John 18:15-18, 25-27 (Missing Jesus Part 3)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you.

Well last week we began with a perilous story of my grandpa and I almost dying in a over small where we went up the side of a mountain for no good reason other than just to see what was up there.

We went through holes in the road that were as deep as Montana and by the

Lord's grace we survived. Well today I want to talk about another thing that happened on that road trip, one of the other perils as it were.

Now we were in California in a little place called Death Valley, and I had just ran out of pistachios so I knew that things were about to turn grim.

But you know what, honestly, I actually found Death Valley beautiful. I mean, it's not like the fire swamp. I wouldn't want to build a summer home there.

But I did find it to be kind of nice in its own very dry and deathly way.

The name is certainly terrifying, but it was beautiful, the mountains and everything. But as we stopped and we took some pictures and stuff

I wanted to post, I got back in the car and I realized that there was sand like just flying across the pavement of the road.

And I was like, well, that's interesting. It took me sort of back to Baghdad and driving in Iraq and seeing the sand grains flying all over the place.

And I was like, I wonder if sandstorms happen in Death Valley, and sure enough they do.

Not very long after that we're driving down the road and this fury of the sandstorm falls down upon our car.

I've looked on YouTube at other examples. I think ours was worse than what I saw online. I could not see my hand in front of my face if I were outside.

I wasn't. I was bundled up in my little blue Chevy. But I couldn't see anything. It got to the point where I couldn't even see the white line on the road.

So we had to stop. There were cars that were still trying to drive that I thought they were going to run into us or hit us or kill us.

They were motorcycles. There was motorcycle guys. Maybe they were Hell's Angels. I have no idea.

They were driving through it with just a bandana around their mouth, like totally rocking out through this sandstorm.

And I only saw them two inches before they got there, and then they were gone into the cloud of nothingness. It was unbelievable.

It was terrifying. My grandpa thought that we were going to die. He was 85 years old or something like that at the time, and I was like, my grandpa's gonna have a heart attack.

It's just awful. But what I realized in that moment is that everything was clear just before the sandstorm hit.

We knew where we were going. We were heading on the road, whatever it was, to Nevada. We were going to Las Vegas. We were going to Las Vegas to eat at one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants, the cheap one.

And that was our plan, but our plan got interrupted by the sandstorm. And when that hit, we had no idea what to do.

We lost all sense of bearing. We lost sense of purpose. And we had to sit there and wait until clarity came.

And I think that's what, in a lot of ways, happened to Peter in our passage today. Now, moments before all of this, everything sort of looked clear to Peter.

He watched Jesus, his Lord, bend down and wash the disciples' feet in this beautiful servant moment where Peter is a little confused at the moment.

Maybe the sand is starting to fly a little bit. Peter says, no, Lord, don't wash my feet.

And Jesus says, well, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me. He says, all right, wash me all, because that's how Peter is.

But Peter had clarity. He knew who Jesus was. They were singing hymns in the upper room.

Then they sort of left the upper room, and they went, and they descended into the darkness of Jerusalem.

And then Judas started abandoning them, and Jesus took them outside of the city, and then the temple guards descended.

All of a sudden, this furious storm descended upon those disciples, and Peter lost every bit of direction and orientation and where he actually was.

And he was confused, and he panicked. This impenetrable fog descended down upon Peter like my grandpa and I in the sandstorm, and Peter did not know what to do.

He was out of his element, and as we'll see today, before the rooster crows, he denies his own

Lord three times. What this teaches us, and what

I hope we see today, is that even the most ardent believer, when the storm hits, can go through periods of doubt, denial, and brokenness.

But what I also want us to see is I don't want us to just look at Peter's failures, because all of us would have been like Peter in that moment.

We would have denied our Lord too. I want us to look at all of the grace that Jesus gives to Peter.

I want us to look at the fact that Christ himself does bring clarity to Peter. He does forgive

Peter, and then Peter is the one who stands in the center of the city of Jerusalem and preaches the sermon where 3 ,000 people come to know

Christ. So by the end of it, I want us to look at the grace that God poured out on Peter and realize that that's the same grace he's poured out on us.

And when the storm hits, it doesn't define you, because Christ is taking you somewhere else, and he will bring clarity, and he will open up the sky and bring the sunshine again.

So with that, let us turn to John 18. But as we're doing that,

I do want to give you a little bit of a recap of where we've been. We've been in a little mini -series called Missing Jesus.

