Grant Smith, Peter's Sifting, Pathway to Leadership

Invariably on Sunday mornings we have a number of people here with visitors. Hopefully, if you're a visitor today, you have a yellow name tag on. I see some people here every week with the yellow name tag on. That's alright. Just don't be offended if you're greeted as a visitor. By the way, it is if you're new here to us, join the crowd. We're all still new. And so you know someone who's been here for. I just started thinking, we've been here now three months and a week in this building, and that's not a long time. So we're all still new. Don't feel conspicuous, you know, unless you have your name tag on backwards or something. And you might be a little conspicuous if you haven't put your address, by the way, on the back of your name tag. Remember to do that. That's how you'll be on the mailing list and that'll keep you in touch with things. But with all the new visitors, we find it really important to share with you why we do some of the things that we do here. I noticed as we were just singing that chorus, Thy Loving Kindness a moment ago, some people who are new to expressions of worship find that to be like, oh, you know, why? Why me? How did I get here? Anyhow, these people are really getting serious about this. And I want to teach you something this morning just very quickly about the wisdom of why we give expression with a specific gesture of the raising of our hands. All right, look at 1 Kings, chapter 8. Did you find it? Verse 54. Here's King Solomon at the benediction of the consecration of the temple. Now, as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and supplication, and it was a lot to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord. Look at this. Where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven, and he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice saying, blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people, Israel. According to all that he has promised, not one word has failed. Of all of his good promise, which he uttered by Moses, his servant, and on he goes. When you think of blessing, do you generally think of receiving or giving? Receiving, isn't it? We think, boy, I was blessed last week, or the Lord blessed me in this, or it was a blessing for me to be there. And if the preponderance of Scripture in the Bible indicates that blessing is something that we receive from God. But here is a passage of Scripture among a number of others that say that we can Be a blessing to God. You see, Solomon was in a posture of worship, kneeling, hands outstretched to the Lord. And then he turned and he blessed the people and said, blessed be God. Psalm 134. 1:2. Turn over there for a moment. Psalm 134. 1 2. Come, bless the Lord. All you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord, lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. You have the capacity to be a blessing to God. Now in the Hebrew, an interesting thing, and I'm not going to have the time, of course, to develop this, but the root of the word to praise in Hebrew is the word that means to extend the hand. That's exactly what it means. There was no thought in the Hebrew mind of literally praising and worshiping without the extension of the hand. And you know why that is? Because the hands are an expression of the inner nature of man. You think about that. Your hands are an expression of your inner nature. Men who use their hands for violence are expressing what's really in their heart. People who use their hands for greed, you know, what's the picture of a greedy person clutching their hand, right? Clutching, pulling it in. On the other side, people who are generous and kind have an open hand. And people who love their Lord, their inner nature is loving toward God, extend their hand to him. Now some of you may struggle with, well, I don't want to just join the bandwagon because everyone else is doing it and I don't want you to do that. And I don't believe that that's wise. But on the other hand, if it's simply your own fear and your own pride, that's saying, I'm not going to do that. And you need to come before the Lord and say, is that really what your inner nature is saying? Because to bless the Lord, to praise him, means that we extend our nature to him, and that's expressed with our hands. Come bless the Lord all ye servants of the Lord. Thy loving kindness is better than life. My lips shall praise thee Thus will I bless thee. I will lift up my hands to thy name. Let's sing that together again and just move into an attitude of worship together. Praise the Lord. I almost feel feel like we've arrived at the anti climax time of this session this morning. I just want to say that I've had a sense in my heart, I didn't know when the timing would be and somehow I thought that maybe we would ask him to do that, but I had a sense in my heart for a couple of months now that there would be a time when Harry Arnold would stand up before this body and share what God is doing in his life. And we didn't have to ask him. The Lord opened that to him. And I want to affirm also the timing of the sequence of things this morning because I want to talk about a situation in the life of Peter, not toward the end of coming to Jesus in the first place, but toward the end of understanding one aspect of what it is to walk in the light after we've come to him. I'd like you to open your Bible to Luke chapter 22. Peter had been