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A Fisherman Hooked on Jesus (Peter)

2008-01-20

PRODUCTION #: 1133

SPEAKER: Shawn Boonstra

GUEST: Dick Stenbakken

SHAWN BOONSTRA: I don’t know if you’ve ever wished you could back in time and see the things you’ve only ever read about in history books. But if it were really possible, I know for sure I’d probably want to go and interview a few of the people from the pages of the Bible. So, today you might want to pay very close attention to the program, because in just a few moments, that’s exactly what we are going to do.

SB: I know the possibility of time travel is nothing more than science fiction, but if you could travel back in time, who would you want to visit from the pages of the Bible? Retired army colonel and chaplain, Richard Stenbakken, also happens to be a dedicated preacher who has an unusual gift for portraying characters from the Bible. And today he’s going to help us meet someone really familiar. You’ll recognize this person. Frankly, you may just see him in the mirror every day, always acting or speaking before he thinks.

Today on It Is Written, thanks to a lot of careful Bible study, we actually get to meet a really big Bible character. I can’t tell you how excited I am today to actually have somebody from the pages of the Bible right here on It Is Written.

PETER: I’m really glad to be here. But what is your name?

SB: I am so sorry. I’m Shawn Boonstra.

P: Shawn Boonstra, that is kind of a strange name. I don’t recognize that name.

SB: Well, it’s a Germanic name. It’s from a tribe way to the north from where you would live. Now, exactly who are you again?

P: My name is Rocky.

SB: Rocky. Now, you know, I’ve read this book a few times from cover to cover, and I know for a fact that there is no Rocky in the Bible.

P: Well, let me tell you my name in Greek. You know some Greek?

SB: I know some Greek.

P: Okay, my name in Greek is Petros.

SB: Oh…Peter!

P: Yes, Peter.

SB: Oh, I’m glad to have you here.

P: You see, Peter means rock. My wife thinks most of the rocks are up here (points to head).

SB: (Laughs) My wife thinks the same thing about me.

P: Well, we have something in common. I was kind of a hard case, you know, with Jesus. But, He helped me.

SB: Peter. That wasn’t your original name?

P: No, no. I was known as Simon Bar Jonah. Well, listen to that. You see, that “bar” means “son.”

SB: Son.

P: Of…

SB: Jonah.

P: And Jonah had to do with fish.

SB: Fish. Absolutely.

P: And see, I grew up in Bethesda.

SB: Okay.

P: Now, you know the name Bethlehem?

SB: Yes. “Beth” is “house.”

P: Lehem?

SB: Bread. “House of bread.” Okay.

P: Okay. Bethesda. “House of fishing.”

SB: House of fishing. So doesn’t that make sense?

P: Well, with a father named Jonah and coming from the house of fishing, what else could I be but a fisherman?

SB: Peter, you have come to be known as one of the most colorful characters anywhere in the Bible. You are a lot of people’s favorite disciple, and I have to say, you must have had some fantastic experiences with Jesus.

P: Well, yeah, I did, but you see, being a Christian is kind of like being a fisherman, and living is kind of like being a fisherman.

SB: Right.

P: You know, fishermen, sometimes we catch little fish.

SB: Yup.

P: And sometimes we catch medium-sized fish.

SB: Right.

P: And sometimes we catch big fish.

SB: Yes.

P: Yeah, well, sometimes in life we make little mistakes. Sometimes we make medium mistakes. Sometimes we make big mistakes. Well, I made my share of big mistakes.

SB: Mistakes. Now, listen, you are the big fisherman. You’ve got your act together. You don’t make mistakes.

P: Oh, Shawn, I wish that were true, but I’ve made all kinds of mistakes, and some of them were pretty big mistakes, too.

SB: What did you learn from your mistakes?

P: Boy, you kind of have to go back and look at some of them. I mean, I did struggle, like I said. I was a hard case.

SB: Let’s back up. You said we have to go back and look at some of the mistakes you made, and in order to back up like that, we should go probably back to the time that you actually met Jesus. When did you hear about Jesus of Nazareth?

P: My brother…you know, Andrew?

SB: Yeah.

P: He’s a very quiet guy. He’s quiet because when I’m around he doesn’t have a chance to say anything, you know. And he came to me and he said he and John wanted to go and hear this new Rabbi, this teacher, and I said, “Aw, go ahead. I don’t have time for preachers.” No offen—

SB: No offense taken. No time for preachers. You were too busy. You didn’t go see Jesus.

