Never Gonna Give You Up

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Don Filcek; Matthew 26:69-27:2 Never Gonna Give You Up

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and it is a privilege to gather together in the name of God. We are not saved into our own private little personal journeys, but we are saved into a community of faith.
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So look around you. We are in a room with others who are on this same journey together, seeking to honor God above all else, seeking to continue in the faith, seeking to continue to connect our lives to Jesus Christ, and trying and working towards Christ's likeness as His Spirit guides us and directs us day by day.
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He desires for us to be connected with other messy people in a life that's being folded into the story of hope and redemption.
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Praise God. Are you glad for that? We're in a dark part of Scripture. As we're going through Matthew, we're getting near the end, and we're kind of in this season of Lent right now, according to the church calendar.
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If you're kind of into a little bit more of the high church, they follow a calendar. And where we've just recently kind of crossed into that Lent period,
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I have chosen to basically go through the end of Matthew here, leading us up towards Easter and towards the resurrection.
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But in the part of Scripture that we're in, we see that the darkness is often the most dark just before the light dawns, and the hours in our text stretch on in these last few chapters of Matthew as we plod through the darkness toward the crucifixion of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now we have a core value here of truth at Recast. Our name is an acronym for replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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We believe that all of God's Word is true and therefore has the power to transform us from the inside out.
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It's all written for our benefit. Even the dark parts are written for our benefit. Now I think all of us know that there is such a thing as dark times, and go ahead and raise your hand if there's been a season of your life where you've gone through some dark times, where it's been hard, it's been difficult.
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We know that. And Scripture doesn't sugarcoat the history of dark times. Consider very early on in the book of Genesis where we read that an entire era of human history came upon the earth that was categorized, that was defined by this verse.
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Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 says this. This categorizes a time period in human history.
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The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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That defines an era of human history. How many of you think that sounds kind of dark? A bit dark.
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And then the flood came. And then the flood. Now I find it interesting and helpful to note that there are seasons, epics, and eras of human history of increased human wickedness.
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We like to say it's all the same, right? Part of us looks back and goes, there's nothing new under the sun. People have always been wicked.
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They will always be wicked. It's always evil. And on and on we can kind of think. But Scripture seemed to indicate that there are epics and eras and seasons where human wickedness increases.
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And yet God has worked in those times in a variety of different ways, not fortunately just through floods.
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As a matter of fact, he will no longer send a flood to wipe away humanity. And you can just kind of go, okay, good, right?
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Because we might be marked out for that. If he hadn't made that promise with a rainbow in the sky.
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But we do see cycles of wickedness like the times of the judges in Israel when God raised up leaders to cast off the yoke of the oppressors and kind of landed on finally sending
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Samuel as a prophet to guide his people. We talked about that a couple of years ago as we went through the book of 1
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Samuel. We see times of like the period in the time of young King Josiah, eight years old when he took the throne of Israel.
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And it was discovered during his reign that they were knocking out a wall in the temple and they found this scroll and the scroll was nothing less than the very
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Scriptures of God. And they read it and they go, what's this? We've never seen this before.
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Can you imagine the people of God like not knowing the Bible? Like not even having seen one. And they're like, whoa.
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And the people began to weep in the reading of the word of God and there was a revival among the nation of Israel under that young good
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King Josiah. We see that in the depth of darkness that God often brings great light.
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And even as we read about the sins here in Matthew leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus our Lord, we've got to remember that the resurrection is just, as long as this period of time is, as long as these texts go, as long as this season of Lent feels like it goes on, the texts that we're going to read this morning is only a couple of days away from the resurrection.
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Pentecost is just a few weeks away where the Spirit descends and the church begins. The missionary journeys of Paul are just a few years away from the text that we're reading where the gospel will spread out to the known world at the time.
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God will often bring his people through the darkness of their own depravity before he brings forth his solution.
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Revival often begins with realizing just how much trouble we are in if we keep doing the same thing over and over again in our own strength.
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And sometimes God gives us seasons of trying it without him just so that when he shows up we're all the more ready to receive him.
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These passages all serve to highlight the reality of human sinfulness juxtaposed to the kindness, mercy, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
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Think about what happens to Jesus that we've read so far leading up to the passage that we're going to read here in just a moment about the betrayals of Peter.
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One of his best friends has actually, the denials of Peter rather, but one of his best friends has already betrayed him,
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Judas, and he sold him to his accusers for 30 pieces of silver. Then that very same friend, with a kiss of greeting, betrayed him.
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His disciples then all scattered and left him to be arrested alone and carried through the night to trial.
