[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word.
[0:14] Please turn to Matthew chapter 26. Jessica, thank you for that song there as we follow after him. Matthew 26, as you're turning there, I'll tell you a quick story.
[0:25] Hi, December the 1st in 1997, I was a freshman at Marshall County High School, far west Kentucky. It's a little north of Tennessee. And as a student, as a freshman, not a lot of things are very serious.
[0:37] There's a lot of joking going on. But I remember that morning that something changed in the room that I was in. We went from laughing and talking, and then it became very serious. And they turned on the television that we found out that 20 miles down the road at Heath High School, there had been a school shooting.
[0:54] And that was the, we've heard many in the years, but that was not a common thing. It should never be a common thing, but it's certainly not a common thing when it happened then. And a kid named Michael Carneal walked out, and as the kids were leaving a Bible study, shot into the crowd and killed three of them and injured five.
[1:12] And so we were getting that information. And everybody that could drive or had a friend that could drive left school, I didn't go anywhere. I stayed, I didn't get to go anywhere. I wasn't either one of those two people. And so I stayed there that day, and it was a long day, as you could imagine, thinking about that, trying to make sense of it.
[1:30] And people always talked about copycats, or is it going to happen at our school? And I'm thinking about that time, and even the weeks to come, it was kind of a scary time at school. But there was a Bible study leader in the group.
[1:42] I think he might have been a junior. His name was Ben Strong, and he walked out of the Bible study, and his friends were shot. But he walked up to the gunman right when the gunman was done shooting, and either he took the gun from his hand, or when he had set it down, he took it.
[1:57] Well, I was fascinated by this teenager that seemed to have this confidence and boldness during just a very hard time. And so I went to a church to hear him speak and to give his testimony, and I waited around afterwards because I just wanted to meet what kind of person does this, and how could they do that.
[2:15] And Ben said that he just doesn't know how he did that, or he doesn't know why that he did that. He was just in that moment. God gave him the courage to go forward and talk to them.
[2:27] Well, I started thinking at that time scenarios of would I deny Christ? It wasn't one of those scenarios which we've recently had in Oregon where it appears that the gunman said, Are you a Christian?
[2:39] And many people said that the bravest person in America was that second Christian who said, Yes, I'm a Christian. And we also believe that first person was very brave as well because we know when you're asked that question that good things are not coming of that, and so they were being targeted for being Christians.
[2:57] So I remember thinking back as a freshman in high school, start playing through those scenarios of what do I do when I come face to face with having to say, Yes, I'm a follower of Jesus, or no, I'm not, and denying Christ.
[3:11] And I think we've all played that game in our mind, and we've thought about it. And that's a scenario here in Matthew chapter number 26 where Peter gets to a point where he is going to be told that he is going to deny Christ, and the other ones are going to tell them that they're going to deny Christ.
[3:27] But we know in our lives, Lord willing, it will never be that vivid of a decision. It will never be at this point that it's going to happen where we find Peter saying, No, I don't know this man.
[3:40] But we make those decisions, and we find in this story that it wasn't just Peter we all know about, but he said that all of you are going to do it, and that it wasn't a scenario that just only stopped with the disciples, but that every one of us have on a micro level that decision we make all throughout the week.
[3:59] And we can look back over the last month and last week and we'd say, Did we take the stand that we should take? Some of you maybe arrived after the Bible reading, but let me just kind of catch you up in it.
[4:09] We found here that they left with a song. They had the Lord's Supper, and it seems like it would be late. They're leaving, and it's about midnight. It doesn't seem common that people would be doing that. But this time of year with the Passover, there would be a lot of activity going on there around the temple gate, a special time of festivities.
[4:26] If I understand correctly, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are having their meals at different times. One's ending it, and the other one's preparing for the next day. So there's things going on in the house.
[4:37] They're going to pass through the Kindred Valley, and it's very likely that the brook there might have been filled with the blood from the animals being sacrificed out of the temple, coming out of the back of the temple and out of the brook.
[4:47] Just to let you know, there's a lot of activity that's happening as Jesus leaves there and heads to the Mount of Olives. We've already spent some time at the Mount of Olives at the oil press there. A pastor took us through there.
