How Jesus Restored Peter And What Modern Leaders Can Learn

A hundred episodes in, and we’re more convinced than ever that leadership rises or falls on how we handle failure, focus, and people. We mark the milestone with gratitude for listeners across 451 cities and 40 countries, then get straight to the heart of John 19–21: what it looks like for a leader to restore someone who stumbled—and why restoration, when done right, can change the trajectory of a team.

We walk through the scene where Jesus meets Peter by the fire and turns love into assignment: feed my sheep. From that moment, we pull a practical framework you can use in annual reviews or crisis moments: decide who is restorable, specify expectations, match support to responsibility, and set an accountability window. Restoration is not leniency; it’s structured trust-building. Along the way, we talk about when it’s wise to part ways, how to guard your mission from distraction, and why servant leadership isn’t soft—it’s disciplined care that elevates performance.

We also tackle time, priorities, and the busyness trap. If you’re still grinding 80-hour weeks, it’s time to redesign your work. We share simple, high-leverage tools: a 48-hour time log, the 80/20 rule for ruthless prioritization, and weekly planning rhythms that reduce decision fatigue. Know your people, too; dips in productivity often have human roots. When leaders understand the story behind the numbers, they coach better and earn deeper commitment. We close with a preview of Acts and a hidden leadership insight waiting in chapter one.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who leads, and leave a review with the one habit you’re changing this year. Your feedback shapes the next 100.

Chapters

• 0:00 Tempo: 120.0

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Oh yeah. Alrighty, welcome, welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Hey, welcome, Tim.

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Oh my gosh. Big milestone today.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

This is a huge milestone for our podcast. Thank you so much for all of those of you who've been uh listening from the very beginning. Um and for those of you who are new, you are here on a very exciting milestone of our podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

Tell them tell us what 100th episode.

SPEAKER_01: 0:56

This is our 100th podcast. That is awesome. Yeah. Pretty much, right? It's so it's so exciting for us, and we appreciate the support that our listeners family has given us, and and just thank you so much. We've we love doing this, and and uh we're having a lot of fun here in the studio. Um, and so uh I asked Tim to pull up some statistics uh before the broadcast today, and uh just he's gonna read some of these off. And I'm just humbled. I am just so humbled by what he's gonna share.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

Yeah, I'd looked at some statistics and we started talking about it. So I pulled them up, sort of gave Dr. Posey sort of an update on where we're at. And uh it's pretty exciting. Uh in in the U.S., we're in you know, we've had downloads in 451 total cities across the uh United States, and we're currently in 40 different countries or territories. Isn't that cool? That's great. That is awesome. Singapore, Canada, UK, Kenya, Mexico, Australia, Colombia, Russia, um, you know, Malaysia, uh, South Africa, Jamaica, Israel. Um, I mean, I can go on. Spain, Denmark, China. I mean, you know, uh it's just awesome. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 2:15

It's so humbling.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

Yeah, it's it's pretty impressive, right? I mean, we we have a little bit of a reach starting, yeah, starting as something that was a little pet project for us just to do, right? Uh, you know, like I say, I mean, we're we're still growing every day, and we thank everybody for sharing with their friends. Yes, that's the way we grow. But I mean, for uh for for starting out uh in in our hundredth episode, I'm I'm pretty happy where we're at. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:41

I'm so pumped. I mean, what a privilege and honor to be here and to share, you know, what God's laid on our heart. And then also I think maybe these people just need some good dad jokes. I think that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

I mean, I don't see anybody who kicked back the download. There were a couple that were one, but we'd reach out to them personally.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

And look online for podcasts, and I listen to a lot of podcasts about turathlons and running and nutrition and stuff like that. I don't I don't hear anybody else do dad jokes. There might be, and I'm not saying there isn't, but um there might be a reason for that. But and for those of you who are waiting, those of you who are waiting, so we're now just a few weeks away from the beginning of the year. Yes, and so our New Year's Eve show is totally dedicated to dad jokes.

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

It is. And so if you like dad jokes, come hang out with us. We laugh a lot, if nothing else, and and we have fun in that show. And uh, if you don't like dad jokes, well, pick us up at the first of the year. And and uh but other than that, when we started this, we we we did this because we wanted to be serious, we wanted to give a lot of information on the biblical side, the leadership side, but most of the fun we wanted to have fun, right? We didn't want to make it a a stuffy podcast, and and we our big thing was if we could help four people, great, right? You know, and and I mean we've touched a lot of people across many cities, a lot of different countries, and uh, you know, it's been many blessings, and I think it's continued. I mean, we're we're just uh you know, really coming over the hump where podcasts really start growing, right?

