Under Trial (part 1) - [John 18:13-27]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Well, you know this week as I looked on Google, I decided history is really written by the victors because I went looking for, you know, famous cowards in history.

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There just weren't many. In fact, you had to actually go to literature to find cowards described and I thought, well, that's not really helpful.

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Now, people who failed and then turned around and were successes, there were a lot of those.

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And I picked one that most people would recognize, George Lucas.

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Before he was a filmmaker, he wanted to be a car driver, race car driver.

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And then he was in a big accident and nearly died. That changed his plans.

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He went back to school. He finished film school and he made a movie called THX 1138.

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It didn't really do well. It lost money. Then he pitched another project,

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American Graffiti. It made a lot of money. And so, he thought he had a certain amount of cache, a certain amount of credit.

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They could just walk in and get whatever movie he wanted made. Two studios turned down Star Wars.

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Then he got a maid and of course, at that point, it was the biggest box office hit of all time.

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Today's movie, today's sermon isn't really about somebody who's down to the dumps and comes out victorious.

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It really is more about cowardice. But there weren't any really good cowardice illustrations.

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So, you know, out the window it went. But let's turn to John chapter 18.

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And I'm going to read verses 12 to 27, beginning with the arrest of Jesus and then moving forward to the scene here.

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John 18, verse 12. So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the

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Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annas. For he was the father -in -law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

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It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.

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Simon Peter followed Jesus and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

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But Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought

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Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, You are not one of this man's disciples, are you?

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He said, I am not. Now, the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold and they were standing and warming themselves.

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Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. The high priest then questioned

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Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world.

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I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.

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Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. They know what

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I said. And when he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck

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Jesus with his hand, saying, Is that how you answer the high priest? Jesus answered him,

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If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong. But if what I said is right, why do you strike me?

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And has then said to or then sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself.

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So they said to him, You are not also one of his disciples, are you? He denied it and said,

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I am not. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear

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Peter had cut off, asked, Did I not see you in the garden with him?

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Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.

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Now last week, we left the upper room, the last supper. And we went across the

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Kidron Brook there, a little gully, and up to the bottom slopes of the

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Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane. And we saw the steadfastness of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who despite the betrayal of Judas, despite the presence of dozens of Roman troops and Jewish religious officials, and even the reckless attack of Peter with a sword, cutting off the ear of Malchus.

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Jesus just stepped forward and said, I am. He showed himself to be fixed on doing the

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Father's will, fixed on laying down his life for his sheep, and even protecting his disciples from arrest.

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He challenged the troop, even knocking them backward by the force of his deity.

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And ultimately, Jesus surrendered himself to these men, because the time had come for his crucifixion.

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The God -man was in full control. If you remember, verse 4 says, he knew all that would happen to him.

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And yet, as we saw last week, he never wavered. He never moved. He never wobbled. Now, this morning,

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I'm going to do something that I don't normally do. I'm going to go,

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I'm going to skip some verses, I'm going to go out of order. Because otherwise, what we wind up with is the way

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John wrote it, we're going to go from Peter to Jesus, to Peter to Jesus, to Peter.

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And I just thought, I don't want to do that kind of back and forth. Because ultimately,

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I think it sort of distracts us from both of those stories. It makes for a good cinematic experience, a great novel, but it kind of distracts,

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I think, in terms of preaching. So, this morning, what we're going to do is, really, this is a trial of Jesus and a trial of Peter at the same time.

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And we're going to see Peter's three denials of Christ. And why do I call it a trial of Jesus?

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Because Peter can observe some of what's going on. Jesus knows everything that's going on, and he knows how

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Peter is failing. And while Jesus said, I am in the garden,

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Peter is going to say, I am not. As we go through this text this morning,

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I'll draw your attention to some highlights that John raises, which raise one singular truth, that Jesus is

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God. And salvation from sin, even grievous sin, is by grace through faith alone.

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If faithfulness, if obedience, if steadfastness under trial is the standard, if we expect perfection,

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Peter's going down in flames. There's no hope for him. He's an abject failure. But there's good news at the end.

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Peter's first denial in verse 12 is where we're going to start, anyway. So, the band of soldiers, we're talking about the surrender of Jesus.

