Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written:
"'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'
But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will."
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."
But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same.
This passage is titled, "Jesus Predicts Peter's Denial." They have all just taken the first Lord's Table with Jesus on the night of His betrayal. And Jesus comes out to tell them, I already know that all of you are gonna fall away and mess up tonight. He tells them with a verse from Zechariah 13:7 "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered." There are two things that happen after this. The first is that Jesus promises His rising again by saying that He is going ahead of them to Galilee. Jesus tells them this right after quoting the verse saying that He will be struck down and that they are all gonna scatter and leave Him. But the hope is in that He is going to rise and go ahead of them to Galilee to imply that they are all going to meet again and see Him after His death. He predicts all of them failing Him and sinning before they do it, and then He predicts their coming back to Him before they do it. God does that constantly with us. He tells us, "Yeah you're gonna do this and this and this wrong everyday for the rest of your life on earth. But you are gonna come to me repenting, and in that moment you will be with me as I embrace you." Words so beautiful, but the problem, is that we deny it.
The second thing to happen was that Peter walked up and denied Jesus prediction saying he would never do that. So Jesus told Peter directly that he would deny Jesus 3 times before the rooster crowed that night. Peter followed by saying that even if he had to die, he would never deny Jesus. And yet within the same chapter we read in 26:69-75:
Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. "You also were with Jesus of Galilee," she said.
But he denied it before them all. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, "This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth."
He denied it again, with an oath: "I don't know the man!"After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for you accent gives you away."
Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don't know the man!"
Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.
We all deny that we would commit certain sins against God. We even make promises to never do so because we Love God too much to even think about doing it. We hear Jesus telling us that we will fail no matter what we do because we have a sinful nature, and that we cannot abstain from any type of sin. Some of us even say that under any circumstance we will never deny Jesus. Peter was in the same position. And yet he not only denied Jesus, he did so three times. Each one getting worse as he went. The first was a denial in front of others when he was accused. The second was an oath. He made an oath to Jesus that he would not deny Him, only to make and oath that he did not know Him. Promises and oaths were utterly important back then. There were no contracts, only a man's word among them. But this was not the worst. The third time he denied Jesus was when he even called down curses upon himself. He was cursing himself to show he did not know Jesus. Attacking himself with his own words of punishment. This would not be done quietly. Peter was at risk of being killed with Jesus, so he made sure that all the people around him knew that he did not know Jesus. But didn't Peter promise not to deny Jesus, even if he was faced with death? The exact scenario that Peter denied occurred the exact way he promised against; and all before the rooster crowed.
We can easily compare ourselves with Peter. We promise that we will not do this or that, but if there is anything we should know from experience, it's that anything can be on the table if we still have a sinful nature. We can say all we want about our not sinning, but how many of us can say that we have never committed a sin that we promised we wouldn't? It sneaks up on us. Sometimes we don't even know we are doing it until something clicks. It did for Peter when the rooster crowed. But the difference is what we do when we click. When Peter realized that he had done just the sin he feared doing, he went outside and wept bitterly. When you weep bitterly, it's like crying over someone you love who has died. You feel a shattering pain inside of you that tears you apart. Peter felt himself break knowing what he had done to Jesus. Can we say the same? Can we say that if we commit our sins we denied that our hearts break? It took me years to get to a point where I felt shattered when I commit these sins against God. But it is not nearly enough for me. Sin is to be hated and despised because of how destructive it is. It causes true death. We should treat it that way.
The thing is that when we deny that we are going to sin, we are doing something more. We are denying some of our sins' existence. And when we deny the existence of sins, we can't repent for them. We need to accept that we sin in many different ways. It hurts to do so, but it is only after we stop denying it that we can turn to Jesus and be forgiven for them. If Peter and the other Disciples hadn't denied their sins, they could have payed attention to Jesus promise of rising again to join them after their sinning. In the same way, if we stop denying our sins of our past and our future, we can start to see that He truly has forgiven us for everything. He knew all of our sins that we commit in this life from our birth to death back then on the cross. He predicted them all back then. But He also predicted that because of His sacrifice, we would gain great eternal life through Him.
The last thing to remember, is that our forgiveness is not the end of what happens when we stop denying our sin and receive forgiveness. We need to go out and serve and let God work through us to share this forgiveness with others. It was written previously that God can use anything to do good. Peter again is a great example. Peter, who denied Jesus with curses, ended up receiving the Holy Spirit and spread the Gospel all over. He even was used by God to write the letters that are still in the Bible today, 1 and 2 Peter. Letters that were sent all over the other side of the world in his time. And that now circulate everywhere nearly 2000 years later.
God uses the weak and sinful and broken to do mighty works in the world. But if we deny our sin, there is no grace, and without grace there is no Holy Spirit, and with Him, there is nothing. We need to accept our sins for what they are: the things that kill us and hurt our God so painfully. When we accept them we are forgiven and learn from them by the Holy Spirit. God changes us and uses our sins for His glory. I hear people complain about the old Laws written in Leviticus and Numbers and the other Law books in the Bible. But I love them. Because I can read them, and see what other sins I commit that I didn't know were sins. After that I'm brought to repentance and am forgiven. Then God is able to change me and use me to teach about that sin. There are only blessing and more Grace to be given by learning what we do wrong. For Jesus knew it all back then when He took our punishment for it all. We no longer have to worry about being destroyed for accepting our having committed these sins. Our destruction never existed, only our forgiveness that we were denying ourselves. So, leave no more room for doubt and denial in any sin, or forgiveness. Only accept what is truly there.
Thank You For Reading
Long Live Jesus Christ
Amen
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