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He's unjustly and physically arrested. He endures hours of false accusation.
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Finally, he is found guilty when he opens his mouth and says, what is true? He is persecuted for the truth.
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He is indeed the Messiah. He is indeed the Son of God, and he says so and is beaten for it. See, God came in flesh and humanity spat in his face, literally.
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They punched him in the face and blindfolded him, slapping him and mocking him and requesting that he prophesy.
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Who is it that hit you? Laughing at him. And here in our text this morning, another of his best friends,
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Peter, will deny any and all association with him, not once, not twice, but we know it, three times.
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And whether through disillusionment or fear or likely a combination of the two, Peter, the one who declared the quintessential statement of the faith, you are the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. That was on Peter's lips earlier, face to face with Jesus, and he says to a little servant girl, two different little servant girls in our text,
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I never knew the man. I never knew the man. Earlier in this chapter of Matthew, Peter has rickrolled
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Jesus. He essentially rickrolled him. I mean, he basically said, I'm never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you, never going to make you cry, never going to say goodbye, never going to tell a lie and hurt you.
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You just got rickrolled. And here in this text, Peter's going to lie.
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Oh, is he going to lie? Peter's already deserted Jesus, and Peter is certainly seeking to give up on Jesus in this text.
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By the end of this text, I think you're going to see emphatically, he is trying to lose Jesus. He's trying to lose him.
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How dependable are we, church, before we come to worship him? Let's think about it. Let's think deeper about these things.
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Let's not enter into worship with just some kind of chintzy thing like, oh yeah, we're supposed to smile now. We're supposed to stand up and sing some songs.
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How dependable are we in our relationship to Jesus Christ? Are we better than Peter? And then maybe, just maybe, our attention is meant to be drawn in a direction other than Peter, despite the fact that he features so prominently in this text.
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We certainly do need to take in what he does in this text, because it defines ourselves quite well.
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But let's never lose sight of the big picture of what God is showing us about himself and his faithfulness to those who are his.
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So let's open our Bibles or your devices or your apps to Matthew chapter 26, verses 69 through 27.
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We're going to read the first two verses of chapter 27 as well. Take that in one chunk. Matthew 26, 69 through 27, verse 2.
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And we're going to read this in its entirety. This is God's holy word. This is what he desires for us to be taking in together in the assembly of his people this morning.
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Matthew 26, starting in verse 69. 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.
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And again, he denied it with an oath, 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. And immediately the rooster crowed.
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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. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word that doesn't pull any punches. It shows us the depth of depravity.
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It shows us the sense in which we would not hold firmly at all to our faith, the sense in which we would give up on you in a heartbeat.
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So, Father, I pray that you would meet us here in this place with your grace, with your mercy, with a sense of your accomplishment of our salvation, where we could not save ourselves, where we cannot cling to you enough, where our grip is loose and light and easily shaken, but we have been placed in your hands through the
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Father. And so, I ask that you would guide and direct our worship as those who are both justified and being sanctified.
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We are those who are declared righteous by faith in your Son, and we are those who are on a journey of faith through your
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Holy Spirit. We rejoice in that, and we ask that you would accept our worship now this morning in this gathering, in Jesus' name.
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Amen. And get comfortable. Keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 26, verses 69 through 27, verse 2.
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It was pointed out during the connection time that I didn't read those two extra verses. I set you up for it, and then I didn't.
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But we'll talk about them just briefly as we kind of go through the text. And at any time during the message,
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I say this every week, but if you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, you're not going to distract me, so take advantage of that back there.
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There's an ironic twist in the flow of Matthew's account. Going from our passage last week into this week, there's a twist there.
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The religious leaders have just blindfolded Jesus in the house of the high priest, and they've mocked his inability to prophesy.
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While the very next account shows a fulfillment of something he prophesied would happen.
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He told Peter, you will deny me three times before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, and it will go exactly as Jesus said it was going to.
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And there's an irony there, that he is indeed able to prophesy, and chooses not to to those who are trying him.
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There's something about this passage that's also worth mentioning before we dive in, and it's just that it should be informative that this account is even recorded for us in Scripture.
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It ought to be informative and change our minds about some things. If the apostles were doctoring these accounts,
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I imagine that Peter, a leader among the apostles, might have used his veto power on the recording of this account.
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Do you get what I'm saying? Maybe if every single apostle got to choose an account to leave off, and say, don't record that one.
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Matthew, don't write that one down. Do you think Peter might want to choose this one? Might want to say, let's leave that out of the story.
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And yet in sorrow and humility, he is likely the sole source of this account in the courtyard that night.
