Is Jesus Difficult to Follow?

INTRO: Today we are continuing to look at the last hours of Jesus’ life in the book of John. We are looking at the time Christ spent with His disciples on that Thursday night of Passion Week leading up to the cross. And this time was marked by the love of Christ for His followers. This section is a great demonstration of Christs care and edification of His beloved disciples. In verse 30 we see the departure of Judas Iscariot and Jesus is left with the devoted eleven. He draws them in close to give them His care, his warnings, His affection, and support. He is going away from them and he wants to be aware of how life is without Him. And so last week Pastor Jonathan covered the new commandment that Christ has given to them and this week we will look at the foretelling of Peters act of betrayal. An act of cowardice and fear that leads him to deny even knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.

36 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” 37 Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. John 13:36-38

[Prayer]

And really, to me, this was always one of the great puzzles of the New Testament. The fact that Peter would deny Christ, just seemed so out of character. How could this man who has spent every waking hour of the last three years by Jesus’s side deny Him? If we look at the context surrounding this story, there doesn’t seem to be any clear resolution. If we look at Peter throughout the gospels, first we see that 1Peter had been committed to Jesus from the very beginning. Matthew recounts their meeting by the sea of Galilee whereby Peter, who was a fisherman, leaves what he has—his boats and nets—and “at once” follows Jesus. There seems to be very little conversation here, Peter understands from first moment who Jesus is and is willing to leave his life to follow him.

2Moreover, a second bit of evidence that puzzles Peters betrayal is the mount of transfiguration. Any doubt about the nature of God in Christ that would make Peter deny Jesus was obliterated in the mount of transfiguration. This is when Jesus takes Peter, James, and John onto a mountain side and reveals that He is indeed God. He, in a sense, peels back His humanity and lets His few disciples with see that He is part of the triune God—His face and clothes shine like the sun. Peter recounts this later on in the 2 Peter and says that they were witnesses of His majesty—of Christ’s majesty! In the timeline of Jesus’s ministry this was probably months or possibly a year before Peter’s betrayal—but still not something Peter would have likely forgotten or lost sight of. Anyone of us who has seen Jesus transformed into God should have the knowledge to stand throughout any adversity. I feel if I had seen that I would have been able to stand with Christ no matter.

3Thirdly, maybe we should think that when Peter’s faith got too hard, he fell by the wayside, but even this doesn’t make any sense. Peter is the one who Christ builds His church. In Acts he preaches the gospel message boldly and heals people and ultimately, committedly, follows Jesus to the cross to die the same way (which Jesus also foretells in todays scripture)

Over and over again we see, in the gospels, Peters commitment to Christ: his confession of Jesus as the Christ and the Son of the living God, Peter is the one who steps out of the boat to walk on water. His commitment level is there on both sides of the betrayal. What happened? What happened during this small time period that Peter loses sight of everything. So much so, that as will see in coming weeks that pledges an oath of not knowing Christ. That he uses foul language to curse the knowing of Jesus not once but THREE TIMES, even one of those being to a young maid.

Well, this morning I would like to present to you that Peters issue that prevented him from standing is that he did not have the right knowledge of Christ. That even after all that time he had missed who Jesus was and that faultiness of knowledge is the reason for his betrayal. What we know of God, what we believe of Jesus matters. It is important. Knowledge of God is not bible trivia. Knowledge of God is understanding His attributes, His character, what He has done and will do. Our knowledge informs our beliefs and our actions. Or as a theology professor once said the right root produces the right fruit. This scripture is a warning to us. To be cautious in our knowledge of God and how we pursue Him. Peters errant view of Jesus is costly to him.

Don’t Trust Your Presuppositions about Jesus

Explanation: I spoke a couple weeks ago about just how far off the disciples were in knowing Jesus. They just didn’t seem to get it. They seem to be dense when it comes to understanding what is going to happen with Jesus and what His eternal kingdom looks like. Remember that even as Jesus is laying out His last directives and explaining to them how to serve and love, that they are speaking about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. They are arguing about things that are opposites to Christs kingdom. They seem to have totally missed what is happening and what is to come. Jesus says in verse 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ And poor Peter, he just has a way about him doesn’t he? The only time he opens his mouth is to change feet. And so he says in verse 36 “Lord, where are you going?” I can’t imagine what our Lord Jesus is thinking during this time. “Where am I going?” I have just spent the last few months speaking with you what must happen. Jesus continually throughout their time has told them about His upcoming death. Certainly, there have been times when Jesus has spoke in parables, but this is one area He has been painfully clear on. Christ is going to the cross.