P: Too busy for Jesus. That’s a—

SB: Big mistake.

P: Big mistake. That’s right. Well, anyway, when my quiet brother came back, it was like he had been waiting his whole life to do all this talking. I mean, he couldn’t quit his talking about Jesus, the Messiah. He heard a voice from heaven, then John saying, “This was the Lamb of God” and all of that. And you know what I thought? I don’t have to listen to my brother.

SB: That’s a big mistake.

P: Yeah, because, see, I just didn’t want to listen to anybody, especially my brother. That was a big mistake.

SB: Yeah.

P: See, a lot of my life is around water, okay? And I was working on the nets one day and Jesus was preaching to a whole bunch of people up on the shore, and I wasn’t really listening. Well, I was kind of listening with one ear while I was working on my nets, but suddenly Jesus said, “Peter, I’d like to borrow your boat.”

I’m polite, so I said, “Of course.” And so he had me push out into the water and He preached. I mean, I’m captive on my own boat.

SB: You had to listen to the sermon.

P: I mean, what am I going to do? Walk on water? So, we fished all night and we hadn’t caught a thing. And when we got through, or when Jesus got through, he said, “Peter, put it out into the deep. Let’s go fishing.” And you know what I thought, Shawn? I thought, He may be a good Rabbi, He may be a good teacher, but I know more than He knows about fishing.

SB: Peter…

P: I know.

SB: Big mistake.

P: Big mistake. See, in the daytime, the fish go deep.

SB: Right.

P: And the nets can’t go deep. So we got out there and I threw—and you know, I’m thinking to myself, “This isn’t going to work.” Big mistake. We caught so many fish that I had to call for help. The boat started to sink and you know what I did? I got down on my knees, like this, and I put my arms around his knees. I think you call it a tackle.

SB: Yeah, we do.

P: And I’m hanging on and I said, “Jesus, go away from me. I’m a sinful man.”

Well, how is He going to go away from me? I’ve got Him in a lock.

SB: You actually told Jesus to leave you? Peter! Big mistake.

P: Big mistake. Yeah. Don’t ever tell Jesus to leave you. That was a big, big mistake.

SB: Let’s go back now. Let’s look at some of the things that have stuck out in my mind, from your life, that were important events. Let’s take you back to that Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well.

P: Well, well, yes, I remember that well. See, we were going through Samaria. Now you have to understand, Shawn, Jews and Samaritans don’t mix. It is kind of like oil and water. And the fact is it’s just hard for me to even say, S-S-Samaritan.

SB: As a matter of fact, you often went the long way around to avoid these people.

P: Oh, yes, and they avoided us. We just didn’t have anything to do with them. And it was about noontime and Jesus said, “Go into the village and get something for us to eat. I’ll stay here by the well.”

When we came back, here is Jesus talking to a Samaritan, a Samaritan woman, and He’s talking theology with this woman.

SB: What’s the big deal?

P: Well, Samaritans don’t know anything. Women don’t know anything. I was prejudiced. And, Shawn, prejudice is a—

SB: Big mistake.

P: A big mistake. See this woman—she had all these little kids, and you could tell looking at these children that they came from different fathers. And so, she was hopeless. Nobody’s hopeless to Jesus. She turned out to be one of the first missionaries.

SB: I seem to remember that, yeah.

P: See, while we were all arguing about who was the greatest, she went into the village, and people began to believe because of this woman we just wrote off.

SB: What did Jesus teach you that day?

P: He’s the divine equalizer.

SB: Everybody on the same—

P: Yes. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Samaritan, or a Jew, or who you are. Jesus levels the field for everybody—men, women, it doesn’t matter. If you believe, you are a believer.

SB: Jesus fed 5,000 people.

P: Oh, yes.

SB: He fed 5,000 people. Tell me about it.

P: It was my brother Andrew. He found this little boy with a lunch, you know, wrapped up in a little piece of cloth.

SB: Right.

P: Some fish and some bread and my brother said, “What’s this among so many?” It’s like—

SB: Five thousand people. And one lunch.

P: But see, the way he said it, it’s like, “What could this be?” And when Jesus blessed it, Shawn, we fed over 5,000 people. We had more left over than we started with.

SB: What did you learn that day? I mean, is this just something Jesus did to impress people or was He trying to teach you something?