We're in still John 18, but as I studied this, I noticed that no one interprets

Jesus rightly in these passages. They all miss him. Every single person who interacts with Jesus in John 18 misses him for some expectation or some reason.

So a couple weeks ago, we looked at Judas and how he missed Jesus because he thought ministry was going to be successful and they were going to have deep coffers that he could pilfer, apparently.

We saw how the temple guards missed Jesus because of misplaced loyalties to the religious establishment.

We saw how Peter missed him the first time. Peter is always a go -getter. Instead of missing him once,

Peter said, no, I'm going to miss him twice. So the first time Peter misses him, he grabs a sword and hacks off the high priest's servant's ear, which is a bold move.

Last week, we talked about how Annas missed him because Annas was looking for worldly power.

We saw how Caiaphas missed him through his pragmatism and his politics. And if you remember,

Caiaphas is the one who will go down in history as saying those damnable words, we have no king but Caesar.

And for political expediency, he crucified our Lord. Now today, I want us to see the sixth way that we can miss

Jesus, and that's through denial and cowardice. And if you will turn with me to John 18.

We'll be in 15 through 18 to start, then we'll jump down to 25 through 27 to cover the narrative that is about Peter.

John 18. Simon Peter was following Jesus, and so was another disciple.

Now that disciple was known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest.

But Peter was standing at the door outside. So the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought

Peter in. Then the slave girl who kept the door said to Peter, You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not. Now the slaves and the officers were standing there, having made a charcoal fire, for it was cold, and they were warming themselves.

And Peter was also with them, standing and warming himself. Now down to verse 25. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself.

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

I am not. One of the slaves of the high priest, being a relative of the one whose ear

Peter had cut off, said, Did I not see you in the garden with him? Peter then denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, help us as we approach a passage like this, especially on a day like this in Palm Sunday, to remember that we are weak, and we have great frailty.

On Palm Sunday, Peter was singing aloud the praises of God, and now he is denying his

Lord in the courtyard. Lord, help us to know that all of us could fall in that way.

All of us could end up in that situation. If the moment, and the pressure, and the problems, and the pains are just right to squeeze out of us,

Lord, any of us could be there. But Lord, I also pray that as we look at Peter, help us not to define

Peter, and not to define ourselves by our pain, and our problems, and our struggles, and our moments of greatest weakness, and not to define ourselves by the storm that comes down upon us and disorients us, but Lord, help us to define ourselves biblically.

If we are Christians, help us to define ourselves through what Christ has done on the cross, and not through our moment of greatest weakness that necessitated that cross in the first place.

Lord, we thank you. We praise you in Christ's name. Amen. Now, Palm Sunday is a day that was filled with buzz and excitement.

This is a few days before the courtyard scene that Peter denies his Lord in. The city was buzzing with anticipation, because pilgrims were coming from all over the

Roman world to be at the Passover. The Passover is one of the three high holy feasts that you would have to attend if you were a

Jewish male, and if you were a good Jewish male, you would bring your family, and you would bring your children. So the city would swell to a little over a million people, when normally it would have been probably even a little smaller than the population of Lowell.

So you have Jerusalem swelling to this massive amount of people. There's energy and excitement in the air, because Jesus had just raised

Lazarus from the dead. And this happened in the suburbs of Jerusalem, really right outside of the city, in the same way that Cambridge or Somerville would be right outside of Boston.

This is where Bethany is in relation to Jerusalem. And it had stirred up the

Jerusalem elites, and it had caused a tremendous amount of energy and excitement.

People were saying, is this the one? Is this the Messiah? He rose someone from the dead. Could he be like Elijah, who did something similar?

Could he be one of the prophets? Is he the long -awaited son of David that we've been wondering about and talking about?

People were asking these questions, and there was a lot of excitement in the air. Now, as Jesus comes down the

Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday, and as his body became visible to the crowds that were sort of forming, and as the disciples were lining up on his left and his right, singing psalms of praise to God, the city broke out into— what are those things called when people break out into praise all of a sudden?

Flash mob. There was a flash mob in Jerusalem that day. And they cried out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. And there was a lot of reasons for this excitement, because Jesus was riding on a donkey. As we talked about last year, because you have perfect memory of what we talked about last year, that Solomon was the son of David who rode into the town on a donkey.

And he rode into the town on a donkey, not as a conquering king, but as a king ready to receive his throne.

That was the symbolism and the image that was coming. And you have Zechariah 9 that we read earlier that's coming to bear on this, that your king is coming to you mounted on a donkey.

