Please open up your copy of God's Word to the Gospel according to Mark.
! We're in chapter 14.
We're continuing our verse-by-verse exposition through Mark's Gospel.
! Before we get there, I had intended to make an announcement at the beginning, but I was kind of getting some conflicted reports.
Those of you who have been around for a while know that this building has some water issues.
We're on a well, and sometimes the water doesn't work so well.
Don't pun intended.
And this seems to be one of those mornings for us, and so it wasn't working, and then it was working, and again, now it seems to not be working.
And most of us have dealt with that before, so it seems to be kind of working at the moment.
So, just as a heads-up for whatever you may want to go do in the building concerning water,
to be aware that it may or may not work at the moment that you try.
But, I'm glad that the reason that our church exists is for the supremacy of Christ and not for the beauty of a building.
As we have issues like this, it's just my constant recitation in my head,
but we have no debt, but we have no debt, but we have no debt, and we praise God for that.
So, it is a blessing to us.
Our text for today is Mark chapter 14, verses 66 through 72.
And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came,
and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said,
You also are with the Nazarene Jesus.
But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you mean.
And he went out into the gateway, and the rooster crowed.
And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders,
This man is one of them.
But again, he denied it.
And after a little while, the bystanders again said to Peter,
Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.
But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear,
I do not know this man of whom you speak.
And immediately the rooster crowed a second time.
And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him,
Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.
And he broke down and wept.
This is God's word to us, written for his glory and our good.
We would all do well to listen to it in order to obey its promises,
excuse me, believe its promises, and obey its commands.
Let's pray together.
Father, we again praise you for this morning and the opportunity for us to come together as a church.
A people called out of the world and called together for your mission.
We thank you, Father, that you have not left us alone,
but you have given to us a helper, the Spirit,
and you have given us your word,
the tool that he employs in our lives to shape us and change us for your glory.
And so we would ask this day that you would do this,
that he would be alive and active in my speaking and in all of our hearing.
That the things that we hear today will not merely be taken into our minds,
but they will be applied to our hearts.
That all of us will be changed from one degree of glory to another.
That we will leave this place proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness
and into his marvelous light.
We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.
So in our text this morning,
Mark records for us the failure of Peter following Jesus' arrest,
just as Jesus had predicted.
But before we address Peter's failure, and we will,
let's recall together the failure of our author of the Gospel of Mark.
I know that many of you weren't with us when we first began working through this Gospel account.
And in the very first sermon that we worked through together,
I told you a little bit about who Mark is.
And he's an interesting character,
and there's much for us to learn and to be encouraged by his life.
So with me, if you will, just for a brief break from Mark,
you can mark it, no pun intended, once again,
turn to the book of Acts,
and we're going to begin in chapter 12.
Apparently when I'm tired I speak in puns.
We did this once before, so I'm going to do it rather quickly,
but I just want you to see this together.
I believe that Mark's desire to record what Peter did is fueled by his own experience.
So Acts chapter 12, verses 1 through 5.
About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church.
He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword.
And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also.
This was during the days of unleavened bread.
And when he had seized him, he put him in prison,
delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him,
intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people.
So Peter was kept in prison,
but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
So Peter is imprisoned by his faith.
The persecution of the churches is really on the upswing at this time.
And as the church is praying for him,
Peter is delivered from prison by an angel later there in Acts 12.
Peter recognizes it was an angel.
Verse 12 records this for us of the Lord that led him out of prison.
And it says, verse 12,
When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John,
whose other name was Mark,
where many were gathered together and were praying.
And so this is the Mark that wrote the gospel of Mark,
or we could call him John Mark if we would like.
I'm Joseph Nathan, if you don't know that.
And I go by Nathan.
So here we have John Mark going by Mark in many cases.
I'll go a little further in that chapter to verse 25.
And Barnabas and Saul, soon to be Paul, or was Paul at this time,
returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service,
bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.
So they picked up a companion in their travels,
and this is John Mark,
who's now traveling with Barnabas and Saul or Paul.
Acts 3, verses 1-5.
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers,
Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger,
Lucius of Cyrene,
Menaion, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch,
and Saul.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting,
the Holy Spirit said,
Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
Then after fasting and praying,
they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
So being sent out by the Holy Spirit,
they went down to Seleucia,
and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
When they arrived at Salamis,
they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogue of the Jews,
and they had John to assist them.