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He's the one who reports on himself. The fact that this account made the cut shows that the disciples were not out to make themselves the heroes of these recordings, these gospels.
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The passage is straightforward. We get in this account, really three accounts of Peter denying
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Jesus, and three events that heighten in intensity as they go. So each one is heightened in a variety of ways.
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The confrontation comes with increasing threat, increasing threat to Peter's well -being. It starts with a little girl, the middle one is a little girl, that ends with a group of adults confronting him.
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They heighten regarding the confidence of the accusers. You're one of them, you're one of them. We are certain you were with him.
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They heighten regarding Peter's responses. Peter, deflection, I don't know what you're talking about.
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Second time, an oath. The third time, curses, and an oath, and a denial. The location, of course, you might not notice it, but it moves further away from the physical location of Jesus, even as Peter is moving further away from the emotional center of Jesus in connection with him as well.
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Now, back in verse 58, Matthew told us and set this whole scenario up in one verse by telling us that Peter had followed the mob that arrested
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Jesus at a safe distance to the house of the high priest where they were going to try Jesus in court, before the religious court.
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He snuck in, Peter snuck in, among the servants in the courtyard. There are servants, there's guards, there's a fire, according to one of the gospel accounts, and he wants to catch word of what they were planning to do with Jesus.
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He wants to know, where's all this going? What's the end of all of this? But they're warming himself by that fire.
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A solitary young servant girl, we're told, comes up to Peter and makes a statement of fact.
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She doesn't ask a question. She doesn't query him. She makes a statement. You also were with Jesus, the
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Galilean. You also were with him. Now, she has to say this loud enough that others around the fire hear her declaration, because Peter is going to dismiss it loudly to make sure that everybody within earshot hears him dismiss it, and he dismisses it with a deflection.
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It really still amounts to a denial, but he says in verse 70, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you mean.
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Me, with him, I don't know what you're talking about, and it's a denial. The fact that this young servant girl, by the way, calls
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Jesus a Galilean shows a minor dig at his identity. I occasionally was called a
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Yankee while I was at Bible college in South Carolina, and I never remember it being mentioned with much kindness. Often, there are mentions of your identity when you're in a different part of the world that may not be flattering.
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Only when someone was angry at me, usually surrounding basketball or softball, did I get called Yankee. Usually not a good thing.
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The young girls here in this text represent a threat to Peter, but I hope you can see it's a fairly minor threat.
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She's not physically intimidating to him at all. She betrays herself not being on team Jesus by kind of the derogatory quick Galilee guy, but he's in a fairly hostile environment, and if she doesn't give up on this and persist, he's surrounded by guards and servants of the high priest who are just inside this courtyard, just inside the house from this courtyard, trying to trump up charges against Jesus.
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But notice what Peter is denying here and in the subsequent denials that we're going to look at. The servant girl is not implicating him in a plot.
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She's not saying, you're trying to overthrow Caesar. She isn't even accusing him. She is identifying him as merely present with Jesus in some way, shape, or form earlier that night.
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This means that the nature of all of these denials is any relationship or presence with Jesus at all.
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This seems to be a very basic but thorough repudiation of any connection with Jesus, of any relationship with him.
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And further, he has lied in his declaration of not knowing what she means. Put yourself in Peter's shoes.
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What kind of things are flooding his mind as he begins this process of deceit and lies?
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Did the mercy of Jesus flood his mind in this moment? Did he remember the call by the seaside where he gave up his fishing nets and everything to follow this commanding yet kind and meek teacher?
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Did he remember walking on the water? Did that strike his mind? Did he recall the sermon on the mount? Did he recall the feeding of the 5 ,000?
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We don't know what went through Peter's mind as he says this phrase, I don't know what you mean, while knowing full well what she means.
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Knowing full well that he also was with Jesus, the Galilean.
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So Peter leaves the courtyard thinking he's escaped, and he goes out into the column porch around the entrance to the high priest's house, one step removed from the courtyard, still a gathering place where rubberneckers are this night, people who are just trying to figure out what's going on.
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I'm guessing that there were many who were curious about the activities surrounding the high priest's residence in the middle of the night, early hours of the morning, and there's at least a crowd enough to have a couple of servant girls and some guards and some people there to talk with, some bystanders, the text tells us.
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Happens to be another servant girl who approaches him. Now this is the second time. Some time has passed according to the other gospel accounts.
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Don't think that these things happen within a five -minute period of time. These things happen over the course of three or four hours according to, if you piece it all together from the other gospels that try to figure out the timeline.
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So some time has passed, and he's now outside in kind of the veranda, the porch, the kind of steps that lead up with a covered area.
