The Craziness of Peter

Peter, leader of the disciples. Always the disciple listed first. Always the first one to do something crazy. He’s the perfect representation of you and me.

When we look at the beginning of Peter’s journey with Jesus (Luke 5:1-11; Matt. 4:18-22), we see a couple of amazing things:

1) Jesus tells Peter to cast his nets into the lake for a catch after Peter had been fishing all day and caught NOTHING. Peter does it.
2) Jesus tells Peter to follow Him. Peter does it.


The Craziness of Obeying a Stranger
Peter is a fisherman by trade. Jesus is a carpenter. Peter works with fish. Jesus works with wood. No one would have blamed Peter if he looked at Jesus and said “Are you nuts?! This is my job, what I excel at doing, and we haven’t caught anything all day!” and shrugged Him off. But that wasn’t Peter’s response. Peter, though probably confused, said “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets (Luke 5:5).” The rewards for his obedience were astonishing.

When Peter saw the results of obeying Jesus, he asked Jesus to leave him, saying “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Sounds very much like the cry of Isaiah when he saw God (Isa. 6:5). Peter didn’t know all that was taking place, but he knew that God was working through Jesus to make this happen. It turns out that doing something crazy worked out for Peter.

A Crazy Action
What comes next is even more shocking. During this era, if you were a fisherman, it was most likely because your father was a fisherman, and your grandfather, and his father, and so on. Peter probably grew up fishing with his dad and grandfather. It was necessary work, but it wasn’t the most appealing. Fish are slimy, scaly, and you risk catching snakes instead of fish. But, it’s what the family did to make ends meet, so you did it anyway.

Then Jesus comes along one day, brings the biggest catch they’d ever seen, and then says “Follow me.” Ummm, what now? This is the family business! His family has been fishing for generations! He can’t just leave. This is his heritage! But that’s exactly what Peter does. Peter, James, and John leave everything. They abandon their heritage to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11).

A Crazy Call
Much like Peter’s call to follow Jesus, when Christ calls us to follow Him, He’s telling us to leave our heritage. He’s not necessarily asking us to leave the family business, but commanding us to leave the heritage we receive from Adam (Rom. 5:12-21). Much like He set Peter free from having to deal with slimy, scaly, serpent-infested fish all day, He set us free from being bound to filthy, enslaving, serpent-inspired Sin. He set us free from spiritual death and breathed life into us (Eph. 2:1-10). He’s commanding us to do something crazy, like Peter did, and abandon the only way of life we’ve ever known, for our good and His glory.

Crazy Runs In The Family (particularly mine)
Yet, we all share Peter’s other crazy moments. We all go through times when we deny the God we’ve been following for years (Luke 22:54-62; Matt. 26:69-75). If not verbally, by our actions. We all go through times where we feel like God isn’t there, like He’s abandoned us, and we return to our former way of life, just like Peter did (John 21:3).

Fortunately, our firstborn Brother (Rom. 8:29) set the precedent for doing things most people would think are crazy. He left Heaven, came down to Earth, and died for a bunch of people who would be just crazy enough to follow Him. Then after that, He did something else crazy: He forgave and restored Peter (John 21:15-19). He does the same thing for us too. He justifies, redeems, reconciles, and restores us through His work on the cross and by His resurrection. Through this, we have peace with God (Rom. 5:1) and the peace of God (Phil. 4:7).

Ironically, when you look at the end result of following Jesus, doing anything else is what would really be crazy.

Image credit: Geoff Spiby

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