We read the word of God this evening in Luke 22. In Luke 22, we read the first 34 verses. Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him, for they feared the people. Then entered Satan into Judah, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them. They were glad and covenanted to give him money, and he promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Then came the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed, and he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the good man of the house, The master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished there make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down and the twelve apostles with him, and he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. He took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them saying, this is my body which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. But behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of Man goeth, as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed. And they began to inquire among themselves which of them it was that should do this thing. There was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors, but ye shall not be so. But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth, is not he that sitteth at meat, I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, The cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. This far we read the word of God. I call your attention to verses 31 and 32. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Beloved Saints, in Christ in our text, Jesus tells his disciples of the great temptation that is about to come upon them, a greater than they've ever before endured. It isn't the first time that he's told them about this event, but they haven't gotten the point. And so because now that temptation is imminent, it's going to be within hours, he drives home both the certainty of the temptation and the violence of the temptation and the reality of a praying Savior. It makes you and me think back to our own life and ask, what's the greatest temptation you've ever experienced? And by temptation, I don't just first of all mean a temptation to sin against this or that commandment of the law. I mean at what point in your life were you brought to a place at which you said, I could cash in on the Christian faith. It's not doing for me what I thought it should do. I once was a Christian. I might as well not be a Christian anymore. I once followed Jesus. I might as well not follow Jesus anymore. If I get no tangible immediate benefit from my faith, I might as well give it up. I mean that kind of temptation. At what point in your life have you had that temptation? It happens. It happens to the people of God. It might be the death of a loved one. It might be a great trial. Every trial, that is, every testing of our faith is accompanied by Satan trying to destroy our faith. It might be a loss of a job. It might be that other loved ones around you have decided that they also were not going to be Christians anymore, leaving you to ask, so am I to do this all alone? And it might be something else in your life. At what point in your life were you ever tempted to say, I will say no to Christ? And then if you remember such a time, maybe not all of us will, but if you remember such a time, ask yourself, now what was your Lord doing at that moment in life? And if you should say he was praying, what's your response? Oh, look at my great trouble right now and he's off praying? I don't need a praying Savior, I need an acting Savior. I need a Savior to make right my wrongs, to make my life a better life. But he says no, and this is what he said to Peter, it's what he says to you and to me tonight, no, I am praying for you. And more than you need me to come and make your wrongs right, You need the preservation of faith. I have prayed for thee, he says to Simon, that thy faith fail not. And with those words, in a unique way in this text, Jesus sets forth the doctrine of the preservation of the saints. There are a number of aspects to that doctrine. You can read of it more fully in the canons of Dort, Head, Fife, I won't have time to be quoting from. And if I were, I would be quoting and reading almost the entire head, because much of what's going to be said tonight factors in and relates to what's set forth there. The doctrine of the preservation of the saints in some teaches that Jehovah, having worked new life in the hearts of sinners, causes that new life of Jesus Christ to continue to exist And even though it grows weak, and even though Satan attacks, and even though sometimes we fall deeply into sin, he preserves that new life and causes it to grow and grow and grow until one day in heaven. He brought us to where we're safe, and Satan can get at us no longer. And he causes us to serve in his body, in his church and kingdom, perfectly the work of God preserving us to that day is the preservation of saints. It's a very rich doctrine. It's a beautiful and a comforting doctrine. There's one component of that doctrine that stands out in our text and that is that there would be no preservation apart from the intercession