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Apr 13, 2025

The Divine Peter Principle

Passage: Mark 14:1-72

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Mark

Keywords: pride, restoration, confidence, brokenness, rebuilding, denial of christ, apostle peter

Summary:

Breaking and grace are in essential part of any Christian's life that wants to be used of God. Peter's confident determination to not deny Jesus set the stage for the divine breaking work God needs to do in most of us. But once broken, how does God put us back together better than we were before? This message examines that process.

Detail:

The Divine Peter Principle

Mark 14, John 21

April 13, 2025

Fellowship Question:  Share about a time when something happened in your life that revealed to you your need of God’s grace. 

INTRO:  You all familiar with the “Peter Principle”?  Essentially, the Peter Principle holds that, in a company, business or system where people are promoted because they show competence or proficiency at something, will  tend to promote people one step beyond their abilities, thus leading to incompetency in their highest position…or the leaders you have to follow.  While certainly not an iron-clad principle, I’m sure some of you have had to work under the negative effects of that principle with some of your bosses, right? 

            This theory was first recognized by a Canadian educator, Dr. Laurence J. Peter, who cited it in his book “The Peter Principle.” But had the Apostle Peter been aware of this principle, I think he could have written a redeemed best seller sequel entitled “The Divine Peter Principle” from his own experience, particularly with what happened to him during Holy Week that we celebrate this week…and the weeks and years following that transformative week. 

            Just as with us, there are seminal experiences in our lives—experiences of failure—that have the power to either make or break us.  Most of us spend our whole lives trying to be a “success” by avoiding failure.  (After all, failure is so painful and embarrassing, who needs it?) But the reality is that many of us come to the end of life, look back, and realize that it was our failures that God used most powerfully to shape us into the kinds of people whose story of grace could be used to build His Kingdom, not our supposed successes.  This is the theme of the Holy Week story of Peter I want us to look at today. 

            There are 3 major snapshots that frame this divine ‘Peter Principle’: 

  1. Peter’s Last Supper & Garden of Gethsemane confidence and Good Friday denial of Christ (Mark 14).
  2. His breakfast encounter with Jesus post-resurrection at the Sea of Galilee in John 21.
  3. His behavior at the church in Antioch according to Galatians 2.

Obviously, we don’t have time to read all these passages but let’s go to them and at least get the summary of each.

#1. The Last Supper and Garden of Gethsemane confidence followed by failure:

Mark 14

26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  27 “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:

“‘I will strike the shepherd,
    and the sheep will be scattered.’

28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

29 Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”

30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”

31 But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same.

 

The Garden of Gethsemani: 

43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled.

PETER’S DENIAL:  66 While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. 67 When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.

“You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said.

68 But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway.

69 When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” 70 Again he denied it.

After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”

71 He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”

72 Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

Let’s look first at the BREAKING PROCESS.  Then we’ll see how God remakes us in His family. 

What Peter is experiencing here is, I believe, a process similar to what God takes most of His children through, often repeatedly.  He certainly doesn’t do it because he enjoys watching us fail.  He does because He knows most of us need it in order to succeed. 

            The first two steps in this breaking process are interchangeable.  By that I mean that steps 1 & 2 sometimes change order depending on the person.  But for Peter, Step 1 was:

STEP 1:  A Personal, Saving, Hope-Giving Call of God

We’ve seen in our study of Mark these past months that Jesus chose his 12 Apostles early on in His ministry to be with Him, learn from Him, experience his teaching, miracles and life at close range. 

Of those 12, he chose 3 (NAMES???  Peter, James & John) to be especially close. 

And of those three, he chose Peter to have a unique role in the leadership of His church.  His role at Pentecost, the start of the church, in Acts 2, illustrates that. 

            There seems to have been, at least in the first three years of Jesus’ ministry, a strange inverse relationship among the disciples between closeness to Jesus and humility.  From the Gospel stories we have, who seemed to be the most self-confident and proud of the Twelve?  It wasn’t Matthew or Phillip or Thomas or even Simon the Zealot.  No, it’s the Executive Team of Peter, James and John who are always caught vying for power and privilege. 