[5:00] We talked about his coming back. So they're going to a place that they very likely had been to many times. There's 12 of them, and that includes Jesus, meaning that Judas is gone, but he's about to show back up with another group of people at the end of Jesus' prayer.
[5:15] And it's just unbelievable to think that he walks up to Jesus and kisses him, to say that the man that I would go up to and kiss on the cheek is to make sure you know that we're getting the right man.
[5:28] And there's so much detail here for us as we look at the other gospel accounts, and I would really like to draw the picture out here to you, not because you need every detail to believe that it's true, and not that every detail speaks to the main point that's being given here, but just for a moment, I want to make sure you know that these were real men, these were real lives, these were real emotions, this was a real temptation, and that this was a real death.
[5:56] More so than the story that I told you of when I was back in high school, because I'm one man giving an account of that story, but in the Bible, we have God giving an account of this.
[6:07] So it's a real thing, and so we feel the emotions that are going on with those disciples. For first, as we jump into this, I want you to think about prepare for this moment in your life.
[6:18] Peter said he was not the only one to be warned. In verse 31, it says, Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night. So not just Peter, but all of you are going to be offended.
[6:30] And they all wanted to know if it was them. And Peter said, Definitely not me. I'm going to go to jail with you. I'm going to go to death with you. And they all felt that was the case, but every one of them that night would be offended because of him, and they would deny.
[6:44] And so we found God is preparing people, where Jesus here in his teaching, the preparation by God, by the Jewish leaders, we see now Judas went off to make preparation, and now God is preparing his disciples for this moment in their life.
[6:59] Satan says to Peter in Luke chapter 22, verse 31, or Jesus says to Peter, Satan desires to sift you as wheat. So we know that Satan had focused in on Peter in that moment, but also all the disciples.
[7:13] And then I'll let you know that he has the same desire for every one of us on a Monday, on a Tuesday, on all those times. He wants that to happen. And we find a God that knows our heart.
[7:25] It's not as common anymore, but teenagers used to like to say, You don't know me. That was an expression, okay? If you say anything to them, You don't know me, which means that you can't speak into my life.
[7:35] You can't tell me anything. Well, none of us in here can say to God, You don't know me, because he knows their heart. I'm always amazed in the Bible, somebody starts talking about something, and Jesus changes the subject, because he's like, Let's just cut to the chase, Nicodemus.
[7:49] I know what you're talking about, but I see past your conversation, and I see into your heart. And Jesus knew the heart of his disciples. He knew what they were going to do, and he knows in our heart as well that we are a group of people here on Sunday morning that says, We would never deny you.
[8:04] We would go to jail. But he knows our heart, and so he applies teaching to help us. Because when we look at the people that denied him, I get very scared. Because when we're going to look at Peter, and we look at sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder, are part of that group, and they deny Christ, and I know that my weak attempt of saying, I would never deny you, doesn't hold.
[8:25] We also see that there's a different type of denial that takes place. You've got a counterfeit in Judas that denies Christ, and we know him as a son of partition, which means he's not a believer, but we also find Peter acting just like him in that time, which lets us know that in here, there could be two types of people, but all of us are prone to denying him.
[8:45] It's every one of us could do it. Even the believer in here could do that in an occasion there. God gave them knowledge that they needed to prepare.
[8:56] John chapter number 18, 1 and 2. This is a parallel account of this story, and I'll read it here to you. When Jesus had spoken these words, you could highlight that if you want to.
[9:07] He went forth with his disciples over the book of Kindred, where was a garden into which he entered, and his disciples, and Judas also which betrayed him, knew the place where Jesus oft times resorted thither with his disciples.
[9:20] As we said, this is a place that they had been to, but I want to draw your attention to spoken these words. What were the words that Jesus spoke to them? From the time that they end the conversation in the upper room, to the time that they sang the hymn and leave, in the book of John, we find that he did some teaching.
