From Simon to Peter #01 - Preparation — J. Glyn Owen

Simon’s Renaming and the Promise of Transformation

Now, we have announced in the bulletin that we are beginning a new series this morning, a series that we have entitled, From Simon to Peter. From Simon to Peter. And this morning we are going to take what is described by the word preparation.

Our message this morning is not based so much upon one particular text or passage, but upon a wider spectrum of scripture. On the occasion of their first encounter, our Lord Jesus Christ looked into the eyes of Simon, son of Jonas, and said this to him.

So you, Simon, the son of John, or the son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas, which means Peter, a rock. John 1 .42. Now this renaming of a man must be seen and understood against its biblical background.

And also, of course, we must recognize something of what such a thing signified in ancient times. When it was done by a man, it meant that the person who performed the renaming was a person who had authority over the renamed.

For example, it would invariably happen if you procured a slave, and the slave was added to the number of your household. You might very well want to give him quite a different name to that which was his when you procured him.

And the very fact that you could so do meant that you had authority over him. When God renames a man, however, it does not simply mean that God has authority over the man, that he has over all of us, for we are in his hands.

But it also signifies that God is going to transform that man so that he will assume a character that is altogether new, a character that is in some ways symbolized by the name that is given him. By way of illustration, you have the Old Testament character Jacob.

There came a point when God said to Jacob, your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel. And the reason is this, there is something princely that is going to emerge in your life. You have prevailed both with God and with man, and your name henceforth will indicate this transformation of character.

And of course, you have other instances. Simon, as he appeared before our Lord Jesus, was very much the son of Jonah. And there is good reason to believe that our Lord played upon that fact. Jonah means dove.

One modern writer puts it like this, Jonah means dove, and Cephas or Peter mean rock. So what Jesus is saying to Peter is this, up until now you have been very much like a fluttering, timorous dove, child of a dove, fleeting, flying, hither and thither from bow to bow.

But if you take me as your saviour, and if you give your life to me, I will make you a man of rock. Now if you omit the ifs, because there were no ifs in our Lord's statement, not one, omit the ifs from that quotation from a modern scholar, and you've got the truth of my text.

Jesus said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonah, a little dove, fluttering around from place to place without any solidity, without any purpose, going around in circles, higher and lower, moving hither and thither at the whim of a fancy.

But I'll make you a different man. Thou shalt be called Cephas, Petros, rock. Now that's a wonderful promise, but more wonderful still as far as we are concerned this morning, we have the evidence of the transformation that took place, making Simon son of Jonah into the man of stability and of character, the rock man, that we find him to be in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and in the two epistles that bear his name.

And what a story it is. He was a man ultimately not only saved by the grace of God that he was, but if we may use his brother Apostle's language, sanctified, meek for the master's use and prepared unto every good work, so that as God would have him labor for him here or there, the man is ready and the man is willing to be made willing if he's not already willing.

And we find him ultimately as one of the most mature, one of the most stable, one of the most stalwart souls of the great New Testament and Apostolic Age, Simon the rock. Now the story of that transformation I believe is one of the great epics of history.

It's a remarkable story, but it is all the more remarkable because, you see, there is so much of Simon in all of us. Now I dearly love the Apostle Paul, who doesn't? We owe him so much under God, but somehow or other he's often on a different plane, naturally speaking.

We're not in the same world, naturally speaking. Oh there are times when we converge, but this man Simon, son of Jonah, he's so much like me, or I'm so much like him. And wherever I go I find people who are prepared to say this, there is so much of Simon in me, we're so near to one another.

His humaneness brings us so near to him. He's such a real man, he's no man of straw, I'm not suggesting that Paul is, but this man is certainly made of the same stuff as you and myself. And you see, as we pursue the footfalls of Simon Peter, and see the vicissitudes of his life and how the Lord deals with him and transforms him, we cannot other than take courage.

For we see what the grace of God can do and can make of a man like ourselves. Very impetuous, very impulsive, there is much else that we can say about it, but at last God triumphs. And it is on that score that I want to invite you over the next number of months to come with me and follow in the footmarks and see the great transition from Simon to Peter, until we see what the grace of God can do, not only for him, but please God for every one of us.

It would be a wonderful thing, let's pray for one another, if no one was left out of this. I'm often sorrowful on behalf of men and women who come to the sanctuary and who go out unblessed. They even see others blessed, but they themselves don't seem to catch the glory and the grace that God is calling forth.