            Nobody seemed more self-confident than Peter, the lead dog.  Yet Jesus still chose him to lead and made promises about his future leadership in the church.  Peter is one of the first to make a clear, public declaration of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah.  He is one of the most eager students of Rabbi Jesus.  He’s bold, he’s confident, he’s willing to try anything.  He’s filled with more faith than the rest of the disciples.  And like all of them, minus Judas Iscariot, he had a saving, life-changing, eternity-altering call of God on his life. 

APP:  This is what must happen to any of us who want to follow Jesus, be reconciled to God and join His eternal family by faith.  You must…

  • Put your faith in Jesus Christ who died to pay your penalty for your sin.
  • Respond to His call to “follow” Him.
  • Devote your life to growing in Him through learning from Him, His Word and the Holy Spirit He sent to guide and teach you.

You’re simply not a disciple of Jesus without that personal, saving, hope-giving call of God and response of faith.  You may be religious.  You may be close enough to hear God speak and enjoy hanging out with people who do.  But without that step of personal encounter with Jesus by faith, you’ll be just like Judas Iscariot—looking like you’re a Christ-follower but not being one in your heart. 

[Call to a personal, saving-faith, relationship with Jesus Christ.]

            Many of us here may have come into that kind of relationship with Jesus before we realized our own brokenness… and before God even enrolled us in the school of brokenness.  We may not have come out of addiction or deep immorality or darkness that we felt.  We might have come to Jesus as a child our relatively innocent-feeling young person or adult.  Peter is proof positive that such a conversion is real, genuine and lasting. 

            So, in God’s school of brokenness, a saving relationship with Jesus is vital.  And here is where the order may be different for some of you. 

STEP 2:  Pride-breaking failure.

Some of you here found that God saved you in the midst of that very pride-breaking experience.  You knew you were a mess.  Maybe you were in a mess of a marriage.  Maybe you were coming to grips with a destructive addiction.  Maybe you had failed so many times you were despairing of life.  Whatever it was, you knew you were a mess that only God could save and fix.  And then God called to you…and you responded…and you met Jesus in saving faith and relationship.  For you, the pride-breaking sinfulness was experienced before the life-saving, hope-giving call of God on your life.  That’s why these two steps are interchangeable. 

            But for Peter…and those of us who weren’t bulldozed by our sin before God called to us, this step of pride-breaking sinfulness may look a little different.  But it may feel very much the same. 

            Peter was proud enough to declare, in front of all the other disciples, that even though they might fail Christ, there was no chance that he would (see Mt. 26:33 in the Garden--33 Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”). And frankly, he did quite a bit better than the other 11.  When the mob came to arrest Jesus in the Garden, Peter pulled his sword and took a potentially-lethal swing at the servant of the High Priest.  What he lacked in aim he made up for in sincerity and dedication.

            While all the other disciples deserted Jesus that night, Peter at least waded into the danger of trying to stay close to His Lord by going to the courtyard of the High Priest while they were trying Christ.  There, frankly, was not a more dangerous place in all Jerusalem that night for a Jew who had been associated with Jesus in any way…and Peter had been very close.  He was doing better than anyone else that evening. 

            But God knows that self-confidence is not what makes great saints in His Kingdom.  As A.W.Tozer has said,

“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God actually rises up storms of conflict in relationships at times in order to accomplish that deeper work in our character. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength. This is graduate-level grace. Are you willing to enter this school? Are you willing to take the test? If you pass, you can expect to be elevated to a new level in the Kingdom. For He brings us through these tests as preparation for greater use in the Kingdom. You must pass the test first.”  [Found at https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/700558-it-is-doubtful-whether-god-can-bless-a-man-greatly on 4.12.25]

People who are not deeply in touch with the reality that in themselves they are a deeply flawed sinners who wound others and really have nothing with which to benefit the Kingdom of God are probably people who are still fairly self-confident about what they can do for God.  Everyone has their breaking point…and God graciously brings us to that place so we will be broken people that He alone can put back together in a useful way. 

            Like us, Peter was doing so well until….  All it took was the dangerous courtyard of the High Priest and a handful of total strangers, several of them mere servant girls, to bring Peter to that place of crushing failure and sinfulness.  Peter didn’t need to go through a season of addiction or immorality or relational failure to bring him to this realization.  He wasn’t one of God’s “strong-willed children” apparently.  All it took was one look from His Lord to break his heart.  It was probably not even a condemning or disappointed look but rather a loving look that utterly broke him. 

