Please turn with me in your Bibles in this dark room in Mark chapter 14 We'll look at Mark 14 verses 26 through 31 and then Mark 14 verse verses 66 through 72 The denial Peter's denial of Jesus for well-known passage all the gospel writers Include this beginning in verse 26 of Mark chapter 14 When they had sung a hymn they went out to the mount of Olives and Jesus said to them You will all fall away for it is written. I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered But after I am raised I will go up before you to Galilee Peter said to him Even though they all fall away I will not And Jesus said to him truly I tell you this very night Before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times, but he said emphatically If I must die with you I will not deny you And they all said the same now verse 66 And as Peter was below in the courtyard one of the servant girls of the high priest came and Seeing Peter warming himself she looked at him and said you also were with the Nazarene Jesus But he denied it saying I neither know nor understand what you mean and He went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed and the servant girls saw him and began again to say To the bystanders this man is one of them But again, he denied it and after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter certainly you are one of them for you are a Galilee And But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear I Do not know this man of whom you speak And immediately the rooster crowed a second time And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times And he broke down and Wept Let's pray Gracious Father you are slow to anger and a bounding in steadfast love you are full of compassion That is clear because you sit to us Jesus your son Who was so patient with his disciples and so patient with the people that he encountered That he obeyed you even to death on the cross and Because of that death opened up The hope of all hopes our salvation The kingdom Eternity Or we need you this morning we need your Hope we need to hear that story again We need to as we go to this table taste and drink it once again So feed us your people we come and teach us as we open up your world by the power of your spirit on the end You know pastors talk a lot about disciples ship We've been talking a lot about disciples ship at IPC. We want to be we want to make disciples Because it's a calling of the church. That's what the church supposed to do make disciples of Jesus Christ So what is a disciple of the disciples someone who's followed who follows Jesus Who commits themselves to Jesus and follows the way of Jesus receives his salvation all his promises and ultimately Enjoyes the restoration that the kingdom offers But what does that feel like? What does it feel like to be a disciple of Jesus? What does it look like? Do you know I think a lot of my life I understood the term discipleship or wouldn't it to follow Jesus, but I I didn't know what to expect. I kind of had this vague Spiritual sort of understanding it means that I pray to Jesus it means that I go to church on Sunday It means I'm nice to little old ladies and You know, it means that I do the things that Christians are supposed to do, but I didn't know beyond that I didn't really know what that meant. What does mean to follow Jesus? What does it feel like to follow Jesus and then I found out it's nothing like I thought it was gonna be was shocked There's actually much more painful than I thought Much more humbling than I thought and more glorious than I thought You know in the life of Peter We get to see what it feels like See what it feels like we get to see what it's like to be a disciple. He's the prototype of a disciple of Jesus Thankfully, we don't have to live out our discipleship so publicly But what we see in the life of Peter especially in these denials is a pattern of a follower of Jesus But there are four things that you see in this passage and they're the same four things you've seen in anyone who's a true disciple of Jesus If you follow Jesus You will be tested and if you're tested you will discover a profound need a deficiency But that deficiencies always met with a abounding sufficient grace and And that grace then empowers you to follow him more Let me say that again if you're a follower of Jesus Christ you're experiencing extreme trial and testing That testing reveals that you are weak and that you have a profound need that Need is always met with his grace which is much greater than we think it is and that grace then turns us back out To be more devoted followers so four points testing need grace and following testing need grace and following and if it's dark and you can't see my fingers that's points one two three and four So let's look at that if you are here today and you're scratching your head because This experience of Christianity or what it means to be a Christian or follow Jesus is really confusing to you And in some ways it's really heartbreaking to you and And it's and in another way you really you really think that you're such a bad person There's no way you could actually be a follower of Jesus. It's sheer up. Listen to what I'm going to say Let's look at the life of Peter and those four points. What does it feel like to be a follower of Jesus? What is the experience? Let's look first at need. Keep your bottles open in chapter 14 verse 29 We see this promise that Peter gives this Jesus is in now. He's we've gone back a little bit He's this is he's given the last supper He said this dinner with his his disciples and then he tells them that they're all going to scatter and leave him and then Peter says even though they all fall away I will not and