The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: It's hard for a man to man up and say, "I ain't nearly the man I thought I was." But Dr. Tony Evans says that's the beginning of the road to restoration. But only when you come to realize what God says about you is he willing to come down and meet you there.

Guest (Male): This is The Alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Today, we'll hear about a man who failed the most important test of his life in a way he never thought he would or even could. But he made an amazing comeback. Let's join Dr. Evans as he tells us all about it.

Dr. Tony Evans: The implosion occurs when dynamite is attached to a building and it is made to collapse in the very place in which it stands. Many of us have been involved in or have witnessed in people we know and/or love an implosion take place. Things look like they were going well for an extended period of time only to discover a massive collapse occur.

Such was the case in the life of one of the great personalities of the Bible. His name was Peter. Turn your Bible to Saint John chapter 21, and I want to talk to you from Peter about us. In John 21:15, so when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"

Jesus Christ had been preparing his disciples for his death. He had been talking to them about the day coming up soon when he would no longer be with them, he would be killed, and things were going to be different. He said, "Now, when I'm gone, I want you to learn to love one another through serving one another. I want you to become connected in light of the fact that I'm going to be leaving."

"Times are going to be tough, times are going to be rough, and you're going to need one another because the tendency or the temptation or the difficulty will come in such force that you'll want to bail out when the going gets tough." Now, that's when Peter raised his hand and said, "Excuse me, I don't know what they're going to do, but you never have to worry about your main man. You don't have to worry about me because I'll never deny you."

Jesus says to Peter in Luke 22, he says to Peter, "Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat. But I am praying for you that your faith fail not. Before tomorrow morning this time, you will have already denied me three times." In Matthew chapter 26, he says, "No, Jesus," he says, "though all the rest of them deny you, I am not going to run out on you. You can depend on me. I'm not that kind of guy."

To which Jesus says, "Boy, you need prayer because you ain't all that." God will allow the devil by permission to bring to light weaknesses, failures, and sins that we either don't know are there or we don't know how bad it is and we think it's a minor thing. It's like a person with a drinking problem who calls themselves a social drinker. They think they have it under control.

So the devil has asked permission to mess you up. Jesus says, "But I'm praying for you that your faith fail not." And then he says in the scripture read in Luke 22, "When you are converted, when you get back right, help somebody else." Well, you know the story. The story is that when they came to get Jesus and they took him away and then they said to Peter, "You were one of the ones with Jesus." He said, "No, I wasn't."

Second time, "You were one of the ones with Jesus." "I told you it wasn't me." Third time, "You were one of the followers of Jesus." "I told you I don't blankety-blank know the man." The third time, the Bible says he said it with cussing. In other words, he wanted to underline this thing. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Jesus's prophecy had come true and Peter had denied something he thought he could never do.

I wonder if there's anybody in here who's done something that you thought you'd never do. So shook up was Peter that in John 21 verse 3, Simon Peter said to the other disciples, "I'm going fishing." So he's out there fishing. Verse 3 says they went out, got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. Nothing.

So daylight's coming up, they're out there on the boat all night. Jesus is standing on the beach. But the disciples didn't know it was him and he hollers out, "Children, you do not have any fish, do you?" They answered, "No." Jesus says, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find a catch." So they cast it and they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.

Verse 9, the story thickens. So when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it and bread. He says in verse 15, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" Let me say it again. "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"

I wonder if there's anybody here who sees something wrong. He calls him by his old name because he's gone back to his old ways. Up until Jesus talks to him, his name is Peter in the chapter. When Jesus talks to him, he says, "Simon." By the way, the word Simon means pebble. Peter means stone.

"When you were doing your thing like I wanted you to do your thing, I took a pebble and turned it into a stone. But now you've gone backwards on me, so I take a stone and now we're going to make you a little pebble again, a small thing. Do you still love me more than these other folk you were bragging that you love me more than?" He had gone back to his failure.

The word Jesus uses we need to get into briefly because there is more than one word for love in the Bible. We just use the word love, but they are different words. The word here is agape, which is God's self-sacrificing love. "Do you love me like you thought you loved me? Let me hear you brag now. Let me hear you talk your talk now. Where are you now, Peter?"

He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you." Now, when you read that, you think he's agreeing with Jesus. He's not. Jesus says, "Peter, do you agape me?" Peter answers, "Yes, Lord, you know I phileo you." Phileo would be like our word like. It meant friendship as opposed to agape, which is God's kind of self-sacrificing love.

Peter says, "I'm not going to be put in that trick again. Oh, I love you, but not agape. I love you Philadelphia style." Because the word phileo is where we get Philadelphia from, brotherly love. He asks him a second time in verse 16, "Simon, son of John, do you agape me?" "Yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you." "You know, I like you like a brother."

