From Reed to Stone
Laurel D. Buckingham · Tidal Church Shediac · December 28, 2025
Laurel D. Buckingham preaches on John 1, where Jesus looks at Peter and sees who he can become. Through personal stories, he shows that openness to the truth brings God's grace, and no one has to stay defined by their past.
More from Laurel D. Buckingham
Topics: Grace, Identity, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Amen. Well, it's great to be here to say the least. And, man, I wish that was recorded because that would be a great introduction for wherever I go now. It would help people to be more open to what they got to say. And it's good to have some people like you that are so positive about the ministry. But before I get into what I want to say about that, I'm so thrilled today. I've got the sweetest granddaughter that God ever gave a grandfather here with me today. And her mother, and her father as well. So, anyway, it's just wonderful to have had such a great time at Christmas. And it is—I know most of you are glad to be here. I'm going to believe that.
[0:48] Now, there's an exception perhaps. I have a lawyer friend who's here this morning. His name is Steve Truman. And when he came in and heard I was preaching, he said, oh, man, I forgot my pillow. And so, you know, he's maybe not the best friend in the world. One time in our church in Moncton, I was telling—starting to tell a lawyer joke, and he was on the sound that Sunday. Guess what? He turned me off. So, I couldn't finish telling the joke. But anyway, it's really, really, really, really good to be here today. And, you know, one of the great things—I was glad what Christine had to say about encouragement, because to me, that was Jesus.
[1:38] He was always seeking to build people up, not to condemn them, not to put them down, not to make them feel guilty, but to help them in life's journey, because we all—not one of us escapes—challenges and setbacks and hurts and difficulties. But Jesus is available to help, wanting, willing, ready. And he can help us as we understand how that help can come. And the reason—one of the reasons among many that I say what I just said, the Bible says that he came to give life and to give it more abundantly. Doesn't that sound to you like he wants the best for us in life?
[2:27] He wants us to experience the greatest that can be experienced? And the Bible also says, and we hear this so much, it probably doesn't have much of an effect anymore, but you shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free. And he says, hold to these teachings of mine. Well, that's what we're going to get into a little bit, some of that teaching that can set us free. And I just want, for myself, I want for our people, everybody I work with and speak to, I want people to experience the glorious, glorious freedom when the burdens have been lifted.
[3:13] And we have the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of Jesus. So there's a great verse of Scripture in John chapter 1 and verse 42, and it's on the screen there. And so what I really want to talk about is as we face the challenges of 2026, and they will have its challenges, that we can experience our best possible life through what God has for us. And so we see in the Scripture where Andrew brought Peter to Jesus. Now, just stop and think about this for a minute. How sad it would have been if Andrew had never brought Peter to Jesus.
[3:59] I mean, that is the reason so many of you are inviting people to come here to see Jesus. And as happened with Peter, in a sense, the whole world was revolutionized by his ministry, and Peter was not a good guy. That there are many people that can be invited, and as you invite them, and they're transformed, you never know what the outcome of that might be. But that's not what I really want to emphasize. We can be every one of us, everything we need to be, everything we want to be, everything we ought to be in 2026. And I mean every one of us.
[4:47] Now, I know an awful lot of people have talked themselves into defeat, and they're focused on lack, and loss, and limitation, and feel like there's no hope. But that is not the message of Jesus, the all-powerful living Christ, living Christ. He's alive today. And so we see as Peter was brought to Jesus, the Scripture says Jesus looked at him. See that word looked? You mentioned that last Sunday in your message. Jesus looked at him, and when Jesus takes a look at you, he sees right through you. He sees all the negatives.
[5:37] He sees all the past. He sees all the problems. And let me say this. With Peter, it's very likely there's nobody that had any more limitations and any more characteristics that would spell failure than anybody in this room. Now, just think of that. And yet Jesus looked at him, and he saw beyond the limitations. And he said to Peter, you are. Now, that was the real. But then he said, you will be. That was the ideal. He looked at him, and he said, you are.