And the disciples real struggle is that they cannot harmonize what they know, what they have been told, about the messiah with the reality of who Jesus is. The Jews of the day wanted to pick and choose what they believed about the messiah. The scribes and pharisees—who brought the greatest condemnation from our Lord—were chiefly responsible for the information or misinformation about messiah. This is why our Lord, introduces many thoughts on the sermon of the mount with “you have heard it said, but I say.” He speaks authoritatively in the correction of what they have been taught. Because what they have been taught has largely been based on Rabbi tradition and not what scripture has taught. Many, many of the Old Testament prophets perfectly describe the sacrificial nature and suffering of the Christ that would come. But the teaching of the day was that messiah would come with power and might. That he would destroy those that had ruled over Gods people, would clear out the Roman occupation of Israel and would instate a new kingdom of riches and wealth that had never been seen. Jesus did not come in this way, at least not in first advent and the Jews missed Him. More importantly, even Christs disciples had missed some of this because they were still looking for a different messiah

It is with this thought in mind that Peter utters his next words. Verse 37, Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Peter speaks from his faulty view and swears by whatever will happen next Peter will follow along in whatever is thrown at Jesus. We look at the rest of the gospels to see just how deep Peters reaction is: A summary is that Peter says he will die, go to prison, and that even though everyone else may fall away, that he will not. Peter says I will go down in a hail of gunfire, in the baddest of fights, in the worse of prison torture to stay with you. Of course, we know the rest of the story, and know that it will not be true in the immediate future. That when placed with these very hardships, Peter’s understanding of who Jesus is will leave him uncommitted and cowardly. Peter’s words at this point are nothing but lip service.

Illustration: I worked for many summers as a guide in an outfitter in the Uwharrie National Forest. I worked for a company that took, mostly youth, into the forest and gave them a high adventure week that centered around Christ. Many youth groups, boy scout troops, 4H groups would come in on a Wednesday night and have three days of adventure, leaving on Saturday. And on Wednesday night we would tell them what all we would be doing for the rest of the week. We began to realize a predictable outcome for one of the events that we would do. When spoke of the rappelling several of them got very excited. If you don’t know what rappelling is, it is when you we go over the edge of usually something very tall, tied into a rope system. And when spoke of this we would always have at least one or two, always male, that would boast about what they would do. “I’m going to fly down that wall, I’m going to do tricks, I’m going to look flip upside-down and look like spiderman.” And it never failed the ones, that would brag on Wednesday about his ability to rappel, on Friday when we got to the location was always the same young man who would back out, or suddenly fall victim to an illness, or some cases with tears streaming down his face ask me to unhook him from the ropes. Even 17 or 18 year old men. (Sidenote: it was always the 80lb 8th grade young lady who looked like an old pro even though she had never been before—there is a lesson there for another day)

The point is that these young men had the wrong idea of what rappelling looked like. Their confidence was formed in a faulty knowledge. They approached it with pride and arrogance instead of humility and teachable heart. And so, when they got to the top of the cliff and saw the heights and looked at the thin gauge rope. The wrong ideas were no comfort to them. They would become terrified. The challenge had come and they did not weather it well.

Argumentation: This is what we see in Peter. Peter and by extension the rest of the disciples had been so assured about who Jesus was that they had actually missed Him. This is a great warning to us as believers because it shows you the haughtiness of the human heart. Think about it, these men were so assured of who the Christ was that even Christ didn’t convince them of His actual nature. That three years spent with Him didn’t change their view

How then can we understand Christ and have a right understanding of what His kingdom looks like? If the disciples missed it, do we even stand a chance? Christ gives us the best chance in the beginning verse of the beatitudes Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The beginning of the right knowledge is to realize your absolute and utter incapability to know God without God. Let me say that again, you cannot know God without God. In Greek here, the word poor means to cower, or shrink back. It doesn’t have anything to do with poverty but rather an action. It comes from the word in those days that would describe a poor beggar who would hold out his hand to accept alms but would cower, shrink back, covering his face and head in shame of being recognized. This is the attitude our Lord imparts to us, and this is so good, that we have this nature when it comes to our spirit. In how we understand and follow God. That we approach our God with a hand out to the spiritual alms that He gives us freely, yet we approach with the idea that are no resources to perceive God of ourselves. That our pride is gone, self-assurance is gone, and we stand empty-handed before God with a spirit of humility.

Application: Today, where is your baseline for understanding Christ and knowing God? Do you come with your own understanding and presuppositions? Are you like Peter in that even though you have sound teaching around, you hold to your own understandings, your own qualifications about what life in Christ looks like, about what the kingdom looks like? Are you spiritually like the young men who already knew all there was to know about rappelling and boasted about it. We often times boast inwardly about who we are in Christ and what we know of Him. This scripture is a warning to us to approach God with humility. The church today has in large part missed that. Instead the church today approaches God with a sense of already knowing everything about Him. We have the most resources to understand scripture, use them the least, and still are prideful in our knowledge. To humbly approach God is the only way we can know Him rightly.