Then Jesus, verse 17, says to him a third time, "Simon, son of John, do you phileo me?" The third time, Jesus changes his word. Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you phileo me?" Why is Peter grieved the third time? How many times did Peter deny the Lord? Three times.

In other words, when this thing hit the third time over the charcoal fire, he makes the connection. "Oh, you are taking me back to my failure. You're taking me back to my mess. You're taking me back to my defeat." And it broke his heart. He was grieved that he had to remember where he messed up.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return in just a moment to explain why the same God who knows the worst we've done also knows the best we're capable of. First though, I want to make sure you know about a powerful set of resources that can help you build on what we're learning today. It starts with Tony's encouraging book, *Kingdom Heroes*, where he highlights the lives of people in scripture who trusted God and saw him do remarkable things, even when their situations seemed impossible.

And right now, for a limited time, we're including the *Kingdom Heroes* book along with all eight full-length messages from Tony's current sermon series called *It's Not Too Late*. These two resources combined give you a powerful picture of how God works in your life, and they're available as our gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry. Get the details and make your request at tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 and let our resource team help you. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org.

Dr. Evans will return with part two of today's message right after this. Get ready to set sail for spiritual renewal. Join Dr. Tony Evans on a relaxing seven-day Caribbean cruise departing February 28th. You'll experience powerful teaching, meaningful worship, and the beauty of unforgettable destinations, from the turquoise waters of the Bahamas to the shores of the Dominican Republic. Each stop and every day at sea offer time to relax, reflect, and be renewed. Don't miss this unforgettable journey. Find out how to book your passage today at tonyevans.org.

Dr. Tony Evans: There's an interesting phrase here. When Jesus asked him, "Do you love me?" he says, "Yes, Lord, you know. You know all about it." You see, one of our problems is we really don't believe he knows. But even with that, Jesus comes down to Peter's level. He said, "Okay, third time, do you phileo me?" Peter said, "Yeah, yeah, it breaks my heart," because he's grieved at this one.

"It breaks my heart that I couldn't come up to you, you had to come down to me because I'm not near where I thought I was. It's hard for a man to man up and say, 'I ain't nearly the man I thought I was.'" You know, I played a role, but I ain't nearly the man I thought I was. But only when you come to realize what God says about you is he willing to come down and meet you there.

He knew Peter wasn't ready to go up to agape. But now that he realizes he's only good for phileo, Jesus says, "I'll meet you there. I'll come down there." He comes down to his level when there's clear recognition. A man's got to know his limitations. He's got to know where he falls short because now you've just given God something to work with.

See, one of the problems that we're not making progress, God doesn't have anything to work with because we are already there. We talk like we're there. You hear it in our prayers. Our prayers would be totally different if we knew what Jesus knows about us. "Why won't my life get better?" Because God is still giving Satan permission to sift you like wheat, and he will let the sifting occur till you get the message.

What's the responsibility? He says, "Simon, tend my lambs, shepherd my sheep, tend my sheep." If you love me, even on the phileo level, because that's the only level you got, right? Okay, I'll meet you there. Not only will I meet you there, oh, here it is, I'll use you there. "Tend my lambs, shepherd my sheep, tend my sheep."

In Luke chapter 5, Peter was called by Jesus and he said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." That's evangelism. But after his mess-up and his fix-up, now we're going to move you from an evangelist and you're going to become a pastor because now you know how to hurt with other folk who hurt. Now you know how to struggle with other folk who struggle.

See, I can use you now because now you're not just sitting down spouting theology. You know what it feels like to fail. You know what it feels like to hurt. You know what it feels like to not have made it yourself. So now I can use you to—remember what he prophesied—strengthen your brethren. I can use you to help somebody else.

See, now many folk after apostasy, which is the word, after publicly denying Jesus before men, we wouldn't have never let Peter preach in our pulpits. "You can't preach in our church, you denied Jesus. You can't preach at this conference, you denied Jesus. You can't serve the Lord here, you denied Jesus. You can't be in the ministry here because you denied Jesus." And anybody who denies Jesus, we can't use.

But what I'm reading in my Bible is when a broke-down man gets right, he's now ready to be used by Jesus. God can still use a man who was a rebel, who was a failure, as long as he's going to help somebody else. Okay, watch this now. One of the ways you know God has not finished letting the devil jack you up is he can't use you to serve. See, if he can't use you to serve, you don't love him.

Because he said, even sixty percent love, phileo, "tend sheep, shepherd sheep." Even sixty percent does that. So don't talk about agape if a phileo can't get you off the pew. Don't talk about agape if phileo can't get you serving and helping the family of God. Don't talk about agape if phileo can't do that. Because for God so agaped the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So I know I can't get you there if phileo can't get you to think about more than me, myself, and I.