Will you pray with me that in these mourning times as we gather together over the next number of months, there will not be a man or a woman or a boy or a girl which will fail to see the significance of these things, but that we shall all know the grace that redeemed and rescued and transformed Simon, saved him, sanctified him, and made him a servant of God, to whom successive generations acknowledge their gratitude.

John the Baptist’s Preparatory Ministry

Now, the first scene, preparation. The divine potter always prepares his clay with meticulous care. Ere he personally and directly began the work that was to change Simon into Peter, and channelize his energies into the fulfillment of God's perfect will, Jesus first arranged that Simon should become closely involved with the ministry, in the ministry of John the Baptist.

And this is the background. This is the preparation. Now, it often happens this way. When God is about to do something big, he will arrange for a man to come under the influence of somebody or other who will engage in a preparatory ministry.

Sometimes it's a mother or a father. Sometimes it's a Sunday school teacher. Of course, sometimes the father or mother or the Sunday school teacher can be the very person who is involved in bringing the boy or the girl right into the swing and glory of the Christian life, it's true.

But more often, rather, it is a case of someone being the agent for the performance of the preparatory work. Now, there is some legitimate room for doubt as to whether or not Simon was actually a disciple of John the Baptist, and so we don't dogmatize here.

But really, it doesn't matter whether he was directly a disciple of John the Baptist or not. He was intimately involved. I'll tell you why. We read that all Judea and Jerusalem and all the cities round about Jordan went out after John to be baptized of him.

And we also read that Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was a disciple of John the Baptist. And knowing Andrew, and the way he shared things with Peter, and the way they talked about things together, and the way he was ultimately able to persuade Peter to come to the Messiah, it is impossible, it is inconceivable that Simon could have evaded the ministry of John the Baptist.

But in all probability, I say in all probability, Peter was a disciple, Simon was a disciple of John the Baptist. I suggest that because of the way Peter speaks on the occasion when they would choose someone to succeed Judas to the twelfth.

These are Peter's words. So says he, one of the men who have accompanied us during the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

Now that means at least that Simon was present on the occasion of our Lord's baptism by John. Why was he there? Well the most natural reading of the text, I think, would suggest that he was there just like his brother, as a disciple of John's, being taught by John.

He was one of the serious young men who along with others had gathered around John the Baptist, this authentic man of God, this voice from above, who in those days when the word of the Lord was scarce, knew his God.

But really it doesn't matter very much. In either case, the ministry of John had an impact upon Simon Peter and prepared the way for what was to come. Now in what sense? This is our question this morning.

The Kingdom of Heaven Demands Repentance

How did the ministry of John prepare Simon to become Peter? I can only choose a few strands from the main body of truth that we have in the Gospels. The first thing I want to say is this. God's ministry demanded reformation, and this in itself had an impact upon Simon as well as upon others.

John's announcement was that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Don't read that without care, without thought. The kingdom of the heavens is at hand. The Old Testament had promised a king, a kingdom that would belong to the Son of Man.

The ancients of days would give him a kingdom that would outlive and outlast every other. And what John said, the kingdom of the heavens is right at hand. It's around the corner. It's just here. Of course, it was here not because the kingdom as such had come, but the kingdom had come in the presence of the king.

And in this context, the king makes the kingdom. He brings all the powers of the world to come to bear into the human situation and upon it. And he comes. Now, John's statement that the kingdom was at hand was no more startling than his understanding of the nature of that kingdom.

Peter and all others like him, versed in the Old Testament, were waiting for this. But they waited, they knew not what for, because their understanding of the kingdom had become so material and so carnal that alas, they were oftentimes waiting for the wrong thing to come, as the Jews are still waiting.

It was nationalistic and narrow, their concept of things. It was materialistic and shallow. And John knew that it was quite different from the common conception. In the solitude of the desert, he had learned that God's promised reign would be spiritual before all else.

Now, I deliberately put it like that. I'm not saying that there was no other aspect to it, but what I am saying is this. It was spiritual before anything else. John's call was not to become involved in political intrigue or maneuvering.

John's summons was a summons to summon men to repentance. A change of mind and a change of heart and a change of life. It was spiritual, because the nature of the kingdom was spiritual. It wasn't to verse people, it wasn't to teach people according to the tenets of some philosophical or political creed.

