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea. So
not only did He pray, but He came to them. Don't miss these
clear references to the spiritual work of Christ in the life of
all of His people, praying for them, coming to them in the midst
of the storm. Verse 26, When the disciples
saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is
a spirit. And they cried out for fear.
But straightway Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. That's what Christ says in the
storm of the lives of his people, be of good cheer. That storm,
it is I. In that storm, just like Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, with them in the fiery furnace and the
floods, they won't come near you. Christ is with his people. He never leaves them. Be of good
cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid. Verse
28, Peter answered him, said, Lord, If it be you, then bid
me come to thee on the water. In other words, if I have found
grace in your sight, then command me, come to you walking on the
water. That's a great faith, isn't it?
And when Peter was, he said, and the Lord said to him in verse
29, come, come. When Peter was coming down out
of the ship, he walked on the water. to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous,
he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried,
Lord, save me. Do you see the experience of
grace? Depart from me. I am a sinful
man, O Lord. Lord, save me. This is the work
of the operation of God in the lives of His people, in the lives
of His disciples as Christ teaches them. They see who He is and
they learn by experience through crying to Him that He's their
Savior and they depend on Him and immediately Jesus. Notice
this strong, undoubtedly strong, weathered fisherman sinking in
this sea, and Christ reaches out his hand and grabs hold of
him and pulls him up. the strength of almighty grace
pulling this man out of the drowning, the raging sea. Again, speaking
to us of how Christ delivers his people from the wrath to
come and from every enemy of their soul, he stretched out
his hand and he caught him and he said to him, O thou of little
faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? So what we see here also is that
Peter's bold faith When he said, Lord, if it's you, command me
to come to you on the water. And he began to walk on the water.
That faith was mixed with doubt. And every believer in the same
way has doubt when they have the greatest faith. Do you see
that? It's amazing how the Lord teaches
us through these men. And now look at Matthew chapter
16, just across the page, in verse 13. Another account, verse
13, when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he
asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I, the Son
of Man, am? And they said, some say that
thou art John the Baptist. Others, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah,
or one of the prophets. Though they were all over the
map, weren't they? You could be this, you could be that. These
were great men. But that was really an insult to compare him
to them, because he is infinitely greater than any prophet. He's
not just a man. He wasn't a man born and then
sent from God. He was the son of God who was
sent and then born. And he said to them, but whom
do you say that I am? This is the question. This is
how the Lord addresses His people. This is how He teaches us. He
asks us questions in order that we might go again to Him for
the answer. And having learned from Him and
then saying what He has taught us, it reveals that it is His
grace that has saved us and not our own strength or righteousness. And He said to them, Whom do
you say that I am? You. You, Mary. You, Bernadine. You, Denise. You, Brad, Tim,
Tom, and Francis. Who do you say? Rick, who do
you say that I am? You see? It's always to you.
The scripture is not written for that person over there or
those people out there. It's written to me. and put yourself
always in the pages of scripture as the one the Lord is speaking
to. He reveals our sinfulness. In
Luke chapter five, verse eight, depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful
man. He reveals our need of being saved when we're sinking because
of our unbelief and he rescues us and then tells us why do you
doubt. He reveals our need for us, for
him to pray for us and come to us and save us. from the storm-tossed
sea, to make us fishers of men. We can't do the work. To tell
us where to cast the net and when to cast it. And here he's
teaching us that he asks this question of us in order that
we might go to him. Lord, who are you? Who are you,
Lord, that I might believe on you? Isn't that what the blind
man said? And Peter says, notice he says, whom do you say? And Simon Peter, he always seemed
like he was the forefront person speaking on behalf of the other
disciples. And he also was ready to say
something first. Sometimes it was spot on, like
here, and other times it was way off base. He was not afraid to just say. what he knew, even though it
was wrong, and he had to be corrected for it. Someone said that the
way that we learn the most is by making mistakes. But how are
we going to make mistakes if we never do anything? So you
got to get busy. My boss would tell me, I'd tell
him, I really screwed up. I made a mistake. He said, well,
you wouldn't be earning your money if you weren't doing something,
and you aren't going to do something without making mistakes. So making
mistakes shows that you're actually doing some work. I took some
small measure of comfort in that. Here Peter says, Peter answered,
I want to tell you, I know this, I got this. Thou art the Christ,
the prophet, anointed with the Spirit of God to be the revelation
of God and to bring God's Word, to speak with the authority of
God because He is the Son of God. The priest who represents
us to God and offers himself to God for our sins and brings
us to God and reconciles us by his own propitiation in himself. And the king who saves us from
our enemies and gives us all the blessings of God with the
authority to give the Spirit of God to us and give us life. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of God, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, Blessed
art thou, Simon bar Jonah, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood
has not revealed it to thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.
