Lois, my wife, now 84 years old, remembers a touching sermon by the late G. C. Brewer when she was 14. She would like people today to hear that sermon. I did not hear it, but she says the climax was the last conversation between Jesus and Peter. I hope the following will be helpful.

Though Simon Peter was not formally educated, he demonstrated that plain, simple people can easily recognize the sinlessness of Jesus, and proclaim that he has "the words of eternal life," and confess that he is "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Luke 5:8; John 6:68-69; Matthew 16:16).

Also he demonstrated that too much self-esteem and excessive self-confidence will ruin a man. Alas! With bitter weeping he had to learn that "pride goes before a fall," and that "a man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor" (Proverbs 16:18; 29:23).

Peter, free with his tongue, on one occasion thought he knew more than the Lord. He dared to take Jesus aside from the other apostles and scolded (epitimao, rebuke, reprove, censure) him (Matthew 16:22). Concerning Jesus’ willingness to go to the cross, Peter said to Jesus, "May God in his mercy spare you this, Lord! Never, never will this happen to you" (Matthew 16:22, FHV).

Peter was appealing to a person’s natural desire to be free of any pain, but his idea was so contrary to Jesus’ reason for leaving heaven and coming to the earth that Jesus actually called him the devil, exclaiming,

On a later occasion, when Jesus had said that all of the apostles would desert him, Peter in his egotism placed himself in a class by himself, saying, "If everyone else is offended at you, I will never be offended" (Matthew 26:31, 33). He did not believe Jesus when he told him, "Indeed, I assure you, that tonight, before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times" (Matthew 26:34, FHV).

Jesus’ prediction should have made Peter reassess his situation in self-examination, but Peter had not yet come to humility. Instead, he continued to boast of his loyalty, "Even if it is necessary to die with you, I will not deny you" (Matthew 26:35).

Unfortunately, too much self-esteem and pride were in all of the apostles: "a dispute arose among them as to which one of them was recognized as the greatest" (Luke 22:24). Jesus tried to alert them to their danger, and he particularly named Peter:

This inside information from the spirit world should have shocked them all, especially Peter, but it did not. A humble Peter would have thanked the Lord for his warning, and also a grateful Peter would have thanked Jesus for sending a prayer to heaven in his behalf. He did neither. Instead, he only reasserted his own self-sufficiency: "Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death" (Luke 22:33).

Jesus repeated, "I assure you, Peter, a rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me" (Luke 22:34). Peter had not let Jesus’ teaching about an invisible kingdom "inside" (entos, Luke 17:21) of his followers come into his understanding. Instead, he thought of Jesus’ coming reign as a "kingdom of this world" for which Jesus’ disciples "would fight" (John 18:36), and that he wanted to do. In the darkness of Gethsemane, before the arresting mob came, Peter’s sword was at the ready.

Around midnight, when the mob came, the zealous and eager Peter was minded to kill anyone trying to seize Jesus. It turned out he only cut off a man’s ear, but, said G. C. Brewer, Peter meant to cut off the man’s head. Peter, apparently left-handed, swung his sword aiming at the neck of a man named Malchus, but he, seeing Peter’s sword coming, ducked his head to his left, saving his head, but not his right ear (John 18:10). Jesus stopped the fight, saying, "Enough! No more of this," and he touched the ear and healed him (Luke 22:51, FHV). Then Jesus said to Peter:

Peter was embarrassed and humiliated. He had proved that he was willing to die for his Lord, but the Lord would not let him fight! Peter had not listened to Caiaphas say

"Now he did not say this from himself, but since he was high priest that year, he prophesied"

Peter had failed to listen to Jesus say

Peter had failed to listen to Isaiah as he predicted that Christ would be "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities" and that "with his stripes we are healed" (53:5) He had failed to learn from Isaiah that his Lord must become "an offering for sin" (53:10).

Peter had failed to listen to Jesus that the only life that leads to heaven is one of self-denial on this earth (Matthew 16:24).

Jesus’ non-resistance made the aggressive Peter ashamed of his Lord. When the large crowd with swords and clubs seized Jesus and led him away, Peter did not stand with him. He followed, but from "afar off" (Matthew 26:58). Gradually he got closer, and again was embarrassed when some said that he was a follower of Jesus. This "he denied before them all," even "cursing and swearing", exclaiming, "I do not know the man" (Matthew 26:73-74). Then a rooster crowed. Both Peter and Jesus heard it. "The Lord turned and looked at Peter," but said nothing (Luke 22:61). However, that silent look made Peter remember Jesus’ prediction, "Before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times" (Matthew 26:75).

