Sermon: Betraying Jesus

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If you would open your Bibles, the word of God, to Matthew chapter 26.

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Gospel according to Matthew chapter 26, we're in our kingdom of God series of verse by verse by verse, sometimes word for word, moving through the gospel according to Matthew.

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We're in Matthew 26, starting at verse 69, moving today actually into 27.

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Now the interesting thing, and I took a little bit of a different strategy to spend more time and emphasis in a single sermon so stuff doesn't get lost.

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We already did stuff on Judas, a pretty, I think, comprehensive look at Judas and what took place with his betrayal of the

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Lord Jesus, and so I'm gonna skip today some of the details in 27 concerning Judas because we've actually already done that, and so if you missed that, go back and listen to the sermons on Judas and his betrayal and ultimately his suicide.

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But we're in Matthew 26, starting in verse 69. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Now 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. But 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, 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. After a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.

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Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know the man.

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And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

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And he went out and wept bitterly. When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death, and they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.

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Then, when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying,

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I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. They said, what is that to us? See to it yourself.

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And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together. Thank you,

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Lord, for your word. Thank you, Lord, for the preservation of your word in history. Your word,

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O Lord, is forever fixed in the heavens. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our

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God stands forever. Your word is the truth, and we're holding it in our hands right now.

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Thank you for the privilege, Lord, that we have. Thank you not only for your word, but also our salvation.

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We're thankful that we are your sheep, that you know your sheep, and you'll never lose us.

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And, God, as we open your word today and we study this section of Scripture, the truth of what took place on this terrible, terrible day,

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I pray that you'd allow us to see Peter in ourselves. I pray that you would grant to us the humility not to look down on Peter and his denial and betrayal here, but grant to us the ability to be convicted by this moment.

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And Lord, to search out any part in ourselves that is not self -aware, Lord, that is fearful of men, and we pray that you'd grant to us the ability to be bold, as bold as Peter was after his reconciliation.

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Please speak through the pastor today. Allow people to forget me and remember you, and we pray that you,

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Christ, would increase, that we would all decrease. Speak by your spirit today, through your word, in Jesus' name, amen.

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So today, the title of the sermon is Betraying Jesus, but really, I was thinking about sort of a tale of two betrayals, which is sort of where we're at, right?

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We're looking at Peter and Judas. And you see that they're locked in together here. And you see throughout the gospel, according to Matthew, you see that Jesus is letting them know that he's going to Jerusalem, he's going to be crucified, and he's going to rise again from the dead.

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We know, of course, from the story that they just still aren't getting it yet. At the end of the gospel, according to Luke, you see that actually

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Jesus, on the road to Emmaus, does chastise the disciples who were on that road as a bunch of sad saps, that they were foolish, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.

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And he takes them through the most epic Bible study in the history of mankind, God himself walking you through the

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Old Testament, showing you where it was actually talking about him. They should have known this, but let's be fair to the disciples.

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There's a lot in the Old Testament that shows, I've talked about this, right, different sort of like angles to the portrait of the

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Messiah. You have, in the Old Testament, you have glorious explanations of just the scope, the comprehensiveness of the

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Messiah's work, and that all the nations and the tribes and the peoples are going to come up and stream up to God's mountain, and that this

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Messiah is going to draw not just the Jews but also Gentiles into a place of salvation.

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Psalm 22 is the very passage that talks about the passion of the Messiah, his crucifixion, which is right before us here at these end chapters of Matthew, but it also says at the end of talking about the crucifixion in detail, long before it happens, it actually talks about all the families of the earth returning to worship

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Yahweh. So they see that portrait of Jesus, they know it says it, they know that the

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Messiah is going to rule the world and bring salvation and redemption and establish justice,

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Isaiah 42, they know that. And yet there's also the Old Testament prophecies that are actually talking about, that are talking about the suffering servant, the suffering

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Messiah, and we have to grant them some room, some breathing room to say it's somewhat understandable from sort of like a human perspective that they wouldn't have been able to hold all of this together, however, it was expected that they would be able to embrace the substance of it so much so that Jesus can call them foolish and slow of heart for not believing all that the prophets had spoken.

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But see, this gospel of the kingdom, this story of God becoming a man is glorious and amazing and huge and above us and you could search it out your entire lives and you will never tap it out.

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I think for all eternity we're going to be looking into the glories of the incarnation in mystery and wondering,

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I was actually on the way here today driving with my son Stellar in the car and just randomly he says, have you thought about like when

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Jesus was a baby, dad, like Mary is like looking into the face of God as a baby and he was asking questions like these are questions that, you know, it's okay to ask these, we don't necessarily have answers from scripture, but he was like, do you think like Jesus cried as a baby?

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And I said, of course, he was truly man and truly God. One person, but truly man, truly

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God. And he was like, but never crying sinfully, like he didn't throw a fit. And I was like, no,

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Jesus, even as a baby never threw a fit, right? But you know, baby cries, we wouldn't know this, especially in apology of church, babies cry because they're hungry, they're letting you know they have no way to vocalize that.

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So they cry to say they're hungry or, you know, when they're getting sleepy because they're crying. And I was saying with that, you know, isn't it amazing to think about the incarnation and all these crazy parts of it, like, you know,

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Mary was like there when Jesus was taking his first steps, like we need to make sure that we bring the story of the gospel to that kind of place, right?

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That yes, he is the creator. He's the eternal God taking on flesh, but he's also one of us, truly a human.

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And so Jesus didn't come out of the womb like running, right? Pastor James talks about the fact that we need to make sure he put this in his right context.

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Jesus didn't walk around the streets of Jerusalem glowing. His glory was veiled.

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And there's a moment of the transfiguration where they get a glimpse, a moment, and it freaks them out, like so much so that they're so stunned by this sort of like removal for the moment of just who this is that they actually say some pretty foolish things.

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And there's a word from heaven, no, this is my son, listen to him. But I want to make sure

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I emphasize this. There are mysteries to this and glories to this, and I think we need to give the disciples some room.

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This is above and beyond us and our finite minds to fully comprehend, and I think for eternity we're going to be searching this out.

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But here's the point. Up to this point, we've been told by Jesus that this is going to happen to me,

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I'm going to go to Jerusalem, they're going to crucify me, and in three days I will rise again from the dead.

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He's saying about somebody in their midst that he's going to be betrayed, they're hearing that as well.