So Barnabas and Paul set aside for a work to the Gentiles.
Of course, they still visited the Jewish synagogues and preached to the Jews,
and John Mark is with them.
Now in verse 13 of chapter 13,
in case you lost where we were at.
Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos
and came to Perga in Pamphylia.
And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
So John Mark goes with them on this journey,
the beginning of it,
and as they're about to go on to another stage,
he leaves and returns to Jerusalem.
In the account so far,
that's all we know.
Just that he left.
We don't know why he left,
but we find out later the very reason.
Turn a couple of chapters over to Acts chapter 15.
And after some days,
Paul said to Barnabas,
Let us return and visit the brothers in every city
where we proclaim the word of the Lord
and see how they are.
This is Acts 15.37 now.
Now Barnabas wanted to take with them
John called Mark.
He's actually the cousin of Barnabas.
But Paul thought best not to take with them
one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia
and had not gone with them to the work.
And there arose a sharp disagreement
so that they separated from each other.
Barnabas took Mark with him
and sailed away to Cyprus.
And this is when Paul picks up Silas in his journey.
So there becomes a division between Paul and Barnabas
because Barnabas really wanted John and Mark
to go with them on the journey.
But Paul said, No, he abandoned us.
He bailed out on us.
This man was fickle.
Likely due to fear of the advance
and the preaching of the gospel
and the things that were happening in his time,
he went back to Jerusalem.
And Paul wants nothing to do with him
at this point in his journey.
Barnabas so convinced,
Barnabas seems to be the second chance guy,
John Mark is now ready,
that he goes with him.
We don't know exactly where
Barnabas disappears from the New Testament narrative
for two years,
with nothing about the timeline,
for two whole years after this incident.
John Mark disappears from the biblical text
for ten years.
But he does reappear.
He reemerges.
Now after some time,
Paul is in prison for preaching the gospel.
And during his first imprisonment,
he writes his letter to the Ephesians,
his letter to the Colossians,
the letter to Philemon,
and to the Philippians.
And we see in two of those,
particularly in Colossians and in Philemon,
Paul's companion in prison
is none other than John Mark.
So they, by some circumstance,
have rejoined one another
and either been thrown in prison together
or found each other once again in prison.
In Paul's second imprisonment,
one of his last letters he wrote,
2 Timothy 4.11,
he writes this,
Do your best to come to me soon,
writing to Timothy,
for Demas, in love with his present world,
has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
Crescens has gone to Galatia.
Titus to Dalmatia.
Luke alone is with me.
And then the instruction he gives to Timothy
is get Mark.
This is John Mark he's referring to.
Get Mark and bring him with you,
for he is very useful to me for ministry.
So we see this young disciple
that's taken on this journey to begin with
and bails out on the Gospel mission,
likely for fear of what would happen to him,
now re-engaged in Gospel ministry
in a major way as a fellow servant
along with Paul,
later pinning for us
the Gospel account that we've so richly enjoyed
over this past year.
The redemption that is pictured in this
that has to be pieced together,
but yet we find it all the same.
Sinners and recovering sinners
are the only type of people that there are.
So there's much space for us this day
in even considering Peter's denials.
We think about Mark's life,
and later Peter's life,
the things that will be accomplished
by God through him
to reflect upon our own lives
and the ways in which we've failed our Lord.
The ways we've turned our back on Him.
The ways that we have denied Him
to receive joy and encouragement
from the lives of Mark and of Peter.
Now in last week's text,
Mark places Peter in the courtyard of the house
where Jesus' trial is occurring
on the night of His arrest.
And if you'll look back in Mark 14,
verse 53 and 54 reads,
And they led Jesus to the high priest.
And all the chief priests and the elders
and the scribes came together.
And Peter had followed Him at a distance
right into the courtyard of the high priest.
And He was sitting with the guards
and warming Himself at the fire.
Now the other disciples,
it would seem,
have already fled at this time.
We have no record,
no account of them.
Although John's Gospel account
does tell us that the way
that Peter got into the courtyard
is that John was known
by the family of the high priest.
So it's likely that John went along
and said,
Hey, it's okay to let him in.
But it would seem that John's already
left the scene at this point.