[9:37] In our church, we went through this. We're ending the book of Deuteronomy, and I was talking to the pastor about how it would be neat to know what books of the Bible people came in to hear. If you came into our church when the pastor was dealing with his surgery for cancer, and he was gone for several weeks, we were in these chapters in John, verses 14, 15, 16, and 17.
[9:58] I remember them more so than you probably will, because I spent more time in it that week probably than most did. But we found these incredible teaching from Jesus. He was preparing their heart, and I want to draw your attention to them because before they deny Christ, he's going to teach them some things in John 14, 15, and 16 that's incredible information and knowledge that they had going into the time they would deny him.
[10:22] 14, 1 said, this is Jesus. After telling them they're going to deny him, but before they do it, before they leave the room, saying, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God.
[10:34] Believe also in me. John 14, 18. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. John 14, 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
[10:46] Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid. Abide in me. John 15, 4. Abide in me, and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except that abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me.
[11:01] The courage that you're going to need to not fall in temptation is going to come from abiding in him. And in the passage we're in today, we'll see that. John 16, 1. These things have I spoken unto you that you shall not be offended.
[11:14] They should put you out of the synagogues, yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. He's warning them. There's a time coming where people think they're going to be doing me a favor by killing you.
[11:28] John 16, 19. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him and said unto him, Do you inquire among yourselves that I said, A little while and you shall not see me? And again, A little while and you shall see me?
[11:40] Jesus said, He told them, I'm going to die, then you're going to come back. And they're all talking in the corner with each other, which is always weird when Jesus is in the room, direct your questions towards Jesus, not one another.
[11:52] And they're doing that. And he says, Are you guys wondering what I said about this? Verily, verily, I say unto you that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
[12:04] John 16, 32. Behold, the hour cometh is now come that you shall be scattered and every man to his own and shall leave me alone. Yet I'm not alone because the Father is with me.
[12:16] They're going to be scattered. He won't be alone because he's going to go to the garden and be with his Father. John 17, 20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through the word.
[12:26] He says the prayer. He looks to heaven and he says, I don't only pray for you disciples, but I'm praying for everybody that's going to come after you. How many of you are a disciple of Jesus that came after disciples?
[12:38] Would you raise your hand? Okay. It'd have to be extremely old in here not to be one of those people. And so all this comes before the final hymn and their departure out of the place. And I say that, one, because it's this wonderful Bible and it helps our heart, but I want you to see that it's most certainly not a lack of information that has caused them to be offended.
[12:57] Talk about being prepared. They have the Son of God standing here giving them incredible teaching on prepare your heart, joy is coming, persecution is coming.
[13:08] I'm warning you, there's not a lack of information in here, but there's still a denial, which means that all of you in here, that you think you're prone of not denying Christ because you have enough information gathered and that you know more about Jesus than the other person sitting with you lets you know that you're not impossible.
[13:28] It's not impossible for you to do the same thing because these disciples have been prepared. They've been given information. Then 26, 56 there, Matthew says, but all this was done that the scriptures of Proverbs might be fulfilled.
[13:40] Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. They all forsook him, which means those of you that are new to the seat that you're sitting in and those of you that your seat knows you very well.
[13:53] You've been sitting in that seat for a long time. All of you could fall to this. We know that we serve a great God, but that's not our question here. The question is, what are we going to do when things get tough and decisions have to be made?
[14:08] Brother John said, we have that dilemma to make in our lives. So I told my wife this morning when I was thinking about, I said, I have this idea and I always bounce it off of her.
[14:18] I said, I have this idea because what is the application in your life? We all leave here and we go to different places and we got to say, I have a different opportunity to deny Christ than another one.
[14:29] We also have different opportunities that make much of Christ than one another. I love the message a couple of weeks ago. Pastor talked about wasteful worship and a woman came in and she had sold what she had had and she took a perfume and she laid down and she was preparing Jesus for his death and people around him said, this is wasteful.
[14:47] What are you doing? Good Christian men looked at her and said, this is wasteful. But she said, with the life I have and with the resources I have, I'm going to make much of Jesus.
[14:58] She had an opportunity that the rest of us might not have that was different. And so we leave here with a thousand different ways to make much of Jesus in different parts of our communities or people.
