No Matter “The Performance”

The Apostle Peter had such grand intentions when it came to following Jesus. He insisted that though the other disciples might fail Jesus, he would never fail. He was supremely confident that he would lay down his own life for Jesus without hesitation. The problem was that his confidence was not based in reality, he was living in fantasy world in which his character was already perfected, instead of being exposed for how weak and fallible it really was. That exposure and disappointment had to come first before Jesus could build His own character into Peter. That’s why we hear the saying: Our disappointments are God’s appointments. Disappointments often involve disllusionment. Of course, it wasn’t only Peter, all of Christ’s followers would go and are going through this same process. But Jesus made an example of Peter because Peter was probably the most confident of all the apostles, confident in his own strength, and if he wasn’t dealt with he would set the wrong example and teach the others a false confidence. Jesus had to show Peter that Peter needed the strength of God. Peter needed a supernatural strength, not his own natural strength, if he was to do the will of God.
Jesus had to tell Peter at the end of John chapter 13, after Peter had just proclaimed that he would lay down his life for Jesus, that he would deny or disown Jesus three times before one day had passed. That was a hard thing to have to tell Peter, but he had to begin to help Peter live in the real world of his own weakness and failure. And yet in the very next verse Jesus tells Peter not to be troubled! We often miss that fact because we are fooled by the fact that this verse begins a new chapter. We miss the continuity of what is happening here. Jesus just told Peter that Peter will fail, but in the next breath he says that he must not be troubled. The 14th chapter mark was not put there by Jesus but by translators many years later, and that is why it breaks up the continuity. But if we ignore that chapter 14 marker we can feel the full force of what Jesus says next, “Don’t let your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me.” We don’t have to let our hearts be troubled any more than Peter did. We have a choice in the matter. Our hearts often want to be troubled and bothered but we can believe instead, believe in God’s promises. But to be eligible for the encouragement we have to face the disillusionment. Jesus went on to say that he was going to prepare a place for Peter. Failure or no failure Peter was going to enjoy a place with Jesus for eternity. It did NOT depend on his upcoming performance because his performance was going to be a complete failure. It was going to depend on Jesus’s performance which had been and would continue to be a perfect success, leading right up to the cross and then the resurrection and ascension. Neither do our places that Jesus has prepared for those who believe depend on OUR performances, for it was Jesus who said on the cross, “It is finished!” or “It is accomplished!’ He has done it for us. He has kept the Law, He has obeyed His Father perfectly, and we are credited with that perfect obedience, a performance that can never be surpassed and which goes with us and works for us forever! No matter how many times we may fail or fall flat on our faces, or overestimate ourselves and underestimate Jesus, it doesn’t depend on us and our wretched performance, or on our good performance when we get it right. Hallelujah, what good news this is if we can get our minds around it!
We get a hint of this in the covenant that God made with Abram in Genesis 15 when he put Abram in such a deep sleep that he couldn’t even walk between the animal parts. God had to do that for him in verse 17 when a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed through the animal parts instead. It wasn’t about Abram’s performance or actions in the making or cutting of that covenant and it’s not about our performance or actions in the fulfilling of the new covenant today. This doesn’t mean we abuse the grace that has been given us: “To each of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” No, we are grateful for the grace and by the Spirit within us we have new desires, we WANT to please the Giver of this grace, it is against our new nature to look for ways to abuse it, or to look for ways to get away with sin. Instead we look and listen for new ways to obey and manifest God’s righteousness. In the gospel of Matthew right after Jesus informed Peter of his approaching failure, he still saw fit to invite him to be a part of that select group that accompanied Jesus to the garden to pray before the betrayal by Judas. Even though Jesus knew that these three close friends of his would fall asleep instead of watching and praying, he still invited them along for “support.” What grace that is! What a statement that it was not about their performance then or our performance now! Yet such generous grace is just the kind that drives and motivates us so strongly to WANT to perform more faithfully the works that Jesus asks us to do, even though we’re learning that it doesn’t depend on us. In fact learning that makes us more and more free! I say it MAKES us free not SETS us free, because one who is set free may go back into bondage, but one who is MADE free will be free forever! Free in the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us, a place of eternal abiding which we begin practicing here and now.