Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, is introduced as the author of a letter to believers who share a precious faith. The sermon explores Peter's initial encounter with Jesus in Luke 4, detailing Jesus' ministry in the synagogue and then in Simon's home, where he healed Simon's mother-in-law. It further illustrates Jesus' interaction with Simon as a fisherman, leading to the miraculous catch of fish and Simon's declaration of his sinfulness. The sermon emphasizes that Jesus entered into Simon's religious, home, and business life, transforming him. The text then shifts to Matthew 16, where Jesus renames Simon to Peter and declares him a rock upon which the church will be built, highlighting the significance of Peter's confession and his future role in opening the kingdom to both Jews and Gentiles.
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Now, will you read alternate verses with me that is coming on verse two, four, six, and so on, altogether? Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained, like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these he might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through us And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patient godliness, and
to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that he shall neither be barren nor untruthful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and have forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. Knowing that shortly I must put all this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me, Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly, devised sables, when we make known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were I witnesses of His Majesty.
for he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. I expect many of you have noticed that in the olden days they did things completely different to today. For instance, you and I were taught that when we wrote a letter, we would start with dear Mr.
So-and-so and write our letter and then you ought very sincerely and right at the end you put your name. And I suppose most of you, when you get a letter from a stranger, arise at the end, see who wrote it before you begin to read it. You know, I think the old folks were far more practical. They started their letter by introducing themselves. That is one thing in America that I have loved that you don't find in Britain or European countries. Folks come up to you and they say, I'm Jimmy Jones from Detroit, and at once you know who you're talking to. Now, when you go to Europe and other countries, you'll find they don't do that. They sort of wait for an introduction and you hang around for about a day before you get to know who you're talking to.
And I love the free and easy practical way of introducing yourself. So we start our letter with the word Simon. S-I-M-O-N. And this is the name of the man that we are going to consider, and the name of the man is going to talk to us. It could be that his name was Simeon, but it's thought to us in our English Bible as Simon. Now, whenever you read of Simon Peter in the Gospel before the Lord had a tremendous experience with him at Caesarea Philippi, It is purely the gospel of those who are calling him Simon Peter.
They knew him by that name, and in their records, inspired, they may use that name. But up to a certain time no one called him Peter. Jesus gave him that name after a tremendous experience at Caesarea Philippi, which we shall look at soon. Now, when did Simon first meet Jesus as far as the Bible record goes? I'm going to ask you to turn back to Luke's Gospel, Chapter Four. Luke's Gospel, Chapter Four. Verse thirty-eight, and this gives us a beautiful little key to the first introduction of these two men, Simon and Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, as you read verse thirty-eight, you realize instinctively you've got to begin to look back. It's no good just stopping here without looking back a bit. Let me read that verse. And Jesus arose out of the synagogue and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought him for her. Simon lived in a fishing village just outside of Capernaum on the north coast of the Sea of Galilee. There was nothing else but fishing in Simon's life. He was born into a fisher's family and lived in a fisher's cottage, helped in the fishing in boyhood, and the only thing he dreamt of was to be a fisher.
And he and his brother Andrew lived, perhaps fairly near to two other men, James and John, the son of Jebedee, who was also a fisherman, in this village. And they looked out down the lake about ten miles over the blue gallery. And they just dreamt of catching fish and making a living a fish. A good, healthy, lifetime work. Now, where did this boy go to church? Where did he get married? Because he got married and he did a very, very brave thing, let me tell you, when he invited his wife's mother to come and live with them.
these mothering laws you know they're wonderful wonderful people about to get them in the house living with you is another matter and where did he go to church well now let's look back verse thirty one and Jesus came down to Capernaum a city of Galilee and taught them on the Sabbath day and they were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with power And in the synagogue there was a man which was, which had a spirit of an unclean demon, cried with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth?
Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, thou holy one of God. I say, what a situation, the devil in a church. Expect the devil to go to the bars and the dens of sin, but you don't expect to find him in a church. But some of you youngsters have lived long enough and you've kept your eyes open enough to find that the devil goes to church. Oh yes, you can find him even in the assemblies of God's people doing his work. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, all how often you can see that bad spirit, the spirit of the devil, showing himself through human lips and eyes.
You know, the one great thing is this. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience and the human natural heart doesn't want Jesus Christ to disturb them. Let me alone! What have you come to do in my life? I want to say to you young people, some of the deepest work of the Lord Jesus has to be done in the churches today. You know, I'm convinced of this, you won't like my saying, is that the greatest need of America is not for more Christians. It's for better Christians. The moment God begins to make better Christians, then immediately more Christians are manufactured. It's simply a wonderful how they multiply.