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So, the band of soldiers and their captain, the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound him. Listen, first they led him to Annas, for he was the father -in -law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

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Now, I really have to address something that isn't obvious, unless you're just sitting, studying the passage, and you'd kind of wonder what's going on.

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Or if you were doing a harmony of the Gospels, you'd go, well, what is the deal here? Because Matthew says this in his

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Gospel. In Matthew 26, 57, listen. It says, then those who had seized

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Jesus, this band, this large group of soldiers and Jewish leaders, led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.

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Wait a minute. John says it's Annas. Matthew says it's

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Caiaphas. Which one is it? Is this a contradiction?

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Spoiler alert, no. Look what John says. Again, in verse 13, he says, first they led him to Annas.

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Matthew doesn't say, first they led him to Caiaphas. They're going to take him to Caiaphas, but the first stop is

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Annas. Now, you might wonder why. Who's Annas?

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That's a good question. Annas is kind of a, if we talk about, in politics, we talk about kingmakers, those who are able to elevate seemingly indescript, nondescript, unimportant people, and elevate them to positions of prominence.

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They kind of work behind the scenes. They manipulate people, and they manipulate scenarios, and they get money, and they do all kinds of things, and they bring people up, kingmakers.

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Annas is such a man. In fact, Leon Morris, the scholar, says he describes him as wily.

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He's crafty. He was high priest for a good long time, but it's interesting, the relationship between the

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Romans and the Sanhedrin, the rulers of the Jews, the Jewish religious leaders. Because when they don't like something that the high priest does, they basically fire him and tell the

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Jews, pick somebody else. But listen to this. Annas, he gets followed by somebody who's not related to him, who doesn't spend very long in the office.

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And somehow, that doesn't surprise me very much. Because listen, five of his sons, one of his grandsons, and his son -in -law,

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Caiaphas, all succeed him in office. This guy has juice, as we used to say in the jail.

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He has juice. So it's not surprising that Jesus gets taken to Annas first, because he's going to, whatever he does, is going to determine what his son -in -law,

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Caiaphas, does. You want to keep Annas happy.

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Now, where are they? I think the best explanation of it is this, that this place that they're brought to, this courtyard that Jesus and John go into, this courtyard is near the temple.

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The Sanhedrin would be, the leaders of the Sanhedrin would be near the temple, high priest. And this courtyard is enclosed.

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And it's part of a house. And it's probably built in this way.

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That Annas has one wing of it, and Caiaphas has another. These were two peas in a pod.

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They got along great, historians tell us. So it seems reasonable to think that they would have been in the same home, close to each other.

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Plus, what we would see is when Annas sends him over to Caiaphas, Peter doesn't change locations.

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We're not told of any change of locations. It's just they take him bound from one to another. They might just be switching sides of the courtyard is all.

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We don't know exactly, but that's a reasonable explanation of what takes place. Now, this courtyard is the scene of Peter's first denial.

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Let's look at verse 15. Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple.

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Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

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But Peter stood outside at the door. So the picture is this, that this other disciple is known by the high priest, and is therefore allowed in with Jesus to witness whatever is going to take place here, this kind of hearing.

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Peter is not known by the high priest, and therefore is not let in. There's a gatekeeper there.

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Now, what do we know, thinking back to last week, that when Jesus arrested, as he said, all the disciples did what?

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They fled, right? That's exactly what Matthew tells us. All the disciples, excuse me, left him and fled.

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In other words, when Jesus had offered himself for arrest and negotiated the freedom of all the disciples, they all left.

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But Peter and John, after leaving the immediate scene, apparently had some second thoughts.

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They want to go see what's going to happen to their master. So who is this other disciple?

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A lot of ink spilled over this, but there's really no reason to doubt that it is John. Why? Because if you just think about the way he describes himself, you know, he is the disciple whom

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Jesus loved, and he's always describing himself in these kind of third -person ways so that he doesn't have to say, and I did this, and I did that.

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And, you know, it's kind of an old -fashioned way writers used to write. And I think it's also a humble way of portraying what he does in the story.