The crowing of the rooster was the turning point in Peter’s life. "He went outside," shame-faced, crushed in spirit, broken in heart, weeping in bitterness of soul (Matthew 26:75). Like Judas, he was a traitor, and he knew it. Now he was ashamed, not of Jesus, but of himself. The Peter, who always been first to speak with boldness and confidence, now had nothing to say. Miserable were his days and nights.

But Jesus still loved Peter, and he did not want him to end up as he had said about Judas, "It would have been better if that man had not been born" (Matthew 26:24). After Jesus’ death and resurrection he still had Peter on his mind and in his heart. Peter had gone back to fishing (John 21:3), but Jesus still wanted him to be a fisher of men, as he had told him more than three years before (Matthew 4:19). To Peter’s old fishing place on the lake of Galilee Jesus appeared on the beach "as day was breaking" (John 21:4).

Peter and six companions had fished all night. Jesus decided he would be a host for those seven hungry men at a morning breakfast beside the lake. From about 100 yards out in the lake the men saw a man standing on the shore, but they did not know that it was Jesus (John 21:4, 8).

When John told Peter that "it is the Lord," Peter replaced the shirt he had removed during the night’s work. Then he jumped overboard "and hauled in the net to the shore" (John 21:11). He must have been a strong man, for the net "was full of large fish," numbering 153 (somebody counted them).

Jesus had already built a charcoal fire and had broiled fish and bread ready. He asked that some of the recent catch be added to the breakfast. In Jesus’ mind, this social occasion was only a preliminary. He wanted to talk to Peter. Jesus’ prayer for Peter had been answered. Peter had withstood Satan’s sifting and shaking, and he had returned to faith in his beloved Lord. What had been his downfall, his self-confidence, was now gone. Standing in front of Jesus that morning was a new Peter. Now he was a humble, stable disciple. He had been re-converted!

Jesus believed that in soul winning, prayer though powerful is not enough. He believed the soul winner must go and visit with the alien sinner or the backslider. Jesus had prayed, and now he had gone to visit with one who had been a backslider.

Jesus remembered that Peter had boasted that if all the other apostles deserted their Lord, he would not. So, after breakfast, Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love [agapao] me more than these?" (John 21:15). Now all the bragging was gone from Peter. No longer would he claim a deeper loyalty than that of the other disciples. Moreover, in Jesus’ question, he had heard the supreme word for love [agapao], and it made him feel little and mean. Somehow Peter knew the magnitude of commitment in agapao, and he was afraid, in returning to Jesus, that he would be bragging if he dared to profess the kind of love that describes deity: "God is agape" (1 John 4:8).

So a penitent and lowly Peter used a lesser word for love [phileo], which in this context becomes, "Lord, you know that I like you" (John 21:15). But in Jesus’ second question, he repeated the supreme word [agapao], "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?" (John 21:16, FHV). A second time the lowly, changed Peter reduced the level of Jesus’ question as he replied, "Lord, you know I like you" (John 21:16).

Of course the Lord noticed that Peter twice had avoided putting agapao in his reply. So, the third time, the Lord came down to Peter’s lesser word, and asked, "Do you like [phileo] me?" (John 21:17). "Peter was grieved because the third time Jesus had asked, ‘Do you like me?’", as if he doubted if Peter even liked Jesus (John 21:17). Then Peter responded, "Lord, you know all things. You know I like you" (John 21:17).

Peter, overcome, undone, and grieved, yet now so humble, was saying, as it were, "Lord, no more will I brag. I will not be bold to say that I love [agapao] you, but please believe me when I say, ‘I do like [phileo] you.’"

In Jesus’ eyes, Peter was fully restored and more valuable for the kingdom than ever before. Now he would become a shepherd under the "good shepherd" (John 10:11; 1 Peter 5:1-2). So Jesus said, "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17).

On the first day that Jesus had laid eyes on Peter, over three years before, apparently the Lord looked ahead and could see that this uneducated, Galilean fisher would become as solid and unmovable as a rock. Immediately the Lord "looked at him" and changed the man’s name, saying, "You are Simon, the son of Jonah; you shall be called Cephas" [which means "Peter"] (John 1:42). The name means a stone, a rock.

Before the Lord finished talking with Peter at the seaside breakfast, he informed him that he would, like Jesus, die a martyr’s death (John 21:18-19). Some 35 years after Jesus had told Peter that he would be tied and manhandled on the way to a martyr’s death, Peter remembered well what Jesus had said, and he wrote about it:

Tradition says that this once boastful Peter willingly suffered death at Rome:

A CHART