So there was prophetic expectation. There was historic expectation. And Jesus riding on a donkey would have symboled to everyone,

I am coming to be your king. Unfortunately, everyone at that point would have thought, and we're going to go overthrow

Rome. And that was not the kind of kingdom that Jesus was bringing. Now, again, the city vibrated with energy.

The women and the children were throwing their coats and their palm branches down onto the ground so that the

Messiah could ride on top of them instead of on the pavement. It was a sign of honor. Palm branches in a very arid climate was a symbol of prosperity.

If you had palms in your yard, then you had a prosperous yard.

So palms usually were tied to messianic prosperity. So they were laying them down, saying that your kingdom has come.

Men, grown men were weeping for joy that all of these things were coming about.

The disciples were singing and shouting and praising God. And there was all of this energy because they believed that he was bringing his messianic kingdom.

And that would begin a new era of prosperity for the people of God. And yet they didn't quite understand what era

Christ was bringing. Now, as soon as Jesus gets off of his donkey, brand new, unridden donkey, it would have been like a

Cadillac Escalade in their day. When he gets off of it, he attunes their focus to the kind of kingdom that he's bringing.

And the excitement, unfortunately, did not last. The very first place that Jesus goes after that ride into the cities, he goes to the temple.

And then he turns over the tables. And then he chases the money changers out of the temple with a bullwhip to purify his temple.

A whip that the scriptures say that he braided himself, which is not feathered hair Jesus we're talking about.

We're talking about manly Jesus. And when he does this, he infuriates the religious establishment.

And people are confused. They're like, he's bringing a kingdom, but yet he set himself against the priest. How is this going to work?

The next day, Tuesday morning, he attacks the religious leaders with parable after parable after parable.

He says, the kingdom of God is like this vineyard. And you're the ones who killed

God's son. It's Matthew 21. He says the kingdom of God is like a father who has two sons.

One son says, yes, I'll obey the father. And he ends up not obeying the father. And one son that says, I'm not going to obey the father, but ends up obeying him.

And Jesus says, you're the one who with your lips said you were going to obey me. But with your heart, you are far from me.

And he said, the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce my fruit.

Jesus rode into a city that offered him only leaves, but no fruit. And now, after cursing a fig tree that was only leaves with no fruit, and after going to a temple that was only leaves with no fruit, he is condemning a society that was fruitless.

And he's saying, I am going to give this kingdom to a people who will bear my fruit.

That, of course, did not go over well with the religious establishment. Wednesday bleeds into, or bleeds out of Tuesday.

There's not a lot of distinction in the gospel narrative. So did Jesus go back to Bethany on Tuesday night?

Did he stay in the city? I'm not sure. But on Wednesday, he gets back into another public debate with the

Pharisees. They challenge him. They say, you know, give us this coin.

Or Jesus says, give me a coin. About who do you pay taxes to, God or Caesar?

Jesus embarrassed the Pharisees. There was several moments where they were embarrassed by their hard questions that Jesus answered effortlessly and then made them look foolish.

So Jesus is setting himself and his kingdom against that. And it says right after that that they went and made plans to kill him.

Except right before that, he called down seven woes upon them and said that this city is going to be burned to the ground.

So that's how Jesus begins his kingdom. He begins it with this great praise that his kingdom has come.

And then he says, enemy number one is the false, fake, religious establishment that bears me no fruit.

And he set himself on a collision course where it would end in his death. And that takes us to Thursday.

Thursday in the upper room, he was teaching his disciples. He was praying with them.

He was washing their feet. He was singing psalms. But the garden was coming. And the garden is where we pick up.

Now, what I find interesting about these two scenes is that how alike they are and how dissimilar they are.

You have Jesus riding from the Mount of Olives. Same thing in this passage today where he's riding from the

Mount of Olives into the garden. So they're going in the exact same direction on Palm Sunday and towards the garden.

And yet they're very different. The whole city praising God on Palm Sunday. A little crowd with torches there to arrest him in the garden.

How quickly the times have changed in Jesus' final week. You think about Peter.

Peter's voice. Peter's an overdoer. We've already talked about that. But imagine if anybody sang loudly, it would have been

Peter. Peter's voice would have been hoarse from singing on Palm Sunday.

And here he is silent in the garden. Here he is watching the soldiers advance, not knowing what to do.

The storm cloud has descended upon Peter. He's watching the betrayer betray his

Lord. The idea that he had that the kingdom was going to be a militaristic kingdom or a kingdom that was going to be taking over Judah, that idea was slipping right out of his grasp every moment that he watched.