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But there's no doubt, given the fact that this is the disciple whom Jesus loved, that he loved

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Jesus, and he wanted to follow Jesus and see what's going to happen. And he knows that he can go in, so he follows this arrest train, as it were.

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They go in to the gate. Now, this other disciple, John, is said to be known by the high priest.

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That word there, gnostus, would kind of give us an idea that they're more than just acquaintances.

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There are a lot of theories about how well they know each other, about how they got to know each other. Those are immaterial.

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Here's the point. The point is, the high priest knows John. John knows the high priest.

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And they know each other well enough that when John shows up at the guard and says, I know high priest, I'm good to go, she just lets him in.

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The gatekeeper, I don't really even want to call her a guard. So he convinces the servant girl at the door also to let

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Peter in. Look at verse 16. So the other disciple, again, John, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought

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Peter in. None of the other gospels give us this kind of detail.

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He was there. John was there. And it's not unreasonable to think that as he looks back on it, he thinks, man, in retrospect,

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I sort of wish I hadn't let Peter in there. Why? Even understanding the sovereignty of God and everything else, if I hadn't let him in there, then all this might not have happened the way it did.

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But he did. And the servant girl, doing what people do in those kind of places, look at the people coming through, right?

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John says, you know what, he's good to go, he's with me. Well, she knows what?

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She knows that John is a disciple of Jesus, but he's okay because he knows the high priest.

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She looks at Peter and she says in verse 17, the servant girl at the door said to Peter, you can almost hear this, right?

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She says, you also are not one of this man's disciples, are you? Are you one of the followers of Jesus?

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Really? You too? Jesus is in custody.

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Peter and John are now in there. And you're thinking to yourself maybe, well, why didn't they get arrested? We'd see if we went to Acts that the philosophy of the

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Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders was, we'll take out the head, we'll take out Jesus. Once he's gone and they wanted him dead, once he's gone, then what?

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The followers of Jesus are not gonna be a problem. They're not any threat whatsoever. Take out the leader of the rebellion, the religious rebellion, and these guys will just melt away.

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That didn't really work, but that was their operating theory. So Peter shows up at the gate.

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He doesn't know what their philosophy is, right? He knows that John's kind of got a pass because he's got an in with the head guy.

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Peter doesn't, he's nobody. And he's looking at this girl at the door and he's asked himself, okay, she's phrasing this in a way to kind of let me off the hook.

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You're not one of those Christians, are you? Like, you're not one of those people.

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And he says, no, no, not me. I'm absolutely not one of those people, right?

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And that's kind of the picture. It's more like, literally it's, that's not me. And I think that's a, nope, that's not me.

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I'm not one of those born again, crazy people. It was a lie.

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We know that. But again, the way she framed it, and I'm not making excuses for him, just given the emotion, everything that's going on here, he's just listening to her and he thinks,

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I can get away with this. Nobody's going to know any better and I'll just get in here. So, let's think about some other circumstances.

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And we're going to see this play a bigger role here in a minute. Think about what Peter has done, even that night, right?

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He's the one who attacked Malchus, cut off his ear. I wouldn't want to be going into that courtyard.

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I'd be a little bit nervous. He takes the easy way out.

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Calvin says this, he says, Peter had boasted that he would prove an invincible fighter.

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Remember, I'd go to the death for you, Jesus. I would never deny you. Peter boasted that he would prove an invincible fighter and triumphant unto death.

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Now at the voice of one maid, right? A woman with no power whatsoever.

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And that without any threatening, he is confounded and throws down his weapons. In other words, he just surrenders his faith as it were.

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I'm not a Christian, not me. You don't have to worry about me, just let me in. What do you know?

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I mean, I don't know, probably none of you have ever lied before. Once you start lying, what's the reality?

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It's hard to stop, right? It's like an avalanche. You start, you know, just a little lie and then it gets bigger and it just keeps going and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

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And the more times you're challenged on it, the more times you have to lie to maintain the first lie.

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Now, if we could visualize Peter, I think he would be so nervous at this point that it would almost be funny if it wasn't so sad, what goes on here at verse 18.

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Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold and they were standing and warming themselves.

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Peter also was with them standing and warming himself. Now, think about what he's doing here.