            Luke records it this way in Luke 22--61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” 62 And he went outside and wept bitterly.

            Mark 14 says, “And he broke down and wept.”

When we realize that the sin we are engaged in is far more hurtful to God and those around us than even the pain we are experiencing ourselves because of our sin, that is the kind of brokenness God can work with.  It is when we make excuses…and stay convinced we have been hurt far more than how we have or are hurting others…that we’re simply left with pain, not brokenness.  There is a great difference between pain and brokenness.  Brokenness realizes there is a desperate need for God’s immediate and saving grace and mercy for me. 

            Again, this is why some people experience genuine brokenness before they respond to God’s call.  Salvation from brokenness then corresponds with the saving, healing and restoring grace of God in their lives.  But for those of us who need more breaking after a saving encounter with Jesus, hopefully it will not take full-blown prodigal experiences for the Spirit of God to break and remake us.

            One final point on this process of brokenness:  be prepared to repeat the process of brokenness at various levels along your journey with Jesus.  Again, if growth and usability in the Kingdom is your goal, this is not something to be feared or avoided.  It is actually something we must embrace.

Peter’s life illustrates this just as many of our lives do.  In Galatians 2 we have the record of a situation that occurred in when Peter went up from Jerusalem to visit the predominately Gentile church in Antioch.  Paul tells us that,

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

Do you see the trend here.  FEAR was apparently Peter’s Achilles heel when it came to his flesh and pride.  Whether it was looking at the winds and waves on the Sea of Galilee… OR the High Priest’s house in Jerusalem …OR fellow Jewish believers whose acceptance he found he wanted more than good, consistent theology about salvation, fear of others led him into sin and wounding the people he really loved (be it Jesus or fellow believers).  So God had to, at least once that we’re aware of from Gal. 2, break Peter publicly.

APP:  Takeaways—

  • Don’t be afraid of brokenness. It’s God’s graduate university to bring us to where we’re more usable.
  • Don’t let repeated experiences of brokenness disillusion or discourage you. God’s best servants have to take the same “continuing ed” class of humbling failures.
  • Embrace humility as often as possible. It is the fruit God is after in brokenness…and the fruit we can bear even without brokenness. 

Let’s end by talking about THE REMAKING PROCESS God has for us when we find ourselves broken by our own sin and humanity.  For the illustration of this, just think of the story of Jesus waiting on the sore of the Sea of Galilee for His disciples after the resurrection.  That story in found in John 21.  We don’t have time to read the whole thing.  Just be reminded that…

  • Jesus had told them in his post-resurrection appearances that he would meet them in Galilee.
  • He met them on a morning after an all-night failed fishing expedition, i.e. when all of them were being reminded that their former life was not going to be a satisfying life. Tired of waiting around for Jesus, Peter had invited them all back to their old career of fishing, only to find themselves no longer good at it nor fulfilled by it.
  • His instruction to cast the net on the other side after failing at fishing all night long was another reminder that obedience to the Maker of heaven and earth is what we need, not more of our own efforts.
  • What everyone of us who has failed God needs is what Peter found—time alone with Jesus without anyone else around. Peter took extreme measures to get that time, even abandoning his nets and the great catch, abandoning (temporarily) his closest companions, and abandoning his much-needed warm cloths that cool seaside morning, to get some time…any time… with Jesus. 

That encounter went on to involve several significant things that God wants to remind us of in the REMAKING PROCESS.

  • Let brokenness drive you TO Jesus, not away…towards humility, not into more pride. Let it fan into flame the desire to walk humbly and obediently with Christ, not discourage or harden you to avoid God.  Turning from God in brokeness is a sign that I’m still holding onto my own pride about what a great person I think I should have been.  Turning from God in brokenness just leads to a greater need for more brokenness in order to embrace humility.  God is serious about remaking our character.  He wants to do it at both an intellectual and emotional  Let the pain of brokenness, however often it visits you, actually change who you are towards godliness, not confirm you in your fleshliness. 
  • Don’t allow brokenness to take you to the place where you think you have nothing to offer to the Lord. Allow it to show you God still wants to use your skills, heart, talents and abilities in His Kingdom. 