And here right in the synagogue, the religious life of Simon, where he went as a boy possibly, where he got married, The Lord Jesus comes and he deals with the devil or the demon in the church. Now out of the church, verse thirty-eight, he arose and he went to Simon's house. You see, he stepped out of Simon's religious life into Simon's whole life. You know, really honestly, we can dress up and look awful nice when we go to church. We can sit in assembly with other Christians and we'll pass all right.
But let's go home and let's ask mum about you and dad about you and sis about you and brother about you and then we get the naked truth. And all wasn't well in Simon's home. There was fever in the home. a feverishness that upsets him, temperatures were running high. And the Lord Jesus steps into the home and he deals with the fever, the distraction, the abnormal temperatures in the home. And it's lovely to think that that mother-in-law arose from her bed of fever and ministered to Jesus.
But now you notice if you turn just a page in Luke five, that the Lord Jesus moves into another realm of Simon's life. It says, verse three, and Jesus entered into one of the ships which was Simon's. He's come to the lakeside and he sees the fishermen busy and he's watching them casting their nets and washing their nets and mending their nets. These industrious men And the eyes of the Lord Jesus upon them, he longs for the day when he'll be able to say, follow me, I'll make you fishers of men. And he's going to call them to be chosen disciples.
He's going to make them into great apostles. And as he's watching them, mending their nets and busy with their boats, he asks for one of those boats which was Simon's. And it says that he stepped into it, he sat down, He asked them to push it a little way from the land, and he spoke to the crowds that gathered on the lakeside. And then he turned to Simon and said, Thank you for lending that boat to me, launch out into the deep and let down your nest for a draft. And there's that thrilling story of Simon getting the draft to fishes and being thrilled with it.
But instead of looking at the fish and thinking of the dollars, he looks into Jesus' face and he says, Depart from me. I'm a sinful man, O Lord. And he realizes his utter unfittedness for the presence of Jesus. Now we are face to face with Simon and we've seen that Simon steps into the life, Jesus steps into the life of Simon in three realms, his religious life, his home life and his business life. Oh young people, if you can honestly come into the fellowship of a local church. and you can say Christ is Lord and he's given his rightful place and he puts Satan in his rightful place.
In that assembly Christ is honored in the midst and given his rightful place. We listen to his word and we wonder at his presence. You've got something in life of tremendous value. I want to tell you this, I am meeting constantly people who are finding this out slowly and bitterly. tossed around in great worldly denominational groups where modernism and the battle of evil teaching is raging. Again and again all the work of a dear man of God is undone because some man comes from a theological college and he begins to speak modernism that rifts the word of God to free.
And the fact that you are meeting and gathering with a company of Christians in a little local church where the Word of God is loved and honored and they gather together in the Lord's name and presence is something that you've taken for granted, is a heritage that many of you have entered into without great cost. But listen, you've got something. I've traveled a good deal in my time, and I want to tell you in forty different countries I've met with the Lord's people in these little local churches, these little assemblies of Christians. And I can step into any one of them, thousands and thousands of them in different countries, from New Zealand to America.
It's the remote bush of the Amazon jungles and the Guyana, the Congo. Wherever you go, you can find them and you can stand up, open God's word and say, They've upset the Lord, and they will sit with respect and listen and say, If the book says it, we are not. And I tell you, quite frankly, if I left them, I wouldn't know where to come. I wouldn't know where to come. We have a heritage that we should not treat lightly. And we mustn't let the devil coil. We mustn't let him usurp the place of Christ. We must ever let Christ put the devil in his right place outside in our church life.
Then many of you have a home life that's very precious. You don't know it. You've only got to see some of the kids from homes that are broken and smashed, and there's a cat-and-dog life, and dad comes in with a smell of liquor on his lips and cocks his life like that. Yes, I was working amongst the kids at Spoon Lake for two weeks this year, kids from New York slums and places like that, and it's heartbreaking to hear the story. Some of them weeping, tears pouring down their cheeks on Saturday as they pack their bags to go down to Harlem and Manhattan and back to the old home where there's no love and joy and peace when Christ isn't known. But there may be a little fever in your home, maybe a little high temperature occasionally, but Christ is the solution to it.
He can step into our home life. And then many of you are facing the future. I love to ask youngsters what they're going to be, and one says, I'm going to be a doctor, and another says, I'm going to be this, and I'm going to be that. It's simply great to hear you're talking like that. But never forget this. Never forget this. Whether you're going to be a businessman, or a home builder, or whatever career you're going to have, let your business career, your boat, be a pulpit where Christ is allowed to sit and teach. where he's wanted, a pulpit where you can display Christ to the crowds of watch. And they can say that's Simon's boat, but Jesus has chosen it, is seated in it, is displaying himself, is speaking to that boat to the crowd.