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Some of these servants had actually been in this arrest mob, right? That went out to get

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Jesus. Most of them went back to the fortress, but some of them were there. Some of the servants of the high priest and they're standing and warming themselves and Peter's just like, hey, what's up guys?

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Why? Well, because imagine going in after John gets him in and avoiding those guys, standing over by yourself.

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He'd stand out like a sore thumb. Be more awkward to avoid them than to join them.

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They'd be standing over there going, hey, who's that guy over there? Now all of a sudden everybody would be looking at him and going, he doesn't want that kind of attention.

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So he just tries to blend in. Plus the simple fact is, text tells us it was cold.

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Probably be, you know, by New England standards, not cold. I mean, this is Jerusalem.

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But it might be like 40s, something like that. And it's not like he had time to go in and get his parka and everything, you know, and kind of get all his gloves and all that for the winter weather, cold weather.

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It's cold, the kind of night that makes you want to stand by a fire. So he does. And in the other gospels, the details vary a bit, but Peter is asked by a servant girl and he emphatically denies being a disciple of Jesus.

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So that's his first denial. Peter's second denial, the scene for Jesus shifts a little bit.

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Annas sends Jesus to Caiaphas, the high priest, right? God passed, I mean, in police terms,

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I think about it this way. You get an arrest, you run it by the watch sergeant, then you go to the watch commander. So he's, Jesus is steadily moving up the chain of command.

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And I think the picture is that he moves from Annas' little portico and courtyard over to another side of it, where he's with Caiaphas.

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But in the middle of this is Peter with all these workers, keeping himself warm.

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In fact, it says that in the text, verse 25. Doesn't seem like Peter really had to change his venue.

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Verse 25, now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. Again, it's very likely that they, that Annas and Caiaphas shared this facility.

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And even if they didn't, it wouldn't alter the story very much. Now for a moment, consider this.

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We know, again, that Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to him.

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And he had told Peter what was going to happen to him too. So at this very moment,

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Jesus on trial, getting slapped, as we read, starting this whole sham process that's going to lead to his crucifixion.

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He knows what Peter's doing. Peter, the leader of the disciples, is denying

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Jesus before men. What did Jesus say about that? In Matthew 10, 33, whoever denies me before men,

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I also will deny before my father who is in heaven. What does that mean?

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It means this, that what Jesus is doing is no small sin, or I'm sorry, what

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Peter is doing is no small sin, right? He's sinning grievously. The man

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Christ Jesus is grieved by what Peter is doing. And it appears, if you turn to Matthew 26 for a moment,

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Matthew 26, verse 69, 26, 69 in Matthew, it appears that Peter tries to leave.

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Like he's standing there warming himself. And then he's like, you know what? This is really a bad idea.

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The pressure starts getting to him. He doesn't want to be identified. Verse 69, now

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Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard and a servant girl came up to him and said, you also were with Jesus, the

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Galilean. And he denied it before them all saying, I do not know what you mean.

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And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him.

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And she said to the bystanders, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth. And again, he denied it with an oath.

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I do not know the man. There are in each of the gospel accounts, three denials.

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They're spaced out a little bit so that you can see that they're separate situations. This is his second period of denial.

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Peter, when he goes to that door, to the gate, to the entrance, he may not have expected it to be locked.

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Maybe he thought he just kind of tell her, yeah, I'm done and leave. But whatever happens, he decides, or he's not allowed to leave, or he has second thoughts about leaving.

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He can't imagine abandoning Jesus right then. But he's deeper and deeper into this lie.

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It started with, no, I'm not one of those guys. And now he's actually taking an oath.

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Essentially, he's saying, I swear, I do not know Jesus. Back to John.

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And we see kind of echoes of this in John 25, or John 18, 25, the second part of the verse.

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So they said to him, this isn't some form of a Greek chorus talking to him, you know, all in unison.

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This is kind of different people, like we saw in Matthew, asking him this question.

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You also are not one of his disciples, are you? This is John's summary of it. He denied it and said,

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I am not. That's not me. And again, this is a question that expects kind of a no answer.

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You're not one of those Jesus people, are you? You're not a Christian, are you? You're not one of those born again, super, you know, lunatic people, are you?

