Peter: The Disciple who Recovered

Climb into your time machine and come with me back to the year 1929. It’s January 1, New Year’s Day. We’re sitting in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California, along with 100,000 screaming football fans. Down on the field, the University of California Golden Bears are slugging it out with the Yellow Jackets from Georgia Tech.

It’s a scoreless game, when all of a sudden, Georgia Tech fumbles the ball on their own 35 yard line. There’s a mad scramble for it. Roy Riegels of the Golden Bears scoops up the loose ball and heads for the goal line.

Unfortunately, he’s heading for the wrong goal line! In the confusion of the pile-up, Riegels has lost his bearings, and now he’s running towards his own end-zone just as fast as his legs will carry him.

The crowd leaps to its feet. The U. of California fans are screaming at him to stop. The Ramblin’ Wrecks from Georgia Tech are urging on. One of Riegels teammates, Benny Lom, sets out after him in hot pursuit. Just as Riegels reaches the five yard line and begins to slow down, Benny Lom tackles him from behind. The crowd goes wild.

Before they can get up, Lom yells at him “Roy, you were going the wrong way!” That’s when the awful truth begins to dawn on Riegels. He looks up in the stands and sees the Georgia Tech fans cheering and laughing at him. The California fans are beside themselves with despair. Riegels begins to sense a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. But the game goes on.

The California offensive unit trots onto the field and lines up with their backs against their own goal-line, thanks to Wrong Way Riegels’ magnificent run. They go nowhere on three plays and have to punt on fourth down. Georgia Tech blocks the punt and scores a safety. That’s how the first half ends, with Georgia Tech leading 2-0.

In the California dressing room at halftime, there was an eerie silence. Nobody knew what to say to Riegels. He sat slumped in a corner, with a towel around his shoulders and his face in his hands. The minutes ticked by like hours until finally it was time to go out for the second half.

The coach announced that there wouldn’t be any changes in the line-up. The players got up and with the crash of cleats on concrete, started out to the field. All except for Riegels. He just sat there slumped in the corner. Coach Price went over to him and said “Roy, didn’t you hear me? I said that the same line-up that played the first half is going to start the second.”

Riegels looked up at him. His face was wet with tears. “Coach,” he said, “I can’t do it. I’ve ruined you. I’ve ruined the university’s reputation. I’ve ruined myself. I can’t go out there and face those people.”

Coach Price reached out and gently put his hand on Roy’s shoulder. He said “Son, get up and go on back out there. The game is only half over.”

Roy Riegels did get up and went out and played the best thirty minutes of football in his entire life. He had been given another chance.

The story of Wrong Way Riegels is a story about recovering from failure.

Someone has said “Failure is the back door to success.” But it is equally true that failure can actually be the front door to total defeat. You can become so paralyzed by failure that you give up. You stop trying. You become convinced that you’re a loser, that you’ll never succeed. So you throw in the towel. And nowhere is this more possible than in your personal relationship with God.

At the Bronx Zoo in New York City, there is a cage with a single bird in it. That bird is a magnificent bald eagle, the national symbol of the United States. But there is something tragically wrong with that bald eagle. One of its wings is permanently broken.

That bald eagle was found in that condition on Eastern Long Island. Someone had shot it, but the bullet had only shattered its wing. So now that beautiful bald eagle sits quietly on a perch in a cage in a zoo. He was created to be the king of the sky, but he’ll never fly again.

There are a lot of Christians like that. Maybe you’re one of them. People who are living with the broken wing of failure. It may be the wreckage of a marriage that didn’t work. It may be a broken relationship between previously best friends. It may be financial failure, or business failure, or academic failure. Bad decisions… hasty words spoken in anger that you desperately wish you could take back. It may be a painful personal failure that only you and God know about.

Whatever it is, you feel like you’ve let God down. You may feel as though you’re dirty, and spoiled and unworthy—no longer useful to Him.

That’s where we find the apostle Peter in John 21. His world was broken. Certainly he was glad that Jesus had risen from the dead, but where did that leave him? At Jesus’ trial, when he could have stood up and taken a stand for the Lord, when he could have been a champion for Christ, he responded with the greatest failure of his life.

Peter had always been a “larger than life” kind of guy. His name always appears first on the list of Jesus twelve disciples. He was a natural leader.

When there was something to be said, Peter was the one to say it. And when there was nothing to be said, Peter was also the one to say that. He was the spokesman; an impulsive, impetuous, “talk-first, think-later” kind of guy.

Peter was always claiming that he loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples did. When Jesus predicted that they would all fall away, Peter said “No way. Not me. Maybe those guys will fall away, Lord, but I won’t. I’ll hang in there, you can count on me. I’ll be there for you.” On another occasion, Peter said to Jesus “I will even lay down my life for you.”

When they went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter had somehow gotten hold of a sword and he actually used it in defense of Jesus. I guess he fancied himself as Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.

But later that same night, in the courtyard of the high priest where Jesus was standing trial, Peter’s courage melted away like wax in a flame. A little servant girl accused Peter of being one of Jesus’ followers. There were a lot of soldiers and police standing around and, undoubtedly, they pricked up their ears.