SPEAKER_01: 4:24

Yeah, a hundredth episode. Yes, it's pretty awesome. That is so cool. That is so cool. So today let me just give a synopsis for those of you who are joining us for the very first time. Thank you so much for tuning us in. And and um and so for um the last year or so, we have been going through books of the Bible and talking about the leadership principle in every book. Now, originally we were supposed to do one book an episode. That was the original plan.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

That was the original plan.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

We had it all mapped out, but even that a leadership principle is sometimes you have to change a plan. You have a good plan on paper, you have a good plan in your mind, you have a good plan with your team, and then something comes up and you go, you know what? We need to spend more time with this. Yeah, we need to expand what we're doing because there's such good stuff here, and we we don't just need to run through and check off the box, right? We need to really delve into some of these principles. And so so we went through the old testament, pretty much one uh book per week, and then we get to the New Testament, and um we have been on the the Gospel of John now. We're gonna finish today, uh 19, 20, and 21 chapters. But um uh it's taken us more than a week, you know. It's been here about three months, and uh we've gone through just about every chapter talking about uh the biblical the leadership principles of Jesus and um and so the some of them obviously from because of the first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels. There's so many similarities in those. Some of the leadership principles are identical, but I think that uh helps just emphasize the point of how important they are, like servant leadership. You see that throughout the entire New Testament. That is so important. And what does that mean? You know, it means that you're there to help your people be the best they can be. What can you do? How can you sacrifice? What can you do to help your assistants, your leadership team, whatever, be the best they can be? So uh if you don't know about Tim, he's a custom home builder, he travels around the country speaking on leadership. I was a pastor for 45 years. Um, and so my job, and I had to learn this, uh didn't learn it at the beginning, but I learned it along the way. You know, if when I had staff people, I wanted them to be the best staff person in that position the church had ever had. So if I had an associate pastor, worship leader, accountant, finance person, custodian, whatever, I wanted to be them the best they could be. So what could I do to help them be the best they could be? And that leads us right into chapter 19, 20, and 21, because Jesus is here in chapter 19. He's on he's in trial, um, he's been, you know, he's been sentenced to death by Pilate. Uh the Romans are gonna take him, crucify him. Um, and all of his disciples, now John we see there is at the cross with his mother. Um and um and so, but all the other disciples leave. Uh Peter has d uh denied him, the other disciples have left, abandoned him. And so the question is, okay, you have some people in your on your team, whether that team is five or five hundred, you have a a core leadership team, and some of them maybe have abandoned you. Um how do you restore them? So we see in John chapter 21 that Jesus made a very specific point to restore Peter because Peter had denied him you know, right before he was crucified. And he felt guilty about that. And so the question is, how what how did Jesus respond? And he restored him, and then we see in the book of Acts, which we'll start next week, uh, that Peter was the head church leader of the the disciples there at the beginning of the book of Acts. So so because of the action of Jesus, the leader, and his his servant leadership, his uh restitution principles, um, it literally changed not just Peter's life but world history. And so the question would be for those uh uh uh people in your team that have been not loyal or been not uh supportive, uh maybe they've betrayed you or whatever, how do you respond to that? Now, let's just say sometimes they just need to go. Okay, yeah. They just need to go. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

Sometimes you can't put a band-aid on it over and over and over. Sometimes you gotta pull the band-aid off and just let it go. Yeah, let it go.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

But for those of you, those employees that you think no, they're they just made a mistake. You know, yes, they cost the company a million bucks, but but what or they cost the company time or we had production loss or whatever, are they worth saving? And if they are, how do you handle that? Um so that that we see this perfect example here in Jesus in John chapter 21, and uh it just made all the difference in their lives.

