Leading in Difficult TimesSample

Leading in Difficult Times: Peter

by Brad Schmidt 

John 21:15-19

When Peter heard the words of Jesus, “I’m going to build my church through you,”—he went on to become a career minister. It gave him so much confidence that when later told he would deny Jesus, Peter says “No way, no how!” He soon finds himself outside by a campfire interrogated by a little girl, “Do you know Jesus?“ With that, Peter denies knowing Jesus three times. It’s at this moment that Peter is disgraced. His career is over. He would be known as a failure. 

Except he wouldn’t. In John 21, Jesus, after the resurrection, comes to reinstate Peter. It really is one of the great comeback stories in human history. So, how did it happen?

The first thing Jesus did was to lead Peter to own his failure. That’s why he walked him through the familiar scenario. He took him to a campfire and asked him the same question three times, but this time it was “Do you love me?” Surely this would have taken Peter to the very place where he failed Jesus. 

It’s pretty refreshing when leaders can own their mistakes. When Jeff Bezos discovered Amazon, in their early days, were selling illegal copies of Orwell’s 1984, they removed copies from purchasers’ Kindles without notice. People were outraged! Bezos drafted an apology and said, ”Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received.”

That’s leadership. It’s radical humility. It’s a sign of security and strength. There is no greater resource in the world for radical humility, for rebounding from failure, than coming to grips with the grace of Jesus Christ in your life. Peter saw his failure in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus for him. 

And how good it must have been for Peter to hear Jesus say to him, “Go feed my sheep.” This meant that Peter’s career wasn’t over. He wasn’t just pardoned, he was reinstated. 

When Chuck Colson, aide to President Richard Nixon, went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, he got connected to Christianity. He then started a ministry for prisoners that became a worldwide global ministry. Listen to how he dwells on his failure in light of grace:

“The great paradox [of my life] is that every time I walk into a prison and see the faces of men or women who have been transformed by the power of the living God, I realize that the thing God has chosen to use in my life … is none of the successes, achievements, degrees, awards, honors, or cases I won before the Supreme Court. That's not what God's using in my life. What God is using in my life to touch the lives of literally thousands of other people is the fact that I was a convict and went to prison. That was my great defeat, the only thing in my life I didn't succeed in.”

The good news of the gospel is that not even our failures can stop God from using us. In fact, failures can become the great paradox of our lives.