of our mediator, the prayers of Jesus Christ. So I call your attention to the text under the theme, Christ's Prayer for Peter's Preservation. Notice first, violent shaking predicted, second, messianic intercession assured, and third, grateful response required. Not only does our Lord predict what will come upon them, but he also tells them how violent the assault of Satan will be. What will come upon them, of course, is his own arrest and his own trial before the high priest and then Pilate. And associated with that, what will come upon them is their own decision, as soon as he's arrested, to flee and forsake him. And Peter's decision, when he's standing in the high priest chambers being questioned, to deny not once, and not twice, but three times, that he so much as knows the man. That's the temptation that is about to come upon them, and Jesus is predicting it. Now there's something about the temptation that they will undergo that's necessary for Christ in his suffering. Two things in that connection. The first is that Jesus Christ, as he suffers, as he suffers, you know, for sin, displays or gives evidence that all of the effects and consequences of sin he bears. And what is one consequence of sin? It is the separating of fellowship and friendship. A reminder to young people and children who think that you can find friends who are ungodly unbelievers. They aren't friends. And the proof that they're not friends is this. So soon as it's to their advantage to deny you as friend, they'll do it in a heartbeat. And our Lord, as He went to the death of the cross, in suffering alone, must make evident that He suffers for sin. For that reason, the disciples must forsake Him. Not that there's a command of God to them. We recognize that. This is a sin on their part. But our Lord must undergo this temptation also for His part. And not only that, first of all, that He endures the effects of sin, but in the second place, that it's clear that no human, not his mother Mary, and not his twelve disciples, have helped him bear the wrath of God and make atonement for you and for me. He must and he will do it alone. But even though from the viewpoint of Christ's atoning death, this temptation on the part of the disciples is necessary, It was on their part a sin. It was on their part a denial of the Lord whom they followed for three years. It was on their part of saying, we expected an earthly kingdom and a great place in that kingdom. And now that it appears evident that there is no earthly kingdom, we don't need him and we want to put as much distance between him and us as we possibly can. It amounted to their saying that they had a great hope And the hope is dashed. And there's a reason why Peter, after denying his Lord, and observing the Sabbath day of rest, is going to say, well, I guess I go fishing. What else is there to do? Go back and pick up life where it was three or so years ago. This Christ stuff, it's all over. What a heinous sin. but one, of course, that you and I are also susceptible to. And that's important to remember as we apply the word of Christ in the text to us. The greatest temptation, Lord's Day 40, rather, Question and Answer 44 of the Catechism says, the greatest temptation that comes upon the child of God is that of thinking that God still will send me to hell. And in my greatest temptation, when I think God has forsaken me, I look to the death of Christ and His perfect righteousness, and I find in Him the assurance and the comfort that there is for me not hell, but heaven. But then when you look at it from the viewpoint of 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13, There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. The apostle is reminding the Church of God in the New Testament, from the example of Israel in the Old Testament, and in the wilderness wanderings, and in all their fornications, and in all their idolatries, that those temptations come on you and me also, to depart from the worship of God, the confession of God, to depart from Jehovah God himself, though it's sin, it's real. We are so grievously tempted. And so the word Jesus spoke to Peter is a word that we need him to speak to us also. As he foretells this great temptation, Jesus compares it to a sifting of wheat. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as we. We don't see wheat being sifted today in the wheat fields around us, and that's especially because there are combines and there are threshing machines to do the work very automatically. But before there were such inventions, a farmer separated the grain of the wheat from the stalk and straw of the wheat by sifting, which is to say that he had to throw the wheat high into the air and do so with violent force so that the head, the grain, and the straw might separate. And as our Lord speaks of the figure of sifting of wheat and uses that to compare it to the temptation that the disciples are about to face, he's underscoring two points of analogy. In the first place, the violence of it. The temptation that's going to come upon the disciples is not just a little one. It's not a minor one. It's not the sort they're going to forget about as they look back in their 80s or 