I had a father who was a businessman, and I had seen him unbended me in the inner sanctuary of his private office, leaving a business colleague to Christ. I remember a young man going to the door and seeing Dad unbended me with a man, a man in business who was up against things, and I knew my own father used his business career as a portrait to display Christ. So we have introduced ourselves to Simon the first word. Now the next word, Peter. Now when did Simon get this name, Peter? Let's turn to Matthew chapter sixteen.
Matthew chapter sixteen, and here we are at Caesarea Philippi, probably a Roman garrison town, on the coast. of Palestine with the blue Mediterranean Sea stretching away into the distance. And in verse thirteen we read, when Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? I think this is one of the great pictures of the Gospels. You see, about two years have gone by, and these men that he's chosen as disciples have learned to know and love their master, and they're all round him, clustering round him a great big bunch of overgrown boys.
Because that's all men are, they're just big boys growing up. And there they are jostling each other, these fishermen and tax-gatherers. And he looks into their faces and he says, you go amongst the crowds and that's where you can always get public opinion. Let me tell you girls, you'll never get public opinion what the crowd is talking about. He's shutting yourself up. You've got a mingle of the crowds to get public opinion. Now you've been amongst them. You've been dishing out the lobes and the fishes and you've been listening to the chatter of the crowd. Who do they say I am? And the first big disciple opens his mouth and he says, well, I heard them talking and they say that you're John the Baptist.
Now, it's a wonderful thing to say. Do you know there was never a greater prophet of God to Israel than John, the greatest man born of a woman coming with a burning message? Or if I could only speak to a little while about John, I don't think we'd hear far enough about John the Baptist. You know, John the Baptist had backing up his words a pure character. They watched him and they saw his simple life. They saw the simple food that he ate, the simple clothes that he wore, and they knew they were dealing with a pure man. Now let me tell you, impurity is one of the tragic things that hit America.
I shall never forget the experience of a young Marine down in Georgia who came to me one day. I had the joy of leading into Christ and he wanted to talk things over. And you know, he told me his life as a teenage kid and I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. I said, do you really mean to tell me that these things are true? I could not believe that a boy of fourteen growing up to nineteen years of age and getting his call into the crosses could have behaved himself as he did. And he said it was common amongst the boys and girls in Georgia.
He said, our fathers and mothers didn't know it, that when we got the advantage of this and the car here and this and that and the other, they didn't know what was going on. And I tell you, as he told me some of the things I couldn't believe, I've got a little rhyme that he wrote to me. He was quite a poet, and he tells how one of the worst of sinners was taken by the Savior of the world and cleansed and made amuse. And thank God that night in Augusta, Georgia, he stepped out a Christian man, and I've seen his career in the Marines and back into civilian life. He's gone on magnificently for the Lord. Nothing but the grace of God that can make an impure fellow pure by the grace of God.
Yes, John the Baptist was pure and as they looked at Jesus they said he reminded us of John the Baptist. Pure character. Now the next thing you'll notice in verse fourteen the next disciple said he's he reminds us of Elijah. The people were all saying it's Elijah. Now Elijah was a man upon whom the power of God rested, and the miracles of Elijah are thrilling. He could call down fire from heaven. He could raise the dead. And as the people watched Jesus, they said, It's Elijah, back on earth again. He was translated to heaven without dying, and he's back amongst us again. Wonderful thing to say. The next one said he was like Jeremiah.
Oh, I used to despise Jeremiah as a boy growing up. I thought he was the old lamenting prophet with the tears on his cheeks, the old sob sob teller. But I tell you, the older I get, the more I like him. I think Jeremiah is one of the most wonderful men amongst the prophets. You know why? He was tender-hearted. He was unselfish. He was kindly in all his attitudes, moved in his heart by the things that he saw and heard. If you know this, dear old Jeremiah, if you read through his long, long, lovely prophecy, you'll see again and again a quality coming out that the world's dying for today.
And they saw that same quality in Jesus. They saw Jesus lifting the little children up in his arms. In fact, children ran to his arms. They saw the harvest and the needy person come to touch the hem of his garment. They saw the way he dealt with people. He could deal with lasting words against the Pharisees and the scribes, but the common people came around him and they saw that that great tender heart was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The next one said, verse fourteen, he's one of the prophets. Well, a prophet is a proclaimer of the truth, one that comes with a message from God and says, Thus kept the Lord.
And as they listened to his teaching, they said, Well, there's one sure thing, he's a prophet from God. And the Lord Jesus looked around and he said, that's what you heard the crowd saying. Now, I want to ask you, you've lived with me for two years. Who do you think I am? And then it comes. Simon Peter, verse sixteen, answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said, Blessed art thou, Simon, bar Jonah, the son of Jonah, flesh and blood, that is, the crowd didn't reveal this to thee. My father, which is in heaven, revealed it. It comes a revelation to you, Peter. And now, Peter, I am going to give you a new name.