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And Matthew tells us, even in just these few words, what takes part in several hours.
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What's going on in the house right now? False accusations are rolling against Jesus during these early morning hours.
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But this girl doesn't address Peter. The second time, this second girl doesn't address Peter directly, but she tells the bystanders as a statement of fact rather than a question.
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This man was with Jesus of Nazareth. Now we've got a different location. This identification with Nazareth takes the likely derogatory identification with Galilee from the first girl and heightens it to say, really in essence, he's not just from Galilee, he's from nowhere.
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Nazareth was this little no place in a tiny out -of -the -way district up in the north.
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Jerusalem is the where's everything going on place. It's the educated people.
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It's kind of like the Queen's English is spoken there and all of that stuff. Kind of much like England, it's the south that is the area of kind of like education and everything, and it's the north that's kind of considered the bywater kind of backwards area, and that's the way they think of Galilee.
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That's the way that these urbanites think of Nazareth. I guess maybe the best way we could describe this in modern terms here in Michigan is to describe a person by saying, he's not just from Ohio, but he's from Columbus.
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Not just from Ohio, but he's from Columbus. We get that. Now you understand what it's like to say, he's not just from Galilee, not just from Galilee, my goodness, but he's from Nazareth.
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She's intentionally enlisted the interest of the bystanders in the entrance porch area, and now the heat is turning up on Peter.
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I imagine that there's some level of fear, but that fear is only able to connect to some level of disillusionment that night.
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I don't think Peter was a person that was given over to fear. Remember, he steps out of the boat out of the water. Remember, he pulled out a sword when
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Jesus was being arrested. So why is he not fighting for Jesus anymore? Because Jesus had put away the sword. He's going, what do we do now?
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He's lost in his thoughts. He's lost in a place of not knowing what to do, and not even sure that there's anything he's supposed to do, and kind of seeing
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Jesus arrested has shaken him to the core. So then, here in this place of fear and disillusionment, this time he denies knowing
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Jesus with an unrecorded oath. The oath isn't recorded. The thing that he makes the oath about is, so that what he likely says is something like, may
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God do so to me, and more so if I'm lying. I do not know the man.
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That would be an Old Testament formulation of an oath. May God do so to me, and more so.
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May God actually harm me. May God bring bad into my life.
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May God bring curses into my life if I'm lying. And then, Peter lies.
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I don't know the man. Now, most oaths were made in God's name, and included some type of prescribed punishment if what they said was proven false, and we know that Peter is lying.
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It cannot be overstated how emphatically Peter is denying Jesus. I think, in my mind,
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I can hear about the denials, and think of it as just merely some expedient get out of trouble. Like, who wouldn't do that?
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I mean, his life is on the line, and they could take him and arrest him, too. Maybe he would be crucified, too.
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So, he's just kind of covering his rear, and he's just trying to get out of trouble. But again, he repudiates even knowing
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Jesus at all, and seals it with an oath before Almighty God. The lie itself is severe and strong, but notice also that Peter refers to Jesus merely as, here in the text, this is cutting and biting.
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He just refers to him as the man. I don't know the man. Peter once said to Jesus face to face,
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You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter once said to Jesus face to face,
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I will never fall away. Peter once pledged to Jesus, I will never deny you.
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Peter once pledged to Jesus, I will die with you. And here he's proving his own strength to be, oh, oh, oh, so very weak.
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His faith to be so crazy flimsy and thin. His doubt so strong in this moment.
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So strong in this moment that he can say, I swear to God, I don't know the man. And it's further important to understand a little word in the denial to fill up the depth of his depravity.
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I've said it a couple of times already, but it's the word no. What is he denying when he says,
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I don't know the man? Peter is denying here any relationship with Jesus.
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We can talk about knowing things, right? Like we use the word no, and it's a pretty flexible word. Like I know geometry,
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I know physics, I know Star Wars, and I know my wife. Those are different things. You know what
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I'm talking about? So when we talk about knowing or not knowing a person, we are talking strictly about relationship with them.
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We're not talking about the color of their hair or the color of their eyes. We're not talking about their shoe size.
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When we say we know a person, we're talking about relationship, are we not? Peter is repudiating having had anything at all to do with Jesus Christ.
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All that relationship washed away in a statement. I do not know him. I don't know what you're talking about.
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The bystanders here were put off for a while out on the porch. But they apparently come back and circle around because they've been watching and they've been listening to Peter.
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And obviously he's been talking too much. It seems like he usually does. And they catch his northern accent, and as they listen, they go, something's not jiving here.