P: Oh, no, He taught me that He’s the divine provider. He provides everything we need and more.

SB: Peter, I’m going to take you from that lunch now. You are going to go out on the sea. You are in a boat. A big storm comes up, the waves are sloshing the boat back and forth, and you look off the edge of the boat and you see—a ghost?

P: Well, see, this is right after the feeding of the 5,000 and we were so excited. I mean, people had started to say, “Let’s make Him king,” and we kind of wanted that to happen, you know.

But Jesus said, “No, I’m going to stay here and pray. You go across to the other side.”

See, we didn’t think, “How is He going to get to the other side?” We have the boat. And so, we were talking, and all of a sudden the wind came up and the waves came up. Have you ever been seasick?

SB: Once or twice, yeah.

P: Well, this was worse. First, you’re afraid you are going to die, and then you are afraid you are not going to die, and this was terrible. We were terrified. I mean, I had goose bumps, and then somebody said, “Look out there in the water! Something’s walking on the water. It must be a ghost.”

I think it was John who said, “It’s Jesus!”

And I looked. And I said, “Jesus, is that you?”

And He said, “Yes.”

Then I had a bright idea, “Jesus, if that’s you, let me come and walk on the water, too.”

I mean, I thought that would be really fun.

SB: No kidding. If I thought I could, I would.

P: Well, see, the first step, that’s easy. After that second foot was out of the boat, I was walking on water, Shawn! I was walking, and you know, the waves would come up, and wahoo, they’d go down, and it was fun.

And then I had another bright idea. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, I thought, “I wonder what the rest of the guys—I wonder what they are looking like when I’m walking on water. And so, I took my eyes off of Jesus.

SB: Oh, Peter.

P: Oh, yeah.

SB: A big mistake.

P: Well, you see, I lived up to my name, which means—

SB: Rock.

P: That’s right, and that is why I fell. But you know, Jesus, before I even cried out, He was right there. He lifted me up, put His arm around my shoulder and walked me back to safety.

SB: You were on the sea another time. You went fishing, opened the mouth of a fish and found something inside.

P: Well, see, the priest and Rabbis came to us. We were outside my house, and they said, “Does your master pay the temple tax?” And I said, “Of course He pays the tax.”

And then I went inside and before I said anything, Jesus said, “Peter, what do you think? Does the king’s son pay taxes or receive them?”

I suppose he could have said, “Peter—what?!? Do you think?”

But, you see, He didn’t put me down. And so He said, “Peter, take a line and go out and catch a fish and open his mouth. Inside that fish there will be a coin that will pay for your taxes and mine.”

And so I went out and they said, “Well, where is the tax?”

And I said, “Come with me.”

Have you ever heard of a man going fishing?

SB: I sure have.

P: Well, this was a fish that was going manning.

SB: A fish going manning.

P: Well, see, he is swimming around with this coin thing. “Hurry up, Peter, come on, hurry up, Peter, come on. Peter, where are you?” And so I caught this fish and I opened his mouth and, Shawn, it was a coin just like this one.

SB: Let me show that to everybody. This is the kind of shekel that was used.

P: That’s a shekel of Tyre. That’s a full shekel, and the temple tax was half a shekel per person.

SB: The both of you were paid for? Wow. What did you learn that day?

P: Again, Jesus is the divine provider, and also, Shawn, Jesus knows what we need before we even know it.

SB: I believe that with all my heart, Peter. I want to take you now, forward a little bit, from the ministry of Jesus down to those last few days before the cross. What happened in the last moments before Christ goes to the cross?

P: Well, he wanted us to eat together during the Passover meal. He sent John and me to get things ready, and we got most of it, but we forgot something very important. We didn’t get anybody to wash our feet. That was kind of a low task, the lowest of the low, and when it became obvious and people started looking like, well, somebody needs to do this, and I wasn’t going to do it. I motioned to John, and he said he wasn’t going to do it, and we were arguing about who was the greatest and who was not going to be a servant, and Jesus stood up and he started to wash our feet. Jesus started to wash OUR feet.

SB: Well, how did that make you feel?

P: Well, I felt terrible and when Jesus came to me, I said, “No, Lord.”

SB: “No, Lord.” That’s incongruous, Peter. How do you call him Lord and then say no? Big mistake.

P: A big mistake. Yes. And I said, “No, Lord, I’ll never let you wash my feet.”