Jesus said to him truly I tell you this very night before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times But he said emphatically which means he is grabbing his shirt. He is emphatically I I'll die with you. You're saying I want to deny you. I'm going to die with you. I want to follow you Jesus Your Peter really truly wants to follow Jesus. I'll die with you Jesus and then they all said the same Do you notice that don't you like that little addition there? Yeah us to us to Jesus not just Peter us to right you can Imagine them all getting in and we'll we'll all do that well that well none of them do that so they want to follow Jesus but they experience Severe testing if you Seek to follow Jesus when he says take up my take up your cross and follow me trial and testing are inevitable They're inevitable he promised them. They're not interruptions to your discipleship. They are your discipleship Okay, it's not like we're living our Christian life and then things get hard and we're like wow I wish I could get it back. It's supposed to get back to the way it's supposed to be no no no that that is the road And so how do we see that in the life of Peter? Well in Luke's gospel Jesus tells Peter That Satan has asked to sift Peter like wheat So that's the first trial Jesus says you are going to be sifted like wheat what sifted means to to separate the wheat from the Chath Satan is asked to test you to try you To to he's going to turn your world upside down Satan's asked that he this is going to happen to you you are you want to die with me you want to die for me You're going to be tested severely and then Peter goes on to say in first Peter because Peter experiences this testing He fails and then he becomes the pastor right of the early church And listen what he says in first Peter one I'll read it to you verse six in this you rejoice though now for a little while if Necessary you have been grieved by various trials the same word that James used uses the half-brother of Jesus James uses the same word trials Kind of all joy that you experience trials. There's a theme going on here folks the theme Peter says you have been grieved by various trials So that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that parishes though it is tested by fire or refined by fire So there's a sifting That comes with following Jesus that's inevitable there and it's another way of calling it you are going to be refined by fire To separate the the what's unnecessary to what's actually necessary There's a refining process that's inevitable in following Jesus and Jesus told his disciples In John's gospel you will experience tribulation He said guaranteed you're gonna experience tribulation. You're gonna experience testing you're gonna experience suffering and he actually gave them little snippets of this Experiences of this while they were following Jesus on earth Do you remember that? Most often they happened on boats on water. See a Galilee Because it was a very familiar setting here with these guys that knew the water they knew boats and Jesus turned their worlds upside down You're gonna follow me. Here's one example the disciples in Luke chapter five had been out fishing all day long They've been out fishing all night rather all night and they caught they didn't catch one fish and so their expert fisherman didn't catch one fish Jesus says let's go fish We've already been fishing all night and they're we didn't catch anything so we'll do this because you said and what happens? They catch so many fish that that not only their boat almost begins to sink But a boat that's helping them begins to sink and here's what Peter does Peter realizes that there's been a test a trial He doesn't believe that Jesus is who he says he is and when he's confronted with the power of Jesus that even the fish in the sea Obey Jesus he falls on his knees and he says go away from me It's revealed inside of him that he's a sinful man Here's another test the storm this terrible storm blows in on the sea of Galilee. Jesus is asleep and The disciples are know that they're gonna die. We followed this man who is a carpenter and he's brought us out to the sea of Galilee And now we're gonna die Think about that for discipleship. Let's follow Jesus and right before we can even get out of the gate We're gonna die in the sea of Galilee because he doesn't know what he's doing. That's what that's what they're experiencing And Jesus gets up and he calms the storm the test has revealed something There's another test on a boat you remember when when Peter gets out of the out of the boat and he starts walking in the water What happens? He's really great when he's looking at Jesus He's actually walking on water and then he begins to realize I'm not supposed to walk on water This is water and he sinks My point if you are striving to follow Jesus It's hard. It's confusing. It's full of trials It's inevitable. The problem is that Those aren't our expectations. Those aren't our expectations. Those weren't Peter's expectations In fact, Peter hated the idea that Jesus was ever gonna suffer at all Every time Jesus mentioned something about the cross or about suffering about being betrayed He stood up and said no way. There's no way that you are going to do that over my dead body And remember one time Jesus actually calls him Satan Get behind me Satan. So so Peter never understood this element of trial and testing even in the life of Jesus And so he shocked by it as he's experiencing it too See our expectations folks are so powerful our expectations when we we commit to Jesus We want a victorious life. I'm sure that's even a book isn't it the victorious life a Life that works a life where people don't get sick a life where God gives me things when he promises He's gonna give me things in life is better, right? But then you follow Jesus and you're really striving to follow his word and obey him and that's just not what happens
