NEVER PUT A FULL STOP WHERE THE LORD PUTS A COMMA

Welcome back again, friends.

Today, we want to read from Saint Luke’s Gospel 22:31-34

Luke 22:31-34

³¹ And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. ³² But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

³³ But he [Simon] said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.”

³⁴ Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.”

Never put a full stop where the Lord puts a comma.

PRAYER

Father, thank You for the privilege we have in this part of the world to preach Your Word and to hear Your Word, without molestation. We trust that it will be so; it will continue to be so, in Jesus Name. Amen.

In the grammar of life, we need to learn the sentence structure of the Lord. We know that understanding sentence structure is very important for effective communication. We should use capital letters where the Lord uses capital letters, and small letters where He uses small letters. For example, the Lord uses capital letters for our Eternal Wellbeing, and uses small letters for our temporal or material wellbeing. By that I mean, that the Lord emphasizes our Eternal Wellbeing and minimizes our temporal wellbeing.

That’s why He says in Matthew 6:33,

³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [the temporal needs] shall be added to you.

The apostles understood this well, but way too many Christian preachers and teachers today capitalize on the material and temporal wellbeing: the same thing that the unbelieving world capitalizes. We tend to say, seek first your material and temporal wellbeing and the kingdom of God and His righteousness shall be added to you. We are reversing it. Our material wellbeing comes under what we call God’s common or prevenient grace. It is called common because it is common to all. God makes it available to all as he indicates in Matthew 5:45: ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven [this is Jesus speaking]; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

By the sun and the rain, He means: temporal, material, physical blessings. He says, God gives them freely to all, both good and bad, both just and unjust. We must never put a full stop where the Lord puts a comma.

We have heard people say that a person’s life has a comma. By this we mean that such a person has floored character, questionable character, weak or bad character. Thank God it’s a comma, indicating an incomplete sentence, not a full stop. When Adam and Eve sinned God made sure that the comma that has been introduced into their lives did not turn into a full stop. That was why after expelling them from the garden He guarded the three of life so that they would not have access to it. If they had access to it in their fallen nature they would have remained like that forever. But know that God had already laid down the plan for salvation even before man came into the world. It was out of love that He prevented them from having access to the three of life which would have put a full stop to their sinful nature.

When you put a full stop where the Lord puts a comma, you end up frustrating yourself, you end up being angry at what you’ve got, because you have arrived at a disappointing end. You put the full stop there. Some of us have this experience with some members of our families, with our friends, with church members – even with our pastor or pastors; we have this experience with our children.

The Lord says that there is rejoicing when we resist the temptation to put a full stop where He puts a comma. In the Parable of the Shepherded, the Lord says, that if one of His sheep strays He will go after it, leave the rest – and when He finds it He will rejoice. There is rejoicing when we arrive at the point where the Lord put a full stop. But if we put a full stop where there is a comma we have arrived at a premature end, and we will not be happy with what we have.

How do we put a full stop where there is supposed to be comma?

1. When you fail or stop to pray for the one with a comma in his life, but instead you criticize, you gossip.
2. When you fail to warn or counsel the one with a comma so that this one will move from the comma to a place where there will be a full stop: a completion.
3. When we allow our patience to run out, and we give up. And once we give up we put a full stop where there is supposed to be a comma.

The Lord saw a comma in the life Peter, and He told him about it, in the passage we read. He saw this comma that was coming into his life. But, when Peter heard the Master, he impetuously, as was characteristic of him, chose to put a full stop where the comma was supposed to be, claiming that he was okay – when he was not. The Lord said to Peter, Satan has asked permission to sift you, that is, to shake you up, to sift you as weed, but I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail.

Notice that the Lord did not bind or cast out Satan. He did not even pray against the sifting or the shaking of peter, but he prayed for what Peter needed the most: that his faith should not fail. What do you pray for much of the time, friend? Promotion? Life partner? Money? The death of your enemies?

The Lord knew that the sifting of Peter by Satan would be food for him and his brethren – as long as he kept his faith. And that was why He focused on his faith. You see why we need to know His will when we pray? Because sometimes we zero in on the things that do not matter that much. See the sifting of Peter. And I want to take you very quickly through the rest of that chapter, Luke 22. In those steps you find the anatomy of a backslider.

STEP ONE

We find Peter rejecting the revealed Word of the Good Shepherd, that is Luke 22:31-33. He rejected the revelation that the Lord gave him. Don’t do that. Some of us refuse or reject the revelation we find in the scriptures, but we will accept man’s ideas.

STEP TWO

Peter, we find him now, employing a wrong weapon. He employed a physical weapon for a spiritual battle. Look at verse 50.

Luke 22:50 ⁵⁰ And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.

Here he says one of them, but if you read John 18:10, it tells us that it was Peter. Some of us employ the wrong weapon. Physical weapon cannot help you in a spiritual battle. And sometimes, some of use the weapon of the enemy. If you use the same weapon that the devil uses he will beat you hands down. You use a superior weapon. That‘s why the scripture says, the weapons of our warfare are not material – they are not carnal: they are mighty through God, in pulling down strongholds.

STEP THREE

Peter maintains an unhealthy distance from the Good Shepherded.

In that Luke 22:54 we were told that Peter followed Him at a distance.

STEP FOUR

Peter makes himself comfortable in the wrong company.

In Luke 22:55, Peter sat comfortably with the rest of the people, enemies of the master. And he sat among them warming himself, feeling comfortable.

STEP FIVE

Peter does not only maintain an unhealthy distance from the Master, now he denies Him. He denies Him three times. I don’t know Him, I don’t know what you are talking about. Three times!

STEP SIX

Peter remembers and repents when the Master looked at him. The bible says he went out and he wept bitterly.

STEP SEVEN

You don’t put a full stop where the Master puts a comma.

Finally, In John 21, after Jesus rose from the dead, He met them by the sea of Galilee, and there, in that account, from John 21, from 15-17, Jesus restored him: because he asked him three times, do you love me more than these? Three times! Why three time? Because three times he denied that he knew Him. The Lord restored him and said feed My lamb. Then, finally, He said, follow Me.

Oh, friend, if you can only exercise patience, and not put a full stop where the Master puts a comma, you will be happier, you will be blessed. Whatever you do, never put a full stop where the Master puts a comma. If you do, you will miss His blessing, and you will miss His blessing big time.

PRAYER

Father, thanks for Your patience borne out of Your love: The many commas You’ve put in our lives until You arrive at the full stop when we are redeemed, Until you arrive at the final full stop when we are perfected. Let it be the experience of my friends. As many as have not yet come to the place where they will embrace this Savior, You draw them, Holy Spirit, please, in Jesus Name. Amen!