And I say unto you that thou art Peter. Notice how he's bringing
his name back. And upon this rock, I will build
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Now, what does that mean, that Jesus gave him the keys, or gave
unto them the keys of the kingdom of heaven? He gave him the revelation
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the revelation of
the gospel. The gospel is the key. And everyone
to whom the gospel comes and it sets them free to worship
God by removing their sins and opening their eyes to the truth
of who Christ is and God's eternal purpose of love and grace to
save His people from their sins by Him alone. When those keys
enter the hearts of His people and set them free, they enter
heaven. And that same gospel also has
the effect on those who don't believe it of shutting them up
to the darkness of being cast out. They reject Christ. They do not want a Savior. They do not need a Savior. They're
happy and content to help some fictitious God to do the work
of their salvation. Peter didn't think that. He knew
he needed a Savior. And so does everyone else. So
the keys of the kingdom of heaven is the gospel given to the apostles
to preach. And by the spirit of God, it
would set free his people. And it would also close up the
prison doors of those who rejected Christ to their own righteousness. And that is a darkness, isn't
it? To be left in a pride of our
own righteousness, depending on ourselves to somehow get saved. by doing our part or by doing
something God can accept. So this is the this is the rock. What is the rock? Jesus Christ,
it says in First Corinthians chapter three, is the foundation. No other foundation can any man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. He's the foundation,
and He is the cornerstone. He's the stumbling stone, the
one God, the builders rejected, but God made Him the chief cornerstone
of the temple. And that same temple, which is
the people of God, the walls of it are walls of salvation.
Not their own brick and mortar, not their own works, but Christ
and Him crucified is the walls of that temple. And in 1 Peter
2, verse 5, we are stones, living stones in that temple. So the
rock and the foundation is Christ and Him crucified. And the stones
that are placed into that temple by the work of God are the people
of His choosing, the people of His saving grace. This is the rock. Christ is the
rock. The confession, the belief, the
understanding that He is the rock, the Christ, the Son of
God, the only Savior of sinners, God our Savior. When God our
Savior, when after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy, He saved us. That's the rock. Not Peter, not me, not anyone
else. If Peter was the rock of our
salvation, do you realize what that would mean? As we're going
through this and seeing the utter weakness and sinfulness, even
by Peter's own admission, he was no rock. But he trusted Christ. That made Peter a little stone
in the temple. And we are, like Peter, little
stones in that same temple. So we see this, how the Lord
taught this. Look at also, there's many other
places and I'll just have to cut it short now, but look at
this one here in John chapter 13, the gospel of John again
in chapter 13. And here we see fantastic how
the Lord Jesus as the master teaching his disciples. It says
in John 13 verse one, now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour was come to go to the cross, that
he should depart out of this world unto the father, having
loved his own, who did he love? His own, which were in the world,
he loved them unto the end." There was no break, no break
of the chain. His love began before they loved him or knew
him, and it went beyond their love for him. Supper being ended,
the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
Simon's son, a different Simon, To betray him, Jesus knowing
that the Father had given all things into his hand and that
he was come from God and went to God, what did he do when he
knew that he came from God and went to God? He laid aside, he
rises from supper and he laid aside his garments. He stripped
himself and he took a towel as the lowest servant performing
the lowest task and he girded himself with a towel and after
that he poured water into a basin, and he began to wash the disciples'
feet, and to wipe them with a towel wherewith he was girded. And
he came to Simon, notice, he came to Simon Peter, and Peter
said, he protested, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? He was naturally,
he knew that Christ was his master, that he was Christ, the Son of
God, he was not going to let him wash his feet. But that is
not what grace teaches us. Jesus answered and said to him,
What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter said, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus said to him,
If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. And then Peter
said, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus said, he that is washed needeth not save to wash his
feet, but is clean everywit. And you are clean, but not all. Christ had washed, he had cleansed
all of his 11 disciples from their sins, and now he is washing
their feet in the place of the lowest servant to teach them
something. And the something he's about
to teach them would come through a painful lesson on Peter's part. First, he would have to let the
Lord stoop and wash his own filthy feet. But he had stooped much
lower to cleanse him from his sins, and he didn't yet know
that. But when the Lord took his feet
into his hands and washed his feet, Christ having laid aside
his clothes and now with that towel in that basin of water,
washing Peter's feet, it was a very humbling thing for Peter
to endure. But after he washed his feet,
he said to them in verse 13, You call me Master and Lord,
and you say, well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master,
have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
I have given you an example that you should do as I've done to
you. Verily, verily, I say to you, the servant is not greater
than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that
sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.
