Peter Denies Jesus

Introduction

Opening Illustration: I have made it a habit to read often about the persecuted Church. I am often amazed at the what Christians in other countries are willing to endure for their faith in Christ. I often read of Christians who have a boldness and a courage in the face of all kinds of threatening situations that makes me feel that puts me to shame. I read recently of a young girl, who endured countless beatings and threats against her life, but refused to reject Christ and would walk miles each week to join a secret bible study. And when I read that, I wonder if I would have that courage. It's very easy be bold from a distance and say "Of course." But I also know what its like to have your nerves rattled, to be fearful.

Personal: Today, we look at a moment where the Apostle Peter’s courage failed him. he denied Christ, denied even knowing him for fear of his own safety. Have you ever had a moment where you feel like you denied Christ? Have you ever allowed cowardice to lead you, rather than courage in faith? If so, then like me, this passage is for you.

Context: The context for this passage is very important. We are going to be in Luke 22:54-62, but just a few verses prior Jesus had a private conversation with Peter. We read in Luke 22:33-34,

Luke 22:33–34 “Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.””

Here is Peter, full of courage, full zeal for God, but yet truly untested. By the end of our passage today, Jesus prophetic words that Peter would deny him three times come true. But this story is far more than just a glimpse into Peter’s cowardice. It is a lesson for us, an important lesson about the nature of the faith we hold.

DOCTRINE: Christ’s grace is stronger than our weakness. Let us read this passage together.

Luke 22:54–62 “Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the 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.”

Part 1: Meaning & Application

I EXAMINING THE TEXT

Lessons to Learn: This is one of those scenes in the Scriptures that is incredibly relatable. The Apostle Peter believed that he would never deny the Lord. And he really believed it. Here was a man who in his heart of hearts loved Christ, and wanted to be a faithful servant to Christ. But Peter still had a few humbling lessons to learn.

The Courtyard: When Peter approaches the courtyard, he is following the procession at a distance. Jesus is being led by essentially by the High Priest’s riot police. They take him into the High Priest’s house where Christ will be interrogated by the most powerful men in all of Israel. Peter, out of love for Christ, wants to stay close by so he can see what happens. But he also fears the crowd, and so he keeps enough of a distance that he can stay in the shadows. He sits down next to the fire in the courtyard besides the others.

Servant Girl: He notices a servant girl staring intently at him in the flickering fire light. It’s interesting that the first person to notice him is a servant girl. While Jesus is being interrogated by the most powerful men in Israel and not giving an inch, when Peter is confronted by a lowly servant girl, quite literally the person who has the least amount of authority in the nation. She look at Peter and says “This man was with him.” Peter flagrantly denies it. “Woman, I do not know him.” We have to imagine Peter’s nerves. I have been in situations before, not this intense, but situations where my nerves were rattled. Where your adrenaline begins pumping. I can relate, at least in the sense of being fearful. But think of what he just did. He denied Jesus.

Two More Times: And then over the course of the next hour as the scene continues to unfold, two others approach Peter in that courtyard. Each time they try to associate Peter with Jesus, but each time Peter does, what only a short time prior he would never believe he could do, he denies Christ. He denies the one he loves. And on the third time this happens, Jesus and Peter make eye contact across the courtyard. And in that eye contact, Peter sees the eyes of His Savior peering into his own. And suddenly it clicks. He is in a dangerous spot. This crowd is hostile to Jesus. He needs to decide does he want to likely go down with Christ right then and there, or escape, but the only way to escape is by denying Christ. To play the coward. His nerves are firing, his adrenaline rushing. And he denies Christ, not once, not twice, but three times. And when finally looks Christ in the eye across the courtyard, he sees reality. He sees what he has done. He sees his own weakness. And overcome with his grief, he flees the courtyard.

Weeping Bitterly: And in an incredibly sad, but very human ending, this passage ends with the Apostle Peter weeping bitterly. What was he weeping over? I think his weeping was a combination of two things. On the one hand, it was a recognition of his cowardice, that in his moment of trial, he didn’t live up to who he wanted to be. He was weak, and proved a coward in the moment of battle. On the other hand, they are real tears for the Savior He had grown to love, Jesus Christ. This is serious. He denied Jesus three times!