He listened to the vulgar shouting. He watched the torches come nearer and nearer to them. And as they approached,

Peter was overcome with panic, and he lunged at them, and he took off one of their ears.

But ultimately, Peter failed because Peter, like everyone else, missed the kind of kingdom that Christ was bringing.

And Peter watched them take his Lord away, paralyzed in the eye of the storm.

Now, the text tells us that Peter and the unnamed disciple, which we said last week is probably John, they followed after Jesus.

And they traveled to the courtyard of Caiaphas. And there you have the unnamed disciple who gains access.

He knows the high priest. Maybe it was John. And he gets Peter access into this courtyard.

Courtyards are where you did business. That's where, if you had guests, that you would wine and dine them and entertain them.

That's where your servants would be running around and serving. And there were little pockets in the wall that were private places where you could have a fire and you could get some time by yourself because if you were a servant and you needed a break, you would go there.

So, Peter is invited in by John while the rest of the twelve had scattered.

And Peter is going to deny his Lord the very first time before a humble slave girl.

What a juxtaposition. He just grabbed the sword and was ready to do war and now he's trembling in front of a servant girl.

So, Peter is the one who probably was the most recognizable of the disciples.

He was the leader of the disciples. And he's the one who jumped out and Mike Tysoned that guy's ear off.

So, his face was probably recognizable. When he got to the gate and John let him in, the servant girl immediately recognized him and she said,

You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you? And Peter said, No, no, no.

No, it's just a doppelganger. Just a guy who looks like me. It wasn't me. I am not him. Now, what

I find interesting about this is that Peter was afraid of her. And not necessarily afraid of her, but afraid of what she represented.

It wasn't just that he was going to be forbidden to enter into the courtyard and see what the outcome was of Jesus, but it was likely that he was going to be crucified beside of Jesus.

Instead of it being two thieves beside of Jesus, Peter knew very clearly that being the leader among the disciples would have landed him on the spot right next to Jesus and Peter was not ready for that.

Peter was thinking, Jesus is going to bring a kingdom that's going to take over the entire world and we believe that, but not in the way

Peter was thinking. And Peter had no concept of a king being crowned with a crown of thorns.

Peter had no concept of a royal robe being applied to a blood -stained back.

Peter had no concept of a king being enthroned on a

Roman cross. And because he had no concept of that, he lied to the slave girl and he said,

I do not know the man. What I find fascinating about this is that Peter had a faith that he had defined in his mind that was acceptable.

As long as Jesus is winning, as long as the kingdom is continuing to grow, as long as this, this, this, and that happens, he'll pull out a sword and he'll fight to die for it, but you put his life on the line.

You tell him he's going to have to die. Peter wasn't ready for that. That wasn't the kind of kingdom that Peter had signed up for.

Peter's expectation about what the kingdom was going to look like made him absolutely fold under the mildest pressure of a slave girl.

And I think that we need to be very kind to Peter in this because all of us do the exact same things.

Peter had an idea about what the kingdom was going to look like. So do we. And when God starts asking for more than what we originally bargained for, very quickly we end up laying down, folding like Peter.

Moments earlier he was fighting, now he is shrinking back. How often do we do that? When we become a

Christian and we have all of this joy and we say, great, now I'm going to go to heaven. Now I've got all of this. But what's next?

Did you know that he wants to take over every single part of you? If your faith has not gotten to the point that it's uncomfortable,

I would ask you to examine the level of your faith. Because he has come to purchase, to take over, to bring under his lordship every square inch of who you are.

It's not just about going to church every single Sunday. And we don't even have a culture that does that.

It's not even just about giving money to the local church. It's not even about sending your children to private school or home school because you don't want the government schools to infect them.

Yeah, that's great, but are you willing to die for him? Would you be willing to have your life taken for Jesus?

Are you willing to lose yourself? Are you willing to lose your opinions, your freedoms, every bit about you?

Peter was not ready. And oftentimes it's hard to know how we will respond until a person one time saying something

I'll never forget. He said, people are like oranges. You don't know what's in them until they're squeezed. Peter, when he was squeezed, was not ready to follow

Christ to the cross. And yet, it was

Peter, if you'll remember from history, who was crucified for his lord. Except he wasn't crucified right side up.

He was crucified upside down because he said, I'm not worthy to die in the same manner as my lord.

I wonder if Peter's denial had something to do with that request, to be crucified upside down. And he's an overdoer.

