Have you ever stopped to think that in almost every sport, an athlete needs to learn how to recover from a mistake in order to be a top athlete? In basketball you need to be good at rebounds. Who gets the ball after a missed free throw can determine who wins the game. Maybe the other team gets a free throw, but will you get the ball back for your team? In golf you’d better be good at hitting the ball accurately from the rough. Of course you shouldn’t be in the rough in the first place, but every golfer, even a pro, ends up there countless times. A race car driver needs to know how to recover from hitting the wall, or he’ll be out of the race. In sports you need to be good at recovering from a poor situation.

LOSING BATTLES, WINNING THE WAR
In this Sunday message series we’ve been talking about how life’s a battle: it’s truly a spiritual conflict that affects every area of our lives. Things hardly ever go completely right or exactly according to plan; something always goes wrong.

It’s a war zone out there — and in us, too! That’s why we must know how to get beyond losing some of the battles so that we can still win the war. Today we’ll look at a great follower of Jesus who was far from perfect. He lost some battles for the Lord, but he won his war!

PETER’S EXPERIENCE
The apostle Peter was one of Jesus’ closest three followers among the original twelve disciples. He was also the leader of the early church after Jesus ascended to heaven.

The specific incident that we’ll look at today took place in the short period of time between Jesus’ sharing the Last Supper with His disciples and His arrest. We read concerning the disciples that “a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.” (Luke 22:24) (I take a perverse kind of pleasure in reading this, because it shows that even Jesus’ hand-selected first twelve followers were far from perfect: they made mistakes, including arguing among themselves over who was the greatest. Peter was in on this debate, and Jesus used it to teach all twelve disciples about taking a humble servant’s attitude. Then Jesus zeroed in on Peter.

Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32) When someone becomes a serious follower of Jesus they become a serious target of the Evil One! Satan probably knew that Peter was destined to be an important leader of Jesus’ followers, and Jesus was aware that Peter was going to become a target of Satan.

Peter was clueless about it: he told Jesus, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) Jesus replied, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:34)

Jesus knew that Peter was going to curse and swear three times that he didn’t even know Jesus. Jesus saw this coming, and He told Peter that Satan wanted to sift him like wheat. The image was clear to Peter, because everyone had seen a farmer flailing wheat or having his oxen walk over the grain. Both processes were used to knock the heads of grain out of their husks. In other words, Satan wanted to chew Peter up and spit him out, to pulverize him, to cut him into little pieces! However, Jesus had prayed for Peter!

It’s very interesting that Jesus’ prayer didn’t prevent Peter from failing. However, it did keep Peter’s failure from being final! Jesus looked beyond Peter’s coming failure when He told him, “And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:32) When it was all said and done, Peter would come back and be the great leader of the Christians in the early church.

After Jesus’ resurrection He appeared early in the morning to a group of the disciples, including Peter. As they walked along the lakeshore, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me . . . ?” (John 21:15) When Peter said that he did, Jesus told him, “Feed my lambs.” (John 21:15) In other words, Peter was to take care of Jesus’ followers. Jesus repeated this exchange with Peter three times; many scholars feel that He did so to parallel the three times Peter denied Jesus. Jesus reinstated Peter.

In his commentary on the gospel of Luke, writing about this passage in particular, Darrell Bock stated, “Even disciples who fail in a moment of weakness can experience the success of God’s work.” (Luke, p.354)

What was true for Peter can also be true for us. We often fail — or, even worse, we sin. We’ll lose some of the battles but we can still become winners, just as Peter did!

STEP FORWARD FROM A SETBACK
Failure need not be final; God doesn’t want it to be! What hasn’t worked out for you? It may be partly your fault, all your fault, or no fault of your own. What have you done that you know was wrong and sinful in the eyes of the Lord? Past, present, or future failure or sin doesn’t disqualify us from coming back, from rebounding, from getting out of the rough, from coming off the wall we’ve hit!

God is the God of a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance, and on and on! He’s full of grace and mercy. Though we shouldn’t presume upon His grace and mercy and give in to something that’s wrong or give up on something that’s hard, we can be sure that He’ll be there to help us if it happens.

Regarding sin in our lives, the ultimate failure: first, if you’ve never accepted Jesus Christ as your ultimate forgiver and Savior, you need to do that. We don’t make ourselves acceptable to God by living up to a certain standard, because none of us can do that! The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23) None of us could ever measure up to that. That’s why Jesus came and died on a cross for us: to take care of the sin we’re burdened with. After Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter, the disciple who denied Christ, was preaching. He declared (concerning Jesus), “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

The apostle John wrote in one of his letters, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9) A first step is to have Christ as your Savior.

Those of us who have already accepted Christ still stand in constant need of His grace and mercy. We not only need His forgiveness to enter a relationship with Him, we need His ongoing grace, mercy, and forgiveness to stay in a relationship with Him. We win the battle over sin by always basking in His grace and mercy!

Setbacks that happen are very disappointing, but God can work with those, too! Nothing that happens to us catches God by surprise. If something happens to us that we consider to be a major problem or setback, we need to remember that God has a plan! We have to keep from being badly upset, so that we can respond to the problem the way God wants us to.

Struggles, setbacks, and problems will always be part of life. The only way we can accomplish God’s good purposes is to realize and act in faith that God can use those struggles, setbacks, and problems for His glory and our good.

Jesus’ family tree is a great example of this. In the Old Testament we read that the nation of Judah was destroyed. The Messiah, who was going to come someday, was to be a king from the great line of kings that ruled Judah. It happened! Jesus was born from the lineage of King David, son of Jesse. The line of kings had been cut off when Judah was destroyed, but eventually the greatest king of all came from this cut-off line! This was declared by Isaiah the prophet years before it happened: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1)

A couple of weeks ago while I was on my morning prayer walk I found a small tree that had been cut down last spring. Now this spring there’s a shoot growing from that stump: it’s green and full of promise for the new growing season!

The image of the green shoot coming from the stump is one that each of us should keep in mind when we face our own defeats, discouragements, setbacks, or problems. We have the same God who had the greatest king ever, King Jesus, be born from a line of kings that no longer existed! This same God can work with whatever has been cut off in our lives!

There are now 105 titles in a famous series of books that began with an original book called Chicken Soup for the Soul, and over 100 million copies have been sold. The first book was rejected by over 200 publishers, including every single major New York publisher! What if the authors had given up after 200 publishers rejected the book?

God can do amazing things even when our lives don’t seem to be going well. We can win the war even when it looks as if we’ve lost a few battles.

Before I close I want to share with you a verse I pray for three of our granddaughters. I’m referring to Angelica (13), her sister Diana (12), and Martha (9). All three girls were taken into the home of our daughter Julie and her husband Victor just a couple of years ago. Martha had no schooling and Diana and Angelica had very little. Intellectually and emotionally they were way behind other children their ages. The verse I often pray for them was voiced by the prophet Joel when God’s people had been put under judgment for sinning badly. One of the judgments was a tremendous plague of locusts that destroyed everything. When the judgment was over, God promised them, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten — . . .” (Joel 2:25) I believe that those girls will continue to grow and develop, regaining much of what they should have gained in those early years. In some ways I believe they’ll exceed what they would have been, even if they had been raised in an average Mexican home. I pray that the Lord will restore to them the years the locusts have eaten!

Things may not be going as we planned. However, we have a sovereign God who’s in ultimate control! We must fight the tendency to stubbornly insist on certain results. God can do a different, new thing with us if we just believe that He can! It’s a war zone out there — and in us, too! We may have lost a battle here and there, but with the Lord we can win the war!