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No, I'm not, that's not me. So we've seen Peter's first denial, his second denial, and now his third denial in verse 26.

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One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear

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Peter had cut off, asked, did I not see you in the garden with him?

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This is a servant of Caiaphas, a relative of Malchus, maybe a cousin, second cousin once removed, whatever the relationship is.

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But there's a saying, what? That this is a small world. Well, imagine, it's a really small world when you're just dealing with servants of the high priest and you're actually hanging out with them.

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The Bible says that your sin will do what? Find you out.

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So if Peter's feeling guilty, if he's feeling the pressure, and I think he is, how about this one?

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Somebody who's an eyewitness to what he did in the garden says, wait a second, you,

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I saw you. Weren't you the guy who cut off Malchus' ear?

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Essentially, that's what he's saying. Did I not see you in the garden with him, with Jesus? This is like walking through with an eyewitness trying to get a field show up is what we call it when you take somebody over there and you try to get the light just right and everything, but usually at night, trying to figure it out and the person goes, oh, maybe, give him the elbow.

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Yeah, that probably was him. But he's running it through his head and he goes,

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I think that probably was. And the way he answers it is, or the way he asks it expects a yes answer as opposed to the other ones where the expectation was no.

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This time he's like, did I not see you? Isn't that, aren't you the one? Well, that's one thing for Peter to be lumped in with John as one of Jesus' disciples.

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It's another to be fingered as the criminal who drew blood in the garden, right?

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You're sitting in the high priest courtyard and you're going to be identified by somebody who knows that you committed a crime.

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And here's Peter, like somebody who walked into a police station to escape the cold after assaulting a police officer, just kind of like, yeah,

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I just thought I'd warm up here for a while. And then one of the officers recognizes him.

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That's kind of the equivalent here. And Peter again denies it.

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Verse 27, Peter again denied it. And at once a rooster crowed.

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Well, the pigeons have come home to roost as it were, the chickens have come home to roost. And Peter's fear of being caught, his fear of being caught, his fear of the unknown, of not being able to trust what was going to happen if he told the truth.

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So he lied and lied and lied. And then the rooster crows. What time was it?

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It doesn't really matter. Sometime between three and five in the morning. But the point was, it was time for Peter to recognize that what he had been doing was sinful.

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And it was exactly what Jesus told him he would do. And what he said would never happen.

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He'd been so sure that he would not fail. He loved Jesus. He would do anything for him. He would not deny him even one time.

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And then he did. And then he did. And then he did. John doesn't record

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Peter's response. He doesn't tell us. He just leaves it at the rooster crowed.

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But we know. In fact, we have another eyewitness. That eyewitness would be Peter. Mark's gospel is based on the eyewitness testimony of Peter.

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And here's what Mark records for us in Mark chapter 14. And after a little while, the bystanders again said to Peter, certainly you are not or you are one of them.

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For you are a Galilean. But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear.

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I do not... I mean, think about all the things that he's doing here. Invoke a curse on himself and to swear.

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I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how

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Jesus had said to him, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he broke down and wept.

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Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he did three separate occasions.

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Many questions, denials, three separate periods of denial.

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And listen, and he broke down and wept. Peter cries.

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Why? Because he's heartbroken. He knows what he's done. And this we know for sure.

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Peter's sorrow was repentance. Peter's sorrow was a cutting to the heart.

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John knew this. John also knew that Jesus would forgive him. I won't go there, but he's going to restore him.

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He's gonna make all these things right. This is when I read this, this is what

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I think of. 2 Corinthians 7, 10. Listen, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation, right?

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This was godly grief, not worldly grief that produces death like Judas will see, or we won't see because he doesn't come back to the gospel of John.

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This was heartbreaking for Peter. He knew he had abandoned the

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Lord, but Peter's story isn't one of overcoming failure, right?

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I mean, that would be a nice story if we could just kind of close with closing hymn, Eye of the

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Tiger. You know, he's gonna get up and, but that's not what this is about. This is about forgiveness, full and free, even in the face of lying and cowardice.