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So in verse 73, we get the third accusation. This time it's from a group. This time it's not a servant girl. This time it's a group of adults standing around the fire, bystanders.
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And they use the word, certainly. Certainly. We're confident. We're sure.
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Stop lying to us. They show their confidence that he was one of the followers of Jesus.
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His accent has given him away as a Galilean. Certainly you're here to figure out what's going on with him.
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This is the third time, and he's now implicated directly as being one of the disciples. And look with me at verse 73 for a second.
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After a while, after a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, certainly you too are one of them.
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For your accent betrays you. They are confident that he's in with Jesus.
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Now the most natural way of reading verse 74 is debated for good reason. 74 says, then he began to invoke a curse on himself and the
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ESV. It's very rare that I disagree or don't love the ESV, but I don't like it on this front.
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There's a lot of debate. Two out of the four commentaries that I read this week on this passage, scholars who study and specialize in the book of Matthew and specialize in the
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Greek language that it's written in, they would say that if you could read this in ancient
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Greek, you would come away with a different understanding than what the ESV is translated as. And some translations do better than the
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ESV on this. Because here's the fact. Nobody wants to really write and put into writing what
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Peter does in this moment. Nobody wants Peter, the apostle, to curse the
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Lord. But the redundancy of a curse now added to the oath, that is the swearing.
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So notice that the word curse is there and the word swear is there as well. He does both. Swear is to say, an oath.
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Swear is to say, may God do bad things to me if I'm lying.
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To curse in this ancient construction of this Greek sentence is always to curse someone else.
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And it always has a direct object. Here it doesn't. Wherever we find this phrase, wherever we find this construction, anywhere in the
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Greek language, it has a direct object. Here it doesn't. There's a reason,
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I think, for that. You see, this oath calls down curses on himself if he's lying, which he is.
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So he's the one that's going to be punished for swearing. But the object that he curses is not declared.
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And despite the fact that our culture might use the word damn as a generic curse with no object, and we do that.
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Well, we don't do that. Don't do that. But people do that, right? And they'll just use that word and just throw it out there and sling it out there without ever saying any object to it.
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What do you mean to desire to go to hell is the word. But people will just say it, you know, stub their toe when they say it or whatever.
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The ancient Greek always requires an object. And many scholars believe the object is not supplied because Matthew wrote it.
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And Matthew won't write it. Matthew feels uncomfortable. Matthew felt it was obvious enough without expressing the details what
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Peter said and did in this moment. Notice the oath isn't recorded for us in either, and the curse isn't recorded for us either.
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What Peter has done this night is bad enough. Anybody uncomfortable with that, by the way? You should be.
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Sin ought to make you uncomfortable. Well, what Peter has done this night is bad enough, but I want to point out that it is not outside the possibility that his speech literally included cursing the
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Lord himself this night. Why would he do that? He is so, so focused on saving his own skin.
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He wants to make emphatic his distance from Jesus to these bystanders. He wants to make sure that they know that he's got no part in Jesus.
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And so he says, in the most emphatic way he can think, I have nothing to do with it.
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Let me prove it. His response the third time is clearly agitated, very extreme, very fearful, very full of disillusionment.
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I curse him, and I swear, I don't know the guy. And immediately, immediately the rooster crowed.
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Immediately. Who's in charge of roosters? Who's the king of roosters?
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Who determines? Who does the Proverbs say, when you roll the dice, the number on the dice is determined by?
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Who determines that? God. The rooster crows at just the moment
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Peter curses, swears, and denies for the third time, just as Jesus said.
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But it gets worse. Not in Matthew, but Luke just goes for it.
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Luke tells us something else happens simultaneous to this rooster crowing. Something else is going on. And that's where I tie in verses 1 and 2 of the next passage, because there are things happening simultaneously that's hard to do in writing, but all of these things are happening.
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And so at the moment Luke 22, 61 adds a detail that is further heart -rending for Peter. Everything is so tight in orchestration this evening in the various gospel records that just as Peter denies
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Jesus a third time, just as the rooster crows to say it's morning, the trial is drawn to a close.
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Morning came, it says, and the chief priest determined to put Jesus to death in verse 1 of the next chapter. And he comes out of the entrance bound to be led away to Pilate the governor for a formal death sentence by the
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Romans. And at this crescendo in Peter's life, Luke tells us this happens.
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As he's being led out the door, through the courtyard, out the entrance, verse 61 of Luke 22, and the
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Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the
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Lord, how he had said to him, before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly.
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Can you imagine? Face to face. I don't know what the distance is, I don't know if it's 30 feet, 60 feet.