[6:23] And that was the actual, what really was, which was an impulsive, sinful, undependable person that had so many, many characteristics of spell defeat. But then he said, Peter, you don't have to be what you are. You can be everything you ought to be, because you will be. Now, that word, as we read it there, he said, you are silent. It's my understanding that that word meant like a reed floating back and forth in the wind, very vulnerable to all the circumstances, how the wind was blowing. He was just all over the place.
[7:10] And that was Peter. No question about it. He was just as undependable as they come. And yet, in spite of that, he said, you shall be called a stone. Quite a difference between the reed floating back and forth in the wind and a solid stone, wouldn't you say? And yet, maybe you need to hear a little bit about that. He failed over and over and over again in his journey with Jesus. But thank God, we can fail and fail and fail and fail. But we're not a failure unless we make failing the last chapter. And we don't have what we had ought to be.
[7:58] You will be. So we see him, Jesus, looking at him and seeing all the terrible limitations and terrible negatives that were in his life. And I know that there are people that maybe have talked themselves into feeling like you've got to be a failure. And listen, here's the good news. We do not have to be a product of our past, not one of us. No matter what has happened, no matter how awful the circumstances, we can be a product of our choices. And we can start even this day making the right choices that will help us to contend with the circumstances of life and be like a stone. Because how do I know that?
[8:59] Here's a time after Peter had failed many times and he got on the right track. And later on, he had to appear before the Sanhedrin, which in those days was the most powerful group of religious leaders that existed that could have easily had him put to death. And they were opposed to everything that Peter stood for. And yet Peter stood before that Sanhedrin. And he said to that Sanhedrin with boldness, with courage, with strength, he said, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved.
[9:44] That's a pretty bold, strong statement for somebody who was so weak and feeble and impulsive and undependable. He was like a rock. But I know that so many people, and as a pastor probably know this as well as anybody else on the face of the earth, that have had so many awful things happen to them. So many have been abused. So many have been victims. And yet even though they've been victims, they feel shame. And they just can't seem to get by the shame they feel because of the things that they did when they're being victimized by others who should have known better.
[10:33] And so many have talked themselves into defeat. You know, I have a friend that was walking by a tattoo parlor in Hong Kong. And in the window that was displayed on the street, there was a mannequin with a tattoo, I am a loser. And my friends, I just couldn't believe that anybody would put that on their body. I am a loser. And so he went into the tattoo shop. And he said, does anybody ever actually tattoo themselves with that? I am a loser. Yeah, he said it's happened. He said before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.
[11:25] And I'm telling you, Jesus is the greatest tattoo artist that ever lived that can remove. No matter what you've tattooed on your mind, and you've talked yourself into it, and you believed it and believed in them. And other people, unfortunately, may have helped you to believe it. They may have said, you're never going to be any different. You've always been that way. There's no hope for you. You can't change. And that plays in our head. That CD keeps playing in people's heads. And they keep hearing that. And they've allowed themselves to listen to it and to be defeated by it and to think there is, there is no hope. Listen, my friend, the Jesus that went to that cross rose again from the day. There is as much hope for you, no matter what has happened, than there is for the person that you look upon as being the freest, most victorious person on the face of the earth.
[12:30] There is as much hope for you, because Jesus no respecter person. There's nobody that he chooses to be any better than anybody else. He's open to help us all. You are. But aren't you thankful this morning about what you can be? And some of you have experienced that. Most of you have experienced that to a great degree. Now, I'm trying to see you all, but in the darkness, I'm not seeing you totally. But you don't look like you're convinced. And when I see that, that makes me have to come up with some kind of an illustration to help you to believe.
[13:16] Well, you're looking at somebody that should help you to believe maybe more than anybody else that you've ever met. I was born and brought up on a farm. I had an inferiority complex that was so extreme that if anybody would come to my house, our house, I would avoid them, go to another room because I just couldn't interact with people. I didn't know all that well. I had a terrible self-image, the lowest self -esteem I could ever imagine. Everything I touched on the farm, I broke. So I was no good at farming. Whenever they would choose sides for a baseball, softball game or what, I'd be the last one chosen.