I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen, but
that the scripture may be fulfilled. He that eats bread with me has
lifted up his heel against me." He didn't choose Judas, he didn't
clean Judas, but Judas was there with the twelve when he washed
their feet. Now they go through this process where All the disciples
are wondering, who is this that's going to betray you? And John
is laying his head over on Jesus' breast at the meal, and Peter
asked John, ask him. Ask the Lord who it is. And so
John said, who is it, Lord? And he answered, the one I give
the sop to after I've dipped it. And after he dipped the sop,
he gave it to Judas, and he told Judas, what you do, do quickly.
And Judas got up and left, and the disciples wondered, did Jesus
just send him out to give something to the poor because he took care
of the money? They all were in the dark as
to who it was that betrayed him. But then Jesus says this, after
Judas had left. When only the 11, who all were
cleaned by Jesus, He had chosen them and cleaned them. Verse
31, when He was gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of Man glorified
and God is glorified in Him. How was He glorified in Him?
Well, He would be glorified in Him at the cross. But here, notice,
how was the majesty and the nature and the character and the purpose
of God revealed in Christ's act toward His disciples? in His
disrobing Himself in their eyes and laying aside His garments
and taking a towel and washing their feet. The greatest of all,
the Son of God, stoops to wash the filthy feet of His disciples,
and in that we see the majesty and the glory of God. That's grace. Grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. And Peter is seeing this, and
he says to them, he says to them, a new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another as I have loved you. You see that,
verse 34? By this shall all men know that
you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. And Simon,
thinking about the fact that the Lord said he's going to be
taken from them, that he's going to be glorified, he says, Lord,
where are you going? Jesus answered, whither I go,
you can't follow me now, but you shall follow me afterwards.
And you can just hear the gears grinding in Peter's head afterwards. He says, Lord, why can't I follow
you now? I will lay down my life for thy
sake Jesus answered him, will you lay down your life for my
sake? Jesus didn't need Peter to defend him. He didn't need
him to die for him. The Lord was going to die for
his disciples. And then they would be, by love,
required to lay their lives down. But not because he needed it,
but because it would be done out of love as they followed
their Lord And Jesus said, verily, verily, I say to you, the cock
shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. And what would
happen after that? Peter would bitterly weep in
the greatest sorrow. And then the Lord Jesus, after
Peter had denied him three times and cursed and said, I do not
know the man, in that fall, Jesus' eye caught Peter's eye and he
looked upon him And Peter wept bitterly. That was the dirty
feet that Peter needed to have washed. And that's the dirty
feet of all of His disciples, that in love to one another,
we are required to wash. As the Lord washed His feet,
washed all of the disciples' feet, so He washes our feet now,
and we are to love one another as He has loved us, to look to
Christ and to realize what He's done, who He is, and so be humbled
in ourselves as we ought to be humbled, but then not left there,
not left there in this state of wallowing in the filth of
our own guilt, because that would be to imagine that we could somehow
remove that guilt, but only trusting Christ. being convinced that
if God is satisfied with him, we can be satisfied with him,
and to worship God and worship Christ that He, our God and Savior,
has so stooped to take away our sins and daily gives us His grace
to know Him and to follow Him. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your mercy and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, our
Lord and our God, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thank
you, Lord, that you have persuaded us of this fact, that you've
given us the good news of the gospel so that even though we
say in our heart with shame, depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful
man. Yet the Lord speaks to us and
says, come, come. And we come because He calls,
we follow because He draws us, we learn because He teaches us.
We are received because He washed us and we are daily taught to
depend on His lowly and humility that He would so stoop to save
us from our sins that we would love Him above everything in
this life and love those He loves because we've been saved like
them by Him. Thank you, Lord, for this great
salvation and our Savior for His great grace. In His name
we pray. Amen.