What Was Peter Thinking: What was Peter thinking as he wept bitterly? Perhaps he was going back to Jesus’ words in Luke 12 when Jesus said,

Luke 12:9 “but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”

And here Peter if weeping violently, wondering, “Will Christ now deny me? Have I cut myself off forever” We’ll have to come back to that later. Perhaps he’s feeling the weight of his cowardice, and he just can’t the sight of himself.

II HOW WE COMMONLY DENY CHRIST

Peter, as we'll see, was eventually restored. But I think the fact that this passage ends with Peter weeping bitterly, must cause us as a people of God to pause ourselves and ask how this relates to us. What is the real issue going on here? I believe Peter's failure was that he was overconfident in himself. Peter here believed that He had the courage and He had the strength to do what had to be done. But when the pressure was on he broke. Peter had yet to learn how to fully depend on Christ. There is something beautiful about Peter's story of restoration from here. Because if God can restore and redeem Peter’s failures in this moment, how much more can he restore and redeem your failures, in your weakest moments.

This Section: What I would like to do, is spend some time pushing this story into our hearts more personally. When we look at Peter from a distance, it is easy to think of this story as something detached from us. Either we say, “Well I’ll likely never be in a situation like that.” Or we say, “Well I’ve never denied Jesus, so what does this have to do with me.” What I want to do is show us the many different ways that we functionally deny Christ in our everyday life, and I want us to feel the weight of our weakness and our denials of Christ.

1 Through Our Unbelief: First, the most obvious and blatant way that we deny Jesus, is through our unbelief. Every person in this room who is now a Christian, at one point was not a Christian. No one is born a follower a follower of Christ. But for many in this room, your story is one where there was a longer season of direct denial of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Perhaps there were many years where, like Peter, used your mouth to verbally deny him. Maybe you heard sermons preached, or heard Christians talk about Christ, and you verbally said, “I reject that. I do not believe.”

Still Today: If that is still you today. This passage is for you. If even in this moment, you have a stubborn heart and you are rejecting who Christ is, and what he has accomplished for you on the cross, I plead with you to see the mistake Peter made here, and to turn and to truly believe before this sermon is over. Christ alone is Savior.

Once: But for others that is not you still today. That was your story, but you have since turned from your sin, and trusted in Christ. I want you to look back for just a moment at that sin of denying Christ, and feel its weight. You, like Peter, rejected God’s Savior. Loves pure light. Praise God for grace, that forgives such sin. For otherwise how could we live with denying our Savior the way we did.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

2 Through Our Fears: A second way we deny Chris is through our fears. When we as Christians, shrink back from confessing Christ when under pressure, this is often a form of denying Christ. Perhaps you yourself have been in a variety of situations like Peter’s. Perhaps, not as hostile as Peters, but nevertheless like Peters. Where there was a moment when you could have boldly and clearly identified yourself as a follower of Jesus, but because of fear, you chose the easier path. You chose to either secretly stay quiet, thereby denying publicly, or you chose to find some middle way with your words, so as not to be forced to publicly identify with Christ. The amount of situations that come up on a day to day basis in the city of Chicago for Christians is remarkable. Let me give you two very relevant examples.

The Lord’s Name in Vain: The old Westminster Confession of Faith teaches us that it is a sin to hear the Lord’s name taken in vain, and to do or say nothing about it. How often do we deny Christ by allowing his name and his honor to be abused in our presence, and we never step up to defend it. Can you imagine if you did that with someone else you loved. Imagine if someone were to speak ill of your spouse in your presence, and you were to say nothing. What would say about your love of your spouse. In the same way, our silence, is a form of denying Christ.

Out With Friends: Or maybe it is simpler. Perhaps you have been out with friends. Their conversation turns to ungodly ideas and thoughts. And because of the social pressure, you went quiet, perhaps you even joined in a little, so as to not to seem a total outsider.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

2 By Our Disobedience: A third way we deny Christ is our disobedience to His Word. When with our mouths we confess that Jesus is our Lord, but with our actions we continually fail to live according to the standard he set, we deny him. It might not be denying him with our lips, but it is denying him with our lives. Ongoing and unrepentant sin is a way of saying “You are not my Lord.” It is a way of saying “I would rather do things my own way.” In fact the Apostle John says it so well when he writes,

1 John 1:6 “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

It might be helpful to think of this in two categories.

