Dennis Tuuri

John 1:35-42

Again the next day John stood with two of his disciples and looking at Jesus as he walked he said behold the lamb of God. The two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned and seeing them following said to them what do you seek? They said to him Rabbi which is to say when translated teacher Where are you staying? He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day. Now it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah,” which is translated the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, he said, You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone.

Let us pray. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would take this word and illumine it to our understanding. We thank you for your word in spirit. We thank you that we have received these things because of the great gift of salvation which we have celebrated this day. We thank you that your purpose in bringing us here together for you was to seek our savior, that we might seek him, knowledge from his word, life from his sacrament and glory from his forgiveness. Help us then, Father, to be the recipients of knowledge from your word, not an intellectual knowledge only, but a knowledge that comports with good behavior.

Change us Lord God. Transform us by the power of the word. In his name we pray. Amen.

Today to hear the good news, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the message every Lord’s day that comes forth from the word of God. It is always a gospel, a proclamation of the good news of the savior. This gospel is a great blessing. It is a blessing not simply to us as individuals nor to this church, nor to the church institutional across the face of the globe, but rather to all of the culture, all the world.

Isaiah 52:7-10 talk about this gospel that would be proclaimed fully in the context of the Christian church. Once Messiah had come and accomplished his work, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, gospel, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Your watchmen shall lift up their voices. With their voices they shall sing together, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion, break forth into joy. Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

We come together today connecting with the church for 2,000 years, rejoicing in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the implications for the salvation of the entire world. We come together not simply with the church as it has existed for 2,000 years, but as Isaiah makes clear for several thousand years before that, we come together in the same stream of blessings that issues forth from the garden itself.

When in the proto-evangelium, the first proclamation of this good news that God reigns, God told the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The Savior was promised not only to Adam and Eve, but promised to his opponent that his opponent’s death, his opponent’s loss, his opponent’s destruction was sure. From the opening words of scripture, we have this great promise of the good news. Our God reigns from beginning to end.

So when we read in John 3:16-17, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. When we read this, this is the completion of that prophecy begun way back in the garden. This is the good news, the proclamation of the work of the Savior to be accomplished. 4,000 years after its prophecy then and has been accomplished finally definitively 2,000 years ago in what we celebrate this Lord’s day and every Lord’s day the day of resurrection.

We love to tell our children the Easter story do we not. We love to tell our children these great stories of the scriptures and as we tell our children these great stories we remind them of who they are. I was listening to a tape by Doug Wilson, a talk that he’ll give a form of at our family camp. And he talked about how so often we can sort of think of ourselves as a little pond, isolated, and the rest of the world is like a big ocean out there. But he said, and I think it’s a very accurate depiction of what the scriptures tell us, that we’re not part of a little isolated pond.

When we tell our children these Bible stories, these wonderful stories culminating in the resurrection story of our savior. When we tell our children these stories, we’re reminding them they’re part of a stream that has flowed for six thousand years God put enmity between the two seeds that our children are flowing in the stream of blessing that God has demonstrated over and over and over his resurrection, his forgiveness of sins, his conquering of all those who would oppose him. Our children are placed in the context of that mighty stream. And they understand who they are when we connect them to the church that has existed for 6,000 years. Not simply for 2,000 years.

To accomplish this, we love to tell the story of resurrection. We love to tell the great stories in the scriptures that speak of death and resurrection. And today, we tell a story of Passover and deliverance that is full of resurrection themes.

Today, we remind our children of what happened 2,000 years ago in a different context. We remind our children of what happened at the time when Herod had killed James, the brother of John—an important voice of prophecy against the sins of the world. That voice was silenced by martyrdom. And that was the context for Herod, this Edomite king who had killed a very important member of the church, now also moving to kill another very important part of the history of the church. The signs were evident that another victim was being planned for here.

The arrest had happened in the context of the Passover feast. Of course, you know, it’s interesting that the history of the Jews was that a prisoner would be released during Passover week. Why? Because it was a picture of the release of Israel from sin and bondage from the death of the Egyptians back at the original Passover as they came out of Egypt. And while the people may demand the release of whom they want, God releases the prisoner that is the object of his adoration, his love. He is his prisoner.