Maybe by that time, it was starting to dawn on Peter that it was getting seriously dangerous to be a follower of Jesus. His master was under arrest and on trial for his life. There was a very good chance that Peter might be next.

So he answered the little girl, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He denied knowing Jesus.

A little later, another servant pointed to him and said “That fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.” But again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. He swore “I do not even know the man.”

Finally, about an hour later, some of the bystanders accused him, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean. Your accent gives you away.” Well, by that time, Peter was really scared. So he began to call curses down on himself and he swore to them “I do not even know this man you’re talking about.”

And that’s when the rooster crowed. And that’s when Peter remembered that Jesus had said “Before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times.” And Peter ran from that place and wept bitterly.

Where he went, we do not know. But I guarantee you one thing: his failure went with him. It dogged his every footstep. It wouldn’t let him alone. It became his constant bitter companion in the days to come.

Big Peter - the fellow who boasted that he was going to die for Jesus; the man whose name means Rock - crumbled into sand when a little servant girl questioned him.

What a failure! What an embarrassment. I’m sure that Peter was convinced that the Lord would never even want to lay eyes on him again, let alone use him.

But in John 21, after Jesus had risen from the dead, he came to Galilee for a very special appointment with Peter. It was by a campfire, remember, that Peter had disowned Jesus. And now, by another campfire on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus dealt with Peter’s failure.

Was that just another day at the beach? Hardly! That encounter by the lake was going to decisively shape the rest of Peter’s life. That’s why John 21 is one of the most important passages in the Bible for people whose wings have been broken by failure. Let’s look at three lessons that God has for us.

1. Just because you’ve failed doesn’t mean that God is finished with you.

Look at the way Jesus addressed Peter in this passage. He calls him “Simon, son of John.” He doesn’t call him Peter. He doesn’t call him “Rocky”, in other words. He uses Peter’s former name, his given name, the name by which he was known before he met Jesus.

Why does he do that? He does it to remind Peter of his old self, of his old life, of who he was before Jesus came into his life. You see, Peter was standing at a crossroads. He had a choice to make. Peter was teetering on the brink of going back to that old life. At the beginning of this chapter, he had said to his buddies “I’m going fishing.” And he didn’t mean fishing for men, which is what Jesus had promised to teach him how to do.

Peter meant fishing for fish. He figured that that was all there was left for him to do. Those wonderful days of service and ministry with Jesus were over.

Now, because of his failure, there was nothing left for him to do but go back to his old life. He had blown it; he had left Jesus in the lurch. He had lost his chance to have a real impact for God. He had ruined his testimony. He had destroyed his own credibility. So God was finished with him.

Except for one thing: here was Jesus, sitting by him on the beach asking “Simon, do you love me?” The very first time Jesus had said that name “Simon” was on this beach, where he had called Peter to follow him in the first place. Now, here he was calling him again. Jesus wasn’t finished with him.

Jesus asked him three times “Do you love me?” Why three times? Well, the answer is pretty easy. Because Peter had denied Jesus three times.

I’m sure that Peter burned with shame over the memory of those three denials. I’m sure that he cringed with disgust as he thought of how he had cursed and swore that he didn’t even know the Lord. How could he ever live that down?

But Jesus gave Peter another chance; a chance to say now what he could have said, and should have said, back beside that other campfire in the courtyard of the high priest.

Here on the beach, and I like to think it was near the place where he had first met Peter a couple of years ago, Jesus was giving Peter a chance to start over. Peter’s failure didn’t mean that God was finished with him.

From this point on, Peter was a changed man; a humble man. Gone was the big mouth that always got him into trouble. Gone was that reckless, impetuous nature that wounded people and made him look like a fool.

Jesus brought him face to face with who he really was, and said “Simon, I love you anyway. I’m not finished with you. And I forgive you for what you did.”

God never tires of new beginnings. When God forgives you, he gives you a fresh start.

2. Jesus paid for our failures so that we don’t have to pay for them ourselves.

There’s an old chorus that goes “God can do anything, anything, anything…” But did you know that there are some things that God cannot do?

Because he is a holy God, He can’t treat our sin as though it didn’t exist. He cannot merely sweep the wrong that we do under the rug. Because of his holy character, God can’t say “Let’s forget it. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.”

When we sin, we breach God’s perfect will. We sully his standard and fall short of his glory. Our sin is an offense to God. It is a wrong that must be put right; a debt that must be paid, a crime that must be judged. God cannot pretend that sin doesn’t exist.

How does God deal with sin? He does it by banishing us from his presence. Anyone who sins is separated from God; after all, what fellowship can light have with darkness? The Bible says “The wages of sin is death” meaning spiritual separation from God.

But that is where Jesus stepped in and said “Wait. I have a solution. In order for you to be able to have fellowship with God, I will take the guilt of your sin upon me. I will pay the debt; I will serve your sentence.” He could do that because He was without sin.

And that’s what he did when he died on the cross. He took the burden of all of our sins on himself, so that we might go free. He experienced the anguish of separation from God so that we would not have to. He bore the wrath of God for us.