Even as we pray how about this even as we prayed to Pray to follow Jesus to become more godly. We it's almost like he does the back exact opposite thing Do you know the the hymn for John Newton it's not of one of his most well-known hymns, but it really illustrates this point He says I asked the Lord That I might grow it's a good prayer In faith and love and every grace and might more of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his face But a great that's a great prayer, isn't it you'd elect that guy an elder he's praying like that, right? I 'm asking to grow This is what he says instead of this He made me feel The hidden evils of my heart and he let the angry powers of hell Assault my soul at every part. I hope it in some favored hour at once He'd answer my request and by his loves constraining power subdue my sins And give me rest So you have it in the life of Peter You have it in the life of John Newton you have in the life of the person who's speaking you write this very minute That as I'm seeking Christ as I'm seeking Christ, there's something that's happening to me We're watching this actually happened to Peter. He's enduring something. He never thought would happen to him He promised to die with Jesus and he's really being sincere and here he is denying Jesus
Trials are shocking It's so important to understand that Because some of us are disillusioned with the Christian line We're shocked by them and some ways it's kind of like a baptism In the almost six years that we've been here at IPC I've had the privilege of doing a lot of infant baptisms and it always pretty much go always goes the same way You have this precious little child dressed in this beautiful little gown probably made by like the great great great grand mother Of somebody and everyone looks beautiful and they're all taking pictures It's wonderful. It's a beautiful moment in the life of the church. It really is. But here's what happens Then they give this baby the mother gives the baby to me right to to this to the stranger Who's dressed like Darth Vader right and and and gives them to this person in this itchy robe? So it happens and then this part the stranger then puts water on the head Can you imagine how bizarre this experience is for this child? How shocking and here's what their face every time it just they're the little babies precious little face It's just like so angry so upset. Why are you doing this to me? But here's the difference the baby is clueless But we know the baby's blessed and in much the same way Your trials are a baptism They're what authenticate you as being one of his followers and sharing in his sufferings And even though they're shocking to us and often make us cry They're part of following Jesus. We have to change our expectations. We have to change our expectations But there's a second thing Those trials reveal need neediness profound neediness Testing reveals neediness and when I say neediness I'm talking about sin and weakness So the trials reveal something inside of us that we can't see without the trials See Peter did not know himself He didn't and folks We don't know ourselves either We have a one-dimensional view of who we are We we have a we have a view of ourselves that is not fully accurate. We don't know what our soul looks like We don't know what we're capable of and so we think of ourselves as being strong and as being capable And we'll even swear this is the kind of person I am and Jesus was like no, I'm gonna show you the kind of person you are So what happens to Peter? Here's what's revealed in his life. It's ugly that he is profoundly self-centered And most of most of us we don't ever have to have our sin public for two thousand years right But here's the point Peter would rather protect his own life Than beside then decide with Jesus why because he loved his life morning love Jesus See Jesus proclaimed in his trial He proclaimed that he was the Son of God Peter denied that he even knew Jesus in order to avoid the persecution That Jesus was going to receive do you see what's happening there in these two trials So his profound he's he wants his life. He want to save his life The second thing we see in Peter is that he's a control freak Okay, that's the way we use it. He's a control freak That what's been revealed is that Peter has wanted to control everything every step of the way He's the one with all the answers the quick answers But you have to appreciate how earnest he is right even though he was wrong He would just blurt it out and often be wrong, but he wanted to control Jesus He wanted to control Jesus. He wanted Jesus to be the kind of a sigh that he wanted him to be And all that's lost now He finds out that he's a liar He finds out he's a coward Do you honestly think that Peter thought himself as a coward? He found out They was unfaithful See when Jesus is saying you're going to be sifted like week. He's saying we we we Peter you're going to find out The you that I see and what you're going to find is that you're profoundly needy Look this is not I'm not just talking about conversion need right There's an initial need that is discovered when the Holy Spirit opens someone's eyes to realize they need Jesus But here's what I'm saying this pattern is repeated over and over again in the Christian life You never graduate from being tested and having your need revealed you never graduate from needing Jesus
