Peter

LIFE LESSONS
PETER
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 16:13-20
OCTOBER 3, 2004

The Ecclesiastical Head of the Roman Catholic Church is of course the Pope. He is also called the Vicar of Christ. He is called the High Pontiff. He is called the Holy Sea. He is called the Holy Father. Of course, the word pope comes from the Greek, “papas,” which means, “father.” In the course of church history, there have been 264 popes, the most recent being Pope John Paul II. Many of these popes have been wonderful, some not so wonderful. According to the Roman Catholic Church, it all goes back to Peter. Catholics view Peter as the first pope. Even Catholics acknowledge that Peter really didn’t function as a pope. There was no ecclesiastical structure over which he was the head, and yet there’s no denying that Peter was extremely prominent amongst the twelve. Peter, James and John formed a kind of inner circle closest to Jesus. There’s also no denying that the early church was led by Peter and Paul and James the Just. Today we look at the life of Simon Peter and from his life we have two lessons, two life lessons for us from the life of Peter. The first of this. Do not deny Jesus Christ.

In the year 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by the United States government in the state of New York. There were appeals on their behalf. Albert Einstein appealed for mercy. Pope Pius VII appealed for mercy, but the Supreme Court of the United States denied all appeals and President Dwight David Eisenhower rejected any thought of clemency. And why was that? It was because Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were traitors. They had committed treason against the United States of America. They had sold atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II. They were the first civilians to be executed for wartime spying in United States history.

I know all of us want to be faithful to our country. You want to be faithful to your country. You want to be faithful to your family. You want to be faithful in the workplace. You want to be faithful in everything. As Christians, as those who follow Jesus Christ and believe in Him, most of all we want to be faithful to Christ. We want to be faithful to the kingdom of heaven. We want never to deny Jesus Christ.

The Nation of China has a noble history. It has a long and incredible history. Like all nations, there are some dark pages in their history and one such page concerns the Boxer Rebellion, which took place in the year 1900. The Boxers were members of the White Lotus Sect and they were called Boxers because of their acrobatic ability. The Boxers were those in China who opposed the Manchus. They opposed the Manchu Dynasty. And yet both the Boxers and the Manchus hated Western interference in China and they did not like the Western world intervening in Chinese affairs.

In the year 1900, the Boxers began to persecute and execute Westerners. That was a tragic period of time. Much of their focus fell on Christians, Western Christians. There is a tragic and yet moving story that comes out of Beijing in that year 1900. There was a Christian Mission there. The Boxers came and they put a cross at the gates to this Christian Mission. They laid it on the ground. There were a hundred Christians, a hundred Christian workers inside the Mission. The Boxers told them to come out through the gates, to stomp on the cross and to renounce Jesus Christ.

The first seven Christians who came out of that Mission compound stomped on the cross and they renounced Jesus Christ. In their hearts, they desperately hoped that Jesus would have mercy on them and on their souls. The eighth person who came out of that Christian Mission was a teenage girl. She did not stomp on the cross. She knelt beside it. She did not renounce Christ but she confessed Christ and she was executed. The next 92 people did exactly the same. They knelt by the cross. They confessed Christ and they were executed, one-by-one.

I hope and pray that none of us in this place are ever so tested but how would you respond in a situation of life and death like that? Would you deny Christ or would you confess Christ? Of course, the early Church was often tested in this way. It’s a great struggle for some Christians today to realize that Peter, at least at one point in his life, failed the test; that the Apostle Peter actually, at one point in his life, denied Christ. Now, of course as we saw in Matthew 16, Peter confessed Christ. “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Of course, ultimately Peter was faithful unto death and he died as he was crucified upside down by order of the Roman Emperor Nero and he was crucified near the place where the Basilica of St. Peter’s stands today.

There was a point around the time of Christ’s trial and death which Peter denied Christ because he was afraid for his own life. He denied Jesus three times. God wants us to be faithful to Him and He doesn’t want any of us to deny Him. I’m sure many of you are thinking that you would never deny Jesus Christ. Perhaps you’re thinking that you never do deny Jesus Christ but denial can be subtle and the devil is clever. God wants us to understand that if we deny the moral law we are in effect denying Christ. We live in a culture that is fallen. We live in a world that sometimes prefers the darkness to the light. Our faithfulness to Christ, our faithfulness to scripture, our faithfulness to the moral law is constantly being tested.