[14:02] So I was not an athlete. Hated the way I looked. There was just nothing whatsoever that I felt good about regarding myself. And I just was no good as a student. I'm still not the greatest. And I spent four of the happiest years of my life in grades nine and ten. Now the truth is they weren't all that happy. And I don't remember if my first year in grade nine or second year in grade nine, but we had to do a debate in school. And that was the worst thing of all for me. I could not speak in public. I was so nervous. I freeze.
[14:48] That was just the last thing on the face of the earth that I could ever imagine having to speak in public. And so I memorized what I was supposed to say, and I went over and over so much I could say it in my sleep. And so when I got up there, I wasn't even thinking about what I was saying. It was just what I'd memorized. It just came because I'd spent so much time memorizing it. And one of the words that I was supposed to use in that speech was the word diphtheria in regard to whatever I was trying to say. Instead of saying diphtheria, I said diarrhea. So you can imagine what that would have done to make a mess of things and also to mess up my self-esteem as well and make me feel so embarrassed I wanted to run and hide. And so here I am, almost failed my second year in grade ten.
[15:42] And so in desperation, we tried to find a solution and it ended up I was going to a school in Nova Scotia. Now, here's the crazy part. In New Brunswick in those days, you graduated from grade 12. In Nova Scotia, you graduated from grade 11. So here I am going to Nova Scotia, which was to Bethany Bible College, which had a high school department at the time in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. And oh my, that was another experience. Yarmouth, when the fog is in, is the most gruesome place on the face of the earth. I was born and brought up in Carleton County. I never saw fog like that in my life and arrived there and I could hardly see my hand in front of me.
[16:29] It was just so awful. And I had to appear in front of the principal the second day I was there. And that principal had the nastiest look of any person I ever remember seeing in my life. And he was just so somber and so solemn. And he looked at me and he said, young man, according to Nova Scotia standards, you have failed three subjects. Unless you study more than the prescribed hours of two hours, every day you will fail here and we will send you home. It was almost like he was excited about the possibility of sending me home. Well, the thought of that and the shame of that, it drove me to study. Now, in New Brunswick, because of coming from New Brunswick, we had to catch up on a lot of stuff that had not been taught to us, which was taught for them in Nova Scotia because they graduated in grade 11. And so they took 18 theorems in geometry in grade 10 in Nova Scotia.
[17:28] We took two in New Brunswick. So I had to learn. I didn't even learn the two I took in New Brunswick, but I had to learn private 18 theorems in a review of two weeks. Well, I was scared to death. And I studied night and day. I don't know anything about a theorem today. I probably just memorized them. And they took a test. And there was only two of us in the class that passed the test. And I was one of them. And the teacher got up in front of the test in front of the class. And he was mad at the rest of them, but he sung the praises of myself and the other person. I never had a teacher sing my praises before in my life. And I tell you, I had to face up to the truth of what I was, lazy as all get out when it came to studying and all of that and knuckle down and do something about it.
[18:25] Well, here's the interesting news. If we get the message and we realize it's possible, and it's not necessarily something so terribly wrong with us that we can't learn or we can't do whatever it is we're supposed to do or be whatever it is we're supposed to be, you can be what you had ought to be. I should say this before I get into the rest of that story. In one of my years in grade 10 in the Woodstock High School, I didn't know the answer to a question because that wasn't unusual. And the teacher kept badgering me, like trying to help me to come up with the right answer.
[19:11] Well, I just got so rattled I didn't know what I was saying. Finally, I came up with the right answer. He looked at me and he said, don't anybody ever tell you you can't get blood out of a turnip? He said, you can if you keep that up long enough. Well, that did a lot for my self-esteem, you know. I used to wonder if I was mentally challenged because they say if you're mentally challenged you don't know you're mentally challenged. So I didn't know whether it was or not. And so I kind of, you know, I really had those thoughts. I was that inferiority, awful. I had, look, I would not go out with a girl.
