Introduction:
Every year a list of fears people have is published, we know them as phobias, things that people are debilitatingly afraid of, if you end up in this situation things will literally shut down for you and the fear associated with the phobia takes over. There are very common phobias that we know of: claustrophobia: the fear of tight spaces, acrophobia: the fear of heights, for those who know my personal hatred for spiders there is arachnophobia, there are many common phobias that we deal with as humans every day.
But there are also some not so common phobias some that you may not have every heard of: There is Nomophobia: fear of not having mobile access, there is Ablutophobia: fear of bathing, this one becomes very apparent with junior high boys at summer camp, there is Spectrophobia: the fear of one’s one reflection and of course there is Phobophbia: the fear of phobias.
There is no shortage of phobias, things that we are afraid of, but one that is perhaps one of the most common, least talked about phobias is Kakorrhaphiophobia: The fear of failure.
How many of you have failed so massively that you never want to do so in that way ever again? Or perhaps you have tried so hard to not fail, to try to make sure everything is perfect, that you get lost in the see of indecision because you are trying so hard not to fail? I know I have, but what I have also learned is there is an appropriate place of failure in our lives. We fail, we learn, we grow, we move forward. Where failure becomes a problem for us is when it becomes a fear, I am so afraid to fail that I will spend more time trying to not fail that I will pursuing living the life God has for me. In many ways this lifestyle of not wanting to fail creates a grim reality for us; as we move day by day closer to the reality of meeting the Lord face to face, (no man escapes that), the more days we waste trying to not fail, the less time we have to live in intimacy with God.
There is a great line from one of my favorite movies The Shawshank Redemption. Morgan Freeman’s character, a wise old stick up man named Red, after spending years in prison says this, “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.” Well living in the fear of not failing, you’ve done plenty of dying without a lot of living!
Friends we live in a fallen, sinful world that sets us up for failure, but there has to be a way for us to live without the fear of failure and know how to respond when we fail.
Transition:
Open your Bibles with me to Acts 4 starting at verse 5. As we continue in our series Everyday Leaders, Biblical Principles of Leadership for Every Christian today we are going to look at a leader who failed, possibly in the worse way you can fail, a man who denied the Lord Jesus Christ, today we are going to be looking at Peter, The Failed Leader. I call him the failed leader, not because that defines him, but because of where his failure brought him, that failure was a part of his narrative just like it is for us. And what we are going to learn from Peter this morning is that Failure is a Building Block for Growth in Jesus Christ.
Let’s stand together as we read from Acts 4:5-20, hear the Word of the Lord.
Teaching:
5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem,
6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.
7 And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders,
9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed,
10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-by him this man is standing before you well.
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
14 But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.
15 But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another,
16 saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.”
18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,
20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” – Acts 4:5-20
Prior to this passage in the book of Acts, Peter has made a striking sermon of salvation in Jerusalem where thousands of people became followers of Jesus Christ, in the immediate context God uses him for the supernatural healing of a physically disabled beggar at the entrance to the temple and now, according to verse 5-6 he stands before the very people who instigated and superintended the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ and he is being questioned about the nature of that miracle.
The audience with whom he has to defend himself matters here; If we look back at the last time Peter was faced with the potential of being in front of this audience of Jewish rulers and priests we see a very different Peter:
Matthew 26:69-75 (ESV) 69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
As Peter stood around that fire and realized what he had done, he realized his biggest failure, the biggest failure any human being can possibly make: denying that Jesus is Lord. And yet here he stands with another opportunity, a potential for changing the narrative. Peter points us to a remarkable reality for every follower of Jesus Christ:
Move 1: There Is No Failure Too Great That God Can’t Use
Listen for a moment to the contrast we see in the Matthew 26 passage and the Acts 4 passage:
Around the Fire“You were with Jesus…I don’t know what you mean”. In Acts “Who is responsible for this…Jesus is responsible for this.”
Around the Fire “For the third time we know you know him…I DON’T KNOW THE MAN!”. In Acts “Don’t talk about Jesus anymore…Hey you’ve got to judge whether I should listen to you or to God, but I’m going to listen to and respond to God.”
Peter went from denying Jesus Christ publicly to proclaiming in verse 12: And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
What an amazing and glorious transition for Peter. Peter was called by Jesus the Rock on which he would build his church, and I am certain around that fire he felt like a grain of sand, not so much like a rock, as he failed in this most grievous way, but as he has this redeeming chance before the audience he wanted to avoid in his denial he moves past his failure, learns from his failure and redeems the opportunity.
The most grievous of failures was not enough to keep Peter from taking this opportunity to correct it.
Friends when you think about the failures you have made, as I think of my own failures which are many, failures as a man, as a husband, a father, a pastor, we have to recognize there is no failure that God won’t and can’t use for the repentant sinner; this is where Peter finds himself in this passage.
The reason we can have this confidence is because God knows our failures before we do. He knew it for Peter, Jesus told him, he told him Peter would deny him and yet knowing his failure was eminent, he also knew Peter would stand before the Jewish rulers in this moment. For Peter, God sees his denial and his turning here in one continuous now. He knows our failures and our transitions and this should give us confidence to move forward from failure.