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Now here's the key thing, I want to emphasize this at the very beginning in terms of putting it underneath us, is that the

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Bible says, Deuteronomy 18, that one of the tests of a true prophet is that they will tell the future and they will get it right 100 % of the time.

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I mean, that's how you divide man -made religion from the true and living God and what he's giving to us through his revelation.

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Man -made religion doesn't like that kind of test. No failure, zero failure. If you fail once in your prophecy of the future, you are not from the true and living

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God. Why? Because he's the sovereign. He controls all of history, he's the one that wields it.

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And so God's test is 100 % perfect prophetic fulfillment. That's a lot of Ps, by the way.

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But they know this, and Jesus tells them this is going to happen. He does that throughout his ministry, he keeps telling them this is going to happen, and then it happens, right?

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He's giving them prophecy. They know that he's a prophet of God, and if he says it's going to happen, it is gospel.

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It's settled in heaven, it's going to happen. God has predetermined it, God's the sovereign. The disciples know this,

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Peter knows this. And that's where there's some confusion. Because he knows that's the story, that's what has to take place.

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Jesus even talks about Peter, he's going to deny even knowing Jesus. And we'll see in a moment that Peter's like, never me.

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But they know that that's what's going to take place, and yet this falls in Peter's life. It happens exactly like Jesus said.

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They also know that Jesus is the sinless sacrifice, that he's the righteous one, that he's the blameless one.

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He's the Messiah, he cannot sin. They worship Jesus when he rises again from the dead, and the text says literally they fall at his feet and they worship

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Jesus. They know who he is, they know he's God in the flesh, and so when

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Jesus says to Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows, it's amazing that Peter actually has the gall and the lack of self -awareness to say, never me.

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It's like he's forgetting who he's talking to. We are so mixed up. We can know the promises of God, we can know the sureness, the absoluteness of those promises and what's coming, and yet we still fall, we still falter, we still blow it.

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And Peter is, I think, so much like us. I think one of the things I was thinking a lot of as I was looking at this text and thinking about how do

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I unpack this faithfully and make sure it challenges all of us is I was thinking I just kept coming back to the fact that we look at this moment, at least in my experience, you look at this moment in the text and you see

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Peter and you're like, he told you, he told you you're going to deny him. You know he has to have perfect prophetic fulfillment.

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You know he's the righteous one, you know he's God in the flesh, you know he can't lie, and you're still thinking it's not going to take place.

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I think oftentimes you look here and we say, you know, what's wrong with Peter? Peter's like, he has like a case of stick -your -foot -in -the -mouth -itis or something.

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He's always sort of blowing it in a way, and we look sort of down on that, but I think looking at this and really thinking about it and just meditating on it,

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I think most of us should be seeing ourselves in Peter, if we're really honest with ourselves. If we're really honest with ourselves in this moment,

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Peter is actually in it. I mean for us, this is the story, it's real history, it really happened, and we know this is

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God's word, and we know the outcome of it all, but here Peter is in the midst of it. Right?

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It's one thing to talk a lot of spiritual game, right, like I'd never do that, and I know the truth, and I know the word of God, and this is the gospel, and I'll die for my faith.

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It's another thing to have a thousand people, guards and police, coming to you with swords and clubs under the cover of darkness, coming at you like that.

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That'll maybe change your perspective a little, right? And as everyone else, all your friends are running away, you know,

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Peter is sort of like slipping his way into the crowd where this is all taking place, sort of trying to keep it low key and not sort of alert anybody to what's going on.

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These are the ones in the moment that seem to have the power. You can talk all the spiritual game you want, but when you have people in front of you who actually have the ability with malice and with lying witnesses to put you to death, you can understand some of his, from a human perspective, trepidation of actually being so overt with his faith.

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I'm not giving Peter a pass for his betrayal and his denial. I'm saying we need to think about this from a human perspective.

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What would drive a person to deny even knowing Jesus? Because whatever that is, we need to repent of.

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Whatever that is, we need to flee from. Whatever failure is in Peter in this moment that is actually abiding in us at different times in our lives, that needs to be turned away from and put to death.

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And it was with Peter, we're going to see today at the end of this, that Peter goes from this place of fear of a slave girl who really didn't offer at much at the first moment to cause him to be so fearful, he goes from a place of fear of a little slave girl to standing in front of the council later after the

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Holy Spirit has poured out and he is challenging the government and the church of his day, and he is confronting them, calling them to repentance, taking a beating for Jesus, and then rejoicing that he was counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ.

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Something happened with Peter, and I pray it happens with us. So here's the point. I did the messages on Judas, I did it in a little different way, not just walking verse by verse, but telling the whole story from across the synoptics and all the rest.

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And so we've done the detail on Judas, you know what Judas was about. Judas was in this for selfish reasons, that much is clear from the text.

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He was stealing the whole time from the money bag. We knew that he's at times even, he's indignant about the fact that not enough money was coming into that bag so he couldn't steal more of it.

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He was in this for ulterior motives. He goes to actually betray Jesus with a plot with other people who want

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Jesus dead, and he's doing it for money. And the money he's doing it for is negligible, it's nonsense, it didn't make any sense.

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He walked with God incarnate. He saw the miracles. He saw everything.

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He was with them. And yet he still betrays the Lord of Glory for 30 measly pieces of silver.

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We know the story of Judas, and we know about his betrayal. Further, we know that it was

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God's sovereign plan that he would actually allow history to come about this way with Judas.

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He's called the son of perdition, and it'd be better for him if he was never born. But Judas is still guilty.

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Judas was the one stealing. He loved to steal. He loved to lie about why he was following Jesus. He didn't come to Jesus for the same reasons that hopefully you and I and ultimately

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Peter come to Jesus. But in the text, Peter, we know in this moment, has just come out of a place of the garden where, of course, the sword comes out.

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We know, of course, Jesus is brought to Annas, the high priest, the old high priest, and then to his son -in -law

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Caiaphas, and we've read already in 26, from 57 to 68, the moment where the false witnesses are brought forward and all the rest.

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We know about that. But in, watch, we're in 26 here, but in 26, 26, 20, go there, you can see, and again, the chapter and verse subdivisions are a modern innovation, but it's very close in the story, and of course

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Matthew knows this as he's writing it. He's putting it together. In Matthew 26, verse 20, at that Passover meal with the

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Lord Jesus, it says this, when it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve, and as they were eating, he said, truly,

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I say to you, one of you will betray me. That's, we know, Judas. And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, is it

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I, Lord? He answered, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.