Don’t Trust Your Creations about Jesus

Explanation:In the next verse we see the rebuttal of Jesus towards Peters self-assured remarks of commitment. Remember that Peter has said that he will lay down his life for Jesus. And Jesus, even though this is a time of great love and encouragement, draws down on Peter’s arrogance and Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. This is the effect statement. We have seen in the opening verses the brash nature of Peter and his miscalculations about who Christ is and that is the cause. This, then, is the effect, that Peter will deny Christ three times. Peter’s errant view of Christ will inform his actions.

It must have been a hard thing for Peter to imagine. And I believe that this is the reason for Peter’s silence. There is no recorded response from Peter, here in the book of John. He is fully enveloped in his ignorance and to the point that nothing seems to be able to penetrate. Peter cannot imagine betraying Jesus, because He believes that Jesus is going to live up to this faulty view of messiah. In other words, Peter believes that in his heart that all of this stuff about humility, and serving, and love—those are good and noble things—things that a great teacher hasto say. But they don’t fully embody the power, and kingliness, and majesty force that Jesus is about to demonstrate. They aren’t really the kingdom. I think Peter just thought Jesus was playing at all of this and that He will ultimately live up to the Jesus he believes in—to the Jesus of his making. Peter’s Jesus was the lion, right. He has been in the presence of Him for three long years. No way does Peter think the lion will be lead to the altar to be slain as the lamb. And so Peter continues to live in this ignorance for the next short while. But the effect of this wrongful thinking is coming

I believe the change for Peter comes in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is here that Peter receives a brutal wake-up call. In chapter 18, Jesus and the disciples are in the garden and Judas arrives with the detachment of soldiers, officials, and chief priests to arrest Jesus. And Jesus goes out to meet them. And you can see how this could have looked in Peters eyes. The lion walks out towards the aggressors. Jesus in 18:4 asks Who is it you want?...... Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. And Jesus replies I am he,” and when He says that all of the soldiers drew back and fell to the ground. The power of Jesus on display flattens the group of soldiers. The power is there, and yet Jesus is not going to wield it. Peter is a different story—He’ll wield it. I can imagine that Peter is getting hyped up now. This is it, it is go time. Lets fight, I have almighty God in my corner who has the ability to draw down legions of angel armies and defeat any faction that comes against me. And my commitment to fighting alongside messiah will sure reward me a great name in the kingdom. And so emboldened by Christ’s power Peter draws his sword and strikes the high priests servant cutting off his ear. And let me just say he didn’t aim for his ear. He was aiming to take the man’s head off. Peter is willing to fight the whole group in the faulty knowledge of Christ. And then in the defining moment, the reality check comes for Peter and the rest of the disciples. Jesus stops Peter and He rebukes him. (V. 11) Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” This is a rhetorical question for Peter. Jesus is saying to him, have you not listened. Have you missed it this bad. This is not how we are doing things. I am going to willingly lay down my life. This is what I have been telling you—that it has to happen this way. Jesus even goes so far as to heal this man’s ear. The lion becomes the lamb right there in front of Peters eyes. Peters’ perception of the Jesus he wants bursts in the reality of true Messiah. And Peters response is one of terror. In fact, all of the disciples are frightened. In Mark’s gospel we see that this is the action—this defining moment of Jesus turning Himself in that causes the disciples to flee. This is the shift in which I believe we see an incongruent Peter. He is, for this time, a Peter that is not bold or loyal, but a Peter that is fearful and treacherous, that would deny his Lord three times. He realizes in a moment that He has somehow missed out on the true nature of Jesus and instead fabricated something for himself that was akin to Jesus but not Jesus exactly. A Jesus of his own making.

Illustration: Many of you have probably heard of Frank Abagnale Jr. He is the subject of a popular movie some years ago called “Catch Me if You Can,” whereby Frank is a conman who impersonates doctors, lawyers, and airline pilots and travels around the world with the FBI hot on his heels. And really the strength of Abagnale’s con is his meticulous ability to counterfeit documents. No one ever questions this young man because he has the right credentials, everything seems to check out. He has the right security documents, diplomas, transcripts. The counterfeits are so close to the real thing that no one can tell the difference. All-in-all Abagnale counterfeited checks to the tune 2.5 million dollars which was no small amount in the year he was caught in 1969.