The disciples fleeing is a fulfillment
of Zechariah 13.7,
the last half anyway,
which Jesus quotes in Mark 14.7,
Strike the shepherd and the sheep
will be scattered.
So we find Peter having followed at a distance,
having been so bold in the Garden of Gethsemane
that he strikes the ear off of one of the temple guard,
rebuked by Jesus for it.
And then he follows from afar,
wants to be near what's going on.
And this trial is taking place
in the home of the high priest,
which is Caiaphas in this year.
Likely also the home of Annas,
also called the high priest.
He is Caiaphas' father-in-law.
That title never passed away from someone
once they served in the role of high priest.
And Annas is kind of like
the godfather of the Sanhedrin.
He has been appointing high priest.
People do what Annas says.
So there's been a trial before Annas,
which is not recorded in Mark.
And then he's been delivered from Annas,
Jesus has,
to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.
This would be 70 men plus the one
being the high priest.
71 men that hold this sort of trial,
this perversion of justice.
We talked about last week.
We saw the contradiction,
the juxtaposition of the false witnesses
against Jesus' faithful witness
to who he was.
And this is where we find,
as this is happening upstairs
in one of the apartments
of this massive home,
Peter's sitting in the courtyard,
warming himself with the temple guard
around a fire.
John MacArthur says of Peter,
he was caught between fear and faith.
He was caught between love and terror,
between courage and cowardice.
Certainly, Peter loved our Lord
and followed Him because of that.
There's some zeal in Peter
that we certainly should admire,
that he even was willing
to follow that far,
that he was willing to sit outside
in the very home,
enter through a gate,
and be in that place.
But yet he fails.
Now remember who we're talking about,
this Peter.
Back in Mark 8,
beginning of verse 27,
Mark records,
And Jesus went on with His disciples
to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
And on the way,
He asked His disciples,
Who do people say that I am?
And they told Him,
John the Baptist.
And others say,
Elijah.
And others,
one of the prophets.
And He asked them,
But who do you say that I am?
And it's Peter that answers Him,
You are the Christ.
And in saying that,
that phrase that He's saying,
He is saying that you are the Son of God.
You are the Messiah,
the One that has come to take away
the sins of the world.
Our prophet, our priest,
and our King.
You are the Christ.
Matthew's account adds,
And Jesus answers him,
Blessed are you,
Simon Barjona,
for flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you,
but my Father,
who is in heaven.
So,
God Himself has revealed this truth
to Peter.
And I tell you,
you are Peter.
And on this rock,
I will build my church.
And the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.
The truth that Jesus is the Christ,
is the rock that He'll build His church on.
He says,
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and whenever you bind on earth,
shall be bound in heaven.
And whenever you loose on earth,
shall be loose in heaven.
This is the Peter
that we're talking about.
And so,
set against the backdrop
of Peter's bold proclamation
of Jesus as the Christ,
Mark tells us of his failure
on the night of Jesus' arrest.
Charles Spurgeon wrote of this text,
This fall of Peter
is doubtless intended
to be a lesson
to the whole church of Christ.
It is recorded for our learning
that we may be kept
from like sorrowful overthrow.
It is a beacon
mercifully set up in Scripture
to prevent others
making shipwreck.
So we must pay attention.
It's important that we stop and look,
not just as a mark in Peter's life,
but what are we meant
to learn and to understand?
We must understand
by this record.
And to do that,
we must examine the condition
of Peter's heart,
which ultimately led
to these denials.
You see,
there must have been something
at work in him
to cause him to betray his Lord, right?
He wasn't on top of the mountain
and suddenly in the valley
there was something happening in him
and we have record
and account of what that was.
Remember that Peter had given up
everything to follow Christ.
He had sacrificed everything
and he'd been with him now
three plus years
bringing him to this point.
What is happening
in the heart of Peter
that would cause him
to deny Christ
at this time?
There are at least three things
we should observe.
At least.
There may be more,
but at least three things
we should observe
that we're going to do this morning
lest we also fail
in this way.
Firstly,
and primarily,
Peter was prideful.
Peter was self-sufficient
in his own mind.
None of us really are self-sufficient.
All of us are sustained
by the power of God.
All of us are very, very, very finite
and so desperately in need
of an infinite God.
Peter didn't recognize
this was the case.
He was prideful.
Mark 14, 26-31 says,
And when they had sung a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.