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As he's walking out, Jesus just looks over at Peter on the way through, just as he's denied him, just as he's cursed him, just as he has said,
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I don't even know him. And Jesus catches his gaze on the way by to be put to death.
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Well, wept bitterly, reduced to wailing, going out into the darkness alone with his thoughts and deep darkness.
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I believe it's worth contrasting here, this wailing, this deep bitterness of heart, this sorrow.
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It's worth contrasting a godly sorrow with a worldly sorrow. And I think that these two things are juxtaposed together with Peter going out into the darkness in sorrow.
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And we're going to see next week another man go out into the darkness. He's not said to sorrow, but he is indeed bitter.
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Judas. There is a godly sorrow, and there's a worldly sorrow. And I'm not making up those categories.
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That is a biblical category. Before we seek application from this text, we ought to consider the
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Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 7 -10. He contrasts godly sorrow and repentance.
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He says there is a godly sorrow that leads to salvation, and there is a worldly sorrow that leads to death.
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We see that in teaching form in 2 Corinthians. We see it in story form through Peter and Judas and Matthew's writings here.
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Peter sins grievously this night. He is deeply full of sorrow. And let me just suggest to you that if we end the message here, if we end at the end of this section, and we go through verse 2, and that's where we end, or we leave
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Peter, which, where is Peter at the end of our text? Alone in his sorrow and sadness, weeping for the betrayal of his
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Lord, the denial of his Lord. If we end here, I don't think it's a complete sermon.
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I cannot end here with Peter running off into the night, wailing in bitter sorrow, because that's not where the story ends for Peter.
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This sorrow will lead to repentance and restoration by Jesus. It's in a beautiful passage that I think you ought to jot this down.
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John 21. I encourage you to read this passage sometime this week in reflection on the culmination and the resolution to what we see here in Peter.
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I'm not going to read it for us here, and I'm not going to walk us through it. But John 21, I'll give you a synopsis of it here in conclusion at the end.
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But it highlights the restoration of Peter in John chapter 21. But we know that things don't go that way for Judas, right?
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His sorrow leads to his demise, as we're going to see next week. But ask yourself, why does
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Peter leave to weep? Why does he leave in sorrow? He shows something here that is fundamental to our understanding about faith.
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You see, Peter is deeply sorrowful immediately for what he has done. Why doesn't he stand by it?
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Why doesn't he dig in his heels? Why is his response not, I said what I said and I stand by it. I don't know him.
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Maybe I knew him, but I wish I didn't. And I hope to never know him and see him in the future.
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Why is that not Peter's response here? And I suggest to you that it's for one fundamental thing. Peter really did know him.
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Peter really did know him. He was a recipient of the grace of Jesus Christ. He was not merely chosen to be one of the twelve with Jesus, but he was given to Jesus by the
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Father. I'm not making this up. Scripture says he was given to the
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Son by the Father in John 17, verse 12. You can jot that down, look it up.
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John 17, verse 12 says, I have kept those that you gave to me. Meaning the eleven.
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And he says, even I have not kept the one that was the son of destruction. In this passage, we have followed
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Peter closely down the road that spirals to denial. And I think it's good to start our application of this passage with a very direct observation.
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I know that this could do damage to my inbox. We might end up having some conversations.
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I think it's beneficial if we have some conversations over this. If anything that I say in this latter part makes you uncomfortable, come and talk with me.
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I'm very open to having very good conversations about this. I hope it spurs us to think rightly.
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But if it was possible, I'm going to say something radical here. If it is possible, as a born -again believer who is a recipient of the very grace of God, if it is possible to reject
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Jesus and walk away from your faith, then Peter has done it. If that's possible, then
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Peter did it this night. Do you see what I'm talking about? If you can repudiate
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Jesus and walk out on him, and he goes, okay, well fine, you have it your way, then
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Peter has done it. It's so in your face what Peter has tried to do.
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He has tried to get away from Jesus this night. He has denied any and all relationship with Jesus.
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He has acted faithlessly toward his Lord. He has intentionally sought, hear me carefully, he has intentionally sought to publicly denounce
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Jesus. Publicly say, I don't know him. I've got no relationship to him.
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I don't love him. I don't want to be with him. And I'm occasionally told by well -meaning people, and this often takes the form of some theological debate, sometimes it's just passing conversation, but I'm told that if a person wants to surrender their salvation, they can.
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Anybody hear that line of argument? Have you heard that line of argument? If you want to give it up, you can. It's a willing act on your part, but if you willingly say,
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I don't want anything to do with you, Jesus, I don't want you in my life, then he'll oblige. But the story arc of Peter here seems to say otherwise.