walking with the Lord for some time when this situation happened. It's late in the life of the ministry of Jesus and it's a familiar situation to us. We're going to break in at verse 31 of Luke 22. There are times when our teachings embrace a whole sweep of Scripture. This morning I want to sort of turn the telescope the other way and look closely at verse 31 of Luke 22 and, and see what it has for us because it is like many verses in the Word, it is so packed with truth that we need to dwell on it just a little bit in order to understand what's happening. Jesus speaking to Peter in verse 31 says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren. Now following this, Peter makes a boast about his own capability and his own commitment. He said, lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison unto death. And Jesus said, peter, listen before the cock crows, you're going to deny me three times. And we know the story. We'll look a little bit at some of the events that followed in a minute. Jesus addresses him as Simon. Now there was a time, we read it in John chapter one, when Jesus first met Simon and he said to him, you are Simon. They had just been introduced. He said, you are Simon, and you shall be called Peter. You are and you shall be. Jesus encounters each of us individually and he takes us as we are. And he says, I know full well what you are. And I also know full well what by my grace and by my working in your heart and in your life, you shall be he encountered, if I may refer to Harry again, he encountered Harry. And he said, you're Harry Arnold, and this has been your 50 plus years of your life, but you shall be a child of God who honors me. And who is enabled by me to stand and to give glory to me. You are Simon, but you shall be Peter. Now, Peter already had been called Peter. Jesus calls him Peter. Just in the next verse there said, I tell you, Peter, you're going to deny me. So he's both Simon and he's Peter at the same time. He's a man in process. He's in that transition that all of us know so well, where that old self is still very much around, even while God is working in us to produce that new man that he has in store for each of us. But he says, simon, Satan has demanded to have you. Now, interestingly enough, and if you have an rsv, you'll notice that there's a little footnote by the word you there that he may sift you. Footnote. And the you there is plural. Jesus is referring not just to Peter here in this verse, but it's like he's saying, satan has demanded to have you all, all of you. Satan turns to these disciples and we have here, envisioned for us by Jesus, reference the reality that the great conflict between Satan and God is being worked out on the stage of human history. And this struggle that we're in isn't just me struggling to know God, but it is all of us together here in time and space, working out in history the great eternal conflict that exists between God and Satan. Probably the most complete scriptural explanation of that. And we don't know a whole lot about it. It's surrounded by mystery because it's in a realm that's beyond our capacity to really grasp. But the book of Job tells us that there was a day when the sons of God gathered themselves before the Father and Satan was among them. And God said, what are you doing here? What have you been up to? He said, I've been walking to and fro upon the face of the earth. Peter himself tells us very clearly in his own epistle that Satan is like a roaring lion prowling about, seeking whom he may devour. And in a way that boggles the mind, Satan has the privilege of going before God and demanding his people that he may sift them as wheat. And I can assure you, brothers and sisters, Satan is about his same job right now among us. He's sifting as wheat. What's the reference? What's he talking about, sifting as wheat? Our most familiar sifting is with flour, I guess, but the reference here is to three. We do it with machinery now, much more sophisticated, but in Bible times, they sifted wheat by shaking it through screens or by beating it and throwing it up in the air to separate the chaff from the wheat. Now chaff is interesting. It's the husk that wraps itself around the kernel of wheat in the plant and it has a purpose. But there comes a time when you want to use that kernel, when you want to extract from it the life giving nourishment that's in it, when you have to separate the chaff from the wheat. And if you pull the chaff off from the grain of wheat, it would look very much like the grain that it just wrapped itself around. It's a little thin husk. It's the size and the shape of the kernel of wheat. It's like an imitation. It's like if it's in the pile there, you can't tell. It's very difficult to tell the difference when you just look at them. But the technique was to sift them and throw them up in the air. And because the wheat is heavy, it drops and the chaff blows away. And everywhere in scripture that chaff is referred to, it is many, many times used, used to refer to wicked people, sinners, people who do not relate to God. Psalm 1, the familiar passage, blessed is the man who walks not after the counsel of the ungodly, and so on. And you get to verse four and it says, the wicked are not so, but they are like the chaff which the wind blows away. And I can see Satan coming before the throne of God. In the limited concept that we can gather from this reality. God says about this