[19:58] I didn't think any girl would ever want to have anything to do with me. The only reason I finally went out with a girl was when I was 18 years old while I was at school and somebody hooked me up with a blind date and ended up going to a restaurant, went to reach my pocketbook, didn't have any money. So you're going to imagine what that would do for my self-esteem. Just happened my roommate was in the same restaurant so he saved the day. But anyway, just one thing after, you know, and then and some of us you have lived with people and you know what it is to be continually put down. You know, some people have got the gift of discouragement. You ever notice that? They really got the gift. Boy, they're good at that. I remember hearing about one guy who was so depressed he was going to commit suicide, went up to the top of a bridge and was ready to jump and a policeman finally got up alongside of him who was going to try to talk him out of it. But this guy just kept talking and talking and in all of his despair and was so discouraging, he ended up, they both jumped.
[21:03] Well, there's people that make you feel like jumping, you know, and giving up. And some of you really, truly, I know all about it. You've been brought up in that atmosphere where it's just people continually putting you down. But I'm telling you what, we don't have to be what we are. We all can be whatever and I'm still working on a bunch of things. We can all be what we had ought to be. That year, at the end of the year, my parents drove from Woodstock to Yarmouth. You couldn't go, it was a long trip in those days. They'd never been away from home together in their entire lives because they were farmers. Even after they were married, they never were away overnight together.
[21:53] And that was the first time for my graduation. And I remember my mother, I can see her now sitting down here to my right, and this guy who was such a nasty-looking character, he got up and when it came time to present the diploma, he made this long, positive speech. I received what was called the Character and Achievement Award and I came second in the class. Now, somebody wanted to know, they said, we're the only two people in the class. No, but I'm just saying, we don't have to be what we are. We can be whatever it is we're supposed to be.
[22:38] And I think an awful lot of us have had other people. You see, here's the thing, beauty about Jesus. We see our limitations and oftentimes we tell us, you don't know about my limitations. Sometimes people will see somebody like me who now has been able to get through life in a great way in many ways. And they say, oh, it's easy for you to say. Listen, just to let everybody go through it to some degree. I know some of it's worse for some than us, but that still doesn't make any difference. We have got a Jesus that looks at us. And he said, oh, yes, you are. You are.
[23:23] But let me tell you something. You don't have to be what you are. You can be what you had ought to be. Now, let me ask you something. Don't you think that's available for everybody? Is there any exclusions to that? Really? But the question that needs to be answered, and it's great for somebody like me to build this thing up and say how great it can be. But the question that needs to be answered is how? How can that really happen? How can that happen with me? And so there is what the scripture says, great in that very same chapter, John 1, 7, 8. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth.
[24:22] Now, those are key words. Came how? Through Jesus Christ. That Jesus said, can do all of this force and wants to do all this force and wants to give us abundant life. Grace and truth is what we'll do it. Now, what do I mean? If we can all face up to the truth of what we are and really be open to the truth and hear the truth, be receptive to the truth, be honest about the truth, and apply that truth, then God will give us the grace to be all that we should be, all we want to be, all we can be.
[25:09] But the key, if we accept the truth, we will receive the grace. If we reject the truth, we will miss out on the grace. So you would say, well, why doesn't everybody accept the truth? It just seems so simple, doesn't it? But emotion gets involved. And when sometimes we hear the truth because the truth hurts, we avoid the truth. Or we get on the defensive about the truth. And that defensiveness keeps us from ever being free. Because if we can apply that truth that is pointed out to us, then it may be difficult truth.
[25:59] And that's the reason I think a lot of people avoid the truth, because sometimes the truth hurts, right? Early on in my ministry, I had a convention, a youth convention at a hotel with a guy by the name of John Simons. In fact, he's preaching over here at the other church in town this morning. And John has been a friend for years and years and years. I said, John, talk to me about my weaknesses. Oh, the dirty rotten sinker. He did. Now, he said he was nice about it. And he said some people would say, you know, how that goes. But that's what he was really saying himself. And I was on the defensive. Oh, well, that's just who I am. I can't do much about that.
[26:46] That's the way I was born and so and so on. Excusing myself, because the hurt caused me to want to deflect the truth that could have set me free. Shame, isn't it? And so I was somewhere along the line. Of course, that played in my mind and in my heart and my thinking and so on. And I don't have to be what I am. If there's something that I am that I shouldn't be, I do not have to be that. I can be what I ought to be. And I decided, look, I'm going to work on that, what he told me. And I began to work on that and try to do everything I knew to do to correct what he saw, what others saw.