In the Old Testament there is the moral law, the ceremonial law and the civil law. We should understand that the moral law was given to all people for all times, and it is binding on all. The ceremonial law was given by God to a particular people in a particular season. This was also true of the civil law. The moral law has to do in part with the Decalogue and the Ten Commandments but it is far broader than that. We receive moral instruction throughout the scriptures. Of course, the ceremonial law had to do with everything from the Levitical dietary law to the laws that regulated the priesthood and the purification system and the laws that regulated the feasts and the Holy Days and the laws that regulated the sacrificial system. The ceremonial law was fulfilled by Christ and the ceremonial law was repealed in the New Testament. The civil law is summed up in the lex talionis. The lex talionis was life-for-life, eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth, hand-for-hand and foot-for-foot That was the lex talionis and that is repealed in the New Testament and by our Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. So, you have the ceremonial law that was given by God to a peculiar people, a particular people, for a season of time. You have the civil law given by God for a particular people in a season in time, but then you have the moral law and the moral law is for all people and for all times. It is forever binding on all.

You might be thinking, “Well, I think I’m doing okay. I don’t think I’m denying the moral law. I think I’m being faithful,” but I want you to know the moral law has never been so tested by a culture as it’s being tested today. I want to take a few moments and deal with a very sensitive subject relating to the moral law, and that’s the subject of homosexuality. I know this is a difficult subject, and it’s difficult for me as a pastor. I think many pastors just avoid the subject. I want to share pastorally, not politically. We all believe in democratic ideals, in a free society, in civil liberties. We’re not wanting the government to control what goes on in the bedroom between consenting adults. We stand and fall before God. I’m not speaking politically although obviously gay marriage and gay adoption are political issues. I want to share pastorally for a few minutes with you. The subject of homosexuality is a very dangerous subject, a very dangerous subject.

Of course, I think many of you know that in 1998 a young man 21 years old named Matthew Shepherd who was a student at the University of Wyoming was tragically beaten and burned and then tied to a fence. A short time later he died. Those who beat up Matthew Shepherd robbed him, but they beat him up because he was gay. Matthew Shepherd was 5’2”. He had a premature birth. He’d always struggled for size and for height. He went to the University of Wyoming because he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father who had gone there. This young man’s life was cut short by a group of men who hated gays.

We’re gathered here as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, and God wants us to know that if we ever participate in a hate crime, we deny Jesus Christ. If we participate in actions of hatred, we deny Jesus Christ. The moral law is summed up in love. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, “Love even your enemies.” Jesus said, “Love everyone.” Of course, Christians always say, “Well, hate the sin and love the sinner,” but of course the problem is we really don’t try hard enough to hate our own sin and we don’t try hard enough to love other people.

The woman caught in the very act of adultery was brought to Jesus, and Jesus warned the people not to throw stones at her. I can tell you today on the authority of the Word of God that if you throw stones at gay people, even verbally, you are denying Christ. So, we are to live life in this world with kindness and with love and with respect. But it is also true that if we deny that homosexuality is sinful, we deny Christ. If we crater to the culture, if we deny the moral law…

You might be saying, “Well, Jesus really didn’t say anything about homosexuality, did He?” Of course, that’s not exactly true because Jesus constantly warned us about the sin of porneia. Porneia is the Greek word from which we get the word pornography, but of course in the time of Christ, there was no pornography. So, what did the word porneia refer to? What did the word porneia describe in the days of Jesus? It described every kind of sexual sin. The Bible tells us that sex is a beautiful gift meant to be opened only within the context of marriage between a man and a woman, that sex is a beautiful gift meant to be opened within the context of marriage. When sex is opened in any other context, it is, the Bible tells us, porneia. Porneia referred to fornication, sex before marriage, and porneia referred to adultery, sex outside of marriage, and porneia referred to homosexuality, sex between two people of the same sex. All of this was porneia, and Jesus, again and again, warned about the sin of porneia.

Now, Jesus did not specifically refer to the form of porneia called homosexuality because He came to the Jews, to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and homosexuality was taboo in the land of Israel. It was virtually unknown but the Apostle Paul went to the Greek world. The Apostle Paul went to the Hellenized world and throughout the Greek world homosexuality was very common and it was very acceptable. Of course, even the philosophers—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle—they all dabbled in homosexuality and even pedophilia because the Hellenized world was a libertine world and it was a very sexually promiscuous world. So, the Gospel came to the Greek world and the Gospel changed it, radically transformed the Greek and Roman world because of the power that is in the Gospel and the power that is in Christ.

In the year 1993, a man named Dr. Dean Hammer who was a geneticist at the National Cancer Institute said that he had discovered a gay gene. This was 1993. I think you might remember it. When that word came out that a gay gene had been discovered, it spread throughout our culture. The gay lobby picked it up and the media picked it up and the word went out that homosexuality is genetically mandated. That was eleven years ago and now scientists know it’s simply not true.

I subscribe to Scientific American, which is a wonderful but secular science publication. In this last issue they said that, “Eleven years of research has proven there is no gay gene. Homosexuality is not genetically mandated.” Of course, scientists and doctors understand today that human sexuality is very complex. There are biochemical factors. There are sociological factors. There are trauma point factors. There are perhaps in some cases even factors related to the womb. Of course, in many cases there are factors of choice and we need to understand this. I think it’s important that we also understand that homosexuality is dangerous and the gay lifestyle is tragically dangerous.

