The Super Bowl and addiction have one big thing in common: Constant, high-def replays.
At a typical NFL game, TV networks capture the action with 15-20 cameras around the stadium. But at the 2023 Super Bowl, Fox tucked 94 cameras into every corner of State Farm Stadium in Arizona. With all those lenses and replay technicians watching, there wasn’t a bobbled catch or toe out of bounds that escaped notice.
When it comes to our addictions and past mistakes, our minds seem just as loaded with cameras and replay trucks—all waiting to remind us of every sinful choice we’ve made and every person we’ve hurt. The constant replays of our errors can paralyze us with shame and regret and eventually convince us that God couldn’t possibly want anything to do with someone buried under so much baggage.
That’s why I’ve always found some encouragement in the apostle Peter’s betrayal of Jesus. Surprising, right? But here’s why: Peter’s biggest mistake in life is recorded on the biggest replay screen of them all—four books of the Bible. We’re still talking about his massive fail 2,000 years later. But I find hope here because Peter’s story didn’t end with him denying Christ. His story of reconciliation and restoration with Jesus should encourage all of us who feel like shame and regret will keep us sidelined forever.
To recap Peter’s story, read John 18:15-27, where we see Peter standing in a courtyard as Jesus is put on trial for His life inside the house. On three different occasions, people ask Peter, “Aren’t you with that Jesus guy?” Three times, Peter denies it, even throwing in some curse words to build his street cred. Then the rooster crows, just as Jesus had predicted. And after Peter’s third denial, Luke 22 records that Jesus turns His gaze toward Peter, who then goes out and weeps bitterly over his failure.
Three Reasons for Hope from Peter’s Failure
Why would all four Gospels in the Bible include such an embarrassing story about one of Jesus’ closest followers, a man who became a key leader in the early Christian church? Obviously, we’re supposed to learn something from this. So here are three lessons I see from Peter’s denials that can help us deal with our own shame and regret.
- Even faithful people fail.
Scripture teaches that a person who truly trusts in Jesus Christ as their Savior can never lose their eternal salvation. And that applies here, too. Peter’s faith hadn’t abandoned him. His courage had.
How do we know Peter was a true believer in Jesus? John 13:9-11 shows us that Jesus had searched Peter’s heart and determined that he was a true believer.
But our personal failures can tempt us to doubt whether Jesus will really accept a lousy sinner like us. Every few months, I talk to another person who has some major failure in their spiritual walk and asks, “Do you think I’m even really a Christian if I did something like that?”
I usually follow with my own question, especially if they’re a relatively new Christian: “Did you feel bad about doing that thing BEFORE you were a Christian?” And usually they say, “No. I didn’t even notice I was doing it before.”
And my answer typically is, “That’s a great sign. Your guilt over failing to properly serve God is a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in your heart, convicting you and guiding you toward a better path.”
As long as we live in our sinful flesh, even true believers get tripped up. Faced with soldiers threatening Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter pulled a sword and fought. Faced with a snarky servant girl hours later, he folded. Even as Christians, we’re weak people, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not truly Christians or that Jesus gives up on us.
2. Jesus’ mercy is greater than our mistakes.
The fact that an embarrassing story about Peter appears in all four Gospels is a very big reason we can trust that the gospels are telling the truth. Over the years, some critics have argued that the gospel writers made up a lot of their books in order to invent a new religion. But if you were trying to create a new religion, would you include stories like this one that shows one of your key original leaders melting down under pressure?
This story certainly isn’t told to glorify Peter. It’s told in order to glorify what Jesus did FOR Peter—and for all of us. This applies to the story of every Christian. As you look back through your own life, it’s not about what YOU’VE done, whether good or bad, successful or not. It’s about what Jesus has done FOR you. A Christian’s life resume isn’t a list of things that show how great we are. That’s how a non-Christian looks at their past. A Christian’s resume is a list of experiences showing how merciful Jesus has been to us. Our life story should be a history of times that Jesus forgave our faults. A history of times that Jesus worked through us to serve other people.
It’s widely believed that Peter gave Mark much of the information that appears in the Gospel of Mark. So I can picture Peter leaning over Mark’s writing desk and saying, “Write down exactly what a giant failure I was so that everyone can see how overwhelming Jesus’ forgiveness is!”
Our minds should not be blown by the fact that one of Jesus’ closest disciples crashed and burned. What would we expect from a mere human being? What should blow our minds is the incredible scope of Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness revealed when He restored Peter!
Jesus never leaves us without a path back to God because Jesus IS our path back to God.
John 21 shows how this played out in Peter’s life. Peter has gone back to fishing, the thing he was doing before Jesus came into his life. But one morning, the disciples look up and see the resurrected Jesus standing on the shore. Peter jumps into the water and swims/wades his way up to be reunited with Jesus.
And look at the conversation Jesus has with him in John 21:15-17. Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” He wanted Peter to say it. And He wanted Peter to say it THREE TIMES—the same number of times that Peter had denied Him. Despite Peter’s failures, Jesus never stopped loving him, and here Jesus gently guides Peter to express the love he has for Jesus.
Some Christian legends say Peter cried every time he heard a rooster crow for the rest of his life. I don’t think that makes any sense. In fact, the early Christian church actually made the rooster a celebrated symbol. The rooster reminded early Christians that they don’t have to look back at their failures with a heart full of shame and regret. They should look at their failures as times when Jesus’ forgiveness and restoration were at their absolute peak in the believer’s life. Our failures shouldn’t be moments of regret but monuments to our restoration.
3. There’s a future for people who fail.
When we replay our failures in our minds, we may, like Peter, want to go out and weep bitterly. But remember this: Peter’s greatest heights of service to Jesus came after his greatest failure. After that, he carries the gospel of Jesus to the world, helps establish the first Christian churches, trains future church leaders and writes books of the Bible.
Consider one scene in the book of Acts that shows Peter’s transformation. A few months after Jesus rose from the dead, Peter crosses paths again with Caiaphas, the priest who condemned Jesus. In Acts 4, Peter and John are on trial for telling people about putting their faith in Jesus. And here’s what the religious leaders noticed about the disciples in Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”
Peter was a changed man. He was now fearless in telling people what Jesus had done for him and for everyone else. Peter had the fumble of all fumbles back in the courtyard. But now he’s boldly proclaiming the message of Jesus to the people who terrified him just a few months earlier. With God, there’s always a future for failures like you and me.
Peter shows us that people with pasts, people who fail, are the kind of people God can use to do His work. Weep when you fail Him, ask for His forgiveness and then look for the people in your daily circles that you can tell about the incredible redemption you’ve found through Jesus. Cast yourself on Jesus’ bottomless mercy that is greater than your mistakes. It will change the course of your life.