31/08/2026
Simon who became Peter St Clement 30th August 2026 Pat Lock
I am going off piste today and doing the type of sermon that I don’t usually do. The last two weeks have spanned readings concerning Peter, and Bishop Peter last week nicked part of today’s reading as well. So, I am not going to repeat it. Instead, I am going to look at Peter – Peter who owns the keys to the gate of heaven. What a job. And with it a plethora of jokes. For example:
A minister and a politician arrived at heaven's gate together. St. Peter gave the minister a tiny single room, but gave the politician a massive, beautiful mansion. The minister asked why he only got a small room, and the politician has a mansion. St. Peter replied, "We get thousands of clergy members every day, but he is the first politician we've ever managed to get up here."
Today we’re taking a look at Simon Peter, one of the twelve disciples, And I am using material from across the gospels. Peter is called both Simon and Peter fairly interchangeably. The first meeting with Jesus is remarkable because Jesus doesn't begin by asking Simon a question. He doesn't ask about his fishing business. He doesn't ask about his family. He doesn't ask whether Simon is worthy to become a disciple. He simply looked him in the face. The kind of look that sees beyond rough hands, loud opinions, and hidden fears. Then Jesus says something extraordinary: "You are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter, or Rock).
What Jesus names Simon for is his potential, his promise, his possibility. He names him for what Peter can become if he follows Jesus, if he takes up the cross, if he denies himself and chooses the path of Christ. Peter, the Rock. Jesus meets Simon for the very first time... ...and immediately calls him by a name he hasn't yet earned. At that moment there was very little "rock" about Simon. He was unstable. Impulsive. Brilliant one moment and reckless the next. He would make magnificent confessions and terrible decisions within the same conversation. Yet Jesus didn't name him according to what he was. Jesus named him according to what grace would make him. Jesus names us by our future in Him. Simon heard "Rock" long before he looked like one. Every time Jesus called him "Peter," it was both a promise and an invitation.
"I know who you are today. But I also know who you will become." Isn't that how Christ still works? He sees beyond the person we are struggling to be. He sees the person His grace is shaping us into. He is patient with our rough edges. He is not surprised by our failures. He is never discouraged by how unfinished we are. What is our potential? Promise? Possibility? What does God see in us? We might see our limits. But when we look into God’s heart, anything and everything is possible.
The Bible never intended us to think of Peter as a collection of famous moments. It tells the story of a man. A real man. A fisherman. A businessman. A leader. A man who was often right.And a man who was sometimes spectacularly wrong. A man with enough courage to step out of a boat while everyone else stayed seated. A man with enough arrogance to tell the Son of God He was mistaken. A man whose mouth often outran his mind. So, Peter did something almost unimaginable. The fisherman corrected the Creator. He pulled the Son of God aside to straighten out his theology. "Lord, let me explain how you should run your kingdom."
Peter wasn't born an apostle. He became one. And perhaps the greatest miracle in Peter's life wasn't walking on water. It wasn't preaching at Pentecost. It wasn't healing the lame. The greatest miracle was that Jesus took a man named Simon and slowly, patiently, lovingly transformed him into the man He had always intended him to be. That gives us hope. Because if Jesus could do that with Simon... perhaps He isn't finished with us either. Because this isn't simply Peter's biography. It's ours.
Before Peter ever preached a sermon... before he ever walked on water... before he ever failed beside a charcoal fire... Jesus had already seen the finished work. And that may be the greatest encouragement in Peter's biography. The Savior believed in what His grace could accomplish long before Simon believed it himself. Peter still had much to learn. Yet notice something beautiful. Jesus didn't dismiss him. He corrected him... ...and kept walking with him. That is grace. Perhaps that is where many of us find ourselves. We sincerely love Christ. We want to follow Him. Yet, if we're honest, there are moments when we quietly tell God how He ought to handle our lives. We pray......but we already have the answer. We ask for guidance......but we've already decided which direction we want Him to lead.
Before Christ could make him the rock upon which others would find strength, He first had to break the illusion that Peter's greatest strength was Peter himself. That lesson was still ahead. It would come, not in a classroom, but beside a fire on the darkest night of Peter's life. At the Last Supper Jesus said to Peter, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." And of course, later that evening as he stood in the courtyard of the high priest, warming his hands on a charcoal fire, Peter denied Jesus 3 times. “I don’t know the man” he said as a rooster crowed. Peter rushed into the darkness and wept bitterly.
That night Simon discovered something he had never known. He had always believed his devotion was enough. His courage was enough. His determination was enough. Now all of it lay in pieces. And strangely... That was exactly where Jesus needed him to be. Because Christ cannot build a "Peter" out of a man who still believes Simon is sufficient. The old confidence had to die before the Rock could emerge. But the tears in the darkness were not the end of Peter's story. They were the place where grace quietly began its deepest work.
After the resurrection Peter went out to fish, and from the boat he recognised the voice of Jesus and swam to shore. When Peter reached the shore, he saw something John carefully records. A charcoal fire. Only twice in the entire New Testament is that particular word used. The first charcoal fire burned in the courtyard of the high priest. Around that fire Peter denied his Lord. Now another charcoal fire burned beside the Sea of Galilee. Jesus was taking Peter back to the place of his deepest failure—not to shame him, but to heal him. He doesn't pretend our failures never happened. He redeems them. The smell of burning charcoal must have brought the whole night rushing back. The servant girl. The accusations. The rooster. The tears. Jesus never mentions any of it. Instead, He does something wonderfully ordinary. He says, “Come and have breakfast." No speeches. No humiliation. No lecture. Grace often begins with an invitation. After breakfast, Jesus turned to Peter. Not "Simon Peter." Just "Simon." The name he had before they ever met. "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" Three times he is asked and three times he replies, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." Three times because Jesus was restoring publicly the disciple who had denied Him publicly. Every wound was touched by grace. Every failure became an opportunity for restoration. Jesus didn't merely forgive Peter. The very man who had failed so completely was now called to shepherd the flock of God.
Christ does not discard broken people. He restores them. He does not merely forgive our past. He gives us a future. Years later, an older Peter would write to pastors and believers scattered across the Roman world. Listen carefully to his words. "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another..." Who taught Peter humility? Not success. Not miracles. but A charcoal fire. A rooster. And breakfast beside another fire where grace quietly put his life back together. The Rock was never built on Peter's strength It was built on Christ's unwavering grace. Only then had Simon truly become Peter.
The first time they met, Jesus announced the ending before Simon had lived the story. Jesus already knew Peter would fail. But heaven still called him Peter. And Jesus still had breakfast waiting for him. Perhaps some of us have spent years standing beside our own charcoal fire. But the good news of the gospel is this: Jesus is not waiting beside that first fire. He's waiting beside the second one. Not to condemn you. Not to remind you of your failure. But to restore you. To forgive you. To remind you that His grace is greater than your worst day.
Peter's story was never about an extraordinary fisherman. It was always about an extraordinary Saviour. A Saviour who sees what we are... knows what we will become... and refuses to give up on us until His grace finishes what it began. That’s why Simon became Peter. And that's why there is hope for every one of us. Because the same Jesus who patiently transformed a loud, impulsive, self-confident fisherman is still transforming ordinary people today.