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The son of man goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.

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It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, is it

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I, Rabbi? He said to him, you've said so. Now as they were eating,

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Jesus took the bread, and after blessing, it broke, and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. He took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, this is, saying, drink of it, all of you, for this is my, my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

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I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

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And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night.

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For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I am raised up,

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I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered him, though they all fall away because of you,

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I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, truly

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I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

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Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And let's give

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Peter some grace here, all the disciples said the same. We'd like to pick on Peter, right?

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But at least he was in the courtyard. The rest of them just ran, just ghosted, right?

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Peter at least tried to make his way into the courtyard. But Jesus said this was going to take place.

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Before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times. That's what we have to expect.

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Now here it is, verse 69 and 26. Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and his servant girl came up to him and said, you also were with Jesus, the

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Galilean. I want to talk about this for a moment. This of course is taking place at a time in history where we don't have the kind of illumination that we have around us at all times.

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I mean, we have it even right now, even though we can have still some light coming through here right now.

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But in this time in particular, we talked about the fact that the Garden of Gethsemane would have been very, very, very, very dark.

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And when they showed up at night under the cover of darkness, they're coming with lights, right?

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To light this thing up. And so that's sort of where the action is, is where the light is. And now we have

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Peter coming to this place where there's this sort of night court happening. How odd.

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Strange. They're doing this under the cover of darkness. They're doing this trial at night with false witnesses that they're bringing together.

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They're not following the law of God. But now Peter is coming into a place where there's some activity, there's some light going on, but he's staying in the courtyard.

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He's trying to stay as close to Jesus as possible so that it looks like he's not betraying

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Jesus. So it looks like he's still with Jesus in his heart, and yet he is trying to keep it low key and quiet.

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He's trying to sort of veil his allegiance to Jesus because he wants to be safe.

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How much of that, I've been asking myself this last week, is in you? How much of that is in you, right?

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In the midst of sort of hostilities all around you in the culture, how much of that is in us?

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We want to have an allegiance to Jesus between our ears, behind our eyes, in our hearts.

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We want this spiritual allegiance to Jesus, but we don't want it to affect us so that there's actually trouble for us.

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So if I can just sort of love Jesus in my heart of hearts and between my ears, if I can just have this love for Jesus and this relationship with Jesus sort of internally, but I don't want it to affect me or to cause any physical danger to me or economic danger to me.

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So if I can just stay close enough to Jesus without trouble, I'm fine. And I'm still sort of a follower of Jesus, right?

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I mean, no one's really outed me yet. So he stays just close enough to Jesus to where he can hear what's going on so that he knows sort of the outcome.

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What's going to happen to Jesus? And what is amazing is the very first, I'll call it a test from God, because God is sovereign over all things, including what comes out of our mouths, whether he allows it, disallows it, whatever,

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God is sovereign. And so the very first person to come to Peter, amazingly, is a slave girl.

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Now that doesn't mean much to us today. Confess it. We're like, all right, it's a different time. I don't really know why that's interesting.

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Well, it's interesting because here you have Peter, who's supposed to be a strong, godly man. And what's the last thing he said to Jesus regarding this?

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He says what? Even if I have to die, I'll never betray you. I'll never deny you.

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If I, if I have to give up my life, I am never denying you, Jesus. And the first person that rolls up on Peter is a slave girl.

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And in this context, not intimidating at all. Shouldn't have caused really any fear.

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First of all, I think it's amazing, and I think Albert Moeller in one of his messages points this out. It is interesting.

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There's nothing in the text that says that this was like an offensive moment for the slave girl. Like, she's coming after Peter, trying to like out him or attack him.

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I mean, she knew who Jesus was. She was a slave girl. Who did Jesus come for?

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Usually the people who were cast out, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners and all those things. This slave girl apparently knows about Jesus, has probably heard about his message, and so there's nothing in the text that says that she's coming to Peter in a way to cause really any trouble, really?

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Is it there? So she comes to him and says very simply, you also were with Jesus the

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Galilean. A slave girl, non -intimidating in terms of society and culture of the day, on the very, very bottom, the very, very bottom.

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And we know of stories about how they treated women in these days, totally not biblical at all.

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And the New Testament actually goes very countercultural to how they were treating women, how they viewed women in many ways.

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So just being a girl on the one hand, at night, out there, she obviously had some duties as a slave girl, things that she was supposed to be doing as a slave in the courtyard, in that place.

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We don't know the details, but she's there for a reason, and she is not intimidating at all. So much for the bold, even if I have to die for you,

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Jesus, I'll never deny you. And in walks the weakest moment, right?

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A slave girl, not very intimidating, shouldn't have been intimidating because she's a slave and a girl.

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And yet, Peter's first response to this slave girl, it says, he denied it before them all, saying,

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I do not know what you mean. What was he so scared of in that moment? It's just a slave girl.

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Wouldn't this have been an awesome opportunity in that moment to take her aside and give her the good news and preach the gospel to her?

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We can all think about like the what ifs, right? But here's the point, at the very first, at the start of this trial for Peter, his testing in this moment, it's a slave girl that throws him off his high spiritual game.

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He thought he was so strong, he thought he was so devout, he thought he'd never betray Jesus, he'd never deny Jesus, he'll even give up his life for Jesus, and here's the deal, now is the moment of testing.

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When there's real trouble for your faith, are you gonna fall like Peter? Are you gonna fall under the weakest examination?

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Someone who's just a slave girl asking, weren't you with Jesus? And so, this happens, of course, three times.

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Now, I believe, along with many other commentators, that it's no accident that the Lord allowed this testing, this trial, and this moment to be done three times.

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Because we have, of course, I do not know what you mean in verse 71, and when he went out to the entrance, another slave girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

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It's amplifying now, right? Starts off with sort of a little, weren't you with Jesus, and then it's going to, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

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And again, he denied it with an oath, I do not know the man, now he's making oaths. After a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.

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Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and a swear, I do not know the man.

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Three times. Why? Well, it is interesting that this is done three times, but this is actually a culture and a mindset that doesn't have the kind of language, structure, and possibilities that we have ourselves.

