Denial
Notes
Transcript
Good Morning
I was planning a trip that we are going to be taking and I was trying to calculate how fast we would need to drive and Beth told me to make sure I always do math with my glasses on.
It help with division.
Thank you to all who came out and helped with the Fall Family Fun Fest. It was a great success and we had a lot of fun! We had around 50 people show up. We ate up all the food and we got to play games and have some good fellowship. We also had some visitors show up. God is Good.
Get the word out about our Oct 31st Praise Night, we are going to sing praises to God and enjoy some finger foods!
Pray for Kyle, he has asked to preach next week.
Continue to be in prayer for our outreach. We are called to go. We all need to be praying about this and going.
Today we are going to be In Mark 14:26-31.
Last week we look at the first Lord’s Supper and the symbolism that it represents. The Lord’s Supper is a gift from God for us to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for all and how much God loves us. We talked about the importance of making sure that we have taken the time to ask God for forgiveness of any sins that are in our lives and to give forgiveness to those who have sinned against us. It is very dangerous to take the Lord’s Supper in a wrong manner and with a wrong attitude.
Today we are going to look at Jesus foretelling the falling away of the followers and the denial of Peter. We are going to see that Jesus is God and He knows the future. He is foretelling what is about to happen in just a few hours. Nothing that happened in Jesus’ life ever caught Him off guard or surprised Him. He knows everything that will happen. He is going to tell the disciples that they are going to scatter when He is killed. He is going to quote the Old Testament again, and show that all of this was told long ago and it is all happening just like it was told by the prophets.
Please stand as we have a moment of silence and read God’s Word.
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 27 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.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.
Pray
They finished singing the hymn that they traditionally sung at the Passover Meal. I want to stop and have us think about this song for a moment. More than likely they were singing Psalm 118:1-2. Let’s take a look at what the first two verses say.
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
For His mercy is everlasting.
2 Let Israel say,
“His mercy is everlasting.”
Now let’s think about what all has happened since they began the Passover meal. Jesus told them that one of them was going to hand Him over to the scribes. This was someone who Jesus had let into the inner circle of disciples. This is someone who was with Jesus everyday for 3 1/2 years. They were close friends. Even though Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas was going to betray Him, it didn’t mean that Jesus loved him any less than He loved the other disciples. Jesus loved Judas the same as He loved Peter. This is a foreign love that Jesus is showing us. He died even for those who reject and betray Him. He died for the whomsoever. Everyone has the option to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. There is no one in hell that Jesus put their, just like there is no one in heaven that Jesus put their. It is our choice of whether or not to believe in Jesus and repent of our sins that determines where we will spend eternity. Remember this, that Jesus just told them that one of His closest friends, one of the 12, is going to betray Him and hand Him over to the scribes.
Next He had just instituted the first Lord’s Supper that symbolizes His death and sacrifice that He is going to go through in a couple of hours. He thinking about all that He is about to go through while He is showing the disciples how to honor His act and remember it until He returns. This had to be a hard thing to do, not for God. Remember the cross is so bad that in the garden, Jesus prayed to God that if there is another way, but not His will, God’s will be done. Jesus didn’t want to go to the cross, but He was obedient to God the Father all the way to the end!
After all that, Jesus sang these words of praise and thanks to God! Again, this is something that would have been hard for a mere man, thank God that Jesus was not just a man, He is the Son of God. None of us can even imagine having to go through that. The closest thing I can think of that compares is a person on death row walking to his death singing and praising God. That is not even close to what Jesus just did. Even in all that distress and negativity, He was able to sing praises to the Father. He was able to do that because our joy does not come from our situation, God’s goodness is not dependent on whether or not we are in good time or bad times. God is good all the time and all the time He is worthy of our praise and thanksgiving.
So many times I have read over this and not thought about it, they sang, not a big deal. It is a big deal if we stop and think about all that has lead up to this moment. Jesus’ heart had to be heavy and saddened! But He was still able to praise God.
Next we see that when they were done praising God, they left and went to the Mount of Olives. Again I have read this many times and not thought anything of it, and again it is a big deal.
They were to eat the Passover meal and not leave the house that night. We can see this from Exodus, were Moses told them what to do for the Passover. They were remembering the night that the angel of death came and went over the land of Egypt and killed all the first born of those who were not in a house with the blood of the lamb on the door post and lintels. By staying in the house, they were remembering that they were only safe when they were under the blood of the lamb.
Think about this, with Jesus leaving the house, He was showing that He was not covered by the blood of the Passover Lamb and the death angel would not Passover Him. He is intentionally walking away from that protection of that blood. That protection was temporary. We can see from Exodus that the only person that the death angel killed was the first born male of the house.
Who is Jesus, the first born Son of God! What is going to happen to Jesus just a few hours? He was sacrificed! With all this symbolism, Jesus continues it by leaving the house and the protection of the blood of the lamb after the Passover meal and symbolizes that He is going to die as the first born Son of God. Not only is He not covered by the blood of the Lamb, He becomes the Lamb that dies for all!
There is so much more to the Bible, we just need to slow down and take our time and think about it as we read and study it. God is so good!!