[15:10] But with that, we have thousands of different ways that we will deny him. But I was, we all know this, if you'll give me this, Robert. So I was telling this to Stephanie this week and some of you laughed because you know what the red cup of Starbucks has been about.
[15:23] And I said, it seems like that every Christian knows what it means to not make much of Jesus at Christmas time because everybody is up in arms about it.
[15:34] And she said, everybody's tired of hearing about that stupid red cup. Don't bring up that red cup in church. Nobody wants to hear about the red cup. And then, then she began, a light bulb went off in her head.
[15:44] She said, but if you're going to need a red cup, you're going to have to take me to Starbucks. And then, so she, she kind of changed her argument. She's like, that's not a bad idea.
[15:55] Maybe you should bring up the red cup and show them. I don't know if you got the picture. I told you I didn't need it, but if you do. So this is the story here that Christmas used to be on the cup. This is a true story in 2009.
[16:07] And now it is a red cup. You won't believe it, but back in 2007, they had a nativity scene and 2004, they had the whole gospel on a cup. No, it's not true.
[16:18] We're not surprised. It's not a Christian company. They're just marketing a cup. Okay, please take it down. People are, they're slobbering of the mouth here because they just love their Starbucks. And so, I don't want to get into that argument.
[16:30] There's Christians on both sides of it, but I would like to draw your attention to it is that we decided that a company did not make good use of a cup at Christmas time to make everybody draw their attention to the birth of Christ and what Christmas is all about.
[16:47] And it's amazing that even though we know exactly what Starbucks should do with a cup, as Christians, we have no idea how our lives are supposed to portray Jesus. You know, let's not only bring Christ back to Christmas, but let's bring Christ back to Christianity would be a good idea as well.
[17:04] And so, we can be judgmental of how another person takes their investment and how they use the use of their cup. But even though you're not a company and even though you don't run Starbucks, you have something about you on Monday that is either going to say the blood of Jesus Christ, I'm a Christian, or I'm neutral on the subject, which is where Starbucks has placed themselves.
[17:26] It's red. Do with it whatever you want. Write your name on it, okay? Draw a picture of it. And that's not who we are. We're not a blank canvas anymore. We're not a neutral on the subject. We know stuff.
[17:38] And so, maybe the nine cracks in your situation is there's a conversation going on and you say, I know something about that. I have something I would like to say about that. God needs to have a voice in this moment with his word, but I'm not going to do it.
[17:53] I am going to go my separate way. And so, it looks like that as well. It's not just like we would see with Peter. It's not at the gunpoint, but all throughout the day we have an opportunity to say, I'm going to just, even though it's foolish, even though nobody else understands it, I'm going to go at the feet of Jesus and I'm going to give what I have to them.
[18:12] And so, I pray that the Holy Spirit today will make application in your heart. And if that doesn't work for you, I'll follow you around this week and I'll sound off a foghorn and say, hey, there was an opportunity. You missed it.
[18:23] I don't think any of you want me going to work with you. So, ask the Holy Spirit to make application in your lives to that. This opportunity to deny Christ was not something just Peter dealt with. It is not something the disciples dealt with.
[18:35] It is not even something only unbelievers deal with. But Christians in this room will be faced with this opportunity. So, we think about it. At this point of studying Matthew 26, my heart got very heavy because I thought about all the opportunities I had, the decisions I could have made when I would have said no to self and yes to Jesus.
[18:54] But I find verse 31 to be so comforting here. Then saith Jesus unto them, all you shall be offended because of me this night for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
[19:08] So, God still wants, he knows that they're going to be offended. He knows here in this passage that even though we're going to, that we're going to be offended of him and be scattered, look at what verse number 32 says.
[19:22] Even though it's all of you, but after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Isn't that wonderful comfort there that we find in Christ? He says, you're going to be scattered, but after you're scattered, meet me in Galilee.
[19:38] He already tells how he's going to respond to the disciples and he says, I'm going to meet up with you again there. When he said that you would be scattered, that was a prophecy out of Zechariah 13, seven and very likely Jewish people today and definitely and back then misinterpreted this passage when God said this, they thought it was talking about false teachers.