SPEAKER_00: 9:28

Yeah, no, I I think that's exactly what you you know we talked about it, you know, how do leaders step up, you know, how they uh how they lead. I I I'm a big fan, and and I I as you were talking, it made me think of uh there's a couple of big developments in the AI world where some of the lead engineers were stepping out, starting their own company. And you know, I've had many a times where I had supervisors that they want to start, they wanted to start their own construction company, and I'll walk them through, you know, uh everything from doing the company to how to market to how to handle clients and bidding and all that stuff, because you know, you're always helpful as a leader and and you want everybody to grow. I'm I want everybody to outgrow me. I want everybody to have their own company and and to experience some of the freedoms that and some of the non-freedoms that come with it, right? You know, everybody always thinks grass is greener on the other side. I mean, a lot of times it's you know, I've thought about many times go back, you know, 30 years and work for somebody and do the nine to five and go home at 501 and sound pretty nice, you know, over the years. But but I mean that's that's how the you know leadership and that's how we grow into who we are today.

SPEAKER_01: 10:39

So yeah, and so Jesus is here. He's got some disciples that abandon him. We see in uh John 21, uh, that they're all out fishing, you know, and Jesus comes to the seashore and he's cooking some fish. They Peter recognizes him, jumps in the water, they they pull up all these fish to shore, and uh Jesus uh basically restores Peter. Um and and then Peter m just is a world changer, you know, um uh for the kingdom of God. And um, and so the question would be for those some uh for those people who you know this might be a time where you do your end report or you might do it in January, whenever you do your annual report, and you think, you know, this person this is good, but they just have not done well this year. Well, the question is, are you gonna be transparent with them and say, okay, um, you know, let's talk about that. Let's you know, there were some things that didn't go well this year. Um, let's let's focus on those. Let's let's focus on how we can how can I help you be better? Um and that's what Jesus was saying. He said, I want to support you, I believe in you, um, you have potential, um, and I just want to see it. And so it wasn't just words, it was actually action. Right. And um, and so if you're gonna say that to one of your your people, you need to empower them to and give them the tools to do well. And if, you know, they need to know, hey, um, we're counting on you to do this, and um you know, so let's just see how that works for the next six months, um, and we'll go from there. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:24

And one of the leadership rentals I pulled out of there is when we were talking about the empty tomb, you know, that uh I think back at how many companies that survived like COVID and different times that came out of that from the loss. I mean, they they were down in the dumps. A lot of businesses went out, and they a lot of people were at the brink of uh, you know, barely making it as a company, and they've came back and and uh built from that loss, from that empty tomb into uh a very well balanced company today. So there's a lot of stuff that you can do, and and but ultimately it took the leaders, it took somebody to run that ship to keep that thing afloat to keep it going.

SPEAKER_01: 13:03

So yeah, and so that requires sacrifice and you know, um, and so the let's just say you're a leader and during COVID, you know, that's been over for a couple of years, but if you're still putting in 80, 90 hours a week, um, then you I think it's time to reexamine your work ethic and say, you know what, uh I I can't continue to doing this, it's not good for my health. And so let's just refer to what we talked about at the last episode about margins and taking care of yourself and what are you gonna do for yourself? Um and and maybe for next year, you know, we're coming on New Year's resolutions and all those scum things. Maybe next year you can say, you know what? I am going to try to get the same amount of um output done with less time in the office. And how can I do that? Um 80 80-20 rule, you know, look at those things. Maybe you're focusing on the 80%. Uh that brings 20% of the results. Uh, maybe you need to reprioritize and say, you know, I need to focus on my A's, uh, my priority things, at least my C's and D's, uh, just let them go.

SPEAKER_00: 14:13

Yeah, I'd definitely say they create a time log, you know, see exactly where you're losing time. Most people have that busyness epidemic, you know, B-U-S-Y, where they're always busy, but they're really not. They're just Productive. Yeah, they're they're not being productive. They're they're they're, you know, on social media here, and then they work for 20 minutes checking email and they're back on social media, or they're going to lunch and doing this. And and a lot of times you just got to look, especially at this end of the year, is is where are you being productive? How are you being productive? And and do a time log. Do a 48-hour if you can do a week time log, everything, write down everything you do from going to get a drink of water to you know checking email, and I promise you're gonna find a lot of extra time that you can pick up. Uh, but worst case, you need to do it at least 48 hours to uh to make it uh functional where you really know where you're losing time.