So we have this context of martyrdom. We’ve got a Herod Edomite king who is now plotting against other important elements of the church, more important elements of the church. Obviously we have then of course the great story of the unexpected release from the dark pit. And after this great release from the darkened pit, we have an encounter with a woman. A picture I suppose of Adam and Eve once more. The picture of the head of the church meeting his bride.

This woman delighted to see the resurrection picture that she has been brought into contact with runs and tells the disciples of the great miracle that has occurred. But we’re surprised as we tell our children this story to remind them that these disciples when they first hear word of this bringing out of the dark pit don’t believe it. Being men, they don’t believe the report of this woman. These men say, Oh no, you must be crazy. And this appearance must be a ghost. Must be a ghost, an angel, a dream, a vision. Can’t be true.

But of course, our savior is gracious and kind even to us unbelieving men. And to those disciples, he assures them that the resurrection has indeed been accomplished. They come to their senses through the grace of the Holy Spirit and recognize in the context of this great resurrection story that indeed, God has moved miraculously. They are instructed of the risen one. Then they’re instructed to go and tell the rest of the disciples the great news of what God has accomplished in the context of this story.

And as soon as the subject of our story has appeared, then it seems like immediately he kind of disappears there telling people what to do, moving on then and being taken someplace else. The king is marching in the context of victory to conquer all the world.

The story goes on to tell and we tell our children of the consternation of the rulers. The rulers don’t like what’s happened. Herod is angry and the rulers are angry and they strike out at the guards who are supposed to make sure that this coming back up to life did not occur. They have been they are the ones who then become subject ultimately to the terrors of pagan rulers. But we can see in the death of these guards we can see of course the death of all those who oppose the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can see reflections of that Passover story that our children should know that the horse and his rider has been thrown into the sea that the pharaoh who opposes the church and the exodus to come and his men will be destroyed in the providence of God.

Of course, there are greater results from this story than just what happens to the guards. The church is not put to death through the vain attempts of the satanic scene, but rather it triumphs in resurrection strength and moves to disciple the world. And this story is the reason why we’re assembled on this day to rejoice and to sing praises to God. It’s a wonderful story in its kind of culmination that we speak of on Easter.

But it’s a story that has very simple beginnings found in our text today as Peter who is of course the subject of what I have been speaking here as Peter is brought into contact with the Savior. Wait a minute pastor, you’ve slipped a cog. You’ve missed a gear somewhere along. Peter is the subject of who you’re speaking now. Peter is the one who was brought up from the dead. Peter is the one who is imprisoned and thrown into a pit in the context of Passover. Peter is the one that speaks to the woman and she then runs back and tells the disciples the great news. Peter is the one who is disbelieved by the disciples. Peter is the one who’s foreseen or saw as a ghost or an angel. And Peter is the one who pops in and then disappears. Yes, dearly beloved of the Lord, Peter is the topic of my story this morning.

Ultimately, of course, what he’s doing is he’s walking in the footsteps of the savior and his life is being fulfilled in the context of the steps of Messiah who is the great story of course that we come to celebrate this Lord’s day. Let’s turn to Acts 12 and we’ll read the nineteen verses that tell this story that I’ve just given to you.

Acts 12, beginning at verse 1. This is a great story. You may not have told your children yet, but you should.

Acts 12, beginning in verse one. Now, about that time. Now, we’re going to come back to this in 10 minutes or so. There’s a time reference here. Something has happened just immediately prior to this, which we’ll come to.

Now, about that time, Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. The same way earlier, John had been beheaded in preparation for the martyrdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. So Peter’s put in the context of martyrdom, in the context of these events happening when now it was during the days of unleavened bread, the Passover feast is what’s being spoken of here. Same time of year as our savior was put to death in the context of the martyrdom that had preceded him of John the Baptist.

So when he had arrested him, He put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. See, he wanted to make sure that Peter wasn’t released as that Passover prisoner. But God is going to make sure that Peter is the prisoner released. Somebody else was released that Passover by the people. And his tradition, you always got to release one prisoner because that was a picture of our redemption in terms of the church and Passover. Herod didn’t want to put him on trial before Passover because he didn’t want him released. He wanted to make sure he was going to be dead. That’s why he’s in prison.

Notice that he’s in a strongly held prison. He’s in a tomblike prison that is secured by guards as our savior’s abode in his tomb was secured by guards. Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. This is a wonderful contrast in the stories. Our savior goes to his cross and to his death and resurrection alone. Everyone had left him which will be an important part of our application as we move to the end of this sermon.