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You know this, sort of instinctively, Jesus will say in the Gospels, truly, truly, I say to you, or verily, verily,

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I say to you, or amen, amen, I say to you, depending on which translation you're using, and there's a repetition.

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Why the repetition? Why not just say truly? He could say truly, and it's true anyways. It's true, it's settled, it's true, but there's the emphasis, truly, truly, why?

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Because they don't have what we typically have in our language, where we can put the exclamation point, or some of you are obscene with it, you'll put like 10 exclamation points.

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Don't do that by the way. Screaming. Screaming. We know what it means, right? 10 exclamation points is your shouting.

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First of all, lower your voice, right? We know what it means. But the way that they would structure things, they didn't even have what we have today, where we can have, say, good, better, best, or fat, fatter, fattest, right?

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We have ways to express ourselves in language that are different than they did. If they wanted to emphasize something, what would they do?

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They would repeat it, truly, truly, that was part of their culture, how they would do it. Or we can think back to, of course, that glorious scene in Isaiah 6, we know well, where Isaiah has this glorious vision of God on His throne, the

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Lord Jesus on His throne, and you have the angels saying what? Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God Almighty. God is holy, but He's the thrice -holy God. It's like putting exclamation points on it.

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It's like shouting that God is holy. That's the attribute, by the way, that is actually emphasized in Scripture three times.

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He's the thrice -holy God. So here's the point. In this culture, in this time, in this mindset, if you want to emphasize something, you would have repetition, truly, truly, holy, holy, holy, emphasize, and God ordains, and in this moment with Peter, with all of his spiritual strength and all of his spiritual talk and all of his game,

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God has this moment where it is not just once you're going to deny me. You're going to do it three times before the rooster crows, three times.

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And so there's this heightened emphasis of not just once, which is a little slave girl, but now twice, and now it's with an oath, and then again, now you're swearing a curse, bringing down a curse down on yourself.

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I do not know the man. Three times. That's how weak you are, Peter. That's how not self -aware you are,

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Peter. And Peter, of course, fails. And it says, the text says, before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times, and he went out and he wept bitterly.

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There's so much I think we could do on this passage. We could spend weeks on it. But I think

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I want to emphasize the humanity behind it, and just sort of like, where's that in me?

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Where is that failure in me? What was it with Peter that was, of course, good and powerful and all glory to God, but what's the failure?

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What were you fearful of? It's interesting, the third one, the second one, the slave girl comes and says, he was with Jesus of Nazareth, and he says it with an oath,

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I do not know the man. And the third one, what is said is interesting to me, I thought it was very interesting, certainly you two are one of them, for your accent betrays you.

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The way you talk betrays you. We know where you're from, and it ain't from around here.

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That's gotten lost on me in the past, your accent betrays you. I feel like when we read this sometimes, we take out the humanity of the

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New Testament at times, we read the narrative, we don't think about the humanness of it, we don't think about sort of like what they were feeling, what they were experiencing in those moments, but we sort of like,

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I feel like we read it like flat, almost like robots at times, we don't think about their culture and what they were feeling, what they were saying, how things sounded.

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And so they say, the third one, is your accent is giving you away, which

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I thought was interesting because we get that today, right, people's accents. My favorite accent is the southern accent.

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I married a real southern girl from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and it's interesting because when

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I first met Candy, I was 13, she was 11, so we've known each other a little while, and when

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I first met her, her uncle was my best friend, we grew up together in a martial arts circuit, I saw

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Candy and Randy, twins, at all the tournaments, they would come and they'd be with her uncle, who was my best buddy, and I kind of grew up with her family, and growing up with her family is actually,

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I love it so much, if you go to sort of a gathering, a family gathering with Candy's family, it is actually pretty stinking awesome, because it is

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Kentucky, Kentucky, and it is the thickest, most delicious southern accent ever.

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I mean, it's not kind of southern, it is, woohoo, it is southern, southern, that's my favorite accent.

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And Candy, when I first met her, she had that real, real thick southern accent, right?

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And then she moved to Arizona, and, you know, years of being in Arizona, Candy is, you would never know it, she's lost the accent, except when family calls, right?

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She will sound just like us here in Arizona, and then the phone rings, and she picks it up, and it takes about five to ten seconds, and I know it's family calling, because I hear

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Candy's voice change, she's not trying to change it, it just, the southern just makes its way out, it just sort of happens.

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All of a sudden, you start to get in the yawls, and it starts, like the twang, you know, starts coming out,

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I love it, and I always point it out when it happens, and so if she gets around family, the accent comes back, southern accent, all the yawls and all the things, and it's amazing too, because if you marry a southern girl, and you're anywhere else in the country where there's not a lot of southern accents, and then you run into somebody with a southern accent, like, their eyes will like lock, like, where are you from,

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Kentucky? Oh, I'm from Kentucky, and all of a sudden, like, there's this, the connection between them, because like, you know, you love the south, and I love the south,

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I love it, I'm glad I married a girl from Kentucky, my favorite accent, but we get it in our day, so like, for example, let's try this, so like, a

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Brooklyn accent, you'll know it sort of immediately, right? It's like, you know,

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I think I know where you're from, right? People start saying things like, hey, forget about it, like, something like that, right?

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You get sort of, there's a language, there's the way they carry themselves, you know, in the south, it's like, y 'all, and then sort of like, east coast

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New York, it'd be maybe what? Like, use guys, like, something like that, right? Like we get it, like, we, and it's sort of, we get it immediately, you'll hear somebody go,

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I know where they're from, like, you know, if someone from Brooklyn moves to San Diego, and starts talking away, people in San Diego don't go,

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San Francisco, like, that's a whole different lisp, there, got it, okay, but you get it, it's like, yeah,

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I know where you're from, and here's the thing, when you read the text and you go, oh, your accent's giving you away, clearly, it was the same thing, in their day, they'd have different places where they all sound sort of a certain way,

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I kind of know which region you're from, and apparently, that was giving it away for Peter, even the way that he spoke, she's like,

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I think I know where you're from, your accent is giving you away, I wonder, the text doesn't tell us, it doesn't tell us, but I wonder, like, what was the

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Galilean accent like, like, what was it about that region that was like, automatic, that picked it right up, was it like southern

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Hebrew? The text doesn't tell us, right, but it's fun to speculate about, isn't it,