Did you know that studies demonstrate that the average lifespan of a gay person is twenty years shorter than the average lifespan of a smoker? It is dangerous to adopt the gay lifestyle. It’s dangerous not only because of the tragedy of AIDS and the HIV virus but because—and I don’t mean to offend—but the truth is, most gay sex is anal sex and therefore gay sex fosters bacteriological and viral infection. It’s a very, very dangerous lifestyle. You’re never going to hear it in the media. In fact, the lifestyle is promoted in the media. We fight against smoking because we care about people and yet our culture is actually seeking to promote and endorse the gay lifestyle, a very, very tough subject.

I know many of you have gay children, some of you do. Many of you have gay friends. Some of you have written me letters and you’ve made appointments. You’ve wanted to talk about what the Bible has to say. Certainly, God wants us to love those who are gay and be their friend, but God doesn’t want us to condone what the Bible says is sinful. Do not deny the moral law. Don’t crater to the culture.

The Bible, in Matthew, chapter 16, our passage for today, tells us an amazing thing about Peter. The Bible tells us that Jesus made an amazing statement to Peter. Jesus said to Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” An amazing statement and of course the whole basis of papal authority today, and yet I think the statement is oftentimes misunderstood.

In Matthew 16, Jesus made that statement to Peter, but in Matthew 18, Jesus made the same statement to all of the disciples. Jesus said to all the disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Then you come to John, chapter 20, and you see that it’s the Holy Spirit of God indwelling the believer that gives this power of binding and loosing and therefore Martin Luther and John Calvin, the great reformers, they taught that every Christian has the keys to the kingdom of heaven and every Christian has the right to bind and loose through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, a very controversial subject. But what I think we need to understand is this: When you look at the statements in Matthew 16 and 18 in the Greek language, the second half of the phrase is a periphrastic perfect. That’s very important because that means that the statement could and probably should be translated like this: What you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and what you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. That makes a whole lot of difference because the authority isn’t being given to Peter or to the disciples or to the Church or to Christians in general. The authority remains in heaven. We can only bind on earth what has been bound in heaven. We can only loose on earth what has been loosed in heaven. So, we need to be careful. This is a scary time for the church of Jesus Christ. We’re in danger of binding on earth what has not been bound in heaven and loosing on earth what has not been loosed in heaven. We must be faithful to the moral law.

Sometimes I’ve had people come up and say, “Jim, are you ever concerned that ten or twenty years from now somebody will get hold of one of your tapes and they’ll think, ‘What a dinosaur’? Are you ever concerned that twenty years from now someone will get hold of your tapes and they’ll think, ‘Man, what an intolerant bigot’?” Of course, I don’t want to be known as an intolerant bigot. I don’t want anyone to think that way of me today, and I want to love people, but I also want to be faithful to the Word. I want to die faithful to the Word and that’s my charge as a pastor. I wouldn’t be a faithful pastor if I denied the Word of God to you. There’s a second teaching from the Apostle Peter, a second life lesson, and that is this very briefly. We are not to compare ourselves with others. We’re not to deny Christ. We’re to confess Christ, and we’re to follow Christ but not compare ourselves with others.

There was a time when Hollywood made movies which actually glorified Christ and Christianity. In the movie, “Quo Vadis,” in one scene Apostle Peter stood up and he sought to give comfort to those Christians who were about to die in the Circus Maximus in the city of Rome. Of course, many Christians died in that fashion, faithful unto death. Of course, the irony is that shortly after that scene, Peter himself was executed by the decree of the Roman Emperor Nero. As I said earlier, he was crucified upside down near the place where the Basilica of St. Peter’s stands today.

The death of Peter did not come in an unexpected way for him because Jesus had prophesied to Peter how Peter would die. It’s in John 21 where Jesus appears resurrected and alive to His disciples by the Sea of Galilee. Together they have breakfast. In that context, Jesus actually gives Peter a chance three times to say I love you. I think there’s compassion there because Jesus in a sense, perhaps, is giving Peter a chance to repair his three-time denial, so three times Peter says, “I love you.” Then as Jesus and Peter take a walk, Jesus tells Peter how Peter is going to die. Jesus tells Peter that he will die by crucifixion, that he would be carried where he did not wish to go.

Peter turns around and he sees John following them and Peter says to Jesus, “Well, what about John? What’s going to happen to John? How’s John going to die?” Jesus said to Peter, “If it be My will that John live until I come again, what is that to you? You follow Me.” This is the charge of Christ on every Christian. Follow Me and do not compare yourselves with others. This was a lesson Peter had to learn, and it’s a lesson we have to learn. Follow Christ and do not compare yourself with anyone else.