90s and say, oh yes, as I recall a number of events in my life, but I don't even really remember that one. It was just one of those ordinary day after day temptations. Oh, will they remember this one. It is forceful. It is an all-out assault of Satan on God and God's work. And that secondly then, as to the reason why this is a fitting analogy, the effect of the sifting of wheat is to separate the head from the straw. There was an organic union which God created in the straw and wheat as it grew from a seed up. A oneness. And it's not a oneness that's so easily broken, but the effect of sifting is to break that union. And so Satan, in his forceful and violent temptations that he sends upon the people of God, has this goal. Separate you and me from Jesus Christ, our Head. Destroy the life that God created in us, the spiritual life, which life is incorruptible and imperishable, about which the Scriptures say many beautiful things. Read 1 Peter, in the opening verses of 1 Peter, as a reminder of what this life works in the child of God, and Satan says, I want that person, that man, that woman, in hell with me. And not only do I want him or her in hell with me, I want God to appear to be the biggest fool. I want to show I'm more powerful than he. And that is why the temptations that come on you and me are as intense and prolonged as they are. As Jesus speaks these words, especially to Peter, but to the Twelve, he also indicates two factors, apart from Satan's goal, but two factors that explain the severity of every temptation that you and I face. And the first is Satan himself, Simon Simon, Behold, Satan hath desired to have you. He's not speaking of a desire of Satan that was just in Satan's mind. Jesus here is not, although he does know the mind of Satan, his own enemy. He's not just saying, I know what Satan's purpose is. The word translated desired means asked or requested. Think of what Satan did regarding Job, and think of a similar thing happening here. Although it's just this word that suggests it, and we don't have a whole narrative to explain it, but picture Satan coming before God and saying, God, I wear those twelve. And that's the picture Jesus gives when he uses the word asked or requested, translated desired. Satan, in other words, knows that he can do nothing apart from God's permission. That's part of his foolishness, that knowing that he has to come and ask God. He's going to ask God for the ability to destroy the work of God. What a fool he is. And yet, he doesn't. He comes to God then, and that request is really a demand. And as he makes that demand, he says to God, after all, those twelve are as sinful as anyone else. And there's no reason those twelve should be with you and with Christ in heaven. I want them in hell. And as it were, God's answer to Satan is, OK. Not OK they'll go to hell, but OK. Have them. Try it. Tempt them. Test them. Do it violently. Shake them to the very core of their being. And see what happens. Satan is no doubt emboldened. in his request by seeing that he has already successfully, to use a human word, entered into Judas Iscariot, as we read in verse 3. Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve, and he went his way and communed with the chief priests, how he might betray him unto them. He got one of them, it appears, he ought to have the other eleven also. And so explaining the violence of your and my temptations always is Satan, Satan in his hatred for God, God's cause, God's work of grace, God's church, God's covenant, and all of which you and I represent. The second component that makes this temptation so violent is Peter himself. Simon, Simon, says Jesus. Do you remember back when Jesus called Peter to be his disciple? Simon had been the only name by which he'd been known. It was the name his father and mother gave him from birth. It was the name by which anyone knew him. And although the name itself doesn't have any great symbolism right now, not the meaning of the name, yet the name as such points to a man, a mere human, such as you and I are, one who can trace his genealogy all the way back to Adam and Eve, one who shares the corruption of the human nature, one who is prone to sin and temptation, one who is weak and cannot stand a moment, And all of that Jesus is reminding Simon of when he says in the text, Simon, Simon. But when he called him to be his disciple, Jesus had said, your name is Simon. I'm going to call you Peter. Rock. And as you read through the gospel accounts, it's interesting when Jesus calls him Simon, and when Jesus calls him Peter. And I don't mean to suggest that every single time there's significance, but there is here. It isn't Peter, Peter, you strong rock. Satan wants to sift you and destroy you and he can't because you are such a strong rock. It's Simon. Simon. You're about to tell the Lord I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death." No, Simon. Don't talk like that. You are a man. You are weak. The power of God's grace in you and me is amazing. Try to stand apart from that grace and do not boast. We will fall. Thus the violence of the temptation for Peter and for us is both who is performing it, the devil himself, and the