His second denial came at the barrel. He arrived in the courtyard. And, you know, there was those little alcoves inside the wall where you could go and you could kind of hide away and you could try to not be noticed.

I think that's where Peter went. There was a little charcoal fire there that night. And there he was warming himself, trying to let the flickers of the fire not cast too much light on his face because he was a wanted man.

I can imagine Peter's emotions in that moment where he's trying to keep himself together, but his blood is running hot over everything that's happened.

Jesus' words had just confused him, told him to put down his sword. What does Jesus want? What kind of kingdom does Jesus bring?

I don't know. And then to put a cherry on top of all of that, he heard the soldiers laughing in the background.

He heard the soldiers joking about how easy it was to defeat the Messiah, how effortlessly that they had found him and taken him.

And you can imagine Peter just brewing in his heart, ready to pull another sword out if he had one.

There were others who were milling about expectantly in the crowd. There were others who were just trying to stay warm.

And in the midst of that, Peter was discovered. One of the soldiers, one of the servants, whoever it was, looked up and said,

Wait a minute. Aren't you the one? Aren't you one of his disciples?

It says in verse 25, Simon Peter was standing there warming himself. So they said to him, You are not also one of disciples, are you?

The exact same question. And he denied it and said, I am not.

One hour earlier, he was ready to storm the gates of hell and turn the city upside down. And now a second time, he has denied

Jesus. And I think he probably had, in his own mind, he had good reasons for doing this. He's like, if I get arrested right now, then

I'm not going to be able to save Jesus later. Maybe he thought that he was so important to the mission that he had to stay unarrested so that he could continue to hang out there in the courtyard while he was lying and denying his

Lord. And he had no idea how impactful what he was doing was.

He increases his intensity according to the synoptic gospels. John gives a little bit of a muted approach.

Matthew has Peter saying, You don't know what you're talking about. I am not him. And it is in that moment, it says immediately in that moment that they recognized him.

Because the same Peter who pulled out his sword and said, ran at Malchus. Now they've heard his shrilly voice.

They've heard him raise his intensity. And they're like, that's the man. That's him. And they pointed out to him right immediately afterwards.

Verse 26 and 27 says, One of the slaves of the high priest, being a relative of the one whose ear was cut off, said,

Did I not see you in the garden with him? And then Peter denied it again, and immediately a rooster crowed.

So think about the credibility here. You've got a woman, and at that time period, the testimony of a woman was less than the testimony of a man.

That's just history. So you've got a woman reporting on it. Then you've got a man reporting on it. Then you've got a relative reporting on it.

The testimony is ratcheting up. The rooster crows, which was the greatest testimony of all, and Peter folded into tears, sprinting out of the city, now no longer able to keep himself together.

Matthew tells us a little bit more about this when he says in chapter 26, verse 75,

Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said before the rooster crows, You will deny me three times.

And he went out and he wept bitterly. Luke 22, 60 through 61 says it similarly.

Peter said, Man, I do not know what you're talking about. Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed.

The Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had told him before a rooster crows today,

You will deny me. Can you imagine the hurricane that hit Peter in that moment?

Can you imagine in the courtyard, him looking right through the little portico area of Caiaphas' palace, and he looks, and Jesus is looking at him right after he denied him the third time?

In that moment, Peter collapsed emotionally. He was broken. And he ran out of the city, finding whatever hole he could to climb in.

The Gospels aren't clear on where he went. Maybe he went back to the upper room. Maybe he went and hid in a hole somewhere in the city.

But when he saw his Lord staring at him, denying him, he was exposed.

And the floodgates broke loose. Now again,

I don't want us to judge Peter too harshly here. Because had we been in that courtyard, Jesus would have been looking at us, exposing us, because we fail like Peter.

We talk a very big game in the moment. When we're at church among believers and there's no threat, we talk a big game about,

Yeah, I would do this, and I'm gonna do that. And then when the slightest amount of pressure gets ratcheted up, how quickly we cower and how quickly we fold and shrivel underneath the pressure of things.

I think about in school. I went to a Christian school. So there was no pressure whatsoever.

I could tell people, Hey, I believe in Jesus. Yeah, me too. That's why we're in a Christian school. Then I went to public school my senior year and I went absolutely mute for Jesus.

Didn't say a word because the pressure ratcheted up and I folded. You think about at work.

Every aspect of your life is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Your work is not your abandonment of the sacred to go into the secular.

Your work is a part of your worship. So everything you do at your job is your worship. And if you're not able to speak the name of Jesus at your job, is it because the pressure and the ratcheting up of that has caused you to fold?

It doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't matter what they think. You love Jesus.

Talk about him. What about at that family dinner table where you know the person is angry at God or is angry at you and it causes you to be silent?

Don't be that way. Speak the name of Christ. It might get you crucified like Peter.

It might get in all kinds of trouble. It might get you fired at your job. I remember the first time

I really embraced this and this is not about me. This is just a story, but I hope it's helpful. The first time I embraced this,

I was working at a jail and I remember thinking to myself that the lordship of Christ means that he is lord over every aspect of my life.

So I was, that very day, I was walking through, checking on the inmates and one of them asked me to pray with them.

And I said, okay. And I went and hid under a camera so that no one could see what

I was doing. But that was the first step for me. And then I started praying openly with the inmates. And then there were moments where I got called into the chief's office because I was doing too much of it.

But at that point, the muscles started strengthening. The confidence started growing. That's what I'm talking about is bringing the lord

Jesus Christ into every aspect of your life. What's your courtyard? What's the place like Peter that you're tempted to deny him?

What's the aspect of your life? What part of your heart are you unwilling to surrender? That's your courtyard.

And I pray that you would surrender it to him. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's parenting. Maybe it's husbanding.

Maybe it's being a wife. All of these aspects of our lives that are so central to who God has made us and they're under the lordship of Christ are areas where we get to worship him, obey him.

And if you're denying him in those areas, if you're not bringing Jesus men into your families, if you're not teaching your children through family worship, if you're not, if there's some area of your life where you're saying no lord, not there, then that is your courtyard.

That is the place where you deny Christ. And like Peter, we all have them.

Search your hearts. Because we all have them. And at the core of who we are, we don't understand the gospel in its fullest.

Let me say it to you. He did not come to have some of you. He came to purchase all of you.

That is the gospel. He gave up all of himself to purchase all of you.

And when we exchange our royal status as heirs to the king of kings in order to cower like Peter in front of peasants and paupers, we need to repent.

My challenge to all of us today is not to imitate the Peter of the garden and grab your sword and go all

Christian nationalist, ready to take over everything. My challenge is also to you not to be the

Peter of the courtyard where something has gripped your heart and you've denied him or you've abandoned him or you've forsaken him.

My challenge is for you to be the Peter of Acts. The Peter who stands up in the city of Jerusalem and preaches the

Pentecost sermon. The one who praises Jesus as he's punished for his love for Christ and he says that I was counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

The Peter who went from town to town preaching the gospel even though he was beaten, abused and left for dead at times.

The Peter who at the end of his life completed his confession by saying I'm not worthy to be crucified in the same way as my

Lord crucified me upside down. I'm talking about a whole life allegiance. I'm not talking about the fanfare and the flash mob of Jerusalem where you praise him one minute and you deny him the next.

I'm talking about everything under the Lordship of Christ because that's what

Jesus did for you. At Calvary, Jesus walked up the hill with the greatest courage that's ever been demonstrated.

Perfect courage. And here is what the gospel means. The gospel is not just what

Jesus has done for us. The gospel also, the second part of it is what through the

Holy Spirit God expects of us. Because Jesus demonstrated great courage in saving us now as his people through the power of the

Holy Spirit he expects us to be courageous. Because Jesus had joy even in his moment of greatest suffering now by the power of the

Holy Spirit he expects us to have joy. Brothers and sisters he is the author and perfecter of our faith.

He showed Peter what true courage was. He showed Peter what true joy is. And by the

Spirit of God he leads us into these things today. Let us pray. Lord I pray that we would fix our eyes upon Christ.

Lord I pray that we would not be like the Jerusalem crowd who missed him in a fleeting moment of shallow praise.

Lord I pray that we would not be like Peter in the garden to miss him by nationalistic tendencies.

Lord I pray that we would not be like Peter in the courtyard to miss him out of fear. Lord I pray that like Peter we would come to recognize that every aspect of our life comes under your lordship.

That you have called us to die. That you have called us to lay down our lives for you.

Peter was not ready to do that in the garden. Peter was not ready to do that in the courtyard. And many today are not ready to do that as well.

But Lord I do pray that you would strengthen our resolve. I pray that you would move us to love you with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and be ready to give everything to you.

Lord if there's any part of us right now that is offensive to you that we have not laid down.

Lord would you reveal it to us and help us to repent of it. So Lord we could be all of life disciples because that is what you fought and paid for for us to be.