And Jesus said to them,
You will all fall away.
For it is written,
this is from Zechariah,
I will strike the shepherd
and the sheep will be scattered.
But after I am raised up,
I will go before you to Galilee.
Peter said to him,
listen to the words
that Peter responds to Christ.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
by His own admission,
has said,
You will all fall away.
This will come to pass.
And Peter responds to Him,
Even though they all fall away,
I will not.
And Jesus said to him,
Truly, I tell you,
this very night before the rooster crows twice,
you will deny Me three times.
But He said emphatically,
If I must die with you,
I will not deny you.
And they all said the same.
You see the pride there.
Jesus is telling them
the very thing that will come to pass.
And He's having nothing of it.
Not believing His Lord
and the prediction that He's giving to Him.
This man has seen Jesus accomplish
amazing things.
He has established His authority
over sickness.
He's established His authority over death.
He's raised people from the dead.
He's calmed storms with His voice.
He has forgiven sin.
Amazing.
Amazing things.
And He says a simple thing to Him.
And He is so full of Himself.
He is so arrogant
and so self-sufficient
that He says,
I will not.
I will not deny you.
Are we not this way so often?
Proverbs 16.
18 says,
Pride goes before destruction
and a haughty spirit
before a fall.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10.
12,
Therefore let anyone
who thinks that he stands
take heed
lest he fall.
Beloved,
we are always
at all times
in desperate need
of the intervening work of God
on our behalf.
There are certainly
times in our life
that this is
exclamart.
I just made that word up.
There is an exclamation mark
placed on this
at times in our lives.
Let me give you a full sentence
to explain what I meant
by exclamart.
Punctuated,
I think is what I was trying to say.
God's providence
reigns at all times.
Moments in our life
were made very,
very aware of this.
Daniel Gentry,
a member of our church,
and I have been
looking toward
and praying for
the possibility
of our church
doing some work
on the east coast
of Nicaragua.
The west coast
of Nicaragua
is the developed
part of Nicaragua.
You can get a direct flight
on Delta
from the Atlanta airport
straight into
the Managua airport.
From there,
the normal way
that you get
to the east coast
is you hop on another flight
to a town called Bluefields.
Then you get on a water taxi
that takes you to
the place that we were going,
a place called Pearl Lagoon.
We decided instead,
we had a trip of four,
there were four of us
planning on going
at the time we did this,
that it would be cool
to rent a truck
and drive
to the town of Pearl Lagoon.
We just wanted to have
some flexibility,
not be so dependent
on other people
to give us rides.
We really wanted to be able
to check out the area.
Our trip of four people
quickly became a trip
of two people.
So Daniel and I
flew into
the Managua airport.
Our flight was very,
very late.
We just happened to catch
the Alamo Rent-A-Car
attendant
as she was locking up.
She was the only employee
that spoke any English
for Alamo Rent-A-Car
and Daniel and I
spoke no Spanish.
We stayed across the street
at the Best Western
that night
and the next day
we struck out
across Nicaragua.
A couple of white guys
from Georgia
who don't speak
any Spanish
in a rented truck.
And I was never
not aware
of God's providence
in that trip,
that we made it.
The Alamo Rent-A-Car
attendant told us
that her mother
lived in Bluefields
and that she had never
heard of a road
that went to the place
where we were going.
There were no maps.
We couldn't buy a map
in the place.
And yet,
God sustained us.
God brought back
some of my high school
Spanish
to ask for directions.
Brought in this town
that seemed to be
the dead end
of our trip.
Brought into
in a bizarre way
one English speaker
who used to live
in Roswell, Georgia.
And he gave us
directions to where
we were going.
We are always,
the point I'm making,
we are always,
always, always
in need of him.
Sometimes we know it
more than others,
but we are always
in need.
We never should
be prideful.
I will not,
by the grace of God,
should be the cry
of our hearts.
So Peter was prideful.
Secondly,
Peter failed
to heed the word
of God.
This was fueled
by that very pride,
but Peter failed
to heed
the word
of God.
Jesus had said
to him,
this thing
will come
to pass.
And he doesn't
respond with a,
how do I prevent
that?
You told me a thing
that I will do,
but how can I
not do this?
While Peter's
denials validate
the prophetic
words of Christ,
they certainly serve
in that regard,
prophecy does serve
as a warning.