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I mean, if, like, if Peter was in there saying his Shema, was he like, Shema Yisrael, like,

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I wonder, fun things to speculate about, but what was it about his accent, it gave it all away, but there was no, here's the point, there was no way he could hide this, they knew who he was, what he was doing, and God was testing him in that moment, and of course, we know the outcome,

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Jesus promised it, and then it happened. Now when you take a look at the two people in the text before us, you've got

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Peter, and you've got Judas, you've got two different betrayals of Jesus, you've got a denial of Jesus that he even knows

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Jesus, much less is a follower of Jesus, but in Judas, we know that he had selfish reasons for following Christ, the text makes that clear, he has the money bag, he's stealing money, he's manipulating, he's plotting to actually turn

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Jesus over in a sinful, sinful way for a measly 30 pieces of silver, and so we know that he has selfish reasons, we also know underneath it all is the sovereignty of God, that needs to always be kept in mind, this moment is not something that is just sort of happening and God is sort of running around doing plan

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B, this is something that was ordained by God, Jesus said so. But what was

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Judas like? He was a thief, he wasn't coming to Jesus for Christ and eternal life and forgiveness, he was coming for selfish reasons.

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He's a son of perdition, God predestined him to wrath, there's no way out of that, can't change it, text says it,

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God was sovereign over Judas' sin. Now here's the thing about that conversation, if not for God's grace and mercy constantly poured out in this world, we would all be much worse all the time,

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Judas would have been worse all the time, Pharaoh would have been much worse than he was if not for the grace of God and God's common blessings of grace constantly in the world, but God predestined

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Judas, you're going to be the one to betray Jesus, Judas wanted to betray Jesus, it was within Judas to betray

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Jesus, God didn't make Judas betray Jesus, but we know from the text there were reasons why he did what he did.

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But in Matthew 27, you see that Judas feels remorse for his sin against the

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Lord of glory, he feels remorse for it, God said it's gonna happen, it happens, Judas feels remorse now, he tries to come back and to return the money, and they're saying,

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I don't want anything to do with that, see to it yourself, and Judas' response with this remorse over knowing what he's done is so evil and so treacherous, his response is not repentance to come to Jesus for life, his response is to actually kill himself.

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So we've got a story now of two betrayals of Jesus in a sense, and you've got the one, his motivations were off, his coming to Jesus was not for the right reason, and he didn't understand that this is

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Jesus, the Prince of Peace, he didn't understand the real reason to come to Christ in the first place, and so when he betrays

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Jesus and sins against Jesus, he just kills himself, no desire to be reconciled to Jesus, to be forgiven, he just kills himself.

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But the text says, before the rooster crows, I just wanted to mention this because there is some dispute here,

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Christians hold different perspectives on this point, I thought about digging into it and digging into the historical stuff and sort of like laying that out before everybody, but I don't think it's overly helpful for the sermon so I'm gonna skip it,

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I'll just let you know, there's some dispute as to whether it was an actual rooster, you know, in this place crowing at that time, or whether this is in reference to the changing of the guard and the noise made when the guard was changed, ultimately, go study that for yourself, come to your own conclusion on it, it's not pertinent to the study itself

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I don't believe, but I do think it's interesting to mention the rooster crowing, there's no problem

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I think believing that it was a rooster actually crowing, if you go to Kauai, their national bird

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I guess is the chicken, so like if you go to Kauai and you want to buy like a souvenir t -shirt after you're staying in Kauai, you're gonna get probably a shirt with a chicken,

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I think Mike, do you have a shirt on right now, is it a Kauai, is there a chicken on there? That's unusual, must have been a discounted shirt, because if it's a chicken, if it's a chicken shirt, it would cost more, but here's the thing, like my first time going to Kauai, the thing that hits you sort of like right away is like why are there thousands of chickens just running around, and no one seems to want to do anything about it, right, they're just everywhere all the time, and the thing about the chickens in Kauai is apparently this is how it happened, there was a massive hurricane that came through Kauai in the 90s, and this is what people all say about how this took place, people had their own chickens in their house, in their own cages, and they had meat chickens and laying hens and all that, and when this hurricane blew through, it blew over all the chicken coops and sort of like annihilated it all, and blew the chickens all over the island, and now chickens are everywhere, and they're all broken, they're all broken, at all, it's not when the sun's rising, because that wouldn't be so bad, right, the sun is rising, and then you hear a rooster crow like oh, time to get out of bed, sort of, it looks like, it sounds like a

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Folgers coffee commercial, right, like, and like, you know, time for coffee, I'm going to get out on the patio now, read my bible, sort of a thing, no, these stupid things are broken, they are constantly, constantly crowing at all hours of the night, 1, 105, 110, 130, 2 o 'clock, and the problem is most places in Kauai don't have air conditioning, right, they don't have air conditioning, which

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I don't know why, because in the summertime, you really do need it in Kauai, but they have just sort of the slats on the windows, so there's no way to escape the rooster crowing in Kauai, it is all the time, it takes you probably three weeks to get acclimated to it so that you don't, like, wake up every five minutes with these broken roosters, because they're all broken, but there's this sort of, like, sound when the rooster crows that crawls up your spine, it crawls up your spine, like cock -a -doodle -doo, and you want to go out and choke every rooster, because it sort of just, you can't escape it, it just sort of, like, shocks your body into, like, oh, time to wake up, and evil creatures, and tastes delicious, but evil.

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Imagine what Peter would have felt, if you know what I'm talking about, in that moment where he denies knowing

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Jesus the three times after saying that he had all the spiritual strength and fervor to even die with Jesus, and then as soon as he lays down that last one, it actually invokes a curse on himself.

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Let me make sure you know how serious I am about this denial, he calls down a curse onto himself, he swears, he denies it, and then all of a sudden, that sound, crawling up your spine, and then he reflects and remembers that Jesus had promised this, but why not

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Peter? Judas is with Jesus the whole time. I want to emphasize this again, in case you missed it,

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I think it's very important, it was an observation that I only made recently as we were going through the text, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, and it was that Jesus had said that somebody in his circle was going to betray him, they knew that was the case.

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What was amazing to me was that nobody understood who it was. That speaks volumes to the way that Jesus treats everybody.