small group of men, they are my good seed. In them the life of my truth dwells. And Satan says, as the great accuser of the brethren, their chaff. And God says, they're seed. And Satan says, give them to me and let me show you. Satan demands that he might have these men, that he might sift them as wheat to prove whether there is life in them or whether they are empty shells of men who outwardly are religious, but inside are hollow and devoid of the life of God. He had already made his way into the heart of Judas, proved that Judas was chaff, and now he wanted to have at the other 11. Jesus turns now to Peter, and in a singular you, he says, but I have prayed for for you, Peter. Jesus in an unusual way puts on Peter a role of responsibility, of leadership, that he might be the one to whom the others would look for his example of faith and strength, and in that process shows to us principles of life. I have prayed for you, Peter. Wouldn't it Be great. If each of us could hear Jesus say, I'm praying for you. Wouldn't it be great, Bill? If you could hear Jesus say, bill Murlach, I'm praying for you? You know what he is? He is our great high priest. The Book of Hebrews says, and he intercedes for us before the right hand of God. He has our names on his forehead. The Book of Revelation says, he knows us by name. He's the good shepherd who knows his sheep. And he prays for us. And what impact there is In John chapter 17, when Jesus says, concerning his disciples, I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. And he knows so well that Satan wants to sift us like wheat. And he desires so much that in us abides that living word of God that will make the difference between chaff that blows away and wheat that falls to the threshing floor, ripe and full of nourishment and full of life. Peter, as an individual and as a leader, has the responsibility to strengthen the brethren. But before he gets there, Jesus says, what I've prayed for, Peter, is that your faith may not fail. He doesn't say, peter, I prayed that you'll be strong. He doesn't say, peter, I've prayed that you'll be resolute. He doesn't say, peter, I have prayed that you're going to be able to set your face and. And grit your teeth and do it and be a leader of men that they look up to and respect. He doesn't say that. He says, peter, I've prayed that your faith would fail. Not. He doesn't say, peter, I pray that you'll be able to keep smiling. I pray that your faith will fail. Not. Why is Peter's faith so important? Why is it the central focus of Jesus prayer? Because the real issue here is Peter's capacity to base his life on who Jesus is. And if he can do that, he will be walking in the light. Harry shared with us this morning his experience of moving out of darkness into light. There have been senses in which Peter and the other disciples have moved out of darkness into light. And what Peter is going to go through is a test of whether he'll be able to survive out there in the light and not base his survival on his own enthusiasm or his own resolution or his own faithfulness. He had said, and Jesus affirmed it, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, you didn't come at that yourself, Peter. You didn't arrive at that conviction or that conclusion on your own or in your own strength. It was God who revealed that to you. Now things get pretty bleak when a man has made that kind of confession. We would say, boy, he's on the right road. Not going to be any problems for that guy. God's already worked in his heart. There were two or three this morning who made a commitment of their hearts to the Lord. You have stepped out, maybe feebly, maybe with lots of questions, maybe lots of misunderstanding or lack of understanding. As a baby saying, lord, I want yout to be my Savior. And there is that long process now of learning what it is to walk in the light. Look what happens in verse 54. This is familiar. They seized Jesus and led him away and bringing him to the high priest's house. And Peter followed at a distance. Peter gets lots of knocks from us for him following Jesus at a distance. We say, peter, you should have been right at his right hand. You're blowing it, fella. You're following at a distance. And you're setting yourself up to fail. And all that's true. But, beloved, he did follow him. It's at a distance. But he still that. Still that reality is there in Peter's heart, that this is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now some circumstances come in and Peter's ready to fall on his face. And here's this cold, chilly courtyard, and the night is almost spent, and it's damp and it's cold. And so they build a fire and they sit down. And Peter sits there because he's cold, too. And a girl looks at him in the firelight and says, didn't I see you with him? And Peter says, nah, not me. And for that moment became a functioning atheist. I don't know Him. And again, this man was with him, and he denied it. Woman, I don't know him. A little while later, someone else saw him and said, you're one of them, too, man. I am not. And said, I don't know what you're talking about. And immediately after the third time we know the story. Dawn is starting to break. It happens. And what happens? Look at verse 61. The Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord. I want you to get this scene. Here's this chilly, damp courtyard. Jesus is over there being harassed and questioned by the Jewish leaders and the Romans. Peter is over on this side. The courtyard's full of people. There's a lot of activity. There wasn't much rest in that group. That night and Peter's by the fire and Jesus is way across the courtyard. And the cock crows. And Jesus turns and looks at Peter and their eyes meet. And for a split second this man is suspended out of time. There are no more people in that courtyard. There's no more attractive young girl. There's nobody else saying you were with him and Peter denying it. There's no social pressure. There's no chill to his body. There's no one that exists in time or in space but that one that his eyes are fixed on right now. And as those eyes meet across that courtyard, Peter's soul is flooded with the light of the truth of who that man is. Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And he stands in that dazzling light and he remembers what Jesus said to him before the cock crows, you'll deny me three times. And what's Peter do? He goes out and he weeps bitterly. Why? Because, you see, in the light of that truth that engaged him across that courtyard, he saw the awfulness of his own self sufficiency. He saw the awfulness of his own sin. He saw the wretchedness of his effort to be committed to Jesus in his own strength. He saw his own weakness, his frailty and his proneness to fall. He saw his sin for what it was. And he went out and he wept bitterly. Now, an interesting thought occurred as I was reading this. I was praying about this. I thought, lord, what about Judas? Judas denied the Lord. He betrayed him with a kiss, pretended to be a friend, really was an enemy. And what did Judas do after all of that? Look at Matthew, chapter 27. Start reading at verse three. When Judas the betrayer saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented. Did you ever know that Judas repented and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, I've sinned in betraying innocent blood. They said, what's that to us? See to it yourself. That's your problem, fella. And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed and went and hanged himself. The awful anguish of a man who realizes the desperation of his own bankruptcy and sin. Now, is this indicating that Judas had a deathbed conversion? Here it says, Judas repented. We say many times that the only thing a sinner needs to do is repent. Is there a difference between Judas repentance and Peter's? I believe, beloved, that there is a profound difference. And we need to understand that because we need to discover what genuine godly repentance is. And Paul explains for us in Second Corinthians 7. And I want to look at that. Paul here is talking to the Corinthians. We're not going to get into the context of it other than to say that he had written a letter that had grieved the Corinthian believers. And he says to them in verse nine, as it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us. In other words, my letter to you that corrected you and admonished you and caused you grief did not result in loss for you, but it was a godly kind of grief because it brought about repentance. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret. But worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you. What eagerness to clear yourselves. What indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. What's Paul talking about here? He's describing the difference between the repentance like Peter experienced and the repentance that Judas experienced. With each of these men, there was a discovery that they had done wrong. But with one, there was the ultimate sense of destruction and failure. And it was a worldly grief that led to death. But with the other, with Peter, Jesus had prayed for him. And what was Jesus prayer for Peter? That your faith fail not. What has faith got to do with repentance? It has everything to do with it, because it makes the difference between a repentance which is to death and a repentance which is to life. And many times, brothers and sisters, you and I have known what it is to repent. We have known what it is to discover our own sin, and we recognize it as sin, and we recognize it as failure. But somehow we find that that recognition heaps upon itself and piles on top of us and pounds us into the ground. And it is a grief that is a worldly grief. It is a grief that we find working in our hearts, not life, but death, because there is not mixed with it, faith. Now Jesus calls us into a life which he says is in the light. Our first faith comes as we stand in the light and allow the truth of God to shine in our hearts and and identify the reality that that is sin. And when we see it as sin and recognize it as such, we're operating in the light. Now we have the potential of staying out there in the light, as unbearable as it is and as ugly and Awful as that sin is. Or we can return into the darkness and say, I don't want to look at it any longer. I don't want it out there in the light. I don't want to deal with it out there in the light. I refuse to deal with it out there. It's too much. I can't deal with it. I come back into the darkness and I don't see it anymore. And that is a repentance unto death. But Paul describes here a repentance which leads to salvation. And what it is is that it produces in us a change. What does it produce? Godly grief. Verse 11, produced in these Corinthian believers an eagerness to clear themselves, not to defend themselves, but to be different, to change