May 9, 2025
My Failures Are Not Fatal
25 Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?”
He denied it, saying, “I am not.”
26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off,challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.
John 18:25-27
What was your rock bottom moment in life? Chances are it didn’t take long to conjure up the memory. No matter what that moment looks like, we’ve all had it.
It’s the moment that we know in our gut, I’ll never be able to come back from this. God can never forgive me for this. How can I even look my friends and family in the eye? How do I even move froward?
We’ve all had that moment. For Peter, this was his rock bottom moment.
He had been following Jesus for three years and was one of his closest friends. He was in the inner circle of inner circles when it came to how close he was to Jesus.
But on the night when guards took Jesus away to try him on a bunch of trumped up charges that would lead to his crucifixion, there was Peter in the courtyard being asked if he was one of his followers. Three times he had the chance to say, “Yes, yes, that’s my friend! Yes, I’m a follower.” After all, just a short while earlier, Peter had declared to Jesus that his allegiance was so great that he would follow him to the ends of the world. That’s when Jesus accurately predicted, “Peter, before the rooster crows you’ll deny me three times.”
Three times Peter had the chance to prove Jesus wrong. But three times he failed, growing more agitated with each response. In today’s vernacular, his last response would have been something like this: “ Look, I told you I don’t even know the guy! Leave me alone!”
And then the rooster crowed. Luke 22:61 says that Jesus looked Peter dead in the eyes from across the courtyard the moment the rooster crowed
In that moment, Peter was broken. His world was shattered. How could he have betrayed the one who loved him more than a brother? How do you come back from that?
The next few days were a blur. The horrible events of the cross on Friday followed by a seemingly interminable Saturday where everyone wondered, “Where do we go from here?” While all of Jesus’ followers felt that same feeling of confusion and hopelessness on Saturday, Peter was also dealing with the crippling weight of his betrayal on top of it all.
Then came the glorious news of Resurrection Sunday when the women who had gone to attend to Jesus’ body discovered the empty tomb. They immediately alerted the disciples. Peter lost a foot race to John sprinting to the tomb, but saw with his own eyes that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. To seal the deal, Jesus appeared in the flesh before all the disciples (with the exception of Thomas) later that day.
So what did Peter do with the absolute certain knowledge that Jesus had indeed been resurrected?
He went fishing.
On the surface, maybe it’s not that strange of a reaction. After all, Peter was a fisherman by trade. Maybe the disciples were hungry and he was just going out to catch supper.
But I think there’s more to it than that. As excited as he was that Jesus was alive, I think he was still carrying the crushing weight of guilt from his betrayal. He probably could barely look Jesus in the eyes in the Upper Room. He certainly didn’t feel worthy to be one of his followers.
So he went back to the familiar. He went back to what he was before meeting Jesus. Jesus had promised to make them fishers of men, but today he was just a fisherman.
The fact that the other disciples came along too is irrelevant. They were just witnesses along the ride for what soon would be a beautiful moment of restoration. This was a moment divinely appointed for Peter.
As they were fishing, Jesus showed up. John 21 says that he called out from the shore, “Friends have you any fish?”
“No, “ they answered. Jesus told them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. And when they did, they caught more fish than they could imagine. 153 to be exact but who’s counting. Then John said, “It’s the Lord!” Peter jumped in and swam to the shore as the other disciples wrestled the boat full of fish to the shore.
There on the shore, Jesus was already cooking up fish and bread for everyone.
After the meal, with all the disciples gathered around, Jesus looked Peter in the eyes and asked, “Do you love me?” Our English vocabulary doesn’t do it justice because in the Greek, there are different words being used in this exchange. Jesus is asking, do you agape me, which is do you love me unconditionally, completely. Peter could just muster up I phileo you, which is to say, “I’m fond of you.”
The guilt was still holding him back. But Jesus kept pressing in. Three times (one for each denial) he asked Peter, “do you love me?” Finally, Peter a little hurt that he would ask, says, “Lord you know all things (in other words, you know my heart). You know that I love you.”
“Feed my lambs,” Jesus said.
And just like that, Peter was fully restored.
Someone reading this needs to her this: your failures are not fatal. You are never beyond the reach of Jesus’ love. He desires to restore you just as he did with Peter.
And furthermore, he wants to take your biggest failure and use it to glorify His name.
Peter failed in a very public way. Interestingly, God used him in a very public way to birth the church.
In Acts 2, it was Peter’s speech before thousands of Jews (the very people who had crucified Jesus) that led to three thousand people turning to Jesus in repentance and the church being born. Peter became one of the biggest leaders in the early church, all of it after his biggest failure.
So don’t tell me that God couldn’t possibly use you.