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It seems to be here to teach us something different. We can try our best to try to read into this text maybe even some kind of thin denial, as if what
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Peter does this night is just a facade of denial, just kind of a save your own skin kind of thing.
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He didn't mean it. He had his fingers crossed behind his back as he said it to the little slave girl. He had his fingers behind his back as he said it to the crowd.
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Is that what's going on? The text goes over the top to make sure we know he's sincere in his rejection.
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He does it three times, not once, not twice, three times. It happens with oaths. It happens with curses.
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Do not be tricked into thinking that this is just a minor slip up on Peter's part. He runs into the darkness wailing.
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Why? Because he knows what he's done. He knows what he's guilty of that night. But Jesus, Jesus selected
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Peter. Jesus holds on to Peter because the
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Father has given Peter into the hands of the Son. Anybody find comfort in that?
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Does that give you comfort? Our first application, church, from this passage is to trust him to keep you.
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Trust him to keep you. Place a radical hope and trust in his aggressive, steadfast faithfulness to save those who are his.
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Have we grasped the breathtaking grace that God is demonstrating to us in this accounting of Peter's denials?
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The number of denials. The increasing harshness of the denials. The sins heaped up in the denials including oath breaking and all kinds of lies.
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The betrayal of Peter's close friend and Lord. And the self -serving save his own skin that's demonstrated in all of it.
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Not to mention the lies that he spoke directly to Jesus' face about dying with him and not falling away and never denying him.
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Liar, liar, pants on fire. This passage, by the way, what makes us often uncomfortable is that we feel like, well, what is the risk?
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What if it gives us a license to sin? What if it's like, oh, I can just go around denying Jesus with no impact. But rather let it give us confidence that even we can be saved.
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Let it have that role in your life. Even somebody like me. Even somebody like Peter. Is Peter rescued by his ability to stick with Jesus this night?
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No. How is Peter saved? By Jesus who is never, never, never going to give him up.
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All who belong to Jesus will be saved by Jesus. Brothers and sisters, if you are in the grip of his grace, then praise him that his grip is stronger than even your own self -serving will.
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His mercy is more. And yet be sure to understand that we prove that we are his by our continued heart to repent.
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Our grief over our sorrow. Even as Peter runs into the night with bitter weeping and sorrow over his sin and a brokenness that says,
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I can't believe what I've done. How many of you raise your hand and say, I've done things I can't believe that I did? Thank you for your honesty.
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The rest of you have a little bit of work to do. In the honesty department, that is. I think all of us have.
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I can't believe I did that. How did those words come out? How did I say that? How did I do that? How did
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I treat them this way? But as Paul says,
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Peter is going to be restored by grace. Paul says, do we keep then on sinning that grace may abound? May it not be.
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This doesn't give you a license to sin. It doesn't give you a license to then make his grace better by sinning more so that his grace is bigger and bigger and bigger.
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Our confidence in Christ to keep us is the strength of the Christian life. My sins are taken care of so now
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I can spend the rest of my life helping others to put their oxygen mask on, right? You know those announcements.
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They always say, make sure yours is securely fastened before you help the person sitting next to you. And so my question is, is yours securely fastened?
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Are you confident in the salvation that God has offered you and you've received by faith in his son?
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The second application is to consider what revival looks like after darkness. Yeah, I said the revival word. I know what's going on in Asbury.
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I've got some opinions about that. If anybody wants to talk to me about that, I did write a blog about it this week. And so before we talk about it,
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I'd encourage you to just read it there. And then if you've got further questions about it, I do think if God's in it, it's an awesome thing.
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I don't know that praising him is ever a bad thing. And I would not want to be on the side of criticizing that. So I guess my caution to the church would be to be on the side of caution about critiquing it and saying that it's a bad thing when it's about worshiping
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God. And I think that's a really good thing. So whatever comes of it is up to God, right?
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Amen? Okay. But I think it's a good thing, and I pray for it. Because I need personal revival.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? How many of you know that there's room to grow? There's things to take more seriously. There's a lot of room for me to grow in terms of just my cell phone usage.
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Just Kevin, that thing in front of me. I think God could do a movement in our culture by having us set that stinking thing down more.
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That's not even in my notes. I don't know where this is coming from. But a revival of no technology or something like that.
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I don't know. What does revival look like after the darkness? Peter will not stay in this place of sorrow and bitter wailing.
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How many of you know this? This is probably, I'm guessing, and I don't think I'm out on a limb to say, this is the worst night
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Peter has ever experienced in his life. I think this is the depth. I think this is rock bottom for Peter.