[27:44] And now what's interesting is the very thing I was most criticized for back there in my early days is now the thing I'm most commended for in these days. Because we have a Jesus that wants to set us free and wants to give us everything we need and will give us all the grace that we need. If I am open to the truth, I will receive through. But isn't it interesting? Isn't it interesting how we can see the truth about everybody else so easily? I mean, that comes pretty easy to see what's wrong with everyone else until something is pointed out that's wrong with us. And I think the greatest definition, this is my own definition, it may not be correct of humility, is when we can be open to criticism and critiquing without any defensiveness whatsoever.
[28:43] See it as something that's going to help us. See as if something is going to help us to be free. Because if it's the truth, but oh boy, how challenging. It seems so simple. I know that is a big challenge for some people, much more for some than maybe some others. I was coming out of a parking lot in Moncton quite a few years ago and it was in the middle of winter, it was in January. And there's a street called Milner Road and it's on an incline as I was coming out of that grocery shop parking lot heading, going up the hill, up the street. It wasn't a steep hill, but it was somewhat of an incline. And as I'm about ready to come out onto the street, a car is coming down the street and he had his blinkers on. And he's signaling that he's coming into the parking lot that I was coming out of.
[29:40] Well, the roads were so, it was so cold that salt was not melting the road and melting the ice on it. And so when he got closer to me, he started to turn his wheels to come into the park, into the driveway. And as he did, he put his foot on the brake. We all know what happens, don't you? Whatever direction you're going, you just keep on going in that direction, no matter how much you've got your wheels turned. And so he was headed for the left front corner of my car and he had a whole new steering wheel. I can see that till this day. And his eyes were bugged up and all the once he crashed into my car and the left front corner of my car hit his radiator.
[30:29] No, fluid went out on the street and his car, the rear end of his car was sitting there on the street. He was very open to notice it was his fault. So we called the police and we were sitting in the police car on the other side of the street, looking up the street, down from the action, looking up the street, going by as a lady coming down the street. Yeah, you got it. Boy, you're with me today. This is good. And as she's getting close to the rear end of his car, she really, she got to go around him. So she turns his wheels to go around him. And he puts, and she puts on her brakes just as he turns her wheels. She's headed right for the rear end of his car. Now he's sitting in the front seat of the police car and he says, look at that stupid woman.
[31:21] He said all she would have to do is just let off on her brakes and turn her wheels and she could go right by me. And he had done the same stupid thing himself, not long before that. So what's he do? He hits the rear end of, she hits the rear end of his car, drives it into my car, hits my car a second time. But it is true. Really, this is, we have to be careful about this. Really, this is pretty serious business. It is just so easy to see the truth about others and the mistakes they're making. But when somebody points out ours, if it strikes an emotion, then we lose all objectivity and we end up missing out on the truth.
[32:13] So the only way, hear me please, if you want the power, you want the presence of Jesus, you want everything you need to be a conqueror through the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of Christ. The only thing that will ever, ever, ever bring that above is having an open heart to the truth and accept that truth. And then when we accept that truth, God is ready and willing to pour out his grace. Now what is grace? I looked up in the dictionary. I knew you're a theologian and you'd be critiquing my message this morning. And so, well, we know the theological thing, the unmerited favor of God. But you know, there was another definition.
[33:03] God's help. It's plain and simple. God's help. And my friends, the help is there for every one of us to in 2026 to be everything we ought to be. Now, if you don't act like you're getting this, we could take a long time because I have to keep giving the illustration. This is in my context, but I think you can make the application. I used to be the chairman of what we call the ordination board of our denomination.
[33:49] And we had a young guy, I knew very well because he worked in our church, come before the ordination board that had all the passion and eagerness and wanted to be what, you know, he should be as a pastor, but he had so many rough edges. And I was afraid that maybe I was the only one knew about those rough edges, but many others on the board did as well. And so after interviewing him, we realized he was not ready for ordination. And then somebody had the bright idea, which really was a good idea, that somebody needed to talk to him clearly about what needed to change. Well, guess who got appointed to do that?