[20:00] But in that chapter, it says, awake, O sword against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smythe the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.
[20:13] So they might have been gathering around this. It doesn't really make sense that this false teacher is being called my shepherd and my fellow here because it was our suffering servant. It was Jesus that would be beaten.
[20:24] It'd be Jesus that when he was struck that all of the sheep were going to scatter there. God calls him the shepherd and his disciples would scatter. But after I'm risen again, I will go before you into Galilee and there's great hope.
[20:39] They were cowardly. It was an act of fear. Why do we know that it's an act of fear? You know this answer in Bible trivia. Why did the disciples scatter? Even if you don't know the verse and the reason you know the answer is from experience.
[20:54] We know what it is that causes us to deny Christ and it comes from the fear that is given there where we will panic, where we don't want to be associated with the cross. Galatians 6.12 says, As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
[21:15] It's a passage I go to with teenagers very often because there's a group of Judaizers that were saying, Hey, don't get too associated with the cross here. Keep a healthy distance in your life from the cross.
[21:28] Find that happy place that has religion that keeps you moral and it keeps you away from the world but it isn't so close that when people want to go after attacking Christian people that you're associated with it.
[21:41] And that's where most people try to live their lives. It's where most parents try to get their kids to. It is stay off the streets, don't get in trouble but stay away from Jesus because he'll get you in trouble as well.
[21:52] And they try to keep them right in that middle area and that's where we so often want to live our lives and it's fear that causes us to not want to be associated. Could you imagine if that's the case? I've already made mention of it but that's not who we are as a church.
[22:05] We put our arm around our friends that are missionaries to the Muslim world and we say, we know your identification with the cross and the country with you live may cost you your life but we get it and we understand it and you should never be ashamed of him.
[22:21] Fear will cause Peter to not only say, I don't know him but we know how he says it, right? He uses profanity. This strong Peter that was saying he would never deny Christ, he is now using profanity to say that he is not associated with it.
[22:36] 97% of Christians say that fear is a huge motivator and they're witness for Christ and the other 3% are known for not being very honest. Alright? I made that up.
[22:46] Alright, so all of us in here we deal with that. Either you admit it or you don't but we all know that fear no matter how strong you are it is. And it's got to be faith that's going to draw us near unto him.
[22:59] Luke 22 verse 61 Peter is going to be humbled. And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter remembered the word of the Lord how he had said unto him before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice.
[23:14] Isn't that just an amazing part of the story. After Peter denies Jesus he looks up and he sees Jesus and he sees that face. We know that he's forgiving.
[23:25] We know he's long suffering. And we know that Peter we know Peter doesn't at this moment. We know that he's going to preach Pentecost but in that a good look at Jesus puts Peter right back where he's supposed to be.
[23:37] Can I tell you in those times where you deny Christ and the last thing you want to do is look at God the last thing you want to do is go back to your Bible reading on the morning the last thing you want to do is go to prayer to him because you're like Adam and Eve in the garden and you're like I have failed him I have sinned I don't want to go back to him and the thing that you most need is to look at our loving Savior and it's going to put us right back where we belong and that Peter fast tracked his repentance he got right back where he needed quickly because he had a glimpse of our Savior there and I want to remind you that Jesus lost no majesty in this series of events I was amazed in reading about this how many people struggled with this idea that Jesus he sweat as drops of blood here that Jesus seemed to be concerned about his death and judgment some people seem to think he was panicking and they couldn't handle that why does Jesus seem to be so bothered by that Hebrews 5.8 said he's learning obedience he was taking on our loneliness he would drink the cup of God's wrath for us he was no less God but we see here that he really became man and not just gave the appearance of an incarnation that he went through all the emotions that we would have went through he went through all the loneliness that we would have went to in that garden so don't let it bother you when we find
[24:56] Jesus saying Father if this cup can pass let it pass but nevertheless your will not mine and then he prays three times you're wondering why does a person need to pray three times well you pray three times when the only person you can talk to is your heavenly Father when your heart is crying out and you're saying I gotta speak I gotta talk to somebody but nobody on this earth is gonna do the job that's what ought to drive us into our prayer and he goes back there and he loses nothing of his majesty your unfaithfulness to him didn't change him at all so you go back to him where he was at when you were unfaithful to him we've talked about this story before the story of peace child in Papua New Guinea remember the missionary there takes like 18 months and he lays out the whole story from creation and then he gets to the story of Judas and he tells the story of Judas and everybody says Judas is the hero Judas is so smart he out tricked everybody and the missionary is like well I didn't see that one coming you know this is not how this is supposed to go this is not how it went on the flannel graph back at the church
