Acts 3:13 (NKJV)
“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.”
This is Peter talking to a large group of onlookers who were seeing a lame man who had been healed. He was making the point that it wasn’t himself or John who had healed the man, but that it was God… it was Jesus who had healed him. Those people probably knew of Jesus and what had happened to him. What they probably didn’t know is that Peter had actually denied Christ as well.
That’s right. Peter was standing outside the area where they had taken Jesus when he was confronted about being one of his followers. Peter is the one who denied him three times before the rooster crowed. Now this is Peter confronting others for doing the same thing. That takes a lot of nerve… holding up the sin of others while you had that same sin. Oh, you can say Peter didn’t scream for Jesus to be crucified… and he did not. But Peter denied his Lord. I bet Peter recognized himself in those people.
So what is the difference between Peter and them? I submit to you that it is that Peter was repentant and was therefore forgiven. Scripture says that after Peter denied Jesus, he went out and wept bitterly. He was grieved that he had denied his Lord, but at the same time, I think he might have been overwhelmed that Jesus knew he would deny him yet still loved him. So Peter is speaking with the voice of experience. He knew that Jesus would forgive each of those people because Jesus had forgiven him. Who better to lead them?
I believe this shows how we are to respond when we are forgiven. We recognize our sin. We repent. We accept God’s love and forgiveness, and we move on. We are not to continue apologizing. We don’t have to come back repeatedly to ask God to forgive us over and over again… wading in the mire of it all, weighted down with the guilt that can crush us. We accept the forgiveness and move on – determined to not repeat the sin again. It is then that The Lord can use us in the lives of others. Our testimony to them is one of love and truth. Truth about the sin. Then truth about the love of the Savior. We share what we have experienced and testify that God will do the same for them. Repent, receive Christ’s love and forgiveness, and move on.