one on whom it is performed, a near, mortal, sinful man. If therefore it were up to you and to me to persevere in our own strength, then we might turn from the faith. Then we have reason to say, I, because it's up to me, and because I don't find in me the power to continue strong in my faith, I will turn from my faith and become an unbeliever. But no, it's due to the grace of God that we persevere, and therefore our Lord assures Peter that he has prayed for him. Peter, Peter. No, Simon Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee. There's something not to be overlooked in English grammar, and that is that the Lord had been speaking of this desire of Satan to destroy all the twelve but he prayed for Peter." That's the significance of the King James changing the second personal pronoun from you to thee. Those words aren't used interchangeably and weren't in the 1600s. You was second person plural. The was second person singular. And it begs the question, if all 12 disciples, 11 now apart from Judas, are in the same predicament and danger, why does Jesus pray just for Peter, and of course I don't want to leave the impression that in fact he prayed just for Peter. He most certainly prayed for all and for his whole church. But why is he speaking to Peter? And the answer certainly has to do with Peter's boastfulness, Peter's own confidence in himself and conviction that he He will be fine. The Lord might need to come and save others, but Peter can do it on his own. Oh no, Peter, I've prayed for you. There's another application to drive home from it. At least two. The first is to remember the relationship in which Peter stood to the rest of the eleven. They never voted him in as their president. But when a man talks quicker than anyone else, you look to him somewhat as your leader anyway, especially when his talk appears to be good talk. This was after all the Peter, who before anyone of them else could speak, had said, when the Lord asked, will you also go away, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. This is that Peter. He is their leader, apart from Jesus Christ, of course. And therefore, Satan, knowing that, is working on Peter especially. He wants the 12. He wants all who follow Jesus Christ more broadly. But he can get all of them better if he gets the 12. And he can get the 12, he thinks, if he can get Peter. Such is the cunningness of Satan. He observes and he studies human nature. He knows personalities. He knows weaknesses. He knows that a person's greatest strength can be, at another moment, their greatest weakness. And he's after Peter because if Peter will deny his Lord, the other disciples will also do so. Secondly, That's why this text has a special application to the office bearers of the Church of Christ. Of course, there's an application to each one of us. The Lord isn't saying here to one of the least noticed of all of the Jews who followed him, watch out, by the way, Satan wants you. He's speaking to the most prominent. be wrong to portray office bearers as necessarily the most prominent in the church, but it is true that the Lord has given to them a place of leadership and a responsibility and a calling to remain steadfast in the faith and in godliness in a time when many would turn aside. And just as is true of Peter, were He, and when He did deny His Lord, that this would make it all the harder for the rest of the disciples to confess Him. So also, if it's a pastor, if it's a professor, if it's an elder or a deacon in the Church of Christ, who leaves the law of God, or the faith that is given to the Church, then of course Satan humanly speaking, has the upper hand in destroying the congregation or the denomination. And therefore every office bearer of this congregation ought to take the word, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired you, very much personally to heart, as well, of course, as the words of Jesus, But I have prayed for thee." What also stands out here then is our Lord and Savior Himself. He is our great High Priest. And it's as our High Priest that He speaks to Peter, I have prayed for thee. That's our intercessor. That's the Son of God at God's right hand. That's the one who already now, having died in the cross at the time in which he spoke to Peter, not yet having died, still is ceaseless in his prayers. Fervent in his prayers. He who is off praying while the disciples were rocked by a storm on the sea. He who is praying when he knows a great temptation that comes upon Peter. This one prays. He prays for you and for me. He prays not just the way you and I pray one for another. He prays as the Son God, as the Savior of the Church, as the Mediator of the Covenant. He prays as the one whom the Father sent into the world to redeem us from sin. He prays as the one, the one only human who is stronger than Satan. Look at him. Behold his love. He prays for you. Now, the text refers to Satan then coming to God and asking God something and Jesus praying. Let's develop that just a moment and see at least a two-fold difference. Satan requested and really sort of demanded them to me." Jesus makes no demands. He would lay the ground for our salvation. His death on the