So Peter doesn't know himself we don't know ourselves either It's what I like to call the great disappointment Anybody else had a great disappointment the great disappointment when I mean by the great disappointment your life is You read you really aren't Who you want to be and you're really not who you want others to think you are You really are Like Peter maybe or like a controlling deceitful Broken person that really is your need you really have profound spiritual need So in verses 66 through 72 Paul Peter rather his need is revealed We see that also in Isaiah chapter six Here's what happens the Isaiah Isaiah is the silver tongue preacher the great prophet and he goes into the temple And he sees God he sees the pre-incarnate Jesus And the angels are surrounding Jesus and he's so holy that they can't even look at him And they just sing holy holy holy is a Lord Almighty And here is the great Isaiah from a well-to-do family who has his life together He comes before this great picture this person of Jesus the king of kings and he says I'm lost God who I thought I was I'm a person of unclean lips that means my whole being the inside of me is filthy I'm not who I wanted to be And so when Peter goes out and he weeps he weeps a bitter bitter cry folks He's crying because he's not who he wants to be the myth has been blown up It is it is now no longer this this false Peter
The reality is In order for us to become real God must disappoint us He must deconstruct Who we think we are and who we're pretending to be
No words of Thomas Merton I don't quote Thomas Merton very much but here it goes I've used this one before pride makes us false And humility makes us real And the testing reveals pride pretence
But here's what's happened in my life and it's probably happening in your life If you're fall if you're driving to follow Jesus it feels like you're dying It feels like you're losing a grip on who you want to be and and and some of us we grasp at it We want to retain this identity So this this power of this this strength this this reputation this thing It feels like you're dying but in reality you're actually coming alive
We're actually becoming a new person That this is good weeping That's what Martin Luther calls heart water Don't you like that? It's a good German earthy sounding phrase
When the myth of you is shattered Heartwater comes out Testing reveals need but here's the third thing It also reveals a sufficient grace you have to hold these two together You must hold these two together That's what we have the whole gospel We have all four gospels Because John tells us that in John chapter 21 Jesus forgave Peter I want you to get folks working familiar with this story many of us I want you to get this in your head He swore that he would never ever deny Jesus And then he swore in front of guards And in front of a little servant girl He swore a curse on himself that he didn't know Jesus Like is that the worst sin you've ever heard? I don't know the worst one Honestly this is the worst thing ever
I mean who does that? I swear to you I curse myself let me be damned if I even knew who the man was And now fast forward to the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection of Jesus Jesus tells him after breakfast Peter Can I see you after class? Can we can we have a talk? No here it goes
Peter denied in three times Jesus forgave in three times
And we are supposed to know that this Peter That we see in the early church is a man who is overwhelmed That Jesus would forgive him
You see if you just have the need If you just have the testing you just have the need You have despair If you just have your sin and your weakness You just have to spare in fact that's the difference between Judas and Peter Because Judas knew he was convinced There's no way that Jesus can forgive me of this And so he saw his need he realized there was something wrong And he killed himself because of it And some of you are here today and all you have is your need You've been following Jesus and all you have is your constant sin And you live with a constant sin And you carry it around And it's this constant burden and it weighs you down And you have not experienced You have not believed in an outrageous grace And here's the point If Jesus forgave Peter Jesus forgives you too
But here's what's keeping us from that Our self-righteousness Do you see Jesus destroyed self-righteousness J.Gresson mentioned the great reform theologian last century He said it this way Nothing separates us more from God Than our damnable good works
It's not the bad things what we can chalk those up Right? All my bad sins, all those other things Oh Jesus forget those It's those things that we think make us righteous Those are the things that are keeping us From really experiencing his grace Those things that we feel like give us Standing before God Those things that we believe cover us Or mask our imperfections Jesus says I want those That's what he's done to Peter These are good works I will not deny you He said take that self-righteousness away from you We say that in the life of Paul too So Corinthians 12, what a great passage Here's Paul By the way, Paul is extremely smart He's extremely righteous He's this great person He's converted radically He becomes a follower of Jesus And here's what happens Jesus gives him a vision This unbelievable vision of the third heaven I don't even know what that is But in order to keep him from being conceded And false Here's what happens The Lord gave me a thorn in my flesh A messenger of Satan to harass me To keep me from becoming conceded Three times I pleaded with the Lord About this that it should leave me But he said to me My grace is sufficient for you For my power is made perfect In weakness Do you see the pattern of discipleship?