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Think about it, Jesus knew in his entire ministry, this is him, this is the one that's going to betray me, he knew what

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Judas was doing the entire time, and apparently the way that Jesus loved

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Judas and was kind to him, the way that he spoke to him, the way that he treated him, was no different than everybody else in his circle, so that everybody, when they're told that someone's going to betray

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Jesus, they all can't figure out who it is, because Jesus didn't treat Judas any differently.

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That I think speaks volumes, and it testifies to a lot, but what about Judas?

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He saw everything, he was there with Jesus, he heard the message, well there's the sovereignty of God at play, there's also the internal motivations at play in Judas, but with Peter, what do we know?

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Peter was told by Jesus that he was going to deny him three times before the rooster crowed, and yet Peter comes back to Christ.

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Well, we know from scripture, I want you to see it, go to John chapter 10, because we know the story about God's sovereignty with Judas, but let's look at God's sovereignty with Peter, and of course all of God's sheep.

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John chapter 10, here's what Jesus says about his sheep.

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In verse 1 it says, Truly, truly, there it is see, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

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But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep, to him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out by name.

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When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

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A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This vigor of speech

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Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly,

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I say to you, I'm the door of the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

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I'm the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

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The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

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He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

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He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me.

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Just as the father knows me and I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold,

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I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd.

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For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

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I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This is a charge I've received from my father.

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And of course, as you go further in here, Jesus does say that we're in his hand and nothing can snatch us from his hand.

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So in terms of Judas, we know God's sovereignty over his sin and his betrayal and his turning

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Jesus over in the way that he did. We also know what Judas was up to and what he didn't understand about Jesus and him committing suicide.

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But with Peter underneath this, we know that Jesus says in John 10, John 6, things like,

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I've come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given to me, I should lose nothing. Jesus knows his own, and they know him.

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They're his sheep. He calls them by name. And so underneath this story of Peter and Judas is something very important, and that is this, the sovereign grace of God.

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The sovereign grace of God. God determined judgment, which was deserved for Judas, and he determined grace and mercy and peace for Peter.

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So God is sovereign over Peter. He knows his own. We even have an example of this.

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You know the story in Matthew 16, 17, where Jesus is asking the question, who do men say the

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Son of Man is? And of course Peter says, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. And what does

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Jesus say about that revelation coming from Peter's lips? He says what?

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Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

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So underneath these two betrayals, these two failures, is the sovereign grace of God from beginning to end.

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In Peter's case, he is a sheep. Sheep can clearly fail and fall, but he is preserved by the sovereign hand of God.

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All this revelation coming to Peter about who Jesus truly is and why you should be coming to Jesus is a revelation from the sovereign

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God. Peter got grace. Flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you, but my

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Father who is in heaven. You want more proof of this? I'll give you one more point of proof of this.

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I want to see the internal things happening with Peter that we could at least get from the text. We can't know everything going on in his mind, but we can listen to his words.

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There's another text, another text in John 6, 68.

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So John 6, 68. This is actually a pretty intense moment after Jesus is saying all these things, and he tells people to stop gungus -mooing about him, stop grumbling.

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No man can come to my Father. All right, no man could come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up.

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No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up. He raises up everyone the

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Father draws. That's what Jesus says. This disturbs some people.

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They're grumbling. So this is an intense moment, and people leave Jesus. Why? They leave

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Jesus for a number of things in the text, but I think there's a there's an emphasis upon Jesus talking about the sovereign grace of God in the midst of this.

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They don't like that message. They don't like Jesus talking about him being the bread come from heaven, eating his flesh, drinking his blood, equating that to believing in him.

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So they depart. So we have people, watch, leaving the ministry of Jesus, leaving

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Jesus. Look like believers, not believers. They leave Jesus, and in John 6, 68, well let's do it in 66.

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After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, do you want to go away as well?

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Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

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You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the

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Holy One of God. Watch. Jesus answered them, did I not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?

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He spoke of Judas. So you can see in the text here, Peter, he understands who

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Jesus is, and he understands why anybody would really come to Jesus. Why is you, why are you coming to Jesus?

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You have the words of eternal life. Where are we gonna go? Where are we gonna go?

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Everyone's leaving. Where am I gonna go? You're the Holy One of God, and you have the words of eternal life.

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We know Peter was coming for the right reasons. Clearly, because of the sovereign hand of God and his grace, flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you, but Peter knows what this is all about, and yet he fails, and yet he fails.

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I think there's something that we need to talk about in his failure. We've sort of touched on it a little bit, and that is the

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Peter in us, the fear of being identified with Jesus.

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You see, people want to follow Jesus a lot, as long as it doesn't come with any real cost.

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You can see that in the New Testament itself, and you can see it today. It's as old as the hills.

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People will follow Jesus in his day, because he's turning loaves into more loaves, and he's turning fish into more fish.

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He's taking care of their physical needs. They're following Jesus because, hey, the crowd seems to be following Jesus right now.

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This is a safe place to be. This is a really great movement. Within this guy's the Messiah. Hosanna, hosanna, and all the branches and all the rest.

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But as soon as there's a difficult saying of Jesus, as soon as there's cutting truth, people say, nah, not for me.

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Crowds following Jesus, the beginning of a mega church movement, and Jesus turns to this massive crowd, and he says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, and he names all of the most important people in your life, and he says, in even your own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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If you don't come to do the death march, come to die, then don't come. Jesus is so honest and penetrating with people, he makes sure that people understand, don't fake it.

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Be real or don't come. He's willing to turn away a bunch of false disciples so that he can get back down to twelve, and then even less than that, to the ones who understand this is about eternal life.

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And he says, if you're not willing to die, then don't come. Peter's going, okay, I got that. Life and come ready to die.

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But it's easy to follow Jesus in terms of coming to a Christian church, especially today, let's be honest.

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When you think about the United States of America and our culture today, how easy it is to sort of come into a church community, maybe never even meet the pastor or have any real relationships with anybody.

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It's nice to come in and hear a lovely message about how wonderful you are and how God just wants the best for you in your life, and you're just, you're the bee's knees.

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You're the best. And God just wants you to be happy, healthy, and wealthy, and you have sort of the lights and the fog and the music and the concert experience, and you can leave after a 25 -minute message sort of feeling encouraged and good about yourself, and you can go about your business.

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That is safe, so safe. It's also nice to be amongst

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Christians, being a crowd of Christians who are all professing the same things, to be in a loving community.