The Capetian Dynasty dominated France for 350 years. The greatest of the Capetian kings was Phillip II who was also called Phillip Augustus. Phillip Augustus ascended the throne of France in the 12th century, in the year 1180. During his reign, the kingdom of France was expanded and the power of the monarchy increased. Now, Phillip II was, like many kings of his day, nominally Christian. In the year 1189, Phillip II and King Richard the Lionhearted, King of England, came together in the Third Crusade. The two of them, the King of England and the King of France, Richard and Phillip, went together on the Third Crusade. It was a strange time in history, strange time in Christian history. It was a time when Christianity was actually expressed in militant Christendom.

Phillip and Richard fought side-by-side. They won battles together. They lost battles together. They should have been friends, but they weren’t because Phillip II began to compare himself with Richard the Lionhearted. Phillip II, historians tell us, didn’t like the comparison because Richard was physically stronger and Richard had a greater reputation in battle. He was Richard Coeur de Lion. He was Richard the Lionhearted. Of course, it was also true that at that time England was greater than France and much of the territory of France actually belonged to England. And so, they quarreled as Phillip II compared himself with Richard and didn’t like the comparison. He became envious. They quarreled and they fought. Phillip II left the Crusades, returned to France and declared war on England.

Finally, in the year 1194, Richard returned from the Crusades and England and France were at war. In the 5th year of that war, Richard the Lionhearted was killed. Just another tragic chapter in history. We see countless examples throughout history of tragedy that was prompted by comparison. Of course, when we compare ourselves with others, it just sucks the joy right out of our life oftentimes.

In the 18th century, Antonio Salieri, the court musician in Vienna, Austria, a brilliant man, made the mistake of comparing himself with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and he lost his joy by virtue of that comparison.

In the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most brilliant artists and scientists and minds the world has ever known made the mistake of comparing himself with the young Michelangelo as they worked together on the Great Hall in Florence. It’s said that Leonardo da Vinci lost his joy and he was never the same.

You can look back in time at the dawn of human history and you can see in the Bible that Cain compared himself with Abel and did not like the comparison, and he became jealous and a murderer. You can look at the dawn of time biblically and you see Satan actually compared himself with God and did not like the comparison. Of course, when you compare yourself with someone else, it can lead to a whole variety of sins. If you compare yourself to someone else and you like the comparison and you feel like it puts you in a better light, it can lead to the sin of pride. If you compare yourself with others and you don’t like the comparison and it puts you in a lesser light, it can lead to the sins of envy and jealousy. Comparison is so dangerous.

How about you? Do you compare yourself with others? Do you make this mistake that Peter once made? At work do you compare yourself with others? Do you compare your salary with the salary of others at work? Do you compare your responsibilities, your prestige? How about in your home life? In your family life? Do you compare your children with other families? With other parents’ kids? Are you always making those comparisons? Do you compare your house with other people’s homes? Your car? How about in your small group? As you gather, perhaps, in one home or another, are you making comparisons? Jesus tells us to watch out. Don’t make that mistake. Just follow Christ.

The Bible is so beautiful in its teaching. You look at the Parable of the Talents, and it’s so clear. God gives varying talents to all of us, to each of us, and our talents are not the same. Some have five talents, some have two, some have one. It doesn’t matter. Just follow Christ. Just be faithful. It’s very clear in the Parable of the Talents that those who are faithful have the same heavenly rewards. It doesn’t matter whether you’re very talented or whether your talents are slight. Just be faithful and your reward will be great. That’s the clear message of the Bible, so don’t both to compare yourselves with others. Just do the most with what you have. Just be faithful with what God has given you.

I love a passage from 2 Peter. It’s in the first chapter. It’s where Peter writes these words, and with this we’re going to close. Peter says, “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, your virtue with knowledge, your knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affectionm and brotherly affection with love. If these things are yours and abide, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted. It’s forgotten that you’ve been cleansed from your old sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election. If you do this, you will not fall and there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Now, I intend always to remind you of these things though you know them and are firmly established in the truth which you have, but I think it right as long as I am in this body to rouse you by way of reminder since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. I intend to see to it that after my departure you may be able, at any time, to recall these things for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for we were eyewitnesses to His majesty. When He received glory and honor and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, ‘This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ We heard this voice born from heaven for we were with Him on the Holy Mountain. Therefore, we have the prophetic word made more clear and you’d do well to pay attention to this until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.”

It’s a beautiful passage from Peter. He’s telling us to be faithful until the end, faithful until Christ comes. One day Christ will come for us or we’ll go to Him, depending on whether we’re the last generation. We’re going to see Him. The important thing is that we’re faithful, faithful unto death. Confess Christ. Do not deny Him. Follow Christ. Do not compare yourselves with others. Don’t crater to the culture but stand for the truth of Christ. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.