We shouldn't just say,
oh, well that's
going to happen.
Prophecy is a warning.
And Peter would have
done very well
to pay attention
to it.
When Jonah preached
the word of God
to the Ninevites,
Jonah 3.4 says,
yet forty days
and Nineveh
shall be overthrown.
This was the message
that God had given
to Jonah
to preach
to the whole city
of Nineveh.
What did they do?
They repented.
They turned
from their sin
and they repented.
And Jonah 3.10
records,
when God saw
what they did,
how they turned
from their evil way,
God relented
of the disaster
that He had said
He would do to them
and He did not do it.
So,
brings a prophecy
that they respond
appropriately to
and He doesn't do
the thing
that He said
He would do.
Proverbs 6.23
says,
For the commandment
is a lamp
and the teaching
a light.
And the reproofs
of discipline
are the way
of life.
Our last memory verse,
children,
I'll leave you away.
2 Timothy 3.16
All Scripture
is breathed out
by God
and profitable
for teaching,
for reproof,
for correction,
and for training
in righteousness.
Verse 17
goes on to say
that the man of God
may be complete,
equipped
for every good work.
Peter would have done well
to listen to the words
of Christ,
to have paid attention
to the warning
that He was giving to him
and we do the same.
The Scriptures contain
many warnings.
Let's look at just a few.
What do you say?
Turn with me
to the book of Hebrews.
I'm going to show you
four warnings
just from the book of Hebrews.
Hebrews.
We don't know
with certainty
who wrote
the book of Hebrews,
but we do know
that it was written
to Jewish Christians
who were tempted
to deny Christ.
In their minds,
they had added Jesus
to their religion.
They're still worshipping
the same God,
but they had included Jesus
into this equation.
We're following Him.
And things had gotten
tough for them.
The Jews weren't being
persecuted the way they were.
The Jews weren't being
thrown in prison.
The Jews weren't having
their property plundered.
The Jews weren't being killed.
So it's tempting
to go back to Judaism
to deny Christ in this way.
So let's just look
at a few together.
Hebrews 2.1
The danger of drifting.
The writer of Hebrews says,
Therefore we must pay
much closer attention
to what we have heard
lest we drift away from it.
We must pay attention
to the gospel preached.
We must know
the word of God.
Because if we don't know,
we won't know
when we drift.
It will be imperceivable.
Like a ship without an anchor
and suddenly we're out
in the dangerous sea.
Secondly,
Hebrews 3.12
The danger of not
entering into rest,
the rest of the Lord.
Take care, brothers,
lest there be in any of you
an evil, unbelieving heart
leading you to fall away
from the living God.
Be careful, he's saying.
Be careful that you don't exist
within the church
thinking that you have a good heart
when in fact you have
an evil heart
that's leading you away from God
and not toward Him.
Be careful that you're not
just going through
some religious practice
thinking that somehow
that's credited to you
as righteousness.
But that you need
the righteousness of Christ.
Thirdly,
Hebrews 6.11-12
The danger of not going on
to maturity.
Of staying a child
in the faith.
And we desire each one of you
to show the same earnestness
to have the full assurance of hope
until the end.
So that you may not be sluggish
but imitators of those
who through faith and patience
inherit the promises.
Don't be deceived
thinking that you can just
stay nominal.
That it's okay to make
a profession of faith in Christ
and never grow up in Him.
Those who are born again
grow up in Jesus.
We become mature.
There's a danger in not going on
to maturity.
Fourthly and lastly,
Hebrews 10.26-27
The danger of willful sin.
For if we go on sinning deliberately
after receiving the knowledge
of the truth,
there no longer remains
a sacrifice for sins
but a fearful expectation
of judgment
and a fury of fire
that will consume the adversaries.
What he's saying is
if you are a believer,
you claim to be a believer
and you continue to sin deliberately,
you are denying Christ
in that activity.
You are saying
there's not a sacrifice for sin,
there's only a judgment
that will come.
Heed these warnings, beloved.
We must heed the warnings
of the Scripture.
There are so many places,
not just Hebrews,
so many places,
where we are warned against
and warned against
and warned against.
The Christian life is not easy.
Our flesh is at war
with our spirit.
If we are truly believers,
our flesh does not win.
The general trajectory of our life
will be towards holiness
and away from worldliness.
This must be true
in our lives, beloved.