Repentant: On the one hand are sins that we are aware of in our life, that we are repentant of, and that we are eagerly seeking sanctification through. Indeed, every time we sin, in any slight way, it is a little rejection of Christ. Somewhere in the recesses of our heart we are following our corrupted nature and not following Christ and His Kingdom. We should see it for what it is. And yet that is not particularly what I speak of here.

Unrepentant: Particularly here however, I am speaking about ongoing, unrepentant sin. When there are areas of our life that are in clear rebellion to God, and we refuse to repent, we refuse to feel remorse, we refuse to find accountability, we make ourselves like Peter. We see God’s Word, we know its clarity, but like Adam and Eve we just want to go on our own way, and in so doing, we deny Jesus.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

4 By Our Distrust: A fourth way we deny Jesus is by our distrust. By distrust I am speaking about our clinging to the promises of God to navigate the trials and challenges in our life. This point alone can be many sermons in length, but I’ll keep it short just to make the point today. For many of us in this room, our lives as Christians are one continual denial of Christ, not by our mouths, but by our persistent failure to claim the promises of God over our life. What many believers do is they say they love Christ and trust Christ and his promises, but then the way they navigate much of their life, especially the hardships they endure, is through many secular means, and very little clinging to the promises of Jesus. And what reveals is that we don’t really trust the promises of Christ. And each time we turn to a secular path for help with our challenges, its a little mini denial of Jesus. Let me give you two examples.

Murmuring: A second way we demonstrate our distrust of God is in our murmuring. The Word of God says that God is sovereignly in control of all things. There is nothing we will ever go through that is not perfectly under the authority of God. Now, it is not wrong to see things that need change, to fight for what is right, and to see godliness brought into systems and areas that need change. Hallelujah. Always be reforming!!! But a murmuring spirit, a disgruntled spirit, a constantly complaining spirit, this is a sign that a person is not believing that God is sovereignly in control. They are being defined by their circumstances and not by their sovereign God.

Philippians 2:14–15 “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,”

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

5 By Formal Religion: A fifth way we deny Christ is through our formal religion. At the center of Christianity is Christ on the cross. The overwhelming message of Christianity is that we are saved by Grace through faith, not of works. No man can get to God on his own merit, or on his own strength. Peter is the evidence of what it looks like when we depend on our own strength. We end up sinning. All of us have gone astray. But God so loved the world, that he sent Jesus to die on the cross, taking our place underneath the wrath of God, so that we could be entirely forgiven of our sin. Our story is one of grace upon grace. Tim Keller brilliantly summarizes it this way. He says that grace says, “I am accepted, therefore I obey.” But Formal Religion says, “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” But isn’t it easy to subtly slip into “I obey, therefore I am accepted.”

Ourselves: We do this with ourselves. It is very easy to start to see either your failures or your success as a measurement of your “Christian-ness.” You string a few good deeds together, and you rank yourself a bit higher. You string a few mistakes together, and you start thinking of all the work you’ve got to do to make it right. What is this revealing? It’s revealing that somewhere you still hold onto “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” Little mini rejections of Christ and his gospel

Others: And unfortunately we do this with others. We are recipients of grace upon grace. And yet sometimes our patience with people who are working through sin, is so short. And what that reveals is that we are in some small way believing that “they must obey, and then they’ll be accepted.” Little mini rejections of Christ.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

6 By Our Indifference to Wordliness: A sixth way we deny Christ is through our worldliness. The Scriptures say that when Christ has gotten a hold of our heart, there is a transformation that takes place. He causes us to be born again to a living hope, and he begins to change our desires, and our affections, and our longings. The Bible says

Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

1 John 2:15 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Yet often, we grow indifferent to worldliness around us. A Christian who loves the Lord and has a mind fixed on Christ, should despise the sins of the culture in which they live, because of the affront to God’s glory that those sins are. Let me give you two little examples.

Pride: We are in a month that our entire nation has deemed “Pride Month.” Where take all kinds of false ideas around sexuality and we celebrate them as if the very things God says are wicked, are good. Now, for many Christians they are not out there waving a pride flag or marching in a pride parade. But what has happened an indifference has come over us. Perhaps its because we’ve been bombarded by this agenda for so long that its hard to stay vigilant. But indifference to worldliness is in some way a denial of Christ. Can you imagine if after all Christ said against the Pharisees, his disciples were just indifferent to the Pharisees, didn’t make them pray, didn’t cause a stir in their stomach.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

7 By Our Neglect: Lastly, by our neglect of spiritual duties and disciplines. As we’ve said already, grace says “I am accepted, therefore I obey.” But very often we leave out that second half of the phrase. Our Christianity can just become “I am accepted” and we forget the “therefore I obey” part. Particularly here, I am not speaking any kind of disobedience, but I am speaking about neglect of developing our souls before a holy God. Years can go by and we put off those very thing that are able to most transform us and shape us for a life of godliness.