But not so those that follow in the footsteps of the savior. Now the holy spirit has empowered the church to be praying for those who are in persecution. And the church is praying for Peter. And when Herod was about to bring him out, which means he was going to bring him out for trial and kill him is what he was to do. That night, Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers, and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. You see, it’s like that stone in front of this thing, guarded by guards by Roman soldiers. Here, the soldiers of Herod are guarding to make sure they got chains, they got guys on both sides of him, and they got guys at the door to make sure that he can’t get out the way that Jesus got out of the tomb somehow.

Now, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the prison. And he struck Peter on the side and raised him up. Well, you know, I’m sorry if I wax allegorical here, but I cannot help but pause at that verse and say that all of our resurrections are found, of course, because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The proof of which was the sword stuck in his side, and out of it comes blood and water. And our resurrection is based upon the crucifixion of our savior. And that is alluded to here in the text as well.

I mean, we don’t want to mistake this story as really the great story of the resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ, but we do want to see the connections back as a way of understanding who we are. We’re Peter in the context of these stories. Arise quickly, the angel tells. And his chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals.” And so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment.” And follow me.

So he went out and followed him. He follows the angel. Remember Lot’s deliverance, his exodus from Sodom and Gomorrah, following the angel. And you remember even Israel of course in the great exodus from Egypt followed the angel of the Lord out of the exodus. This text is clearly portraying what happens to Peter here as in context in the line of the stories of exodus being led forth by God and the great exodus, of course, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on his cross and resurrection.

Peter didn’t know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord. The iron gate, which leads to the city, opens to them of its own accord.

The church pictured here in the office head of the church, Peter, who had been specifically part of the apostles that Jesus gave great authority to in the context of the church. The church moves into the gates of the city. The gates of hell shall not withstand the advance of the church pictured here in Peter. And the God supernaturally provides us entrance into the city that shall be redeemed or be destroyed. And so the gates here open to Peter of their own accord.

And they went out and went down one street. And immediately the angel departed from him. And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.” You see, this exodus is telling us once more that the Jewish people, Jerusalem, Herod, have become Egypt, Pharaoh, and Pharaoh’s soldiers. And God provides deliverance for Peter. He provides deliverance for the church in the context of this story.

So when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer. And when she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her gladness, she did not open the gate. You know, Mary doesn’t know who Jesus is the morning of the resurrection. But when he calls her by her name, Miriam, actually, and she hears his voice, She recognizes in the voice the savior and she is jubilant of heart and Rhoda here hears Peter’s voice and on the basis of the recognition of that voice of Peter she becomes jubilant of heart and as the woman with Jesus ran back to tell the disciples so Rhoda here in her great joy in her exuberant gladness she doesn’t open the gate but she ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.

But they said to her, “You’re beside yourself.” See, as the disciples didn’t believe the report of the women, so the disciples here don’t believe the report of Rhoda. Yet, she kept insisting that it was so. So, they said, “It’s his angel.” You know, when they saw the resurrected Savior, they said, “It’s a spirit. It’s not really him. It must be a ghost.” Well, you might have seen something, Rhoda, but it’s got to be his spirit, a ghost, an angel, something other than what you think it is.

But God is gracious. He doesn’t turn his back on these unbelieving disciples. Peter continues knocking. Jesus knocks at the door of your heart. He doesn’t give up. He knocks and he knocks and he knocks and Peter knocks and knocks and knocks here and he demands entrance and indeed these disciples indeed open the door. They saw him and they are astonished. But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. He said, “Go tell these things to James and to the brethren as our savior commissioned the ones that he first saw to tell the other disciples. So Peter now tells him to tell the other disciples what’s happened. God has resurrected me. He’s brought me back from the pit. He’s loosed my chains and let me go free for the purposes of serving the church.

Then as soon as it was day, there was no small stir. Oh, I’m sorry. I missed the phrase. And he departed and went to another place. Our savior makes these appearances and boom, he’s gone. Peter says one thing. Go and tell everybody and where does he go? We don’t know where he goes, but we know the text has recorded that incident, I believe, fairly certainly here to get us to think of our savior in the same way. He comes and makes post-resurrection appearances and he moves on to do further work.