SPEAKER_01: 15:03

So yeah, and uh on your phone, you can look at your screen time log and it will tell you, and I bet most people will be shocked because they don't think, well, I don't do it that much. And you look at your screen log and you go, Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that I spend that much time. And and here's the thing, um, and and people do this all the time. It drives me nuts, but you know, uh when I go to the gym, I go to the gym a couple times a week, work out, swim, uh, like I was swimming this morning. And um, and so it doesn't bother me when I'm swimming, but I'm I'm working out on the weights, and uh people are there and they'll you know, do a set, and then they'll sit on the bench and they'll check their phone, they'll check their email, or they'll sit there and talk to somebody. And it's like, uh just work out, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 15:49

There was a girl in the gym the other day, and she was reading a book. She had an actual hard copy book. She'd do a set and then she'd read about seven minutes of book, and then she'd do another set, and then she would sit there for seven minutes and read a book. I was sort of watching and timing her, right? And I'm like, this is crazy. I'm just, I mean, I'm all about it. I'd do audiobooks in the gym every day, but that's audiobooks. I can go work out and can close along. I'm not sitting there. She was she was at uh some of those machines for almost 30 minutes just reading her book and doing a set, then she'd read her book. And I'm like, that's not really anything better.

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

That might she maybe not have a whole lot else to do, but here's the question if you're running a business, right? Okay, then you gotta think where where am I wasting time? Yeah, you know, and is there a way that I can evaluate my own schedule and and cut out some of those time wasteper wasters. Um and um uh and so there's um one of the biggest time wasters is trying to be a perfectionist, trying to do everything perfect, or keep doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. Now some things have to be done perfect, like if you're a finance person, it has to be perfect. But um but you know, another thing is lack of priorities. Um, you know, this is a great time to get in the habit of looking out, you know, at the end of the week or maybe Sunday night and listing your priorities. One of the best things I ever learned, and I didn't know this myself, I didn't learn it in seminary, but I learned it a couple years after seminary, was how to plan sermons a year in advance. I didn't write them a year in advance, but I knew what I was preaching on a year in advance. Um and and that saved so much time because when I got out of seminary Monday morning, I'd get up and think, When am I going to preach on this week? And I'd have to spend a couple hours doing that, and a couple hours picking the songs. And then a couple years later, I went to a class and I learned, hey, this is how you can plan all of that. You can do it in one week and plan the entire year. And I started doing that, and so I did that for the last 30, almost 40 years. It saves so much time. So so the question is maybe you can do the same thing, but just do it a little different, and you can really save a bunch of time and be more productive. So maybe uh just think about that in your own in your own life. And uh, but also as a leader, it's important that you evaluate others to do the same thing. You know, how can you help your staff, your coworkers, um, your team, um make most of the better use of their time?

SPEAKER_00: 18:40

Yeah, and and that's what I thought about it. I was gonna I sort of put it in the back of my head is when you're talking about Peter, you know, who it who in your circle needs, and it sort of ties into your last comment there, who in your circle needs sort of restoration, who in your circle needs sort of a little push or a help them work through some of their productivity issues or anything that you might have. Because I mean, ultimately, if you can get everybody firing on the right cylinder, it's just only going to help you as a leader, right?

SPEAKER_01: 19:06

Yes. And so that is uh going back to several episodes, we talked about the importance of knowing your people, knowing what's going on in their lives, because they might be distracted because they have a child that's sick, or they might have a parent that, you know, has fallen in a hospital. And if you don't know your the personal lives of your people, um it it m you might have a skewed view of what's going on in their life and why they might be distracted at work. So the more you know about their personal life, not that you have to know everything, but the more you know about stuff like that, then the better, I think, boss you can be. You can be empathetic, you can be understanding. Um and it it just makes the company, you get a lot more uh commitment from your people if they know they care about, you care about them, not just their productivity.

SPEAKER_00: 19:59

And then taking at the high level, and it's sort of my last thought on this of a lot of my notes I put down is um you know, when you think about the big picture, you know, you are you getting distracted? Are you following your mission or are you distracted by somebody else's mission, right? As you as a leader need to be pinpoint, you need to be focused in on this mission, uh, that's what's gonna move the company. So sometimes we get you know, naysayers and all that stuff. I've had a lot of naysayers in my life and different people, and and you just gotta, if you firmly believe in it, you you push forward and you you move move towards that goal, you know where the ship's headed, and and uh you'll be successful as a leader.

SPEAKER_01: 20:39

So I I agree. So that wraps up uh John. John, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:45

We need some applause on that one.

SPEAKER_01: 20:47

Finally, oh my gosh, finally. Oh but we've got a few minutes, so we got some has got some dad jokes here.