[34:35] And so I remember walking around our campgrounds, our conference center down near St. John Bula Camp. And I was trying to be as nice as I could be and be diplomatic. And I began to point out these deficiencies. Now, nobody wants to hear a lot about that. And his emotions could have blocked him, his defensiveness. And he could have said, all right, there's other churches that will have me, there's other denominations that will have me. I don't need to take this from you or from anybody else. You know, that's the attitude of some people. And he just was, he could have been as defensive as anybody could possibly be.
[35:22] But here, it was just the opposite. He could have said, listen, I'll join the Baptist. I'll join the Pentecostals. I don't have to be a part of this church. But instead, he said, Pastor, what can I do? How can I change? How do I do this? Da, da, da. And he was just so humble and so broken. Listen, that is when we get to the stage of being open to the truth. And then we're a candidate for all the grace and the power because of that surrendered heart to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the power of the resurrection, the power of the blood, the power of the living Christ to be what we had ought to be.
[36:15] And so, I think it was a year later, I was invited to speak in his church. And he was a, he now had become a pastor in a little country church. And in those days, Sunday school was a big thing. And when he went there, they had 20 some people in Sunday school. I looked on the Sunday school board in front of the church. There were 200 and some people in Sunday school. The place was packed just for the three nights that I was there during the week, which is unbelievably unusual, but that was because of him and the work that he had done. And, and when he wasn't around, his wife said to me, you know, when you spoke to my husband that night at Beulah, he was just brokenhearted and he was just so hurt. And he was, he was so afraid that he couldn't make it.
[37:08] But here he was now, he was open to the truth. And God gave him the grace to become this pastor who was seeing great things happen and dozens of people coming to know Jesus. Now that's not your context, I realize, but I'm saying to you today, no matter what anybody said, no matter what you've been telling yourself, no matter what you've been through, no matter the hurts and the awful things that maybe you have done or some others have done to you, you can know the truth.
[37:56] And this is the truth. And that truth is going to set you free. And you are in store for 2026 to be the freest person on the face of the earth as you open up your heart to what God has for you. To resist the truth is like putting handcuffs on us, leg chains, putting us in an invisible prison that may be worse than any prison, real prison in somebody's ear. But when we can be open to the truth, there's nothing holding us back and we're free to rise and reach our full potential for the glory of God.
[38:48] Father, how so thankful we are that we have this loving Savior that you sent to die on the cross that came to help us to have abundant life, to know the truth. And right now you're seeing everybody inside out in this place. You're seeing all the things that they've gone through and all the failures. And yet you're as ready to do for them as you did for Peter to make him a stone that could not be moved by the temptations and the pressures of this world.
[39:37] And Lord, I just pray right now that you would be with each and every person knowing their history and knowing their story and knowing their defeats and their setbacks. And as from this day forward, they're willing to be open to the truth. I just pray they will receive all that help of your grace that can make them everything that is necessary for them to be and everything you want them to be. Well, everybody's got their heads up. I don't want to do this just for the sake of doing this, but I think it's made help some people. And if this is spoken to your heart in any way and you want to just determine through God's grace and power and pray for and want prayer that you will be open to the truth because that's the key thing that will set you free.
[40:40] God will help you as that truth comes. That rather than be defensive, you can receive that truth as Peter did and become a stone for your glory. So put up your hand and let me know that you'd like that. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this is so good. Lord, we thank you for these who want to be humble before you. And we know that's the key. And we pray to God that if there's any here that have not started on this journey of faith and relationship with you that can give them that extra that is necessary to be free. I pray right now that you would help them. And maybe Lord, if there's people like that sitting here, that they would just simply pray this prayer to you after me silently.
[41:42] Dear Lord, I thank you that you came to save. I thank you you came to give abundant life. I believe in you. Lord, I have resisted and I have sinned. Please forgive me. Now, Lord, I know that what you've done for others you are willing to do for anyone and everyone that whosoever will, will you please come into my heart and make me right now your child that I might live for you and know that freedom and that peace because of your grace as a result of the truth. I pray in Jesus name.
[42:29] Amen. Now, if you prayed that prayer a minute, you truly can go from here, a child of God, because the Bible declares as many as received him to them gave me the power to become the children of God.