Peter in the power of the resurrection now applied to him in his prison deliverance moves on as he goes and does these things. He’s walking in the footsteps of the master. He is a servant exemplar. Here he walks in the footsteps of the master. Soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. But when Herod had searched for him and not found him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death. And he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

And boy is he going down. He is descending. He is going into that downward integration into the void as he now kills his very guards. The hosts that are arrayed against the church are set to division and confusion amongst themselves and they’re going to start killing off one another as God has done so many times in the history of his deliverances in the context of the church.

This story of Peter is the Easter story. It’s this Easter story with particular application to a person now Peter who represents the church and it has great significance for us. Understand how closely these events recapitulate the resurrection of the savior. First person to encounter Jesus were women. First to encounter Peter was Rhoda. The woman ran back to tell the disciples and Jesus’s about Jesus’s resurrection. Rhoda runs back to tell the Christians leaving the gate that Peter was alive at the gate.

As the disciples didn’t believe the testimony of the woman, so the church didn’t believe Rhoda. Just as the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost until he ate a fish, So the Christians said that Rhoda had seen Peter’s angel. Finally, they let Peter in. He tells them what’s happened. He then says, “Report these things to James and the brethren as our savior told the disciples in Matthew 28 to report his resurrection to the disciples.” And then he departs and he goes into another place just as Jesus does these same things.

The parallels are absolutely unmistakable here. And it’s important for us. Now, God superintends history. This is not some sort of literary device. This is an accurate recounting of what happened in the resurrection of Peter. This is an accurate recounting of what God did in terms of history. God moves supernaturally, superintending the events of history for particular purposes.

God sets us up to see these rather dramatic parallels in the lives of Jesus and his disciples for some very particular purposes. And this here, this account in the book of Acts, it has particular purposes for the book of Acts itself. Peter’s escape from prison is an exodus being led out by an angel and all that. The Edomite King Herod is obviously a new Pharaoh who knows not Joseph. Joseph another one delivered from prison and he’ll be killed. This Herod will in rather dramatic fashion by God as the 12th chapter of Acts proceeds.

You know, in verse 23, we read that this man, this opponent, this new Pharaoh was eaten by worms. That’s part of this story. Eaten by worms and died. And then verse 24, but the word of God grew and multiplied. Pharaoh and his hosts are thrown into the sea. But God’s people go and conquer. They multiply. They advance. They take over and conquer the world. In Acts, the horse and the rider have been thrown into the belly of the world, so to speak.

The horse and the rider have been thrown into the belly of hell, so to speak. And the picture here for us, an important picture it is to us. Verse 24, immediately the very next verse, Barnabas and Saul return to Antioch from Jerusalem. Remember I said at the beginning of the account in Acts, it talks about at that time. Well, what was that time? Well, you look at, if you got your Bibles open, still look at verse 30 of chapter 11. This they also did. I’ll let you give you time to look at that.

Acts 11:30. This they also did send it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. So and then after Herod dies then Paul Saul who becomes renamed now Paul in chapter 13 go on to effect worldwide missions from Antioch. So in the context of the flow of the book of acts, this story of Peter’s resurrection linked to Jesus’s resurrection has particular purposes.

At the same time as God is affecting this Christlike resurrection of Peter from prison, it’s in the context of a great famine going on in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch sending Saul and Barnabas up to Jerusalem to relieve the famine church. You’ll remember that many of the plagues in Egypt did not affect Goshen, the land where the children of Israel were. So we had this plague of famine upon Jerusalem, upon the Edomite king, and upon the Jews who had rejected our savior, who had become Egyptians essentially.

The plagues are happening there. But God makes provision for his people now, not supernaturally, but through the agency of the Christian church. And it’s that act of benevolence of Saul and Barnabas that this whole story is set in the context of. And what’s happening here is there’s a movement in the book of Acts from a bipolarity of Jews and Gentiles that the Old Testament set up that was temporary until the coming of our savior. And then that dividing wall is broken down and the church is made one.

Jesus dies and is raised up and Peter then becomes the head of the church to take the gospel to Jerusalem and Judea. Peter dies, so to speak, is imprisoned and is raised up. And as a result of that event, Saul becomes Paul in the very next chapter. And Saul now becomes the man to take the conquest into broader regions, into the conquest of the world, as it were. And so there’s this picture of the man, the advancement of the preaching of that good news from Isaiah, our God reigns as this story is unfurled.