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

All right.

SPEAKER_01: 20:57

Everybody's like, Oh my gosh, I'm turning you off right now. Okay, here we go. Um what did the lemon say when it answered the phone?

unknown: 21:09

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

Yellow.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

All right, there you go.

SPEAKER_01: 21:17

Okay. Uh did you hear about the bowling alley that had to close down? The entire staff went on strike.

SPEAKER_00: 21:28

That's almost a trombone.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

That is a trombone.

SPEAKER_00: 21:33

Oh you know what else you got?

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

Well, did you hear about the guy who fell into the upholstery machine?

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

No.

SPEAKER_01: 21:47

Well, he's okay because he was fully covered.

SPEAKER_00: 21:53

Uh you know there's a fine line between a denominator and a numerator.

SPEAKER_01: 21:59

And what is that?

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

Only a fraction of the people will find this funny. And less than half will only get it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:08

Okay, this is not a dad joke.

SPEAKER_00: 22:10

My son would probably like that either.

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

Okay, so here's one that's a little leadership uh principle that's not a dad joke, but I think it's worth saying right now as we finish out the book of John. People do not decide their futures. Yeah, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their future. Nice. Okay. So um, yeah. So just think about your habits. Um and maybe you need to think about honestly, how can I change my habit so that it will change my future?

SPEAKER_00: 22:48

That's a good one to do.

SPEAKER_01: 22:50

Yeah, exactly right. Coming on the first of the year. Um we had a dog one time that that uh used to chase people on a bike all the time. You know, all the time. It got so bad I had to finally take his bike away.

SPEAKER_00: 23:11

Oh boy, oh boy, boy, boy. Uh I was looking at my notes here, make sure I didn't have anything uh uh that really do it. Um yeah, I think I'm I'm good.

SPEAKER_01: 23:24

You think you're good?

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

Yeah. Okay, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 23:27

No, did you hear that Grumpy the dwarf got pickpocketed recently? I didn't know how anybody could stoop that low.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Oh boy. We better stop and save some for our other shows.

SPEAKER_01: 23:43

Oh, I've got like 200 books.

SPEAKER_00: 23:45

Oh, no, you do. I I can't use all mine. I don't have like 800,000 jokes on on that. So but uh yeah. You you you got one more.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

No, it is December. It is it's a little warmer today, but it's a little warmer today in Texas, but it's gonna start getting cold. You know, the coldest month of our year is really like February.

unknown: 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:09

And my wife's birthday right in the middle of it. It's always cold on her birthday. Anyway, so here's uh for those of you who are listening to North, okay, here's a here's a great joke for you. Who is a snowman's favorite relative?

SPEAKER_00: 24:23

Oh, some more snowman jokes.

SPEAKER_01: 24:25

Yeah, who what who is a snowman's favorite relative?

SPEAKER_00: 24:28

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

Ant Artica.

SPEAKER_00: 24:34

Oh, come on. I gave you a little bit of both. Oh, okay. All right, guys. Half grown is a half. Yeah, exactly. Right. All right, guys. Check us out, biblical leadership show.com. Uh share this thing. Thank you for sharing, you know, uh, episode hundred. Uh, we're we're we're we're happy. Um we we still got a lot of growth where we have on a set of our goals, but uh, you know, uh 40 countries uh we're feeling pretty good about that. We we'd love to uh you know take it even more.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

And thank you so much for your support over the last hundred episodes.

SPEAKER_00: 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

Uh just share this uh with other people. Give us some comments, write it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:14

Yeah, give us some feedback, you know, and give us some dad jokes and all that stuff. Please we'd love to hear it.

SPEAKER_01: 25:19

So yeah, we're just trying to be better. And and here's the thing how can we help the listeners be better leaders?

SPEAKER_00: 25:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

You know, from principles from the Bible. And we're gonna start the book of Acts next week. Um, there is a powerful uh biblical leadership principle in chapter one that um we just if we just read through the chapter, we just might miss it if we're not knowing um well, we'll just miss it. We'll just miss it. And it's kind of hidden in between the lines, but it's a powerful principle, and we see it right there in chapter one. So we'll get to that next week, and uh, we look forward to seeing you there. So share the share the message about the show, and uh, we just appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

All right, well, thank you guys, and Dr. B, take us out. Hey, make it a great day. Thank you. Well