Preached May 17, 2009
Matthew 26:69-75
Theme: Peter’s denial of the Lord teaches us what we can do to stand faithfully for Him in our own times of testing.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
We return this morning to the Gospel of Matthew—and to the saddest event in the life of the apostle Peter.
Our Lord had just been arrested in the garden, and taken captive by those who would soon crucify Him. He had been brought into the residence of Caiaphas the high priest, examined by the Jewish council, and declared worthy of death because of His testimony that He was the Son of God.
And while all of this was going on, Matthew tells us;
Now Peter sat outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came to him, saying, “You also were with Jesus of Galilee.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you are saying.” And when he had gone out to the gateway, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, “This fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth.” But again he denied with an oath, “I do not know the Man!” And a little later those who stood by came up and said to Peter, “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you.” Then he began to curse and swear, saying, “I do not know the Man!” Immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So he went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:69-75).
What a tragic failure Peter’s denial of the Lord was! Considering the privileges that Peter experienced, I believe it truly is the greatest moral failure of any of God’s saints in all the Bible.
But I’m also very glad that it’s recorded for us in Scripture. One reason I’m glad is because it gives authenticity to the Bible’s testimony about Jesus. All four of the Gospels tell us this story of Peter’s denial; and if the writers of those Gospels were trying to fabricate a positive picture of the Christian faith, they certainly wouldn’t have repeatedly told us of the failure of one of the church’s founding apostles—the very man, in fact, on whose testimony Jesus said, “I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18).
I believe that the Holy Spirit chose to record the story of Peter’s denial in the Bible—in part—because it helps to confirm the Bible’s integrity. But it does more than that. I’m glad that Peter’s denial is recorded for us because you and I can identify with his weaknesses—and from the story of his failure, we can learn what we need to do in order to stand strong for the Lord in our own times of testing.
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Over the years, it’s been my privilege to lead small discipleship groups. I deeply enjoy meeting with other men who are seeking to grow in the Lord, helping to get them into a regular habit of reading God’s word, and encouraging them in their walk with Him.
And in those discipleship-relationships, one of the things that I have learned is the value of sharing from the experience of my own failures. It’s all-too easy to do so, I’m afraid, because there are many to draw from. But it makes for a ‘teachable moment’—both for myself and for my growing brothers in Christ—when I start the conversation off by saying, “Well, guys; something happened since the last time we met. I really blew it and did something really stupid. Let me tell you about it.” I don’t necessarily enjoy being that open and honest! But together with the guys in my group, we take a careful look at what I did wrong; and we learn what God would have all of us do differently in the future.
And that’s how I’m approaching this morning’s passage. I believe Peter would want us to hear this story—as painful as it might be. I believe that if our dear elder-brother Peter were with us today, he might begin by telling us something like this:
“Now listen, dear brothers and sisters. Back in my day—believe me—it was very hard to take a stand for Jesus! It often meant persecution and suffering. You might remember that I wrote my first letter to a group of my Jewish kinsmen who were Christians. I called them “the pilgrims of the Dispersion” (1 Peter 1:1); and that was because they were scattered away from their homeland because of their devotion to the Master. You might even remember that I wrote something to those Christians back then that I could have just as well written to you dear fellow-believers living for Jesus in twenty-first century America:
Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified (1 Peter 4:12-14).
“You are living today in very exciting and challenging days. The people around you desperately need to hear about our Lord! And I know that it’s hard for you to take a stand for Him in the ungodly culture in which you live. What’s more, I’m not going to try and paint a rosy picture for you; you need to know that it’s going to get even harder to take a stand for Him as the days roll on. As our brother Paul has written, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). He went on to write that, on the one hand, “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (3:12); and that, on the other hand, “evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (v. 13). That’s the situation our wise Father has put you in, my dear brothers and sisters; and in times to come, you’re going to feel a very powerful and overwhelming temptation to deny Jesus in the circumstances of daily life.