[25:57] Sunday school at and then he learned in their culture about the peace child which was a child would be born and it would be given to the enemy side and if anything happened to that child then there would be war between it but as long as the enemy took care of that child there would be peace between the tribes so when they realized that they had that Judas had betrayed the peace child they hated Judas and they loved Jesus the peace child in this story here Judas is by no means the hero and Jesus does not stop being God or lose any majesty it's in this part where we see the loneliness that you feel the anger that you feel all the things that you would feel he took it on himself and he drank it as if it was a cup he felt all of us which ought to cause us when we deny him to go back to him more so because we know that he did not change Jesus tells Peter in Luke chapter number 22 and verse number 32 it says but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not and when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren
[27:00] Peter when you mess up on a colossal level and then when you get back to where you belong I want you to take that and I want you to go to other people and I want you to tell them I once really messed up but my God forgave me and that should be all of us in here as well could you imagine the love of God that must have been felt when the other disciples saw Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost not just Peter saying how did I ever get here again after what I did for them but every one of those denying disciples had to look up there with tears in their eyes and they had to say what a loving and forgiving God that we serve that Peter is doing that after the failure that he had made I think about that when a person stands up and shares their testimony and says I made mistakes in my life but my God forgave me it ought to strengthen us all in here fear may have caused you to miss opportunities this week time to meet Jesus at Galilee and prepare for the next stage of your ministry even when you're unfaithful he remains faithful to you if you messed up on what you consider a small level this week he's ready to meet you and head to
[28:09] Galilee if you messed up on a huge level in the days gone by he's ready to meet you and head to Galilee he knew your heart is ready to forgive you then let me give you here where is the way that we overcome temptation if we look continue in the next paragraph we're going to find that verse 41 it says watch and pray that you enter not in the temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak the type of man that fell asleep Peter that was able to fight any outward battle I'll go to jail with you I'm ready to die with you he's ready to swing a sword literally we find here in a moment he's going to chop off the ear of that soldier he was ready to do that he just wasn't ready to watch and pray Peter relied upon his own strength he didn't believe the words of Christ John 667 and John 666 it said that people because they didn't like the words that Jesus said had denied them and then he looks to Peter and he says are you guys going to leave me as well and he says where are we going to go you have the words of life and
[29:09] Jesus had given him the words of life but he didn't believe it so he wasn't prepared no matter how strong he was no matter how confident he was he was not prepared for this temptation he was judging the other disciples it's another sign that he was confident in the flesh it was yeah they may mess up but not me which means I'm a type of Christian that these other people in here aren't if you've heard me say in the day that every one of you could deny Christ and you could say well I know why he's saying you're moments away from following yourself he's overconfident in himself and I told you that other group the sons of Zebedee which are James and John and other than having their mom fight for them one time they seem to be pretty strong and courageous men they're called the sons of thunder this possibly comes from a story in Luke chapter number 9 they go into Samaria and because of prejudice they don't want to give Jesus a place to stay and James and John they look to Jesus and say hey you want me to call lightning from heaven and strike them down how crazy is that if any lightning need to come from heaven