He says, "If you phileo me, that's good enough for me to work with and we'll go from there." You see, the key qualification for God to use you is that you love him. But the way you know you love him is not tingly feelings inside. The way you know you love—let me tell you, women, how to know if your man loves you. It ain't because he says it. Those are three words you can pop off like a pill. "I love you, I love you, I love you." That sounds good, but that ain't no, no, no.

I'm going to tell you right now how you can know if you're married whether your husband loves you, and how you can know if you're single why that smooth-talking dude, whether he got something going on. We're going to make this real simple. You know that you're loved when the person who says that they love you care about what's important to you. That's how you know.

See, if they telling you, "I love you," but it's all about them, they don't love you. They're using "I love you" for them. "I love you" means what matters to you becomes important and prioritized by them. That's why in Revelation 2, Jesus says, "You left your first love." He didn't say, "You stopped loving me," he says, "You stopped loving me first."

And it's not because you weren't busy doing like nice little diddy things, but you weren't doing what was important to me. And he says what is important to me are my sheep. He says, "So, if you love me, take care of my sheep. And if I see you handling my sheep, I know you love me." Okay, standing and raising your hand, that's nice, but I don't know that you love me. Standing and singing, that's nice, but I don't know that you love me.

All that's nice. I know you love me when you are serving what is of interest to me, and that's my people. That's why First John says, "Don't tell me you love God and hate your brother. Don't tell me that whom you have never seen." God did Peter a favor, too. See, Peter committed a public sin. He denied Christ publicly. Jesus restored him publicly because the rest of the disciples are there, too, eating breakfast.

"Do you love me more than these, all these guys sitting around who know you denied me? Okay, why don't you take care of them? Why don't you take care of them?" He did a great favor for Peter because you could always say, "Peter, you can't tell me nothing. You denied the Lord like that, you can't tell me nothing. You can't advise me." But Jesus says in front of them, "I am now commissioning him to watch over y'all."

So who are they going to argue with now? Who they going to say, "You can't tell me nothing," when Jesus said, "I just told him his job is to tell you something"? What am I saying to you today? Number one, God knows the worst about you. He knows the absolute worst about you. He knows the gutter about you. What nobody else knows but you, he thoroughly knows. Peter, you're not all that.

But God needs for you to know what he knows. And since he needs for you to know what he knows because he can't help you till you know it, and if Jesus has given the devil permission to jack you up, it doesn't matter where you go, who you talk to, it doesn't matter what changes you make, you will never get away from it until you face it. Because it's a spiritual issue.

So you can't drink your way out of it, you can't drug your way out of it, you can't sex your way out of it, you can't get out of it. But what you can is fess up to it. But the other side of that coin is while he knows the worst thing about you, he also knows the best thing about you. Peter, when you get this thing straight, oh, I'm going to be able to use you, boy. I'm going to use you to strengthen the brethren, to tend the sheep. I'm going to use you.

If you get this thing right, your life will never be the same. And this same scared, denying Peter gets up on the day of Pentecost when the folk say, "Y'all are a bunch of drunk people." "No, we are not drunk as you suppose. It's too early to get that drunk, it's 12 o'clock noon, we ain't drunk. This is that which Joel the prophet spoke about when he talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit."

And he stood up and 3,000 folk got saved because he still could do evangelism, but then he opened the doors of the church because now he's a shepherd. So God was able to use a man when he unveiled what was wrong with him, when he faced what was wrong with him. Now he became useful.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans talking about how God can rebuild broken people like Peter and like us. Today's lesson was titled "Peter: The Apostate Whom God Used," and you can hear the additional material we didn't have time to bring you in the full-length message that's included in our current series, *It's Not Too Late*.

As I mentioned earlier, all eight lessons in this collection are our gift to you when you support Tony's ministry with a financial contribution. And for a limited time, we're also including Tony's powerful book, *Kingdom Heroes*. But be sure to contact us right away; this is an exclusive offer that won't be around for long. Just drop by tonyevans.org where you can get all the details and make your donation. Again, that's tonyevans.org or you can call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help with your resource request. That number again, 1-800-800-3222.

Now, if you find these messages from Dr. Evans helpful, you'll enjoy listening to him engage in thoughtful conversations with spirit-filled guest speakers on the *Unbound* podcast. You can listen or watch on his YouTube channel or wherever you stream your favorite podcasts. It seems like some people can't catch a break while others have everything handed to them. But Dr. Evans says there's nothing random about who you are and what you have. Tomorrow, he'll help us discover the part that God's providence plays in all of that. I hope you'll join us.