The Word: We neglect the spiritual discipline of developing a personal devotion life where we read God’s Word and study God’s Word and absorb God’s Word, so that we might be transformed by God’s Word. And in our neglect of these spiritual duties, its like a mini denial of Christ.

The Local Church: Or we neglect really committing ourselves to a local church, becoming engrained in the fabric of the community. Being known, being a heart that is committed to praying for the needs of the Church. Maybe we only attend a local church when it is convenient for us. We think of Sundays as our day, rather than Sundays as the Lord’s day, as Scripture commands of us. And in our neglect of these spiritual duties, its like a mini denial of Christ.

If Christ can forgive and restore Peter, He can forgive and restore you.

Summarize: Perhaps I can summarize this best this way. This story of Peter is far more relatable than we first imagined isn’t it. Who in this room is not guilty of denying Christ, in one degree or another? At this point my eyes are brought once again to verse 62. Where Peter locks eyes with Jesus and he realizes what he’s done, and we are told,

Luke 22:62 “And he went out and wept bitterly.”

O! May Jesus Christ grant us eyes us to see and a heart to feel the reality of our denials of Christ.

Part 2: Christ’s Affirmation of Us

This passage would be quite depressing, if this was the last knew of Peter. It would seem that Peter’s story culminated in one great loss. But of course we know Peter’s story. The other gospel writers tell us that Jesus after his resurrection would come to Peter and three time speak truth over him just as three times Peter had denied Christ. But there is actually a moment in this chapter which teaches us what this passage is really about. I believe in this passage, Jesus is teaching Peter, that if he relies on his own strength, on his own courage, on his own will, he will fail. He did fail. But Christ’s grace is stronger than our weakness.

Satan’s Demands: Earlier, we read from verses 33-34 where Peter told Jesus that he would never deny him, that he was willing to go to prison and even to death alongside Christ. But just before those words, Jesus said this to him.

Luke 22:31–32 ““Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.””

This language is strange but important. Satan had laid claim of Peter. The Devil wanted to take the leader of the twelve disciples and “sift him like wheat.” The idea there is that he wanted to pull him apart and bring him to ruin. Satan’s strategy was likely, if he can get Peter, the others will fall away.

Jesus Prayed: Notice, Jesus does not say that Satan will not come after Peter. But Jesus does say, that Satan will not conquer Peter because Christ has prayed for him. This means that in Peter’s deepest darkest moment of despair, when the enemy comes in with all of his force and looks to pick him apart as if he were a grain wheat, Peter’s faith will in Christ may be tested but it will never fail, not because of Peter’s strength or because of Peter’s might, but because of Christ’s grace.

The Evidence: Tears: And do you know what is the evidence that this is true? Peter’s tears. His tears reveal that he has not truly denied Christ. His heart loves Christ. Peter has simply exposed his weakness. Why does Peter not walk away here, and wash his hands of the entire ordeal? Because Christ prays for him. Why does Peter not get angry and dejected and say “This isn’t worth it.” Because Christ has prayed for him. And the evidence is his soft heart, his weeping eyes.

Turn It On Us: Church, what I have tried to demonstrate today is that we all have in one way or many denied Christ, perhaps even this morning. And if we had eyes to see what our denying of Christ really looks like, how dark it truly is, we would weep bitterly with Peter. But ours is not a story that ends in bitterness, ours is a story that ends in the sweetness of Christ’s love for us. Christ has prayed for us. Christ has saved us. Christ has secured us. Christ has promised us to never leave us nor forsake us.

Christ Not Weak: Maybe you are in here today, and all of your weaknesses are in the front of your mind. Maybe you can think of half a dozen ways you have denied him in the last few months. And you’re wondering where you stand. Oh Christian, look to Peter, look to his tears. Do you repent of your sin? Do you feel its weight in your heart? Do you love Christ? And do you receive his free gift of forgiveness for you? If so, then Christ’s grace is far greater than your greatest weakness. He is not done with you yet.