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He's not going deeper than this. He's not going further than this. This is the moment of his life where he goes,
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I didn't think I could plunge any deeper and here I am. This is it. Peter won't stay there.
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In John 21, three times Jesus will ask Peter, do you love me?
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Peter, do you love me? Three times Peter says, Lord, I think it's hurting him. I don't want you to even have to ask.
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Oh, it hurts. Lord, you know I love you. You know I love you. What is
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Jesus' response? Feed my sheep. Three times he asks, why three?
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Maybe it has something to do with three times. Does Jesus know what Peter did that night? Yeah. Does he know what it means to restore him?
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Do you love me, Peter? Lord, you know I do. Feed my sheep. Do you love me, Peter? Lord, you know
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I do. Then feed my sheep. Peter, do you really love me?
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Lord, you know my heart. You know I love you. Then Peter, get busy.
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Feed my sheep. Restored. Restored to what?
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Restored to a place of ministering to others after this darkness. After this hard, hard night of denial, of rejection.
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Jesus says, I got you. You're mine. And Peter, Peter's never the same.
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I'm sure he had ups and downs of life, but the one who denied knowing Jesus three times, twice to a little servant girl, penned these words
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I'm about to read in conclusion. Remember, these are written by the man who tried to be done with Jesus. But Jesus said, you can try to be done with me, but Peter, I'm not done with you.
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1 Peter 5, 6 through 11, the words of this man after he's been restored.
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Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you.
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Casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be sober -minded, be watchful.
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Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brethren throughout the world.
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And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. And historians believe that Peter died as a martyr, crucified.
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According to church history, he was crucified not like you think. He was crucified upside down. Because he didn't count himself worthy to be crucified in the same fashion, and he literally requested that the people who were putting him to death, his executors, crucify me upside down.
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I'm not worthy to be crucified in the same way as my Lord. And he who went through the sorrow of denying the
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Lord three times appears to not have done it a fourth. So if you've been rescued from your sins by Jesus Christ, and your hope for salvation rests firmly on he who will hold you, and he who will keep you, then
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I encourage you to come to the tables to take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for us, church.
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And take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us. And then let's go out from this place with the firm footing of the good news.
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Our sins are washed away. He holds his people. He restores his people.
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And he will use broken vessels like Peter, broken vessels like you, and broken vessels like me.
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And take your deepest comfort in the example of Peter that Jesus is never, never, never, never, never going to give you up.
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It wasn't Peter. Notice he wasn't able to fulfill his promises to Jesus.
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I said it is kind of tongue -in -cheek, rick roll at the start, never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around, never going to deny you.
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And he did. But Jesus, when he makes that promise to us, makes good on it.
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If for you anything in this message smacks you, this is kind of an end caveat before we pray. If any of this sounds like an opportunity to live however you want, and you walk away from this message going,
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I guess I can do whatever I want. I guess I can deny Jesus. I guess I can go live my wild lifestyle. Then I encourage you to come and talk with me so we can rehearse the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ and remember together what our sins cost him there on the cross and realize that it's for those very sins that he died.
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And so if we love him and we're in with him, we will want to distance ourselves from sin wherever it is, whenever it is.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace.
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I thank you for your strength to hold on to us. We're like the wild child that's writhing away from the parents' discipline and trying to get out and run through the grocery store and freaking out and throwing a tantrum on the floor and unrestrainable, and you hold us.
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You keep us. We thank you for the grace that we have in Jesus Christ.
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We thank you for the hope that we have in him. My hunch is that many of us in this room can point to moments of clarity about our depravity, moments of clarity where we can look and point to and remember situations and scenarios where we gave you up, something different for each one of us, but I believe it's real.
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For Peter, it was the fear of being caught, the fear of being tried. But for many of us, it was just the pleasures of self -service, the desires to do our own thing, the desire to go our own way.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to reflect in humility on these things of your grace, that none of us would ever, ever, ever be able to be moved over into the category of hubris, of arrogance, of pride, because we recognize that we're made out of the same stuff, and you have been gracious to us, and it's only in as much as you have held on to us that we will be saved.
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So, Father, I pray that you would give confidence where confidence is needed, but that you would give salvation where salvation is needed.
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There may be some here who don't really know you and would take from this some message of confidence that Jesus is just going to save them and carry them in without any life change.
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But, Father, I know that you desire to send your Spirit to us to put us on this journey of a lifelong growth and sanctification.
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So, Father, I pray that that would be real in this church, and that you would go with us throughout this week, empowering us to live more for you in the gladness of the salvation that we've been given in Jesus.