And we are supposed to see this. We’re supposed to see this advance in the context of the book of Acts. Jesus’s exodus led way to the mission to Jerusalem and Judea under the headship of Peter. Peter’s exodus led the way to the greater mission to the world which begins, as I said, in chapter 13 of the book of Acts. Paul Saul is renamed Paul. They’re granted deliverance from Egypt or Israel in departure from there. They go back to Antioch and the worldwide mission begins to take place.

Then immediately in chapter 13, Jesus’s Exodus puts Peter in charge of the conquest of Jerusalem and Judea. Peter’s Exodus puts Paul in charge of the conquest of the world. Peter in chapters 2-12, not just in chapter 12, but in 2-12 is followed or tracked in the footsteps of the Savior. He preaches. He raises up disciples who go out and preach. Stephen and Philip he suffers. He is resurrected and transformed and the gospel then advances in the context of the world.

Now we’ve been talking about eschatology in our Wednesday night class and what we’ve said is that our view my view of the book of revelation is that most of those events happen in AD70 but there’s this idealist view that it tells us principles about how things happen in history that’s true too. These events tell us are certainly events that are being recorded as being fulfilled 2,000 years ago. But they give us the model for the expansion of the gospel into all the world. They give us the model of the cross of death and resurrection as our savior gives us that model.

And here we see that the church persecuted as it is attempted to be stamped out and troubled in trials and tribulations. Those very trials and tribulations are used by the sovereign God to affect deliverance and further mission. You know the phrase, you know, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And that’s certainly being pictured for us here in the context of this great Easter story of resurrection of Peter.

Wherever the church is attacked and put to death, she emerges stronger than before. Martyrdom is the seed of the church because we celebrate Easter. This is why we celebrate Easter as the centrality of the Christian year a resurrection Sunday. It forms the pattern the book of acts tells us for the expansion of the gospel as well. And this is true not simply of the church institutionally corporately but I believe this also has great relevance for ourselves as individuals. The suffering of the believer always leads to the advancement of the gospel.

The message is simple from this text as it applies itself to us. I think it has very important considerations for the church in its historical development, but it has just as important considerations for us as individual Christians and for particular churches today as well.

The message is simple. We move in terms of our savior and his life. Some of you are gathered here together as you as is common on a Lord’s day. Some of you have great trials and tribulations going on in your life. Churches are having difficulties. Some of them There’s a church, Reformation Bible Church, that has closed its doors. And this is a church we were going to sponsor in the context of the CRA. This is a deathlike experience for them.

Others of you are going through things in your personal life that represent real trials and tribulations. And this Easter Sunday, this resurrection Lord’s Day, as every resurrection Lord’s Day should do, should give you great hope that God is moving in the context of these events to prepare you for further blessing in the context of your life. Peter could have been quite depressed. Maybe he was in the context of prison, in the context of his trials and tribulations. But God says, “Tell your children the story, yes, of Jesus, but of the application of the work of Jesus in the life of the church and in the life of individual Christians in the context of the church as well.

We track Jesus. That’s what we do as Christians. We follow in the steps of Jesus by God’s sovereign love and providence in our lives. If Peter’s resurrection is an exodus, it is an exodus because of the Savior’s exodus.

Now, I’ve used that term several times. Let me tell you why. We read in Luke 9:31 in the mount of transfiguration says, “Who appeared in glory and spoke of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Savior speaks of his decease. departure your version may have that. He was going to accomplish at Jerusalem. The Greek word is exodus. And so what it’s talking about is he’s talking about the exodus that he will accomplish at Jerusalem. The definitive exodus of which all of our exoduses and Peter’s exodus is a retroreflection.

Our lives track Jesus and he moved in the context of Exodus and we celebrate the Exodus today. And we celebrate the Exodus in the context of our lives as well. Egypt was simply a foreshadowing of the great Exodus that Jesus would accomplish at Jerusalem. And all of our exoduses are retroreflections to be of great comfort to the church as this account in Acts 12 is.

Not only do we celebrate what the third person of the Trinity accomplished for his purposes today, but we celebrate what is accomplished for us miserable sinners. What we celebrate is that Peter rises up in resurrection strength to track those steps of the savior. Peter was a miserable sinner like you or I. Peter was like us. Now Jesus is perfect man. God the second person of the trinity accomplishes our redemption but then shows us in this particular Easter story from Acts 12 what it means to us poor miserable sinners.