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Let's be honest. Let's be honest. The world out there is a very dark place at times.

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It's a violent place at times. It's a vile place at times. And coming into a

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Christian community where there's hospitality, and there's a graciousness, and there's a love, and there's a humility, and there's a desire to serve one another, what's not appealing about that?

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It's very appealing, right? It's nice. It's comfortable. It's safe.

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It's peaceful. But the moment there is trial and difficulty and persecution and threat, that's where there's a scattering.

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Why? Same reason as Peter. Because whenever there is danger around me, that's where the reality of my faith in Jesus gets tested.

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Whenever there is hostility towards me, that's where the reality of my faith in Jesus gets tested.

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In Peter's day, he's trying to stay connected to Jesus. He's trying to hear what's going on.

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He doesn't want to have to say anything. He doesn't want to be bothered. He just wants to see the outcome. He just wants to be near Jesus because he still trusts in Jesus.

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He just wants to be near him. But the moment a threat comes to his life, his livelihood, his goods, his wallet, whatever, that's where Peter says,

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I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know what you're talking about. I swear I don't know the man.

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And we need to think about in terms of our own lives. How much do you see that in yourself? How much do you see it in yourself where you have the opportunity to be light for Christ, but you say nothing?

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How many times do you have an opportunity to preach the gospel to a loved one or a family member or a friend, but you just won't say it to them?

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Why? Well, I'm just trying to preserve the relationship. I don't want any hostilities between us. I don't want them to not like me anymore.

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I don't want to lose this relationship. Well, Jesus spoke about that. He says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, sister, brother, wife, even your own life, then you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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Stop fooling yourself. Stop pretending to follow me. Ultimately, come die or don't come at all. How many times do we have the opportunity to speak the truth in the public square, but we say and we do nothing?

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Why? For the same reasons as Peter. Self -preservation. Self -preservation.

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You can condemn Peter all you want in the text. You can condemn him. You say, Peter, you should have known better.

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Peter, you walked with Jesus. Peter, you didn't just walk with Jesus. You walked on water with Jesus.

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How could you deny even knowing Jesus? And the answer is self -preservation. Self -preservation.

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People want to follow Jesus at times only without the cost.

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Without the cost. You think about it even in the modern, this isn't just looking back into history, putting a spotlight on a moment in Peter's life.

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This is happening all around our world today. Thanks to the blessings of the Christian worldview in the gospel in this nation, we still have relative freedom hanging on by a thread, all given to us by the

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Christian worldview. But when you look around the world in the current, we could think about even recently something where the spotlight is on.

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It's on bright and vivid in detail. We think about the Afghanistan situation and the

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Afghani Christian brothers and sisters there who have faith in Jesus. And when this thing took place, we're not going to get into that right now, but when it all took place, who was left behind in Afghanistan?

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A lot of Christians. And they had to come face to face with this.

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This is not, this is not even a year old. This is recent in our history. People who profess faith in Jesus Christ had to come to grips and to reality with their profession in a moment where you know that tonight can be my last night.

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How can I get out of dying tonight? How do I get out of my, my little boy and my little girl having their arms and legs cut from their body and heads cut off?

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How do I get out of my children watching men come into my house and maybe rape my wife or chop my head off?

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How do I get out of it? All I have to do is say, I do not know the man. Just like Peter.

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Self -preservation would sort of give us all that moment of saying, I can preserve my life.

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I can preserve my family. I can get away from violence. I can lose, I can, I can miss all of that in my experience.

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All I have to say is I do not know the man. Now that's the extreme.

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We feel the weight of that because we say, you know, it's a far -off land but I feel the weight of it. I know it took place recently and they could have preserved their lives by simply denying

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Jesus. These, the reports are that these Afghani believers, professing believers in Afghanistan, that they were saying things to missionary organizations out here like we're gathered together and we think tonight's our last night.

01:00:09

We think tonight we're gonna be meeting Jesus. They were facing it down in that way. We actually think tonight we're gonna be face -to -face with Jesus.

01:00:16

That's how they saw it. You're gonna take my life but I'm gonna be face -to -face with my

01:00:21

Lord and my Savior. They understood why they're believing in Jesus. Does the 21st century evangelical church have any comprehension of that?

01:00:30

The message of Jesus, the true message of Jesus, that we come to Jesus for life and that he bids us to come and to die.

01:00:41

How are you a Peter in the public square, on social media?

01:00:49

I would argue that so much of the Christian influence has been lost in this nation, not because of the powerlessness of the gospel and the

01:00:56

Christian witness, but so much has been lost in this nation and so much perversion and injustice is round about us because too many people have been for generations just like Peter.

01:01:07

I want to be as close as I can to Jesus, to still within my heart trust him, but say and do nothing over self -preservation.

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How do we get to a place where gay mirage is a thing? How do we get to a place where a generation ago there were commercials, commercials alerting the communities about the sinfulness of homosexuality and all the rest?

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In a generation, we've got gender bending, gay mirage, the destruction of the human family, we've got injustice all around us, tyranny is rampant.

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How do we get there? Is the gospel powerless? Is the Holy Spirit of God not able to open eyes?

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No, it is self -preservation by silence in the public square.

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Close enough to Jesus to still be connected and hear what's going on, but the moment there is difficulty,

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I don't know the man, I won't speak up. Now I want you to see it.

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John 21, I think it would be wrong to do this about Peter without giving like the big punch.

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Oh yes, look what God did. Now I'm not going to read the entire section here, but if you read from John 21 where Jesus reveals himself to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias, essentially they're fishing, they don't recognize

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Jesus. I'm going to just sort of give the summary of the story. They're fishing, they don't recognize Jesus. Jesus tells them to throw their nets on the right side of the boat, they throw the nets over there, they get so many fish they can't even pull it in, and then the disciple whom

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Jesus loved says, that's the Lord, and Peter's response is awesome.

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It really is awesome. In verse 7, that disciple whom

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Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, it's the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

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The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, but they were not far off from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

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So he does what Judas, of course, within himself had no desire to do.

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When he sees Jesus, his longing is to be with Jesus. His longing is to dart as quick as he can to the one who has the words of eternal life.

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So much so that he just jumps in the water to swim to Jesus. He's not going to get there as fast as he wants to in the boat, and so he just jumps in, dives in, to get to Jesus.