“I truly understand that temptation. I felt it myself. And boy; did I ever blow it once! You could not possibly blow it as badly as I did! But our Savior had mercy on me. Oh He is so loving and forgiving! And He even went on to use me—in spite of my horrible failure.
“I want you to hear about my failure—and think about the lessons you can learn from it; so you’ll know what you need to do in order to take a faithful stand for the Savior whenever you’re tempted to deny Him.”
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I’d like to share with you this morning some of the lessons I believe the apostle Peter would want us to learn from his own horrible failure in denying the Lord. And I believe the first lesson he would share with us is this:
1. NEVER PUT YOUR CONFIDENCE IN POWER OF THE FLESH.
I think he might say that it all started for him when I made that regretful boast to the Lord.
“You remember,” he’d say, “when the Lord made that horrible announcement that one of us would betray Him? And as you know, that person turned out to be Judas—who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. But you’d better believe that each of us examined our own hearts when he said that. ‘Lord,’ we each asked, ‘is it I?’
“Well; I did some examining of myself. And I resolved, then and there, that I would never do such a thing to Him! But then, after Judas left and as we were walking to the garden—where, as you know, it turned out that He was betrayed—our Lord surprised us further with another revelation. He said to the rest of us,
“All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:
‘I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’“But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:31-32).
“Well; once again, I stuck my chest out and said, ‘Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.’ That’s when the Lord looked me right in the eye (He had to do that sometimes), and said to me, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Doesn’t He believe me? Doesn’t He think I really love Him? So I said it even more firmly; ‘Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!’ I guess I had some influence on the others; because they all said the same thing.
“Now let me assure you, brothers and sisters; when I said that, I really meant it! Do you remember that I even dared to take up a sword and strike the servant of the high priest? I’m ashamed to speak of it today; but believe me when I tell you—I wasn’t aiming for his ear! I was fully prepared to die for the Lord—and even help a few other people die for Him while I was at it! But that wasn’t our Lord’s way. He rebuked me; and told me to put the sword away.
“You see, brothers and sisters; that boast that I made on the way to the garden—that I would never deny Him—I was depending on the power of my own flesh when I made it. I was going to stand strong for Him in my own power—me, Peter, the mighty fisherman! Oh how wrong I was!
“So as the Lord sends you out into a hostile world, and calls you to make your stand for Him in the difficult days to come, don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t get proud. Don’t make your boast in the flesh. Don’t try to stand for Jesus in the strength of your own power. You’ll fail if you do—just as I did.
“Instead, remember what I wrote in my first letter—
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:6-8).
“That’s where the real threat is coming from—from a powerful spiritual enemy. ‘Resist him, steadfast in the faith . . .’ (v. 9a). Trust in God, and don’t ever put your confidence in your own fleshly power; because if you do, the enemy will take advantage of you—and you will most surely fail.”
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And I believe there’s more that the apostle Peter would say to us.
If you look at verse 57-58, you’ll read that “those who had laid hold of Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed Him at a distance to the high priest’s courtyard. And he went in and sat with the servants to see the end.”
Peter was following the Lord—but you might say that he was following at a ‘safe distance’. I suspect that many of us do that whenever we’re in a situation in which we’re not sure how people will react to our faith in Jesus. We say that we’re following Him—but truth be told, we’re not really where He would have us be. Instead, we try to keep a ‘safe-distance’ so no one will give us any trouble.
But that’s when we come to the sad story of Peter’s actual denial of Jesus. He was found sitting outside the courtyard of the high priest’s residence. Then, along came a servant girl. In the original language, it specifies “one servant girl”—and that’s probably intended to put this one, single harmless little girl in contrast to the burly fisherman Peter. She looked at him, and said, “You also were with Jesus of Galilee” (v. 69). But Peter—the one who said that he would die for Jesus; the one who was willing to defend Him with a sword—lied. He saw that others were standing around, listening to the little girl’s question; and Matthew tells us that “he denied it before them all, saying, ‘I do not know what you are saying'” (v. 70).