The kingdom was not political. The kingdom was not philosophical. It was moral, it was spiritual, and the preparation must be correspondingly moral and spiritual. Repent, says John. And wherever he went, this was the message.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He summoned men to make a verdict, to arrive at a verdict that they would be morally different and spiritually different. He called them to repentance. And such a repentance would radically change their thinking and their living, their beliefs and their behavior.

Repentance Must Produce Practical Fruit

Now, that moral transformation that John sought, must in the first place involve the end of national bigotry and a self-righteousness that bursted in mere physical dissent. This is one of the damning features of the life of the Jews of our Lord's day.

And John, with the axe in his hand, lifted it up and let it fall in these thunderous words. Bear fruit, said he, that befit repentance. And don't begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father.

For I tell you, says this man of God, can you imagine it? I tell you, he says, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. If this were the salvation of mankind, simply to be physically related to Abraham, God can make stones into children of Abraham.

There could be no more devastating word in the whole of the Bible. Simply to be a physical descendant of Abraham does not save a man. Let me repeat, physically descend from the very friend of God. Significance, as it may be, does not in and of itself imply greatness or goodness.

In and of itself. As such, it is no qualification for access into God's kingdom. Nicodemus was the man at the threshold of John's gospel who had to be told, Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, except a man be born again, he cannot even see, let alone enter the kingdom of God.

Then again, where genuine repentance is present, there must be fruit that befit repentance. Repentance is not a thing that you can do without showing it. Oh no. Now you can be secretly in love with someone, I suppose, and hide it for a long time, but you cannot be a penitent sinner and not show it.

It will show in your attitude. Of course, love will also, in due course. But repentance is such a radical change of mind concerning myself and concerning God and his glory that it has to be out. If we ask with the multitudes that did ask John, well how, in what sense, what must we do, how do we express it?

Well, John's got his answer ready. They asked him exactly that question in the days when he ministered. What then shall we do, they said, Luke 3 .10. And we have the reply. He who has two coats, says John, let him share with him who has none.

And he who has food, let him do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than is appointed you. Soldiers also asked him, and we, what shall we do?

And he said to them, rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages as evidence of repentance. Now you notice what John does. He deals with the peculiar sin of every sector of society that comes to him.

The first were materialistic, and they loved to hoard clothing and other things, clothing and food, food and clothing. Hoard, self is in the center. Right, says John, the token of repentance is this, share what you've got.

It means that you haven't the view that you yourself are the center of the universe, but other people have a share in God's good things. That's repentance. And so he goes down the list. I'm not going to pursue them.

The point is, of course, that we all have a sin that so easily besets us. It may not be quite the same with me as it is with you. It may not be quite the same with any two among us this morning, but the fact of this, there is a sin that besets us.

We must repent. Each reply speaks of a practical expression of a moral and spiritual change. My dear friends, this is so challenging. You know, I would love to speak eye to eye with any passenger this morning who feels that when the message of repentance is struck, it applies to everybody else.

My good man, my good woman, in the name of God, don't let yourself be thus bulldozed by the devil into a corner where you will perish this morning. Repentance is a word for you and for me. Then, of course, genuine repentance needs to be expressed symbolically as well as practically.

Confessing Sin and the Meaning of Baptism

We went out to him, Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins, confessing their sins, acknowledging their wrongness.

So easy to expect others to do this. It's a different thing to do it ourselves. And it's so easy for us to call attention to other people's sins. Now, my dear people, we need a lesson here. We are past masters at this terrible game of that's his sin.

I beg of you, dear people of Knox this morning, every man and woman among us, don't do that. What's yours? What's mine? Remember to yourself, man. You see, for every finger that points at another, there are three that point back at me.

And I tell you, this can damn the church. And I will stand in this pulpit this morning, though I've only been here six months, less, and I will tell you that this sin can damn Knox. Repentance means acknowledging your sin, not somebody else's.

Now, there comes a point, according to the disciplines of the New Testament, where those in pastoral authority have from time to time to speak to a recalcitrant brother or a recalcitrant sister. But this is of such a pastoral order that it is extremely delicate and a very, very, very sensitive operation to perform.

But generally speaking, penitence means this, I acknowledge my own sin. Only on that score, only on that score is the baptism of John, the baptism unto the remission of sins. For that word unto means this, that to the penitent who acknowledges his sin before God, God forgives and God forgets.

This is another lesson we've got to learn, that when God forgives and forgets, we've got to learn to forget as well. When God forgives, God forgave, we've got to forgive. This is a fellowship. And Simon came to this.