Argumentation: This is what we must be most careful of as we continually examine our faith and our beliefs and doctrine. That we have not produced or been deceived into believing an idol that we call Jesus. A faith that we call Christianity but is a counterfeit.

You don’t have to look very far to find counterfeits of our faith. And they aren’t always as glaring Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not hold to our view of Christ and the Trinity. Sometimes it is a church that preaches a prosperity gospel. Sometimes it is a church that presents Christ as a social activist. Sometimes it is a church that casually lets its congregation live an unrepentant life of sin and still calls them saved. Counterfeiting our faith is the key work of satan. Its his main objective to separate us from the will of God by counterfeiting. He himself is a counterfeit. (2 Corinthians 11:14-15) says He disguises himself as an angel of light. Also, his servants disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their main objective is proclaim another Jesus, and another gospel.

We then have to be on guard to constantly measure ourselves and make sure that we do not fall prey to this.(2 Corinthians 13:5) says Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Our faith is not one that is stagnant. We as Christians should not live in reliance on that fact that we walked an aisle, or filled out a card, or even went to be baptized. We don’t do these things and then put it on auto-pilot for the rest of our days. When I was younger people would say that on the day you were baptized to drive a small cross into the ground in your yard somewhere. And then when you had doubts to look at that small cross and recall the event of baptism and take comfort in that. But I don’t think that aligns with our faith. Don’t get me wrong we can still have assurance, but we need to constantly be looking and examining our faith to make sure we are not being deceived.

Application: What does this look like in the daily life of believers? We are to come against any arguments and every lofty opinion that is raised against the knowledge of God. Therefore, we must have a sound knowledge of our scripture and be able to defend our thoughts against the enemy, and false gospels that we may buy in to. The church today has some real problems with biblical-literacy and then we wonder how all these churches go astray. And we must always be evaluating ourselves to know whether we are holding closely to who God says He is. That means we sometimes find things in our bibles that offend our sensibilities. We realize that our nature is to be sinful, and so we need to dive deeper into those things that cause us friction in our bible in an effort to better know Christ. There are several things in the bible that churches steer far away from because we don’t want the discomfort of discussing them. But we should, we should look closely at these things and wrestle with them—not just avoid them. All of the bible is useful and profitable for teaching and correcting our errant views of God.

CLOSING: Let me leave you with this final thought. In the end, Jesus knows what will happen with Peter. Even though Peter has his time of error, Christ knows that Peter will follow Him in commitment and will ultimately be crucified just as Jesus was. Jesus says as much “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” Christs foretells Peters denial, but He also foretells that Peter will sacrifice it all to serve. And he will do this because ultimately he has a fuller understanding of Christ and His kingdom.

After Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus is still teaching and preparing those around Him to understand their faith. To have a sound knowledge of Him and the gospel that He will leave them to share with the world. Christ comes beside two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And there beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27). He gives these disciples an understanding of the scriptures and certainly He has done so with all His disciples. Peter’s ultimate correction then is tantamount to understanding scripture and seeing the full work of Christ in them.

Today, then we are without excuse. We have the full work of scripture to see the full picture of our God in Christ. To see the full glory of our faith in the gospel. Gods perfect word is trustworthy and true. It is infallible and inerrant. Church, that means that if we find something that doesn’t sit well with us, the issue lies not in our bible but rather with us.

Therefore, we need to constantly evaluate ourselves, constantly examine ourselves to see if we are aligning ourselves with the truth. That we have not made our faith something else that claims to be Christian but really does align with Christ at all. For this reason I love the way our pastor and deacons carry out the Lords Supper here at North Albemarle. Pastor Jonathan frequently reminds us before we take the supper that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:27). As we from time to time observe the Lords Supper, then this becomes a natural time of introspection. This is a time carved out to see if we are really keeping in accordance with what our belief is. To look at our lives and evaluate whether we are living in a manner worthy of Christ.

Listen, if this message resonates with you today, if you are one that is struggling with something in scripture or if you feel you may be out of alignment with your faith. Or maybe you have some uncertainty in the person or work of Jesus. We want to talk with you and pray with you. As the band plays I’ll be available, and you can feel free to reach out to Pastor Jonathan this week. Lets pray!

Prayer: Father in heaven, I just thank you for the work that your Son accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection. Father I pray that in all things we seek to know you better and draw closer to you through your Son. Father help us to diligently search your word to know truth and Father we just ask that we do so humbly, knowing that everything comes from you. That we are beggars that reach out for spiritual alms and that you God provide us with all things if we should just ask you. Be with this church and help us be a beacon of instruction and knowledge of our Lord that we would reach a lost world and bless them with the gospel. I pray all of this for your glory in Jesus name, AMEN.