Sermon Tone Analysis

The Pathway of Simon Peter

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How does a middle class fishin' man

End up in the middle of God's mission plan?

He's a back water who walked on water.

One of the first to see Jesus in his authentic identity.

The Lord called this man the Rock.

The gates of Heaven are his to unlock.

He's a truth denier turned Spirit-filled testifier.

After the resurrection God gave him a new direction.

God used this ordinary to do something extraordinary.

He didn't become the man he was in a day.

So we need to look and see how he got this way.

The next four weeks we will be looking at different episodes in Peter’s life that show us how he became such a man of God.

This series could be longer, there is so much to Peter’s life.

Other than Jesus, he’s the most talked about character in the Gospels.

You know what, I think we’ll find that we can really relate to Peter.

Like YOU and ME , Peter was essentially an ordinary guy who God used in Extraordinary ways.

The Climax of Peter’s Story: Preaching on Pentecost

One of these extraordinary moments in Peter’s life comes just a month or so after Jesus’ death.

At the day of Pentecost when the disciples received the Holy Spirit.

Peter stands up in front of a huge crowd of faithful Jews from all over the known world and begins to preach to them about Jesus is the messiah they are all expecting.

This is what happens after the sermon.

Peter the Preacher

3,000 becoming a Christian in 1 day!

That’s incredible!

It is absolutely Extraordinary! you might even say he’s one of the best preachers in Christianity.

Can you imagine if God used YOU like this? I’m NOT saying any of us are going to be the next mega-church preacher, or TV evangelist, but the same God that used Peter wants to use us for his mission!

God may not be calling you to anything that makes you famous, popular, or even something that could be called successful.

But he is calling you to something.

That same God is still at work.

Before we get carried away by the extraordinary in Peter, let’s talk about Peter in the ordinary.

Here’s our Question: How does a middle-class fishin’ man end up in the middle of God’s mission plan?

Peter: The Middle-Class Fisher

We call the man Peter, but his real name is Simon.

Jesus will later name him Peter (which we’ll discuss next week), but know that Simon, Peter, or Simon Peter are all names for the same guy.

Simon Peter is from Bethsaida, but moved to Capernaum.

Those folks from Galilee had an lower class accent when compared to the high-society folks of Jerusalem or other cultures.

When Matthew, Mark, and Luke all introduce Simon Peter he is fishing.

That was his occupation.

Together with his brother, Andrew.

They ran a small fishing operation.

They probably had moderate success.

Now the gospel of Mark actually tells Peter’s perspective of Jesus as Peter was the spiritual father of Mark who recorded Peter’s memories.

An important fact is that we know that Peter owned a house that was the home for many people, including his family his wife and mother-in-law lived there, and their home became the meeting area for many of Jesus’ activities in the region.

Fisher of Men

If you read Mark carefully side-by-side with Luke you can make a good case that Peter was already a disciple of Jesus by this point and had been for a good while.

He had seen demons exorcised, diseases healed, a paralyzed man healed, his own mother in law healed.

So Peter was already a follower, but this story in Luke 5 was a huge turning point for Peter.

Notice the sermon Jesus was preaching isn’t even recorded as what is important.

This episode focuses on what happens after the sermon.

Jesus starts giving Peter some fishing advice after Peter has been fishing all night and is cleaning up his supplies.

This is just funny to think about.

(examples of if I walked into your companies to give you suggestions) If you look carefully, Peter almost says no to Jesus! but he doesn’t and that is HUGE!

He trusts Jesus, he is curious by Jesus, he has faith enough to obey Jesus.

As they put their nets into deep water as Jesus instructed, they find themselves in the middle of a miracle.

Their nets are instantly filled in both boats and the fishermen almost swamped their boats.

This story isn’t about the fish.

In fact, it sounds like they left those fish on the shore.

This is a story of Jesus preaching to fishermen the way the fishermen needed to hear.

This shook Peter to his core.

It’s one thing to see a miracle in someone else’s life even his mother-in-law, but now this is CLOSE to home.

Peter is supposed to be the fishing expert.

This is the single-most successful days in Peter’s career.

Probably worth more than his whole career.

It’s at this moment that Peter realizes the teacher in his boat is way more than an average man.

Teachers come and go, but Jesus is more than that.

Peter gets on his knees begging for mercy and confesses that he is a sinner before the Lord.

Peter becomes the first in the gospels to do that, to confess his sins.

This is how a middle class fishin’ man end up in the middle of God’s mission plan.

This moment when Peter realizes he knows nothing about fishing and confesses to Jesus that all he is, is a sinner is exactly the kind of Resume Jesus is looking for.

Jesus lovingly tells him “do not be afraid” (he says that a lot)

“From now on you will be catching people”.This is good new.

When you catch fish, you kill them, sell them, and eat them.

Yeah, we don’t do that with people.

When Jesus says catching people he means convincing them of the message of Jesus.

So instead of killing the catch he will be showing them new life.

I don’t know how many fish were in the nets that day in Peter’s boat, but I have a feeling Peter remembered this story when he preaching on Pentecost and 3,000 people became Christians because Peter decided on that day to become a fisher for men.

With Jesus’ help Peter caught a miraculous catch of fish back then on the shore and on the day of Pentecost Peter caught 3,000 men who became Christians.

How does a middle-class fishin’ man end up in the middle of God’s mission plan?

At the end of that passage we just read, it says they brought their boats to land, left everything, and followed him.

All throughout Peter’s life we see steps of Faith where Peter chooses to follow Jesus.

Steps of Faith

STEPS of FAITH are huge.

I can’t stress enough the extraordinary that God did through Peter came from Peter continually showing faith in the ordinary one step at a time.

From this day at the beach in the boats with the fish, we’re going to fast forward in Peter’s story.

Peter lives life with Jesus, he hears his teaching, sees his miracles, watches him drive out demons, he eats the bread crumbs that miraculously feed 1000s, and every day that he continues to step-by-step follow Jesus he is growing in his faith.

All those things bring us this next episode in Peter’s story:

The guy from some town in Galilee, The Back Water (Guy) Who Walked On Water

Jesus Walks on Water

This is an incredible scene.

Can you imagine this scene in a movie, it would be one of the most trip-y, freaky things ever.

Jesus and his crew were finishing up the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus tells the disciples to go on to their next place across the lake and Jesus goes off on his own to pray/recharge.

Meanwhile, it’s the wee hours of the morning, the disciples are crossing the lake, and a massive storm comes along and they are losing the fight against nature.

Then they notice something strange.

Jesus is walking toward them on the water.

Remember, it’s like before the sun rose for the day.

All they have is moonlight and maybe candles.

They just see this silhouette, of course they freak out!