cross would be the very basis for Him to come to God and pray for the salvation of each one of us. But though He made that ground and basis, yet He does not demand, God you owe it to me for all I did for you. But He intercedes. He supplicates. He entreats. He comes softly. He recognizes He's praying for sinners. And he seeks the doing of the will of God. In that sense, there's a difference. But in the second place, Satan's goal. Satan's goal in requesting the Twelve is to destroy them and the work of God's grace. Christ's goal is to preserve us and manifest the power, the unfailing character of the grace of God. What a difference. between that great evil one who torments us ceaselessly and the high priest who gave himself for us and sits at the right hand of God and will pray to the very end. Look at him. Look at him in faith. Behold his glory and be comforted in knowing that he prays for you. He tells Peter the content of his prayer, that thy faith fail not. Certainly the content of Jesus' prayer was not that Peter would never sin. If that was Jesus' prayer, his prayers are ineffectual and God did not answer them. But that's not what he says. When he says that thy faith fail not, he doesn't mean that you would never deny me, that in words you would never speak as an unbeliever might speak. He means your faith, that deep bond, that gift of God, that life of Christ. Though it be diminished, though it not show itself for a while, let it not fail. That is the heart of the prayer of Jesus. It goes without saying that if this is the Jesus who has all power in heaven and earth, He is the one whose prayer Jehovah God will answer and then to whom Jehovah God will say. But then I turn to you, my son, the Savior of my people. I turn to you to answer your own prayer. I give you the power. I give you the authority. Work in his heart and her heart so his faith does not fail. And that leads me on the basis of our text to say five things about the doctrine of the preservation of the saints. We can't give an exhaustive overview of the doctrine, but five things that do come out of the text. The first is, what is this grace of God? Concretely, of what does it consist? Now you can go to the canons of Dort, head five, and read especially articles six and seven, and see what the confessions say about it. But from the viewpoint of the text, it's these things. First of all, your faith did not fail. Though sinning, though growing weak, though suffering all of the consequences of sin, the life of Christ in you and me is preserved. Secondly, the preservation of saints as it comes out of the text includes the conversion of the sinner. And when thou art converted, not if, Not maybe you will be, but you will be. This is part of the answer of the prayer of God, a working of repentance and sorrow for sin, and a turning again to the way of righteousness. And in the third place, The work of the preservation of the saints, from the viewpoint of the text, involves the strengthening of the brethren. That is, the sinner who has fallen deeply into sin and is restored by the way of repentance, now serving the Church of Jesus Christ again in a profitable, edifying, and up-building way. That, from the viewpoint of the text, is the preservation of the saints. Now, first, and the second place, who? Who are these saints? We drove home the main point I want to make already. They aren't the saints the way Rome speaks of saints. They aren't humans who have a greater degree of obedience, of merit, and of righteousness before God. They aren't an upper crust of Christianity. They're you. They're me. They're the worst sinner among us, or at least shall I put it this way, the sinner among us who expresses his or her sins in the most despicable way, but is for all that a child of God. That's the saint. He preserves you and me because he's worked grace in our hearts. So don't say, well, that was all true for Peter. What a great man he was, but I'm not one of the twelve. You are one of the twelve. No, you're not one of the twelve. You're one of the disciples, though. Every man who leaves father and mother and cleaves unto Christ and follows Him, renounces the things of the world for Christ's sake, he is a disciple of Jesus Christ. The third place, what is the means by which the saints are preserved? There are others that are found in the text. There's the constant use of the means of grace. The restored converted child of God understands, I need, I need the means of grace. There's in the second place, The encouragements and the supports of brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe the admonitions and warnings that come from brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us in a godly life. There's in the third place, our own time of private devotion, meditation on the Word of God and prayer. And there could be other means as well, but this one is chief. The intercession of Jesus Christ. Apart from that, no other means will truly be used to preserve the saints. In the fourth place, what's the necessity for all this? Why? This is a beautiful doctrine, the preservation of the saints. But when Satan came to God and said, I want those disciples, God could have said, no