Many years ago, a farmer and his daughter were walking through the tall grass on the Canadian prairie. Suddenly, off in the distance, they saw smoke. It was a prairie wildfire and they realized that it was rapidly moving their way.

There was no time for them to run and father knew that there was only one way of escape. He set fire to a large patch of grass right where they were. Then, when the big fire drew near, they stood in the middle of the section that had already been burned.

As the wildfire came closer, and began to roar around them the little girl became terrified.. But her father assured her, “Honey, don’t be afraid. The fire can’t get to us because we’re standing where the fire has already burned.”

If you are trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior, you do not need to fear the judgment of God against sin because you’re standing where the fire has already burned.

When Jesus held out the hand of forgiveness to Peter that day by the lake, it was a hand that had a nail print in it. Jesus didn’t ask Peter “What are you going to do to make up for what you did?” He simply asked him “Do you love me?”

The nail print in his hand said the rest. It said “What you did has been paid for. I paid for it. Can you love a Savior who’s done everything for you?”

So many people are going through life trying to atone for their own sins. Trying to make up to God for their own failures. Trying to win God’s favor. And God doesn’t want them to do that.

The only way to experience God’s forgiveness is to come to grips with the fact that there’s nothing you can do. It was your failures and my failures that Jesus came to atone for, and doing that cost him his life.

Those are the only terms on which we can know God’s forgiveness. We need to recognize that “Jesus paid it all; all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; he washed it white as snow.” So there’s nothing I can do, or need to do, in God’s eyes to make up for my sin. He’s done it all.

3. Loving Jesus is the only way to recover from failure and become useful to God

As they sat on the beach eating their fish filet sandwiches, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And each time, Peter said “Lord, you know I love you.” Notice the humility in that reply. The old Peter would have blustered “Of course I love you, Lord.” And he probably would have bragged and boasted about how much he loved him.

But the new Peter said “Lord, you know I love you. You know, because you know all about me. You know, because you can look right into my heart. You know the quality of my love, and you’ve known it all along. You know that my love for you used to be sheer selfishness — nothing but bravado — empty boasting to make myself look good.

“Jesus, you know that my love for you now isn’t based on my strength or my power. It’s based on what’s happening right here on this beach. It’s based on the fact that you still love me, even after what I did to you. Even though I let you down. Even though I helped to put you on that cross. That’s where my love comes from now.”

The Bible says “we love him because he first loved us.” You can’t really love Jesus unless you’ve experienced just how much He loves you. And that kind of love is what it takes to serve Him.

When Jesus saw that Peter really loved him, he gave him a job to do. He put him back in service. He said “Feed my sheep. Take care of my lambs.” He knew that now, Peter was on the right track to becoming an effective servant because his service was going to flow from love.

Hudson Taylor was the founder of the China Inland Mission. One day he was interviewing some young people who had signed up to go to China as missionaries. He asked them a number of practical questions about their qualifications, and then he concluded by asking each one of them “Why do you want to go to China as a missionary?”

Some of them answered that they wanted to go because the need was so great. Several hundred million Chinese people had never heard the gospel. Others said they wanted to go because Christ commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations. They wanted to go in obedience to that command.

Taylor looked at them thoughtfully and said, “All of your motives are good, but I fear they will fail you in times of severe testing — especially if you have to face death for your testimony. The only motive that will enable you to remain true is that the love of Christ constrains you.”

You may be a Sunday School teacher or a youth leader; you may sing in the choir or serve on one the church boards or committees. You may have taken on that responsibility because somebody asked you to, or because there was a need, or because you knew that it was a way that you could help out.

There are a lot of reasons why people sign up to serve the Lord. Some people serve God out of a sense of duty. There’s a job to be done and somebody’s gotta do it! Some people serve God for selfish reasons. Maybe they like the ego strokes that come from being recognized, or having a title, or being in charge. I’ve known people who have even served God out of anger, or bitterness, or envy.

There are a lot of reasons why people serve the Lord. But there’s only one reason that’s valid. Let me tell you something very carefully. If you are involved in ministry for any reason other than that you love Jesus with all your heart, then you are doing it for the wrong reason.

Sooner or later, that’ll become evident. Sooner or later the pressures of ministry are going to get under your skin. Because when you are involved in ministry, you’re involved with people. And people can be a pain in the neck.

You’re going to get frustrated with them. You’re going to get angry with them. You’re going to get resentful of them when they treat you unfairly, or when they don’t appreciate what you do. And eventually, you’re going to be defeated.

The only motivation that will sustain you in the ministry of the kingdom of God is that you love Jesus because he first loved you. You’re overwhelmed with the fact that God has forgiven your for your failures and your sins.

1. Just because you’ve failed doesn’t mean God is finished with you.

2. Jesus died to pay for your failure so that you wouldn’t have to.

3. Loving Jesus is the only way to recover from failure and become useful to God.

Peter went to the beach a broken man. But he came back a changed man, a new man, because Jesus met him there in his failure.