I believe another lesson to learn from his experience is to . . .
2. MAKE SURE YOUR HEART IS ALWAYS PREPARED TO TESTIFY OF HIM.
I suspect that if Peter were to speak to us today, he might say something like this:
“Now; dear brothers and sisters; here’s another way I blew it. I wasn’t really prepared inwardly to be identified with Jesus. I was following nearby Him; but I wasn’t prepared in my heart to be recognized as belonging to Him.
“And please understand that, prior to that point, I had followed our Lord in the closest possible way for three-and-a-half years. I had been ‘identified’ with Him day and night. But this little girl caught me off-guard, and I was afraid. I was taken by surprise.
“But don’t you be surprised. Don’t you be caught off guard. Don’t you be afraid. You make sure that you’re always prepared—not just intellectually, but in the deepest condition of your heart—to say, in whatever situation God allows you to enter into, ‘Yes, I am with Jesus! I belong to Him!'”
“Now; you might be asking how to be prepared in your hearts. And I’d like to tell you how. I wrote about it in my first letter—in 1 Peter 3:15; where I urged my friends back then, ‘But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you . . .’ You certainly need to be ‘intellectually ready’ to give an answer for your faith. But much more, you need to be ‘inwardly ready’ to testify of Jesus by the fact that you have already ‘sanctified’ Him—or ‘set Him apart as Lord’—in your hearts. You become inwardly prepared, in whatever situation you are in, when you first yield yourselves in a fresh way to the indwelling Holy Spirit that the Lord sent to us—setting Him apart as Lord in your innermost being.
“You may remember that I am a living example of this. Before the Lord sent the Holy Spirit to minister to us on His behalf, I wasn’t much of a witness for Him. It took just one little girl to throw me into fear. But after our Lord arose, He made a promise to me and to the others; ‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). And after the Holy Spirit came, do you remember how I preached in Jerusalem? Do you remember how John and I testified in the power of the Holy Spirit to those same men who arrested our Lord?
“The Lord has risen; and He has sent the Holy Spirit. He is your all-powerful, ever-present Helper right now. So, don’t blow it like I did. Don’t be caught by surprise. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts by living obediently to Him and yielding yourself to the Holy Spirit’s enabling power in each new situation. And then, in His power, always be ready to testify of Jesus.”
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Now; there’s a third thing that I think Peter’s experience has to teach us; and that is to . . .
3. REPENT OF YOUR DENIAL OF HIM AS SOON AS IT HAPPENS.
As we read on, we see that after the servant girl had approached him, Peter went out of the courtyard and into the gateway. Perhaps Peter was trying to mix into the crowd a bit more. But apparently another servant girl saw him and said to those who were there, “This fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth” (v. 71). And again, Peter lied. This time, he said, “I do not know the Man!” (v. 72)—and even denied Jesus with an oath.
And the situation got even more intense. A little while later, more came up to him and said, “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you” (v. 73). John, in his Gospel, tells us that one of the servants of the high priest—a relative of the man whose ear Peter cut off—also came up and said, “Did I not see you in the garden with Him?” (John 18:26). And that’s when Peter’s denial took the very worst turn. He began to curse and swear, saying, “I do not know the Man!” (v. 74a).
Again, I speculate. But if Peter were here today, I wonder if he might not say something like this:
“Dear brothers and sisters; here’s another way I blew it. When I saw that I was denying my Lord, I didn’t stop. As our brother Mark reports, I even heard a rooster crow along the way (Mark 14:68)—as if I were being given a ‘warning-crow’. But I kept right on going. And in the process, my heart got harder and harder; and my language got harsher and harsher, and I became more and more like those that I was trying to hide my faith from. That’s the way it is with sin. We don’t simply plateau-out when we’re in it. We either repent of it, or we grow harder and deeper into it.