Our text is instructive in the application of the Easter story to Peter and to us then as poor miserable sinners. We read in verses 41 and 42 of the text he first I think this means the next day that’s why we did it as a separate sermon the next first thing the next morning Andrew goes and finds his brother Simon and says to him we have found Messiah which is translated the Christ and he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him. He said, “You are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated a rock.”

These are the early years of Peter. This is the earliest record we have. None of the other synoptics give us these original calls of these disciples. We hear about Jesus calling Peter at the Sea of Galilee, but that’s sometime later. This is the first encounter. This is the early days of the relationship. The earliest day that we know of the relationship between Peter and Jesus and is very instructive to us what happens in this encounter.

How do we get to that resurrection strength of Peter to go and do the work of the savior that we read about in Acts 12? How does that happen? We have seen so far in the last half of John chapter 1, these days of discipleship that we’ve spoken of. We’ve seen that it’s important for disciples to deny themselves. We’re not the salvation. We’re not the source of all knowledge. We don’t know how to run things best. We need mediated grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for knowledge, for consecrating what we have, and for ruling.

A good confession begins by saying who we are not. We cannot save ourselves. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can accomplish that for us. A good confession acknowledges that the way Jesus accomplishes our salvation and the salvation of the whole world is as the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. We don’t need political deliverance first and foremost. We don’t need the world to become homeschoolers. We don’t need good political action first and foremost. This is what I tried to say last week. We must seek Jesus. And as we seek Jesus, lo and behold, most of us are homeschooling and have our kids in private school. And as we seek Jesus, we talk about the crown rights of King Jesus in the context of the political realm. And lo and behold, we become politically active.

But those things are never to be seen as the core. You see, again, these excellent tapes by Doug Wilson and I’m promoting family camp here self-consciously. Great talks he’s going to be giving to us, not just on leadership and economics, but also he’s got several talks for our children that they need to hear and we need to hear him give them. And what he tells them is that, you know, if you build a pile of blocks up, kids, you know how to make a little mountain out of blocks. You don’t do it on mattresses or pillows. You don’t do it on carpet even. You need a firm foundation for those blocks to be built up. And the foundation for our children’s obedience for their being raised in the context of the faith are the promises of God to the generations that follow us.

The promises of God, his grace and his mercy is the foundation that we must build upon. And that’s what I meant when I said that we’re not a homeschooling church. The foundation is not homeschooling. We may be characterized by those things, but it’s because we built on the rock. You see, and we must build on that rock. If we seek the other things first and fail to seek Jesus and then its application, we’re going to be like trying to build a house here on a pillow. Then it may stand for a while. A deck of cards can hold up for a little bit, but the little bit of wind comes through. And believe me, God’s spirit will do that. His wind will blow in the context of such a church.

In the context of families that have not really sought Christ as the foundation for what they do, that wind blows. And the cards all fall down. We have learned these things from the days of discipleship up to now. We have learned that really the motivation for what we celebrate this Easter week, the death and resurrection of the savior was people trying to kill the Lord Jesus Christ to save their own conscience. Over and over again, we’re told that the Pharisees and the Jews were envious of Jesus. They could not have his righteousness. The only way to plate their conscience was to bow the knee to him and admit their denying of themselves and seeking Christ or to kill him to get him out of the way.

If this church becomes a beacon to this community of the crown rights of King Jesus, the moral goodness of his people and this community feels convicted by that, they will either come to repentance or they will seek us to destroy us. It’s that simple. And so the people sought Jesus not to obey him or submit to him, but Rather they sought him to kill him to ease their conscience by murder by destroying the picture of what was troubling to them.

But of course in the providence of God all this is being accomplished for his purposes today. We see this very important truth of discipleship given to us. God has plans for us. That’s what we see in this very simple account of Peter’s first meeting with Jesus. We see Jesus do several things here with Peter. We see Jesus grabbing a hold of Peter. And what we see when we get around to Acts chapter 12 is the result of what Jesus begins here in John chapter 1.