way you get away from them. You stay 200 miles away. And if you come as so much one inch over this line that I draw in the sand, I will destroy you now. He could have, but he didn't. He could have said to Satan, fine, go at it. But they're not going to fall. He could have. But he didn't. Why is it that the preservation of the saints is not a nice, easy, smooth road whereby I've been regenerated in Jesus Christ and I just continue to get stronger and stronger and stronger and one day I find myself in heaven? Why is it that the preservation of the saints involves valleys? pits and trials and troubles. And here's why. To show Satan that though he rage, And if the Lord were to give him every creature to use in his war against the church, if he would put every creature in the service of that bottle, the power of God he can never destroy. That's why, for you and for me there's more to it, If we knew that the preservation of the saints was this glorious pathway in which life got better and better and suddenly we found ourselves in glory, why would we pray? Why would we be on our guard? How would we formulate a view of the Christian life as a battle between good and evil? What would come of the doctrine of and calling regarding the antithesis and the calling to live a new and holy life? God is preserving us. All is going to go very nicely, but no, that's not reality. If our Lord had to pray continually, fervently, and constantly. How much more do you and I need to be fervent in prayer for ourselves and for each other? Then fifthly, this is where the canons brings us to in Head Five. This doctrine of the preservation of the saints is not just a doctrine, a thing that God does He doesn't tell us. That Peter would be preserved in a moment of great temptation is not just something Jesus knew, but He didn't bother telling Peter. He tells us. And now it's not the priesthood, but it's the prophetic work of Jesus Christ. Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee." And there is comfort and assurance. The Arminians don't want you to have that. Roman Catholicism doesn't want you to have that. You may know that God is preserving you. As soon as you know that God is preserving you, you're going to cast off all desire to live a new and holy life and say, see, I can sin all I want. God's preserving me. That's a caricature. It's a caricature that forgets what a saint really is, a saint in whom Jesus Christ lives. It's a caricature that it doesn't adequately and properly portray even our text when Jesus says, oh, I prayed for you that your faith fail not, so don't worry, just go on in sin, continue in your denial of me. Oh no, you will convert, you will repent. and you will serve the church again. So the Arminians in Roman Catholicism have a wrong view. They caricature the preservation of saints all because, for both of them, your salvation depends on you. And as soon as we say that God has done it all, as soon as you can be sure of His saving of you and the preserving of you, then we lost incentive to do our part. That's the Arminian in the Roman Catholic spin. But now, beloved, you who know your sins, and you who know the depth of your depravity, and you who have fallen before, and you who have cried out to God for grace and mercy, how do you view that? the doctrine of the preservation of the saints, and Jesus telling you, I have prayed for thee. Do you say, good, what a word, now I can go on in my sins, or do you say, what an amazing grace, what a wonderful savior, I will serve him as long as I live. And how does that assurance come to you and to me? We weren't there. Jesus isn't whispering in our ear, I have prayed for thee. But it comes by his word and it comes by his spirit. It comes by his word as it's proclaimed tonight and the ministry of the gospel every time it's proclaimed. And it comes by the spirit taking that word and assuring you in your heart that you, his beloved son, his beloved daughter, for Christ's sake, Though sorely tempted and prone to fall, will never be lost. I have prayed for thee. And now the concrete evidence that assurance leads to godliness and gratitude comes out in the text when Jesus himself says to Peter, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. This is a grateful response that Jesus requires of Peter. He says to him, as I've indicated already, you will be converted. Jesus would appear to Peter on resurrection morning. And even before Jesus appeared, the women to whom he appeared first must go tell the disciples and Peter. Later on, before he ascended, Jesus would have words specifically for Peter. Read of them in John 21. Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me more than these? Peter, do you even love me? Peter, do you really mean it? Are you sure when you say that you love me? And in answer to Peter's response, each time the Lord would give him a commission. And the commission fits again with, strengthen thy brethren. The commission is, feed my sheep. Feed my lambs, Peter. one purpose of God in his inscrutable wisdom and sovereign control of all things for you falling so deeply into sin. So that one day, in the way of genuine repentance, you can go to this brother, and that brother, and that brother, and that sister, and that sister, and say, be strong, look to your Savior, Hope in him, don't give up hope. He's saving you. That word of God to Peter comes then to the office bearers of the church in particular and after developing that also to the members of the Church of Christ. Every office bearer has a reason when he goes to pastor the congregation or do the work of the elders or the work of the deaconate to come to the sinner, sinners these saints are, as one who knows their weaknesses and infirmities and one who has compassion on them. Be Christ-like. convert, that is, work toward their conversion and strengthen, that is, of course they're weak in faith, build them up. It'll take a while. Bit by bit, build them up in faith. That's the calling of the office bearers, but it's the calling of every one of us too in the communion of saints. Sometimes there can be a person in a congregation, maybe more than one in a large congregation. who we remember in some time past has fallen so deeply into a despicable sin. Now there's no doubt about it that their repentance is genuine. And that sin was quite a while back. But they've fallen so deeply into such a sin, and we might remember it, that we say, that person's going to come and warn me? That person's going to encourage me in a life of godliness? Hey, look in the mirror! No, that's wrong. Brother or sister, you know of what you speak. I know you know of what you speak. And I am grateful that you took the time to come and strengthen me, encourage me, admonish me. You know the power of the grace of God. This is the reason, another reason sometimes, why God will have some of his saints fall deeply, deeply into sin. So that when they are converted, they strengthen, encourage, and build up in gratitude to God. Our text is far from the only text that speaks of this idea. David himself in Psalm 51, having finally confessed to the sins of murder and adultery and impenitence for some time, says, then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted. unto thee. The life of the restored child of God is a life of looking around at other brothers and sisters who need to be restored and aiming to their restoration. That's the text. That's the word of Jesus Christ to his church here tonight. I'll end where I began. Was there a moment in your life, or is it even now, at which you are tempted so sorely that you might even consider giving up your Christian faith? And in such a moment, past, present, or future, When you say, what is my Lord doing about it after all? How is He making my life better? When you hear Him say, in heaven your life will be better, but right now I am praying for you. Do not say, then it will be well with me. For if Jesus Christ prays, in accordance with the counsel of God, in accordance with the unchanging purpose of God to save his own on the basis of his own, that is Christ's own passion, sufferings, and death. And if an answer to the prayer of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, will continue to work in me, then let me know I have a praying Savior and all. will be well with me." And those of you who've been at such a point and been brought through it know that your Savior prayed, and you know that Jehovah God heard Christ praying, and this is how you know. Your faith has not failed. Amen. Our Father which art in heaven, magnify thy name in Jesus Christ. Feed us and be with all who are weak among us. That really means all of us. give us strength, give us also to strengthen one another, but do so in the way of working in us daily, a genuine repentance, and when we have sinned grievously, a true repentance that turns from sin, hates sin, and loves Thee, loves obedience, and loves Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now give us to be a praying people, as we've been reminded of the great danger which surrounds us, and hear Christ's prayers on our behalf for Christ's sake. Amen. We sing number 385. O Lord, I have confessed Thee to be my God alone. O hear my supplication and be Thy mercy shown. O God, the Lord, my Savior, my shield amid the strife, let not the wicked triumph who plot against my life. All three, 385. Against the foes that gather, be thou my helper strong. Those who plot to hurt me and spread their treacherous snare, preserve me, Lord, and keep me safeguarded in thy care. O Lord, I have confessed Thee to be my God alone. Hear my supplication and be Thy mercy shown. O God, the Lord, my Savior, my shield amid the strife, let not the wicked triumph who plot against my life. Let evil smite the evil and cause their overthrow. The needy and afflicted the Lord will help, I know. Thy saints redeemed from evil, their thanks to thee shall give. The righteous and the upright shall in thy presence live. Praise ye the Lord, ye hosts above, in yonder heavenly height, and bless the Lord, ye saints below, who in his praise delight. By all his creatures let his name be honored and adored. Let all that breathe in praise unite to glorify the Lord. Jehovah bless thee and keep thee. Jehovah, make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. Jehovah, lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.