[30:12] I'm sure Jesus would have been able to make that happen and I just love that Jesus and the disciples gave those guys that nickname the sons of thunder to talk about their friendship Peter willing to carry a sword Peter that we know is bold and courageous with his two friends the sons of thunder every one of them messed up which means if you're in here you can be the sons of thunder as well and you're going to mess up as well even Paul the Timothy in 1 Timothy 1 tells him so don't be ashamed of me the testimony of me don't be ashamed of your testimony of God Timothy dealt with this and so it would be nice if they taught by example it would be nice if Jesus said well you're probably going to deny me and we saw it was divided six of them denied and six of them didn't deny and then we could look at what the six didn't do so we could follow the example but we don't have it we kind of have the inverse example being given here they were warned but they ignored it they were told they were going to enter in temptation but they fell asleep and every one of us would be if we were honest we could relate to this we can't rely upon our own strength he told them to watch and pray and you're not entered to this temptation they didn't watch and pray and they fell into the temptation there they were overcome with emotion they were mostly exhausted they weren't just goofy playful teenagers who were like well
[31:39] Jesus is praying in the garden and I've thought that before I'm thinking how in the world are y'all so disconnected they were just emotionally drained they were just thinking about the details and all that was going on and there they are maybe so caught up in the actions of the moment that they weren't concerned about the attitudes of their heart maybe they're thinking we got to get some sleep because we got to have strength to do something in the next stage of this thing going on we all know what's going through their minds because we've all been there before where we just we turn off and we collapse because we say we can't handle this so we're just going to check out and God's saying you're not supposed to handle this we should be in prayer asking for strength to overcome and we look at Jesus example in Matthew 4 when he dealt with the first temptation there how does he respond you know the answer he responded with the word didn't he he could have created a new bible if he wanted to but he says I'm going to answer with the words of the bible to Jesus because he knows that someday Trent Cornwell Dutch Jevereaux and Brady they're going to have to answer the
[32:41] Satan and they don't get to create a new bible they're going to rely upon God's word and he responded with God's word in the second great temptation here he turns to God in prayer here and God will listen our hearts ought to find ourselves here so do you want to be victorious do you want to be triumphant in your Christian life then simply what do we do we watch and pray Peter and the disciples were warned and they ignored it you've been warned today don't ignore it we must be prepared for that we must watch and pray because we know that a temptation is coming this weekend here in a group of Christians this size or any size there's always room for a Judas there's always room for somebody in here that's not there that would be a counterfeit and so you should you should search your heart today and know if that's you if your denial of Christ is because you're not a believer in Christ that's on a whole different category of what's being done here with Peter Christian today you know that if Christ was today was to stand in this place where I'm at you would know the emotions that Peter felt when Jesus looked at him that face there if you were to think about over your denial of him over this week and if Jesus would have walked into that room and walked into that moment and you looked at him face to face you would know how Peter felt and so maybe that's what's happening in your life right now in this moment maybe as you think about it you say you don't have to keep making that point that we're able to deny Christ because I can already think of half a dozen occasions I can think about in my family as I did not display the gospel I can think about with my co-workers with my friends and you're feeling that well let me remind you there's hope meet him in Galilee come to him don't run from him don't hide it underneath the carpet don't act like you'll do better next time because you're not going to in your own strength you've had full intention of not denying him but you have relied upon your own strength and you're not listening to the warnings and it's time for all of us to watch and pray we've been warned in here if we live a life that isn't watching and praying then all we're going to do is continue that vicious cycle of denying him coming to him in prayer and it's going to be repeated but let's make sure that we're like that let's make sure that we are prepared for this week this is the first day of the week and let's come to him and say heavenly father you know my heart and you know the opportunities that I missed last week and
[35:08] I'm asking you to forgive me but this is a new week and I'm ready to meet you I look at you and I'm humbled by how loving and forgiving you are and so I'm starting my week out watching and praying I'm going to be more mindful of the fact that it can happen this week I'm going to look back over last week and I'm going to think about during this time every week with this person at this conversation I seem to not make much of Christ and I'm prepared for it this week I'm going to be praying for it this morning I'm going to say heavenly father you know when I talk to Bill that's always everybody's co-worker right when I talk to Bill this week you know that I have not been faithfully talking about you but I'm watching and I'm praying that you will do something in me that in my flesh I don't have the ability to do watch and pray lest you enter into temptation this message was recorded at vision baptist church in alfred georgia for more information log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times location contact information and more audio and video recordings again if I can write this you