If it's not true in yours,
you must question your faith.
Test yourselves.
I never want to say any of this
to cause those who are Christians
to ever falter in their belief.
The Scriptures exhort us
to test ourselves.
Are you in the faith?
Can you with confidence say,
my heart is changed.
There are things happening in my life
that would not be happening
if it were not for the work of Christ.
Jesus is purging sin from my life.
And I still sin,
but it breaks my heart.
I sympathize.
I want to be there with Peter
when he breaks down and weeps
and go, I know.
Oh, I know.
Me too.
Oh, how I fail.
But test yourself
that you know you're in the faith.
That you know that God is working you
towards holiness.
So many these days want to have
the promises of the Scripture,
but they do not want to obey
its commands.
I flubbed it up this morning.
I keep goofing things up.
It's okay.
But most mornings when we study together
after reading the text,
I say to you,
this is God's Word to us.
It's written for His glory
and our good.
We would know that,
that it's for our good.
We would all do well to listen to it
in order to believe its promises
and obey its commands.
Peter was prideful.
Peter did not listen to,
he did not heed the Word of God.
If he had, thirdly,
he would have prepared himself.
He would have prepared himself
for the thing that was going to come,
the battle,
as he was going to walk following Jesus,
caught between these two places,
his love for Christ
and his fear of what might happen to him.
And so thirdly,
Peter failed to prepare himself
for battle.
Turn back to Mark 14, verse 32.
After the Last Supper,
Jesus and the disciples leave,
verse 32,
and they went to a place called Gethsemane.
The Garden of Gethsemane.
This is the night of Jesus' rest,
and He says to His disciples,
Sit here while I pray.
And He took with them Peter and James and John
and began to be greatly distressed
and troubled.
And He said to them,
My soul is very sorrowful,
even to death.
Remain here and watch.
And going a little farther,
He fell on the ground and prayed
that if it were possible,
the hour might pass from Him.
And He said,
Abba, Father,
all things are possible for You.
Remove this cup from Me,
yet not what I will,
but what You will.
And He came and found them sleeping.
And He said to Peter,
Simon,
are you asleep?
Could you not watch one hour?
Watch and pray
that you may not enter into temptation.
The Spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak.
Now, who's He talking to specifically?
To Peter, right?
The one who He had said,
You will deny.
All of you will be scattered.
And Peter says,
I will not.
He says,
You will deny Me three times.
He says,
Oh no, I won't.
And then He's sleeping in the garden.
And Jesus' exhortation to Him
is that He should be watching and praying
so that He won't enter into temptation
because His Spirit's willing.
Oh, I will.
I won't.
But His flesh is weak.
Verse 39,
And again He, Jesus,
went away and prayed,
saying the same words.
And again He came and found them sleeping,
for their eyes were very heavy,
and they did not know what to answer Him.
And He came the third time and said to them,
Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?
It is enough.
The hour has come.
Peter,
had he rightly understood
what Jesus had said,
if He had heeded His warning,
had he not been so prideful,
he would have been preparing himself
for the battle that he was about to face.
And he failed to do so.
And so we see in our text,
and I know that today was kind of a wander
from the text,
and we'll come back to it for a moment,
the three denials.
And they all happen right there together.
A servant girl recognizes Him.
Right?
She again points out the fact,
no, I'm pretty sure,
telling some bystanders,
pretty sure this guy was with Jesus.
And notice that he's left the gate now.
He's away from the temple guard.
He's gone outside of the gate.
Likely still lingering outside,
waiting to see what will happen to Christ.
And his responses get more and more severe.
Leave me alone about it.
Leave me alone.
I do not know this man.
I am not to be associated with him.
And then Peter remembers
what Jesus has said to him,
and he breaks down,
and he weeps.
That next day,
the same,
the morning,
this is happening.
It's the reason that the rooster's crowing.
It's morning now.
There's going to be some other trials.
Another trial before the Jews,
just really for show.
Some trials,
three of them in front of the Gentiles.
We'll get into those things
in the coming weeks.
And then Jesus will be crucified
that afternoon.
And this is the way in which
the closing remarks for Peter
before our Lord is crucified.
Do you sympathize with Him?
Can you feel His pain in that?
Ways in which you yourself
have denied Christ.
Opportunity to speak on His behalf
in this world as an ambassador for Him
that you shrank away from.