What does Jesus do? Well, he gives Peter a new name. Peter’s name is not Peter. It’s Simon. And so, the first thing Jesus does is he names his people here in the text. He names us. Maybe not the first, but in terms of the sermon, How is discipleship accomplished? Jesus names us. Names are important in the scriptures. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. Saul becomes Paul in the context of the worldwide mission. Abram becomes Abraham. Names are important in the context of the scriptures.

Frank Herbert in his book Dune wrote that to name a thing is to control a thing. To name a thing is to control a thing. God is the great name and being made in the image of God. We name things, do we not? That was Adam’s task. To name animals. Why? Because we wanted an encyclopedia of animals. No. Because Adam was to exercise dominion over the things that he named. To name a thing is to control it. Herbert was right. It didn’t come out of his skull. It came out of the scriptures. Jesus controls grabs a hold of Peter for his particular purposes by giving him a new name.

When we baptized the children last week of families here, we asked, “What is the Christian name of these children?” Because we name our children understanding that God places his name upon them. He grabs a hold of them for his purposes. Jesus names him Cephas because he’s going to make a rock out of him. Not because he is a rock. He is a Simon up to now. He’s the son of this other fella. But Jesus brings him into his family. And Jesus is going to make him rocky.

You know Rocky Balboa. Rocky means little rock. You know the diminutive at the end of a name makes it little. Denny little. Andy you know Johnny well he’s rocky or a Gaelic translation I think said that Peter was rocking in the context doesn’t mean rock king it means rocking he was of rock. In Matthew 16 we’re told that Peter confesses Christ as Messiah which is interesting because that’s the context for Peter’s original call is Andrew saying we found Messiah well in Matthew 16 Jesus says yes your name is Peter Cephas rocky little rock and upon this rock big rock definitive rock being either the confession of Christ or himself and I think himself he is the rock Daniel tells us that destroys every other kingdom he’s the rock whose kingdom grows to fill the world upon this rock our savior says he’s going to build his church.

The rock is Jesus so Peter is rocky but he’s not that yet he’s unstable and we are it’s astonishing to us to think of him as rock as he does some of the silly things that he does fairly immediately in the context of the disciples. But Jesus, you see, names him, grabs a hold of him. You know, if a magician does a magic trick with cards, if he’s good at what he does and he understands people, and they usually do, he won’t just say, you know, that’s I have to pull this Queen of Hearts out of the deck and show it to you. He’ll give it to you. He’ll give it to somebody in the audience and they’ll he’ll say, “What does it say? Well, it’s his queen of hearts. You’ve named the card. You see, it’s become your card that he’s going to find when he does his trick. It brings you and you representing the audience into the stage.

It makes connection. And usually they often they will have you scribble something on the card. And part of that’s an identifying mark, but part of that is because you take ownership of it. You see, you put something on it. It’s not a queen of hearts anymore. It’s your queen of hearts. You scribbled on it. Well, Jesus scribbles on Simon and what he scribbles on Simon is a name. Jesus grabs a hold of his disciples for his particular purposes and his purpose is to bring them into conformity to that name.

Jesus not only names us. Jesus sees our potentiality so to speak in terms of modern lingo I suppose. Jesus sees whom we are to be in him. Jesus saw what he intended Peter to be in him and that’s why he gives him his particular name. Jesus calls him a stone to make him a stone. He calls you Christian by your baptism. He puts his name on you to make you into a Christian, a further disciple. And if Peter is a picture of the church in Acts 12, then we’re to be like him. We’re to be firm established, sturdy and strengthening, strengthening to the people as Peter was.

The resurrection story of Jesus reminds us that Peter has become established by the Lord Jesus Christ and that establishment begins by a name and it continues on and it also involved in that is Jesus is seeing whom Jesus whom Peter will be in the context of his kingdom. We see here how Jesus looks at man and in fact the word when Jesus looks at Peter. It’s kind of an intent gaze. Jesus not only sees what a man is today. He also sees what a man can become. He doesn’t just see the present actualities in a man. He also sees the potentialities that he will bring to pass in accomplishing.

Jesus looked at Peter, saw him not only a Galilean fisherman, but one who had it in him to become the rock on which his church would be built, shelter and at least an essential component of that early church with its mission to the Jews. Jesus sees us not only as who we are but as who we can be. And he says, “Give your life to me and I’ll make you what you have what you have it in you to become.” Or better put, “Give your life to me and I will transform you into what I intend for you.”