God is Sovereign, there is not a moment of your life that catches God unaware, no failure and no success, no tragedy and no victory, not the most grievous of sins or the most contrite repentance. God knew every moment of Peters life and yet still condescended to use him for his own glory. You are no different. If you feel like a failure, feel like you’ve failed God, feel like there is no coming back from the grievous errors of the past, Peter teaches you something different and he also teaches that is not something in us that makes this a reality.
Move 2: Failure is Overcome in the Power of the Holy Spirit
In verse 8, Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, tells us how Peter was able to respond the way that he did: He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter didn’t tell us that, Luke told us that. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, that is how he was able to flip the narrative, by living in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Every word that he spoke was inspired by the Holy Spirit, everything in this account is the story of a main who was in tune with God’s Spirit and friends that is the same Holy Spirit that lives in you. If you are called a follower of Jesus Christ; the same Spirit dwells in you. You don’t have less of the Holy Spirit in you, you don’t have a different version of the Holy Spirit, Peter doesn’t have the varsity version of the Holy Spirit and you have the JV version of the Holy Spirit…NO! Same thing, just as complete. There is never a time as a follower of Jesus Christ that you don’t have all of the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Does that mean when you fail, when you sin that you lose the Holy Spirit or have less of the Holy Spirit? Not at all.
Previously in Acts 1:8 Jesus tells Peter and the rest of the disciples that they would have power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, the same power that speaks here. He didn’t leave when Peter failed again in Acts 9 when trying to correct the Lord with regards to what is clean and what is unclean, He didn’t leave him when he failed yet again as we see in Galatians 1 when he had to be corrected for essentially racism by Paul, he was still just as full. As we see in each of those encounters which are a reflection of this encounter Acts, when faced with the question yet again do you follow Jesus or not, he is able to overcome the failures of the past by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Friends I know you’ve failed, I know you have because I have. But if you are a follower of Jesus you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you a real authentic person of the Godhead, not a feeling, not a force, not anything other than God dwelling within you.
Peter points us to the reality that failure is not final and that it is in the power of the Holy Spirit that God uses that failure for his glory, which means something else must take place.
Move 3: We Have to Face the Place of Our Failures and Move Forward
In order to overcome his greatest failure, Peter had to return to the place of his greatest failure and not let the fear of it keep him from seeing God’s greatest good in his life and proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ before the religious leaders. Wouldn’t it have been easy enough for him to heal the beggar see the religious leaders and yell, RUN JOHN!!! But he doesn’t do that he faces the circumstance he had failed in previously. Inasmuch as I believe God wanted to use Peter and John to heal this man I think that God also wanted to give Peter the opportunity to correct the sins and failures of the past. He was in a place of denying Jesus, now faced with the same circumstance he proclaims Jesus, but what that necessitated was facing his failure.
Friends I unreservedly share my failures with people. It’s part of my story. I share about overcoming moral failure because I’ve been there. I share about substance abuse in my life because I’ve been there, but everyday I have to face the reality that the sins I have committed before I have the potential to commit them again and I am either going to face those circumstances or I am going to run from them and let me tell you friends, to run from them gives underserved power to failure.
James puts it this way in James 4:7 (ESV) 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
He doesn’t say flee the devil, he says submit to God, presumably right were you are, in every circumstance, even when you fail and he says resist the devil. Resist him, how do you resist him with radical obedience to God. The devil flees you don’t.
And as you face that place, like Peter does here you are able to move forward from it. You are able to realize what Paul realized in his life in Philippians 3:13, you are able to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.”
We have to face our failures, but we have to move forward, we have to strain forward. Friends stop trying to crucify Jesus again for your past sins. If he has forgiven you, he has forgiven you. Face it, respond to it and strain forward.
This is what Peter understood and why what he tells them in verse 11 is so important This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
Peter does something very subtly here. He takes a familiar passage from Psalm 118 and quotes it, but there is something more than that, he quotes what Jesus quotes. He heard Jesus says this about himself in Matthew 21:42 and he also knew that his name would be Peter which means rock, no longer Simon which means hearer and by referencing this what I believe that Peter is saying is he is affirming what Jesus says about him and that with Jesus as the cornerstone that Peter as a rock is going to build his life on that foundation.
In this Peter faces the place of his failure and says, I am no longer a slave to you. I won’t go back to being Simon, I’m Peter and he moves forward. He doesn’t focus on the denial, he focuses on growing on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
There is a false theology creeping into the church that I call the theology of brokenness. Essentially it is that we are broken people and as such we must embrace our brokenness see it and that is the focus of our worship. We hear it in songs we sing, and books we read, and there is almost a sense of if you aren’t broken then your broken; that you need to find that broken piece of you. Friends Peter teaches us something different here, he teaches us how to move ahead how to strain forward like his counterpart Paul affirms.
When you build your life on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ you are not broken you are repaired, live in that and move forward; grow in Jesus Christ, look in the rearview mirror but don’t live in that reflection, see it and know that it is a place you never want to be again and take your next step with Jesus Christ.
Friends how many times do we get caught up in confessing the same sin that we’ve already confessed to the Lord and live there, letting that be our identity. If Christ died for it, repent, learn and move forward in the power of the Holy Spirit. Don’t keep apologizing for the same sin, you’ve sinned. Come to Jesus confess your sins, recognize the forgiveness that has been given to you and as the situation presents itself again learn from Peter here. Face it and move forward. That’s what failure does for us and how we can respond.
Bottom Line: Failure is a Building Block For Growth with Jesus Christ
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