Later on, but this is very significant, Simon along with other sons who asked our Lord, how I'll forgive you. And this issue, under this, needed to forgive. But a man who was a penitent is so old, such was the radical reformation that Andrew participated.

I want you to notice this. John's venison was supplied special, instructed authoritatively, to be made explicit during certain matters. John's kingdom was quite a cabinet, sure as it was eminent and close, so also was it quite spiritual, as we've said, and a bar passant of the king.

It is for John to see that it was spiritual. Apparently, the memory of the king who was embodied was a spiritual one of many things. That the Son of Man opens, doesn't it? Yes, until why, until we put it in its place.

It's the Son of a Lamb made the cur of sinners, rather than the Son of Iron that is his foe. It's the sovereignty over our guilt, rather than the Son of Man who deals with an exit such as Rome. Oh, says he, the Lamb of God.

You see, if he couldn't, in this realm, well, there's no point of breaking the book of Rome. Speaking cannot consume a nature, cannot curse an iniquity with God. Well, there's two basic issues. Taking away the King of the Lamb.

The Jews of Peter do this. They let a king to emerge. He is coming, a thin king. Jews are just going to do something to the nature, to be complete. Says John, hide in water. Who is mighty? He, with a holy fire.

Judgmentations both of them. Only the preparer of the way, the poor king, Isaiah 4. It was him down the mountain, to set the valleys level up, so that the highway could be the king. The king is coming.

I know that I am as limitations of the ministry as the limitations of the water that symbolize repentance. Water can do nothing, nothing. And of itself, water is as anything. Of itself, no, water can do nothing.

The water with which I baptize men is symbolic of something that has happened by the grace of God in the heart, who's coming after me. The shoes I'm on, he's his shoes. And when he comes, he will baptize with the Holy Spirit, fire and the Holy Spirit of doing things.

Not the symbol this is. And to a power be the power. This is the power of God. Down among God, the Holy is God. And you say, what? Oh, we are at a loss about this, you know, with water. God have mercy.

And it's one simple thing after all. Of itself is a car. Nothing. But the host never comes in vain. It is the hearing moves the soul. This was one thing that Simon needed to learn. The kingdom to which he called is not a kingdom that you enter into because you're a Jew.

New Birth, Redemption, and the Coming Judgment

It is a kingdom to which someone that you must change radically and harm in, that sin and curse must come. And when the law of sin must be so, that a man is made new, transformed, redeemed, regenerate.

And John told him that. One other thing. John included at least another vital note concerning the king, in whose very assembly from the kingdom comes. He bows away and baptized with the Holy Spirit, but burns with unquenchable fire.

A very solemn note. Very eligible in the 20th century, as in the past. Yet I can't apologize to you all this morning for many, because I am fledgling of the word of God, and not from age. Listen to this.

Winnowing for, and he will cleave, and he will get into his granary, but a chaff. He will burn with unquenchable fire. He also comes under the ship of Sodom. Imps, Jews, Gentiles, immodern. He's all. He's sovereign of the world.

He's separate from the goat and the wheat. And having gathered in their granary corn harvest, he will burn with unquenchable fire. I'm not suggesting one more. That's about everything he heard. I'm not suggesting a half of it in points or a fact of this ministry.

It was a revolution. Broke in upon the nonsense of Zionist fellow countrymen. Simmons started this question. The thing to which I want to be closing is this. It would be remiss of me if I had one other speech in this ministry.

Very briefly in this way of introduction. He said the king, kingdom that he brings is materialistic. It is first place. God says to John, the one that I'm talking about, the sin-bearing, spit-baptizing, burning.

Behold. Then he says to his men, you who are there, instead of disciples knowing that he has now started. In the beginning, Simon's preparation took shape beyond the baptization of life. Instruction as well as individual produced by John's ministry in applying their.

My friends, follow your pathway. And you dislike more of the of the of John the Baptist when he dislodged your weak. And and thereby my very life that refuses will be silent to dance to his tune. Have you ever before the one Herod of Jesus before Herod had understand this?

My friend, Herod is Baptist. And you can discourage the Baptist as he brings. For the heart has been shamelessly under the men of the fool. Your people, I have but God one thing and say something to us.

And this is why perhaps we feel that with all sin, and we should take. And if we keep the history of the gospel. You're concerned us and leaders are.