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This is redemption. Jesus paid it all. Knowing everything that Peter would do, knowing all

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Peter's failures, Jesus resolutely went to the cross with Peter in mind and restoration as if he treats

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Peter later as if none of this has happened. He doesn't go to him and say,

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I can't believe you did this to me, Peter. I was getting slapped around. I was getting ready to go to the cross and you denied me.

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Be gone from me. He doesn't do that. And even elevation.

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You know, in corporate America, in almost any organization, if you had somebody who betrayed the leader as Peter did here, do you think the next thing he would say is, you know what,

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I'm moving on, which, you know, I'm euphemistic jargon. I'm going to the father.

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When I leave, Peter, I'm gonna leave you in charge. Do you think a corporation would do that?

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You failed me. I'm putting you in charge. No, but salvation isn't by faithfulness.

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Peter failed. Jesus did not. There are lessons in this for us.

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I mean, if we just think about how many times we fail, how many times we, by our words or by our actions, we deny the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But I have some specific lessons.

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First of all, there is no sin that you can commit that is beyond the grace of Jesus Christ. Peter denied him.

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And remember, he said, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before the father, but not if he died for your sins, not if you invest yourself and believe in him.

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Jesus went to the cross to pay for the sins of Peter and to pay for every single sin and also for the billions of sins that you and I and every believer commit.

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Every single person who will ever believe. Lesson number two, you cannot know how you are going to respond in a certain situation.

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Peter thought he knew. And it's almost like Paul wrote this scripture for Peter when he said, let those who think, therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall, right?

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Peter was sure. You know, even us, as we're listening to the story of Peter, going, well, you know what? If I was at that gate, before I went in,

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I would have evangelized the girl. I would have been a bold witness for the Lord Jesus. It's a thought, it's a possibility.

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You can't know until you get there. Third lesson, whatever sins are committed against us, pale in comparison to the offense of the matter to God.

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No one has ever been sinned against like Jesus was. And what did he do?

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He forgave. And not only did he forgive, he atoned for our sins. Fourth lesson is, if you don't know the

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Lord Jesus Christ, there is room at the cross for you. I had a seminary professor, he used to say that all the time.

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And I used to go, what a bizarre saying, there's room, I guess it's a hymn. There's room at the cross for you.

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What does that mean? It means I don't care what your background is. I don't care what you've done.

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If you will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. He is fully

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God. He is fully man. Sinless, went to the cross to bear sins of all who would believe.

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He paid the price because he's the only one who could pay the price. And then he was raised on the third day to demonstrate that the father had taken his death as payment in full for your sins.

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Believe on him and you will be saved. Now I want you to turn for a moment to 1 Peter chapter two.

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1 Peter chapter two. Because I want you to just imagine with me what Peter would be thinking as he or might be thinking.

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This is me kind of pushing myself on this. But I just think in light of this experience in John, in light of this experience of Peter denying

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Jesus three times, let's read 1 Peter chapter two verses 21 to 25 in light of that and see if some of this might not ring like,

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I can't believe what a wonderful savior Jesus Christ is. For to this, you have been called because Christ also suffered for you.

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He suffered for me, Peter's thinking. Leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

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I followed his steps that night and it was not so good. I found out I couldn't do it. Verse 22, he committed no sin.

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I sinned over and over again. Peter would be thinking. Neither was deceit found in his mouth.

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I lied, I swore, I did everything I could to distance myself from him, but he didn't distance himself from me when he was reviled.

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He did not revile in return when he suffered. He did not threaten, Peter did, but continued entrusting to him who judges, entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

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Did Peter entrust himself? No, he took his own way. He said,

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I'm gonna take care of myself because I can't trust God. I can't trust anybody. I've got to lie to preserve my own life.

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But here's the good news. Verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

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By his wounds, you have been healed. For you, and I might add I, were straying like sheep, but now or have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

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Peter returned because Christ brought him back. We have a great savior who's able to save to the uttermost, even those who abandon him.

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Let's pray. Our father in heaven, we thank you for the limitless grace of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that his love for us, your love for us in Christ is not limited by our love for you.

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It's not limited by our declaration of you.

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It's not limited by our faithfulness to you. We have a wonderful savior,

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Jesus Christ, our Lord. Father, thank you for sending Jesus Christ to die for sinners, even sinners like us and like Peter.