the way they were living. An indignation, an alarm, a longing, a zeal. What are these things, beloved? These are the way God looks at sin. He doesn't want it to continue. He's indignant at it. It's alarming when I realize that sin in me, there is a zeal that comes, Lord. There is a direction of heart that comes when faith is mixed with the repentance that allows me to see that sin and respond to it as God responds to it in a godly way. And when I'm out there in that light and that light is exposing my sin, it is faith that allows me to say, oh, Lord, this sin, as awful as it is, as alarming as it is, as indignant as I am toward it, as terrible as it is, O Lord, you are capable of dealing with it. You are capable of forgiving me. There is forgiveness in the light. There is forgiveness in Jesus. Lord, your blood and your righteousness are enough. I can survive out there in the light. The light isn't going to burn me up. I can survive because, Lord, your salvation is enough even for this awful sin. Judas was not able to see that he had abandoned the Savior. Peter was able. But Jesus doesn't leave Peter there. And that's the way he deals with us. And the hymn writer says, he is tender and loving and patient with me as he cleanses my heart of its dross. And in Mark 16:7, there's a precious, precious phrase. I want you to look at it. Mark 16, verse 7. The angels are telling the women that Jesus is risen from the dead. And they say mark is the only one who gives us this phrase. Imagine Peter weeping bitterly. I have denied, my Lord. He's weeping bitterly. His heart yearns for a word of encouragement. And the angel says to the woman, go Tell his disciples. And Peter, that little extra reaching out to this one whose heart is broken. Go tell his disciples. Aunt Peter. So good. Now go back to luke 24. And if you think that was good, look what Luke 24 shows us. Verse 33. This is the two men who were on the road. And Jesus appeared and then disappeared after he had revealed himself. And when they got back to the disciples, the people that were with the disciples met them at the door and they gave him the glorious word that the Lord had risen. Look what it says has appeared to Simon. Peter had a quiet time that day that he'll never forget. There's that personal encounter. We don't know anything about it other than the fact that Jesus appeared to Peter. What a marvelous restoration that must have been, my Lord and my God, as his heart is restored. Now back one page to Luke 22 again to our verse that we're not quite done with. When you have turned again and we've seen him turning. Strengthen your brethren. Now, the charge for Peter to provide strength for the brethren is no longer rooted in Peter's ability to say, well, brothers, if you're going to be strong, then you've got to be like me. If you're going to be strong, then you've got to really be resolute. You've got to be enthusiastic. You've got to grin. Never let anybody see you frown. If you're going to be strong, then you've got to be like me. Those words will never come out of Peter. He wouldn't dare tell anybody now to be like him. Where does Peter's strength come from? How can he strengthen the brethren? Brothers and sisters, his capacity to provide strength for those trembling disciples and for you and I today comes out of his desperate weakness and the fact that in his darkest hour he discovered that Jesus was enough to meet him in his failure. And his strength comes from his own brokenness. And you want to see how Peter provides strength for us? Look at his epistle that he wrote us first. Peter comes. Time for Peter to write a letter that God is going to preserve for all. Time for the church to feed on Peter. Can't wait to strengthen the brethren. Now let's just read the first or the paragraph that begins with verse three. This is the way we'll close. Here's Peter. Here's the one who knows defeat, who knows brokenness, and who has the charge to strengthen the brethren. Look at the focus. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew. To a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven. For you who by God's power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials. Oh, we're having trials, Peter. Strengthen us, will you? Okay, I'll strengthen you. He says those trials are so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, which, though perishable, is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ, Whom, having seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him. You believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy as the outcome of your faith, you obtain the salvation of your souls. And Peter, in his responsibility of strengthening the brethren, puts the focus right on Jesus. And he encourages us by that look, and he strengthens us by that look. Because by so doing, he is saying to us that even though that light of who he is, as our eyes meet his, as we turn our eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, that light of his face exposes our sin. But we can still survive out there in the light because his redemption is enough to cover it and to wash it clean and white. And we stand as a people, not because we're all so fired, holy or spiritual, but because we're forgiven and because we know Him. This is why the focus of our gatherings is on praising him and blessing him. So that we brothers and sisters, who are about the process of being sifted like wheat, so that we may.