While they are on the Mount of Olives, Jesus drops another bomb on them! He tells them that they are all going to fall away!
This is not the same verb that Jesus used when He was talking about Judas, He is not saying that they will stop believing, He is just telling them that they are going to fall away for a brief time. They are still believers, they are just going to get scared and run for a while. I think that if we all stop and think about our lives, we have all fallen away at least one time! We are no different than the disciples.
Next Jesus quotes from the Old Testament. He is quoting Zechariah 13:7
7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who stands next to me,”
declares the Lord of hosts.
“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
I will turn my hand against the little ones.
Who is going to strike the shepherd? Who does the shepherd belong to? I am so glad you guys are asking all the right questions! God is the one who is striking the shepherd, the shepherd belongs to God. He is reminding them that all of this was foretold by the prophet Zechariah hundreds of years ago! It was told that when the shepherd is struck, the sheep will be scattered. And this is exactly what we are going to see when we get to the arrest of Jesus! God strikes down the shepherd and then raises Him back up and seats Him at His right hand, the highest place of honor. Remember it is not man who kills Jesus, it is God. Isaiah 53:10
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
It had to be God so that it would be an acceptable offering for the sin of the world.
Jesus then tells them that He is going to ahead of them and meet them at Galilee. This was his base of His ministry for most of the time. Jesus spent the majority of His time in the region of Galilee. He knew that these men would return to where He called them, where they were from, so He would go there also. He is preparing them, giving them the information that they are going to need in the coming days as they are going to have to wait for Jesus to be resurrected and come to them in Galilee. They are going to be distressed and He knows that they are not going to be thinking clearly so He is telling them now.
Next we have good old Peter!! I wonder what the other 10 thought of Peter sometimes. We can see here that Peter thinks He is better than all the rest. He says, in front of them where they can all hear! Even though, he doesn’t say if, he is saying when they all fall away, he will not. That is arrogance and pride right there. How many times has Jesus told them things were going to happen and they always did! Yet Peter again is talking back to His rabbi! Peter is like that athlete who is the best on the team and he knows it. The coach loves him but also wants to strangle him!
Jesus truly loves Peter, but I’m sure He wants to say to Peter, you dummy, how many times are you going to go against what I am telling you is going to happen? Jesus even showed them that the prophets told about this also! This is going to happen, even though Peter doesn’t like it!
So to let Peter know that it is going to happen, Jesus gives him even more details about his falling away. Jesus tells Peter that before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times! Not only is Peter going to fall away, he is going to publicly deny Jesus three times! Peter not only follows Jesus passionately, he also denies Jesus passionately. It is who Peter is! We all have a little bit of Peter in us! We are also going to see later on, that Peter’s denial is so passionate, that Jesus restores him three times also!
Look at how they all answer Jesus at the end of our verses. They all emphatically said that if they had to, they would die with Jesus. We will see a different attitude soon from all of them! They were all strong when they were around Jesus. That sounds familiar. When we are in our Bibles on a daily bases and we are in prayer with God, we are stronger also!
They were not just ho hum saying we will die with you. They were saying with passion and conviction! We will die with you if we have too!! If we would have been there, we would have believed them! That is how they were saying it to Jesus. I can imagine Jesus chuckling to Himself, if you only knew!! But one day, after I send the helper, you will be that strong!
I think Peter’s biggest problem is pride. He uses the word I to much. I won’t fall away, I will die with you, I will not deny you! We have the same problem.
We get to a point where things are going good and we begin to think we have something to do with the good that is going on. We forget that all good comes from God. We begin to get a big head and think to much of ourselves. We think, self, we are pretty good. We got these things under control! We’ve got his all figured out. We know what we are doing! Nothing is going to stop us.
That is when God will put things in your life to remind you just who you really are. Everything will seem like it is falling apart. It will take us a while to realize why, because we stopped giving God the glory and praise. We began to give ourselves the glory and praise. God will put us in our place. He is the only one worthy of praise and honor. We are sinners who had to have the Son of God sacrifice Himself so that we could be made right with God. We can’t do anything good outside of the good that God has put in us. It is through the Holy Spirit and the new creation that we become that we are that we do any good at all! We need to be reminded of these so that we can continue to give glory and praise to God and only Him.
We need to make sure that we stay in God’s Word daily and we are living a life of continual prayer. That is how we stay strong and how we continue to do good! There is no guarantee on how to keep trial and tribulation away, we will always have those things, but if we do our part by reading God’s Word and praying, it will keep us strong in those tuff times.
We have to remember that we are nothing without Jesus! We have to stay humble. Jesus had every right to brag and have people serve Him, but that is not what He came to do. He came to serve and to show us how we as His followers are to act. We are to serve others just like our King did. By serving others and helping those who are less fortunate, we have a better chance of staying humble. We have to remember the cross and remember why Jesus had to go there. When we do that, there is no other proper response to the cross than humility.
We are who we are because of Christ in us! Without Jesus in us, we can do no good. The Bible tells us that none are good. We do good to keep that in the fore front of our minds! That will keep us humble and on the right path.
Let’s pray
