God Uses Broken People and Simon Peter Proves It

Have you ever felt like you were sitting on the trash pile of life? Maybe people wrote you off. Maybe you wrote yourself off. I get it. If I'm honest, there were seasons in my own life where nobody would have pictured me standing behind a pulpit. But here's what I've learned: Jesus is a recycler. He doesn't look at your mess and see garbage. He looks at your mess and sees material.

That's what I want to walk through with you today, starting with a brother most of us know and love: Simon Peter. And if you pay close attention, you're going to see yourself in his story.

God Already Knew

Before we get into Peter's issues (and trust me, he had plenty), I need to lay a foundation. Whatever you're walking through right now, it did not catch God off guard.

Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."

God knew the embryo. He knew you before your parents even met. He already approved you as His chosen instrument before you took your first breath. So those moments where you feel like you're surprising God with your failures? You're not. He factored all of it in.

Psalm 139 backs this up. God knows every bone in your body. He watched you grow from conception. Every stage of your life was spread out before Him. The days of your life were prepared before you even lived one of them.

And then Jeremiah 29:11 drives it home: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

So here's my question: if you really believe God already knows, why are you so stressed? I'm not trying to be flippant. I've wrestled with my own steering wheel plenty of times. "Jesus, take the wheel... actually, no, let me have it back." We all do it. But the invitation is to stop white-knuckling the plan and trust the One who designed it.

Meet Simon Peter: The Shaky Rock

Let's talk about Peter. His name tells you everything. "Simon" means pebble, or shaky. "Peter" (Petros) means rock. So his name is literally Shaky Rock. Some days he was solid. Other days he was crumbling. Sound familiar?

Peter was likable. He was the ride-or-die friend, bold, outgoing, transparent, enthusiastic. But he was also unstable, impulsive, and insecure. He had real issues. And I want you to hear this: so do you. So do I.

He gets introduced to Jesus in Matthew 4. He's just a fisherman doing his thing when his brother brings him to meet the Messiah. (By the way, never underestimate the friend who invited you to church. They're getting credit in heaven for that introduction.)

Jesus says to them in Matthew 4:19, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Think about that. God took what Peter already was, a fisherman, and recycled him into something greater, a fisher of men. God will take everything you've been through and repurpose it. That failed business taught you resilience. That broken relationship taught you boundaries. That season of grief taught you compassion. None of it was wasted.

That's Romans 8:28 in real life: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Peter's Issues (and Yours Too)

Let me walk you through some of Peter's struggles, because they might feel uncomfortably familiar.

He lacked formal education. Acts 4:13 says the religious leaders saw Peter's confidence and were "astounded" that he was uneducated and untrained. He was an ordinary man. But God doesn't need your credentials. He needs your availability. Some of the most educated people I've met have no wisdom, and some of the wisest people I know never set foot in a university.

He was wildly inconsistent. One day solid as granite, the next day falling apart. In Luke 22:31-32, Jesus tells Peter that Satan has demanded permission to sift him like wheat. But then Jesus adds something worth pausing on: "But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

Notice Jesus didn't say "if" you turn back. He said "when." Jesus already knew Peter was going to mess up, deny Him, and walk away. And He still chose him. He still prayed for him. He still had a plan for him. If that doesn't give you hope, I don't know what will.

He had a mouth problem. When the pressure hit, Peter didn't just deny Jesus quietly. Matthew 26:74 says he began to curse and swear, "I do not know the man!" This is the same guy who just said he would die for Jesus. I can relate to that tension. Maybe you can too. There's a gap between who we want to be and who we are under pressure. Grace covers that gap.

He was impulsive and violent. John 18:10 tells us that when the soldiers came for Jesus, Peter pulled out a sword and cut off a man's ear. He had been walking with Jesus, watching Him heal people and preach peace, and his first instinct under threat was still to fight. Being saved doesn't mean you've been perfected. You're on the way, but you're going to have bad days.

I know this personally. I once had a situation where someone approached me the wrong way, and before I could catch myself, I was telling him what I would do to his face. My brother looked at me like, "You good?" And I had to pull myself back. That's the old me trying to resurface. We all have that moment where we have to choose which version of ourselves shows up.

He struggled with forgiveness. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? Up to seven times?" He wanted a limit. He wanted permission to stop. Jesus said, "Not seven times, but seventy times seven." In other words, stop counting. God doesn't keep a tally on you, so why are you keeping one on everybody else?

He spoke before he thought. In Matthew 16:22, Peter actually pulls Jesus aside and starts correcting Him. Reprimanding the Son of God. The audacity. But that's Peter. Bold to a fault. And honestly? God loves boldness. You might mess up, but at least you showed up.

Walking on Water (and Sinking)

One of the most well-known moments in Peter's story is when he walked on water, and then didn't. In Matthew 14:28-30, Jesus is walking across the sea, and Peter says, "Lord, if it's really you, command me to come to you on the water."

That word "command" is important. Peter wasn't being reckless. He understood that when God speaks a word, heaven backs it up. God's word cannot return void. So Peter wasn't just stepping out on faith in some vague sense. He was stepping out on the word.

And he walked. On water. Until he looked at the wind and the waves and got distracted. Then he started sinking, and Jesus grabbed him.

Here's the thing most people miss: Peter was the only one who got out of the boat. Everybody else stayed where it was safe. Yes, he sank. But he also walked. What boat are you sitting in right now, afraid to step out? What has God already spoken over your life that you're too distracted to walk on?

The Solution: Building Your Faith, Step by Step

After all of Peter's failures, after the denial, the cursing, the cutting, the inconsistency, God still used him. Peter preached the first sermon after Jesus' resurrection. Peter helped start the church. The man who denied Christ three times became the rock the church was built on.

So if you think you've disqualified yourself, think again.

In 2 Peter 1:3-8, Peter himself gives us the blueprint for growth. He's writing from experience, from the other side of his failures. And here's what he says: God has already given you everything you need for a life that pleases Him. Your ticket has been punched. Now you have to build.

It starts with faith, the foundation. Then you add good character, doing right when nobody's watching. Then comes spiritual understanding, because when you know better, you do better. After understanding comes discipline, which flows naturally from knowing your purpose. When I played football, I didn't struggle with discipline because I knew my purpose was to get to the NFL. Purpose makes discipline easy.

Then comes patience, because God's timing is not your timeline. Then reverence, because the longer you stay in it, the deeper your worship goes. Then warm friendliness, treating people with genuine kindness. And finally, generous love that overflows into the lives of others.

Each one builds on the last. It's not instant. It's a process. And it starts wherever you are today.

Your Ticket Has Already Been Punched

I want to leave you with this. At events where they do raffle drawings, they always call a number for someone who isn't in the room. It's not that they didn't win. They just weren't where they were supposed to be.

God, through Christ, has already given you a ticket. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to earn it. You just have to show up and receive it. Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fallen short. None of us are perfect. Your issues might look different than mine, but they're still issues.

Romans 10:9 says if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. That's the ticket. No charge. No prerequisites. Just receive it.

Whatever trash pile you've been sitting on, whatever people have said about you, whatever you've said about yourself: Jesus is in the recycling business. He took a shaky, impulsive, uneducated, cussing, sword-swinging fisherman and turned him into the foundation of the church.

And He's not done with you yet.