Jesus asked Peter to bring some of the fish he had caught that morning despite the fact that Jesus already had freshly cooked fish and bread on the table.  Humility knows a.) what little we have was a gift from God.  And, b.) what we have to contribute, while not needed by God, is desired, appreciated and used by God for His purposes. 

Once the remaining Disciples join Jesus and Peter on the beach, Jesus proceeds to restore and remake Peter… in front of all of them.  It is not a completely painless process.  But it will bring us to the place where we will be genuinely better people and leaders in God’s kingdom.

  • God’s restorative remaking process reaffirms and reshapes God’s call on our lives. (Calling>>breaking>>remaking & recalling) 

If God has gotten a hold of your heart and life, chances are He has also given you a personal calling in His Kingdom work.  Peter’s was to “feed” and “take care of” God’s “sheep.”  Jesus’ initial call to Peter was to follow Him and Jesus would give him the ministry of “fishing” for people.  I can just imagine what that imagery conjured up in Peter’s imagination.  He probably saw great power over great crowds of people who would bring him great fame and fortune, just as a fisherman exercises power over the fish he catches and gains wealth as a result.  But personal brokenness and Jesus’ refined call upon his life after brokenness helped reshape Peter’s vision for himself into what God truly had in mind in the first place for him. 

  • He was to be a servant of those fish, not lord over them.
  • He was to feed them, not be made fat off of them.
  • He would still be a great “fisherman of people.” But it would not be as he initially envisioned.  Peter was being remade into a man who was just grateful that there was any ministry in the Kingdom left for him. 

The enemy of our souls would like nothing better than our brokenness to destroy God’s continue call on our lives to serve Christ.  If we will have ears to hear what God is asking us or saying to us in our brokenness, we will find God refining our calling and vision for life and ministry.   

  • God’s restorative remaking process reconfirms us in our love for Him. I don’t know about you but when I fail, I initially feel just the opposite—like I’m a real failure in loving God too.  And I am.  Sin is always a failure to love God more than my sin.  But the remorse and negative emotions I eventually feel about my sin is another opportunity for God to help me honestly assess and reaffirm my love for Him. Much has been made of Peter’s affirmation of brotherly (phileo) love for Jesus when Jesus asked him in John 21 if he loved him with agape  The whole line of questioning unsettled Peter.  But I think Jesus did that so he would be able to reaffirm just how much he truly loved Jesus and do so with honest humility knowing that his love was still imperfect. 
  • God’s restorative remaking process helps us confront our shame and embarrassment about our failing so that it loses its power. Jesus didn’t drill into Peter 3 times about how much he loved the Lord because he wanted to shame Peter.  Quite the opposite!  Jesus wanted him to know that for every one of his failures, God’s call on his life hadn’t changed.  He wanted Peter to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that shame and embarrassment was not God’s work in his life; restoration was.
  • God’s restorative remaking of us is meant to prepare us for even greater impact going forward. Peter went on just a few days later to lead the newly-formed church at Pentecost.  He preached a message of repentance so powerful that 3,000 were converted in Jerusalem in one day.  He could do that because he had just learned the power of repentance and humility in his own experience.  He went on to lead the Church in Jerusalem and be viewed as one of the leading authorities in the life of thousands of people in Jerusalem and beyond.

Brokenness produced just what it should have in him:  a humility that God could and did use to make Him a choice servant of the Lord. 

Peter went on to be so courageous in faith that the worst possible threats of the highest people possible had no effect on him.  He endured repeated threats, imprisonment and suffering and was eventually martyred for his faith in Jesus.  All these various breaking experiences with failure brought him to the place where he has a name in church history that is the envy of us all. 

            This is the Divine Peter Principle.  This is the way God wants to grow and promote each of us in His kingdom.  And when He does, God won’t be placing us in a position of failure or incompetence.  Rather, He will be equipping us for a role and life of greater effectiveness and fruitfulness. 

PRAYER

BENEDICTION:  Jude 1:24-35

24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.