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Now here's what's important, this moment of reconciliation. I think it's beautiful. In verse 15, when they had finished breakfast,

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Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes,

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Lord, you know that I love you. One. He said to him, feed my lambs.

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He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes,

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Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. Two.

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He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?

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And he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.

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Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Three times.

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And so, you have his denial of Christ emphasized three times.

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That's what's really in you, Peter. That's where you're really at. There's the real self -assessment.

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Three times before the rooster crows, and Peter still longs to be with Jesus, dives in that water, swims to Jesus, he can't wait to be with Jesus, and Jesus reconciles with Peter, and he gives him the three to emphasize,

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I think, the reality of his reconciliation and who he really is.

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And of course, what's amazing here is right after this, if you read it, he then prophesies about Peter's death, that he's going to be martyred.

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I do love that Peter just can never get his foot out of his mouth, because in this moment, he's reconciled, and Jesus tells him how he's going to die.

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He's going to be martyred, and of course, he already knows the surety of Jesus' word. It happened before, it's going to happen again. And I love how in the text,

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Peter starts looking around, and he goes, what about him? He reads in the text, what about him?

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He says, if I will that he remains till I come, what is that to you? You follow me. I want to talk about just a summary here, because I think it's powerful.

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And this really is my last point. Read this later, because I think it'll challenge you and inspire you.

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Read Acts chapter 4 through chapter 6. Why? Here's why.

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In this moment in 26 and 27 of Matthew, we have Jesus brought before the council and the high priest.

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These are the religious figures of the day, and they intimidated Peter. They didn't intimidate

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Jesus. They intimidated Peter, so much so that Peter's in the courtyard, and he says,

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I don't know the man, swears an oath, cursed down on himself, I don't know him. And he leaves, he betrays

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Jesus. He was so fearful of these men and what they could do to his life, that he is going away sorrowful, because he is so focused on his own self -preservation, he loses sight of who

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Jesus is and who he is. But something happens with Peter, that I hope happens with us or has happened with us.

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Pentecost happens. He's filled with the Spirit of God. He preaches the gospel boldly.

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He calls people to repentance and faith, and to give everything up for the cause of the gospel. And the world starts to be transformed.

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And if you read Acts chapter 4 through 6, you'll see that Peter is then brought before those same powerful men, the council, that once had him so fearful with Jesus, that he actually flees from Jesus.

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Doesn't even want to say he is associated with the man. And in Acts chapter 4, he does something different.

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He not only confronts the council and calls them to repentance, but he actually comes square, face -to -face with Rome itself.

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He's not just no longer fearful of the council, he's not even afraid of what Rome can do to him.

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Because in Acts chapter 4, he says about Jesus, 4 through 6, he says,

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That was him taking what they said about Caesar and saying, that's not true, it's

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Christ. That was, that was treason. That was asking for death.

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He is now so transformed and cares nothing about his own self -preservation now, that he actually is saying, oh yeah, you killed, you killed the

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Lord of glory. God planned it. You killed Jesus. You're guilty. And he says, oh, and by the way,

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Rome, you're no savior. Jesus is the only savior. What happened to Peter? Something happened to him because they command him, stop speaking in this name.

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And then he keeps doing it. So they bring him back in and they're like, we told you to stop preaching in his name.

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And he says, you must obey God rather than men. And then they take a beating from the council and it says very clearly, and I pray to God, God gives us the strength for this in our church, in our lives.

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It says they left the presence of the council after they took a beating for Jesus. They left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name.

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Peter goes from a place of self -preservation and cowardice to a place of boldness, where he is preaching before the same kinds of councils and men, and he no longer fears man.

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And all he can say is this, bring it, bring it, bring it on. I know why I've come to Christ.

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I know who Jesus is. He's all that matters. He's the sum total of everything and go ahead and beat me and take my life.

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I have Christ and that's everything. So where are we in this story?

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Because you can't read the word of God here just as a narrative. Oh, this happened. Here's some facts. But how is this going to change my life and my heart and my mind?

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How will it unleash my mouth? The world needed to hear about Jesus here in this context, in this time.

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They needed the bold proclamation of the gospel and they got it from Peter. And don't forget, he lost his life for it.

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You're here today in some way because of Peter's boldness, because of the proclamation of the gospel that he gave and the apostles gave.

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They needed the bold proclamation of the gospel then. They needed people who were not focused on self -preservation then and their own lives and goods and things then.

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And we need it today, brothers and sisters. Same spirit of God, same gospel. This is the power of God for salvation.

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The question is, and this is not a motivational speech, why will we not speak?

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What are we fearful of? Just think back in your lives. I think we can find areas in the last two weeks, two days, two months, two years where you had the opportunity to speak the truth to the world around you and maybe you didn't.

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Why didn't you? Why? Was it for the same kind of self -preservation of Peter?

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Was it for the same kind of desire of comfort and of fleeing from destruction as Peter?

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Because what transformed in his life is he went from counsel fear and denying

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Jesus to standing before those same kinds of counsels, the same kind of men with power, who had power over life, and he says, repent and believe the gospel.

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His mouth was opened. He spoke boldly. Why? Look, I don't have all the answers, but there's got to be a heart to this.

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I think it's obvious. He lived his life before with a clear desire of self -preservation.

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Is this appropriate to say? After Pentecost, he lived his life with a gospel recklessness?

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A gospel recklessness where you could see in his life, and he showed it with his own blood, that all that mattered to him was

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Christ and that Jesus had the words of eternal life. And this is the message that counts more than anything.

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And you can take my life, you can burn my body, but you'll never break my relationship with my

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Savior. And he spoke that gospel message with boldness, and the text says it again and again, with boldness.

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Will you and I do the same? Or will we fall into the same kind of trap that all humans fall into, and that is a desire of self -preservation that ends up with betraying

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Jesus? Let's pray. Father, I pray you'd bless the word that went out today for your glory and for your kingdom.

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Grant to us strength, boldness. Help us, Lord, even now to do an internal critique, to look at our lives, to think about our minds and our hearts, to think about the opportunities we have to proclaim your excellencies.

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Examine us, Lord. Find the wrong way. Show us.

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And I pray you grant to us the grace and the strength to repent of it and to live lives with a sort of gospel recklessness.

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Balanced, committed to truth, wise, but from a human perspective, reckless.

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Not reckless in your eyes, Father, but in the eyes of men. Give us that strength,