And He said, “Peter, if you don’t let me wash your feet—in other words, if you don’t let me do for you what I want to do for you—you can have no part with me.”

And I said, “Well then, Lord, just wash me all over—my head, my hands, and my feet.”

He said, “No, Peter. Just let me do for you what I need to do for you,” and He washed my feet.

SB: You learned a lesson that day. Did you learn everything at that moment?

P: No, sadly, I wish I did, but I made some other blunders, some pretty big ones. You see, we went from there up to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus often went to pray. He asked us to watch and pray while He went aside. We should have been praying, but we went to sleep. You know, when you are sleeping instead of praying, that’s a big mistake.

SB: Yeah.

P: And then I woke up and there was this crowd of people. They were coming at us fast, and they had staves, swords and spears, and they were coming to take Jesus. Right in the front was one of our own, Judas. And right next to him was Malchus, a servant of the high priest.

Well, see my fishing knife here?

SB: Yeah.

P: I pulled that out and I took a swing at him, and I tried to part his hair right down the middle (and cut off his ear).

And then he saw it coming and he ducked, and Jesus said, “Peter, put it away. Don’t do that. Don’t take things into your own hands.”

SB: Taking things into your own hands. Big mistake.

P: Mistake.

SB: You ended up at the house of Caiaphas, didn’t you?

P: Yes. You see, we all ran away, we ran away from Jesus. That’s another big mistake. Don’t go away from him.

And John said, “He’s going to the house of Caiaphas. I’m going to go.”

So I went with John and I made a bunch of other mistakes there, too.

SB: You actually got inside the house, didn’t you?

P: Yeah, because of John. When we were going in, you see, Jesus had told me…He said I would deny Him three times, and I said, “Lord, I’ll die before I deny you.”

SB: Oh, man. Self-confidence.

P: You bet.

SB: Big mistake.

P: A big mistake. See, I wasn’t relying on Jesus. The gatekeeper said, “You are one of those believers, disciples.”

And I said, “Not me. I’m with him. I’m with John. I don’t know who—”

SB: Oh, denying Jesus.

P: I know. Denying Jesus was a huge mistake, but it gets worse. See, it was cold and they had a fire, and of course I tried to get a little closer to the fire. But see, not only was the night cold, but my heart was cold.

I was standing around the fire and somebody said, “You are one of those believers.” And I said, “No, not me.”

There was this big guy, Shawn. I mean, a really, really, really big guy, and he was a relative of Malchus, the guy whose ear I’d cut off.

And he looked at me and he said, “I know you. You are a Galilean. You were with him. I recognize you. Your speech betrays you.”

Well, when he said that, I used some fisherman language that I hadn’t used for years, and when I got through, they didn’t need the fire to warm the area.

SB: Oh, Peter.

P: I denied Jesus, and just as I did—cursing and swearing—I heard the cock crow, and I looked up and saw Jesus. He had heard every word. He had heard me deny Him.

SB: Oh, Peter.

P: See, Jesus could have embarrassed me. All He had to do is say, “Good morning, Peter.” But He didn’t say anything. He just walked on, and they took Him from there and crucified him.

SB: Tell me about the cross.

P: The last words Jesus heard me say were that I didn’t know who He was. You know, only John and Mary were close to the cross. We hung back, the rest of us. I watched Him die, Shawn. And we ran back to the upper room like a bunch of little children who were lost.

SB: Hiding.

P: We were terrified.

Sunday morning there was an earthquake, just like when Jesus died, and we were all trembling. We weren’t sure if it was the earth or us shaking the earth.

(Knocking)

It was some of the women. They said, “We’ve been to the tomb and Jesus is risen. He’s not there.”

Women? What do women know?

SB: Big mistake.

P: Well, they knew something we didn’t know. And so John and I started to run to the tomb. John was the youngest and I’m the oldest, so he got there first, but he stopped. He didn’t go inside. Well, nothing could stop me; I just rushed right in to the tomb. When I got there, the grave clothes that He’d been wrapped in, they were folded.

See, if they stole His body, they’d take the cloth. This was all folded just like Jesus would do it, orderly. And then the women came in and they said, “Peter…Jesus will meet you in Galilee.”

I wanted to see Him, but I didn’t want to see Him, because I was so ashamed of what I’d done. And so, a bunch of us went there and we were, you know, we didn’t see Jesus right away, so we—I guess you could say we were in regression.