He is tested He has sent a messenger of Satan that he's convinced If he didn't have He would be a lot better off He's given this thorn in his flesh That's constant That's painful That he hates We don't know if it's physical We don't know if it's spiritual I'm glad we don't know Because you could fill in the blank Or whatever that thing is That you want out of your life That your convinced That would make you a better follower of Jesus He's tested He's tested And what is it reveal It reveals profound weakness in this man Not strength, weakness And here's what God says Jesus looks at him and he says My grace is enough for you Paul My grace is enough for your weakness It is enough for you Okay, what does that mean for you right now Listen to me
What is that thing Are those things In your life That are too much
What are those sins What are those memories Those relationships That you look at And you think about And that never leave your mind
You were to take those Because this is what Peter did And this is what Paul did You were to take those no matter what they are No matter what they are Every single second of every single day When they arise in your mind In your heart and make you anxious And you were to say His grace Is Enough for me His grace is enough for me Parents Anyone else feel like You're failing as a parent Does anyone else just feel like you're knocking it out of the park Anyone Oh, I can apparently everyone is I'm congratulations I'm so happy for you Oh, when you're having experience with a relationship Or I said Or as a parent And you're so overwhelmed with this And you're thinking I'm going to totally mess this up I got totally I completely don't know what I'm doing I can lost my Well, you know I lost my cool with my kid I yelled I'm going to confess I yelled at my kid I do that And some of you were thinking I'm sure Richie never yelled at his kids It must be a really bad person Did she I yelled at my kids And I'm not supposed to I lost my cool And what's been revealed in my heart God, I'm so needy
And right next to it My grace is enough for you
You see, following Jesus
Does not make you self-sufficient It makes you Christ sufficient And he wants us close to him What is that thing? What is that And here's the point folks When you look at Jesus And you have your sin And your thing And you're living in your despair With all your burden And our self-righteous Our self-righteous Competencies That we're going to figure out our life When we actually need to weep We need to weep
And we need to come before him And say, I can't do this This is too much for me I need you just to love me As I am I've made a mess of my life For God I need you to cleanse me If we don't do that You know what we're doing We're looking at Jesus In the face And we're saying it's not enough for me
So the fourth thing We close with this This grace That we experience Along with our need This dynamic It's a dynamic That's going on We have need He has grace We have need He has grace As we believe and trust in him Here's what happens This grace empowers us It pushes us out To be faithful Followers of Jesus That's the dynamic that happens The greatest followers of Jesus Were the greatest forgiven failures That's a lot of F's The most- Listen to me The most passionate The most effective Followers of Jesus In history Have been the greatest failures Who experienced the greatest forgiveness Do you know that, don't you? So we read again the words of John Newton Lord, why is this, I tremble in pride Will you pursue me to death It's in this way the Lord replied That I answer prayers for grace and faith These inward trials I employ From self and pride to set you free To break your schemes of earthly joy So that you might seek Your all In Me He wants us to really believe this gospel He doesn't want people with sort of Half sins or little sins Or just need a little prop He wants big sinners With big need to run to him And to embrace his grace And to be changed by it To be filled with it Folks, if this is not the gospel There is no gospel If it's not distrastic There is no gospel It means that we're free from self-judgment It means we're free from our burden of our sin How about this one folks How about this East Memphis It means that you're free from having to manage Your reputation And the way you appear to other people Can I even say that, can I say that It means that you can note You no longer have to be the man You don't You just have to be the best you can at what you do In fact, you'll be better at it You don't have to be The picture You don't have to have it all together Because why Jesus has smiled on you He is your righteousness He took Peter's place He'll take your place You don't have to pretend to be righteous anymore Because it's phony righteousness
You're talking about liberating in our context Can I even say that? That sounds rebellious It is Punn it
Get rid of it
Makes us bold, it makes us free It makes us love Jesus, it makes us compassionate Finally, it makes us faithful That's what you see in the life of Peter You don't see a perfect man In fact, he messes up again He messes up again With Paul He doesn't understand the gospel again He forgets it again He's not eating with Gentiles And Paul has to confront him about it There's this pattern of being tested And seeing need And experiencing grace Over and over again But he is Peter He's Saint Peter He becomes this faithful follower Because he's experienced outrageous grace The faithfulness of Jesus Is what makes you faithful
I close with this Don't you know Whenever they're sitting there on the sea of Galilee And Jesus is forgiven Peter After Jesus knows everything that he's done Everything And he tells Peter He re-instates Peter as the leader of the church Peter, I want you to be seen in pastor I would be like But you know everything about me now I want you to be seen in pastor I want you to be the head of the church Oh you're going to Yeah You You
Do you know what definitely occurred to him This man is never going to leave me He's never This guy is never going to leave me He's never going to give up on me I gave up on him three times He stood and gave a true testimony In front of guards that were spitting in his face And slapping him And I denied him In front of some little servant girl This man is never Never going to leave me He's never going to give up on me And knowing that Jesus said You will experience tribulation But I'm never going to leave you I'm never going to leave you Even in the face of what's worst about you That's a heavy sermon So I'm going to close with the words Of one of my favorite country artists Steve Earl Sorry That's what you get when you get a songwriter pastor
He sang a song with Lucinda Williams years ago Said I've spent my life following the things I can't see And just when I catch up to them They slip away from me I've been down a thousand trails That I've never walked before And I found out that without fail They leave me to your door Because my world keeps spinning round and round And it leaves me hanging in the air My heart keeps turning upside down But you're still standing there No matter what happens He's in it forever For you
Lord we need to take Your love for us and your grace for us And we need it to dwarf our need Lord teaches how to not just look at our need And confess and to need you But to really believe Give us faith to believe in the cross And the kind of love that forgives Peter And your precious name we ask and pray Amen