I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, thou art Petros. And upon this rock, Petra, this great rock foundation, that you have confessed, Jesus the Son of God, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto you, Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The key man. You've only got to turn to Acts two, fourteen, to see him slipping the first key into the door. As he stands up on the day of Pentecost, spirit fills, and he said, Ye men of Israel! And he preaches the risen Christ.
And he tells them of their great sin of nailing Jesus to the cross. And he said, Even now, if you'll repent, he will come back and times of refreshing will come to Israel. But you know, they didn't do that. They stoned Stephen to death. They turned away from the gospel as a nation. And there came a moment in Acts ten, verse thirteen, where Peter slips the next key in and opens the door to the Gentiles at Cornelius' household. And the flood tide of the gospel goes out to the Gentile world, the key man, the man with the keys. Now, Simon, Peter, back to our verse, a servant.
Now, I don't know what your margin says, but mine says a bronze flame. That's what the word servant means in the New Testament, whether Peter, James or John or Paul uses it. And they have in their mind a very common picture in the Roman Empire, the slave market, where men and women were bought and sold and changed masters. And these men realized that they were slaves of sin and Satan, that they were bound and shackled, that they were in the kingdom of darkness. And one day Jesus came right down, and he redeemed them not with silver, not with gold, but with precious blood.
Oh, I wish you could get that picture. Turn back to one Peter chapter one. Verse eighteen. For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. as of a lamb without blemish and without stock. All this Peter never forget it. We were bought out of the slave market of sin. We were translated out of the kingdom of darkness. We were brought into the kingdom of God's dear son.
We are his. Thy blood right. He bought us. And he said, I am tied to him by cords of blood. Like that old Bond slave in Exodus, let's see it's twenty or twenty-one, who after seven years his master said to him, it's the time of redemption, it's the time of jubilee, you can go out free. But he said, Master, I love you. I don't want to go out free. I've married a wife, I've got my children, I'm happy with you. Can't I stay with you? said the master if you love me you can and he took him to the door and he put his ear against the post of the door and he got a sharp awl and peered right through his ear and pushed it into a wood and there he was pinned to the door with the thud dripping down from his ear and then the master pulled out the awl and he said now you're mine tied to me not by cords of demand you've got to, but tied to me by cords of blood.
You want to. And with this great picture in mind, these men said we are bond slaves of Jesus Christ. We're serving him not because we've got to, but because we want to. Oh, what a lovely thing to be a bond slave of Jesus Christ. Now move on. Simon, Peter, a bondslave and an apostle. An apostle. What does this mean? It means that the man is commissioned, the man is sent. A pointing finger is going to say, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go with my authority, my power to attack. The world is your parish, into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. You've seen me, you've heard me, and now I commission you. As I leave, go with the great message. And as he blessed them, he was taken up from them into the clouds, and they stood there, gazing those fishermen and tax-gatherers. And angels came and said, This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go. And they turned to their task. And when they were in Jude, they began their task.
And you know those apostles turned the world upside down. I would say this to my younger friends here. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of the Holy Spirit, you've only got little glimpses just to guide you. That's all. I was talking to that dear man who's up and down this coast a few weeks ago at Mount Herman. I forget his name from India and he was telling me how Thomas the Apostle came to India and how he moved down the coast there and preached the gospel. And today there is the remains of that great work of Thomas the Apostle in India, still carried on in South West India.
And you know, the spread of the gospel as those apostles went out was tremendous. They were men sent, commissioned. And here is a fisherman who says, Simon Peter, the bond slave of Jesus Christ, the apostle of Jesus Christ. Now note the next word. To. T.O., who's arriving to, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He's writing not to a church, a local church, he's writing to the whole family of God, to every person who has obtained God.
The precious faith, the saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That saving faith in the written Christ that God very graciously has wrought us by the coming of Jesus amongst us to win our salvation. Now, time is up, so I must stop, but we've just covered skimmed through the first verse. And from this foundation we are going to move out into the following verses to talk about Peter's practical. Straight from the shoulder, pleading with us, to build a Christian character for eternity.
Now, my two questions to you, will you drop them down, get your paper, pencil, and please drop them down, and these are the questions for Monday morning, based on Two Peter, chapter one. Ready? What is the difference between a servant and an apostle. Repeat, what is the difference between a servant and an apostle? Question one. Question two, how do you know that Simon Peter addressed his letter to you.
How do you know that Simon Peter addressed his letter to you? I'll quote the two now fully. First, what is the difference between a servant and an apostle? Second, how do you know that Simon Peter addressed his letter to you? Thank you.