We went fishing. We had fished all night and we didn’t catch a thing. Then we looked out there on the shore and there was somebody with a fire. Obviously, he had caught a fish because we could smell the fish cooking, and he said, “Brothers, have you caught anything?”

Well, when you are a fisherman and somebody else caught fish and you didn’t, I replied, “No. What is it to you?”

So, he called out, “Cast your net on the other side of the boat.”

I thought, “Yeah, sure, all the fish are over there.” I didn’t think. I just threw the net over there and started to haul it in, expecting nothing, and it was full of fish. Huge fish.

SB: Now that has to ring some bells for you.

P: It started to, and then John elbowed me and he said, “That’s Jesus!”

Shawn, see, I’d taken off some of the outer garments here and I put them all back on and jumped into the water. When I got there, I was cold, I was hungry, I was hurting.

SB: That’s true for somebody reading this today, Peter. In some other way, they are cold, they are hungry, they are hurting. Tell me about it.

P: Shawn, Jesus had the fire. He had everything I needed. He had food and He had forgiveness. He fed not only my body, but He fed my spirit. He forgave me.

He said, “Peter, do you love me?”

And I said, “Lord, you know I love you.”

And again, He said, “Then feed my sheep.”

Then He asked me again. He said, “Peter, do you love me?”

And I said, “Lord, you know I love you.”

“Feed my lambs.”

Then, Shawn, He asked me a third time and I was crushed, “Lord, you know I love you,” and then it dawned on me. I denied Him three times.

SB: Right.

P: And He gave me a chance to give Him love back. And Shawn, He’ll do that for anybody.

SB: Fully restored.

P: Absolutely. He met every need, and He still does that today.

SB: Very quickly, Peter, you’ve been restored, what are you going to do with your future?

P: I’m going to fish. Only, you see, I’m going to fish for men and women. I’m going out there to catch people for Jesus. See, I used to catch fish and kill them, but now I catch people to give them life, and there is something else that I’ve learned, Shawn.

SB: What’s that?

P: We catch them, but Jesus will clean them up.

SB: …the way He cleaned you and the way He cleaned me.

I am so excited that you joined us today on It Is Written. Thank you so much.

P: Thank you.

SB: No question about it. Peter is one of our favorite Bible characters because we can see a lot of Peter in our own lives. When Peter shoots off his mouth, I think about the times I did the same thing. When Peter does something without thinking it through, I know I’ve done exactly the same thing.

And then, the most painful part of all, when I see Peter deny Jesus three times the night of his trial, I know I’ve done the same thing. Probably not exactly the same way, but I think you know what I mean. Those times you should’ve let someone know you are a Christian, but you said nothing. Those times when you tucked your Bible under your newspaper on the bus because you just didn’t want to attract attention to yourself. Those times somebody made a joke about religious people at work, and you gave a half-hearted laugh because nobody knew that you are one of them.

If you are really honest, you can look at your life and see it. You have those times when you denied God. You might not have done it with your mouth, but you know you have done it, and that only goes to prove where you go when you lean on your ability.

So, here is the lesson for today, God took a loud-mouthed, show-off guy like Peter and turned him into a powerhouse for the kingdom of God, and He can do the same thing for you today. But what it takes is for you to admit that you don’t have anything to offer Jesus and that He is your only hope.

Right now, as you think about the mistakes you’ve made in life, Jesus is on shore waiting. He offers forgiveness. He offers understanding, and most important of all, He offers a new life. And so, right now at this moment, I want to invite you to pray with me.

PRAYER:
Gracious Father in heaven, as we look at our lives, we know that we’ve done things that are shameful to the kingdom of heaven. We know that when we lean on our own abilities and our own strengths, we make a mess out of our lives. And right now, as we look at the shore, we can see Jesus waiting there, and He’s calling us.

And today we’d like to come to Him, to tell Him we love Him and hear the words that He speaks to us. To become a part of the kingdom of heaven, Father, is our desire, and because you promised it in Scripture, today we accept it by faith and we long to see Jesus come again. We ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen.

To learn more about Dick Stenbakken and his DVD series, please visit www.dickstenbakken.com

Scriptures Used in “A Fisherman Hooked on Jesus (Peter)”

“So He said, ‘Come.’ And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying, ‘Truly You are the Son of God.’”
— Matthew 14:29-33