“Now; granted, our Lord promised that I would deny Him three times—and that’s what I did. But I was still personally responsible; and I hardened my own heart in the process. But don’t you harden your heart in your denial of Him. Remember what our brother John has said; ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). When He has called you to testify of Him, and as soon as you see that you have failed to do so—as soon as you see that you have denied Him—repent immediately! Be assured that He will always forgive you.
“And let me ask you this. What do you suppose would happen if, right then and there—in a fresh surrender to the Holy Spirit—you were to turn to those before whom you had just denied the Lord and say, ‘I have just done something terrible. God has just given me an opportunity through you to testify of Jesus—my Lord and Savior; and I failed both Him and you. I have just denied my Lord before you! Please forgive me for doing that. And now, before you all, I repent of my denial; and testify that I do own Him as my Lord’?
“I guarantee—they’ll never forget it! And if you do so, then you’d better get ready—because lots of people are going to ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you!”
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So; I’m speculating that these are the ways that Peter would come along side us and teach us from the ways that he himself blew it. He’d let us know that he was depending on the power of his own flesh to keep him faithful to the Lord; and he would urge us not to trust in the flesh. He did so; and he fell.
Second, I’m speculating that he would also warn us to make sure that our hearts are always prepared to testify of Jesus in each new situation that He brings us into. Peter’s heart was not prepared; and all it took was one little servant girl to throw him off.
Third, I’m speculating that Peter would urge us that, if we ever do fail, and if we do deny our Lord—and we most certainly will at some time—we should repent immediately! We must not let our hearts harden in our denial. Peter didn’t repent; and his denial got worse and worse.
And now, here’s one more thing that I believe Peter would say; that . . .
4. IF YOU BLOW IT, KNOW THAT YOUR WITNESS FOR HIM ISN’T FOREVER RUINED.
Matthew tells us that, as soon as Peter denied his Lord for the third time, “Immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ So he went out and wept bitterly” (vv. 74b-75).
And if he were here, I wonder if Peter might say to us something like this:
“Dear brothers and sisters; for the rest of my life, I couldn’t hear a rooster crow but that I would break down and cry again. I can’t tell you enough how ashamed I was. And I was sure that I would never be of any use to the Lord again. Even after He arose, I thought He would never want to have anything to do with me.
“Now; perhaps you have denied the Lord too. And perhaps you feel that He could never use you again. It may not be that you denied Him with your words. Perhaps it was through your neglect. Or perhaps it was through your loss of focus. It may even be that some sinful habit has taken hold of you, and made ruin of you, and that you now feel as if you’ve brought such disrepute upon the Lord that He’d never want you around Him again.
“But look at me. I denied Him. I cursed and swore in Caiaphas’ courtyard, and denied that I knew Him even as they were beating Him! But back before He went to the garden, He once said to me that Satan wanted to sift me like wheat; ‘But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren’ (Luke 22:32). Do you see it? He not only knew that I would blow it; but He had a plan of service in place for me as soon as I would return to Him!
“After He arose, He came and appeared to me personally! And then I—Peter, the notorious denier of the Lord—was permitted to preach the first gospel message ever preached to my Jewish brethren in the city of Jerusalem! And then, I was permitted to be the first evangelist ever to deliver the gospel to Gentiles! And the Holy Spirit even saw fit to use me to write two letters that are now in the Bible—and that have been the edification and strengthening of my suffering and persecuted brethren ever since! All of this was after I blew it!
“Oh no, dear brothers and sisters. Even if you’ve blown it as I once had—even if you have denied your precious Lord terribly—your story is not over. He is a very forgiving Savior. You can just take it for a fact that your witness for Him is never permanently lost. He went on to use me. And if you confess your failure and turn back to Him, He can also use you.”
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Praise God for this dear elder-brother, Peter! Praise God that we have his story—even the story of his denial of the Lord—recorded forever in God’s word for our instruction. And may we learn, from his experiences, how we can stand strong for the Lord in our own times of testing.