Like Him,
you cowered.
I don't know Him.
Don't think me strange.
Don't think me weird.
Don't hate me for my faith.
I sympathize with Him.
And praise God,
Peter is restored.
Praise God,
Peter is restored.
Turn to John 21.
After Jesus' resurrection,
He comes and He has breakfast
with seven of the apostles
by the Sea of Tiberias.
John 21,
beginning in verse 15,
says,
When they had finished breakfast,
Jesus said to Simon Peter,
Simon, son of John,
do you love Me more than these?
He said to him,
Yes, Lord,
you know that I love you.
He said to him,
Feed My lambs.
He said to him a second time,
Simon, son of John,
do you love Me?
He said to him,
Yes, Lord,
you know that I love you.
He said to him,
Tend My sheep.
He said to him the third time,
Simon, son of John,
do you love Me?
Peter was grieved
because he had said to him
the third time,
Do you love Me?
And he said to him,
Lord,
you know everything.
You know that I love you.
Jesus said to him,
Feed My sheep.
Truly, truly,
I say to you,
when you were young,
you used to dress yourself
and walk wherever you wanted.
But when you were old,
you will stretch out your hands
and another will dress you
and carry you
where you do not want to go.
This he said to show
by what kind of death
he was to glorify God.
And after saying this,
he said to him,
Follow Me.
And you note that Jesus gives Peter
three opportunities
to affirm his love for Him.
Just as he has denied Him three times,
he takes them through a process
of saying to Him,
I love you.
And then Jesus tells him
exactly what's going to happen to him.
That He is going to be crucified
like our Lord was.
He Himself will die
such a terrible death.
The thing that He was so afraid of
on this night
where He betrays Christ,
where He denies Him these three times,
Jesus tells him,
this is the way that you will also die.
And in spite of that,
Peter would soon speak boldly
to the very men
who had judged Jesus.
Like a lion he speaks to them.
Turn one more time.
Acts chapter 4.
It's the last place I'll have you.
And we're wrapping up here.
I haven't banged on a lectern once.
I promise you I would do that.
Wake up.
Acts chapter 4.
Verse 5.
It's after the day of Pentecost.
On the next day,
their rulers and elders and scribes
gathered together in Jerusalem
with Annas the high priest
and Caiaphas and John and Alexander,
all who were of the high priestly family.
So all of those five and six,
all of those people are Sanhedrin.
It's the same people that judge
perverted justice in their judgment of Jesus.
Verse 7.
And when they had set them in the midst,
they inquired,
By what power or by what name
do you do this?
Then Peter,
filled with the Holy Spirit,
the source of his great boldness,
said to them,
Rulers of the people and elders,
if we are being examined today
concerning a good deed
done to a crippled man,
by what means this man has been healed,
let it be known to all of you
and to all the people of Israel
that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
whom you crucified,
whom God raised from the dead,
by him this man is standing before you well.
You notice that he calls him Jesus of Nazareth?
The very accusation made to him.
Weren't you with Jesus the Nazarene?
Here he says,
you're darn right I was.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Verse 11,
This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you,
the builders,
which has become the cornerstone,
and there is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven
given among men,
by which we must be saved.
The boldness as he's filled with the Spirit,
the way in which his life has been redeemed,
such a low point,
now brought just a couple of months later
to such a high point in his service to our King.
And I think many of us find ourselves
in the place of Peter,
having seen that in some way,
in some regard,
our life does not reflect our love
and devotion to our Lord.
We serve things that are so shabby,
so worthless,
so fading away,
when we have Christ.
In so many varied ways,
we deny Him.
Let me encourage you,
if you are found in Him,
Paul writes in Philippians 1.6,
And I am sure of this,
that He who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion
at the day of Jesus Christ.
Praise God.
Romans 8,
There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And so the call to us is to repent
and believe.
That is,
to take up the precious truths of the Gospel
as we find ourselves failing Jesus
in all of the ways that we do.
And to praise Him,
that it is His righteousness
that's been given to us.
Counted to our credit.
When God sees us,
He sees Christ.
And beloved,
this should be motivating to us.
This should move us
to share Him with the world.
This should move us
to rearrange our lives,
to give up our self-determination
to experience,
proclaim,
and display Him
in all things
to all peoples.
Let's pray together.