So the Roman cohort and the commander of the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him and led him to Annas first for he was father-in-law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year. Now Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people. Simon Peter was following Jesus and so was another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest, but Peter was standing at the door outside. So the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought Peter in. And the slave girl who kept the door said to Peter, You are not also one of the man's disciples, are you? He said, I am not. Now the slaves and the officers were standing there having made a charcoal fire for it was cold and they were warming themselves and Peter was also with them standing and warming himself. The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in the synagogues and in the temple where all the Jews come together and I spoke nothing in secret. Why do you question me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them. They know what I said." When he had said this, one of the officers standing nearby struck Jesus, saying, "'Is that the way you answer the high priest?' Jesus answered him, "'If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong. But if rightly, why do you strike me?' So Anna sent him, bound to Caiaphas the high priest." Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, you are not also one of his disciples, are you? He denied it and said, I am not. One of the slaves of the high priest, being a relative of the one whose ear Peter cut off, said, did I not see you in the garden with him? Peter denied it again, and immediately a rooster crowed. Let us ask the Lord to bless the preaching of his word this morning. Our Heavenly Father, we do ask you this morning to bless the preaching of your word. Lord, we pray that Christ would be made known, that Christ would be worshipped and exalted. Lord, that you would teach and instruct your people by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord God, that we would receive what you have for us by faith. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. In 1 Peter chapter 2, the reading of the gospel that we read this morning, Peter tells us that Christ is our example of one who suffered. One who suffered under the hands of sinners. He was mistreated, but yet he himself was without sin. He was accused of wrongdoing, but again, no one could bring up a wrongdoing that he had done. But he understood that this was God's will. this had been foretold. It is for this reason that He had come. So understanding His Father's will, our Lord Jesus Christ willingly and lovingly submitted Himself into the hands of sinners to endure the suffering that was about to come. And this is what we have begun to see already in this chapter. He has begun His suffering, His passion, and He has already begun in this. We've noted that this suffering, this internal anguish and turmoil of soul that Jesus was experiencing and that was going to experience to the fullest on the cross, the wrath of God, He had already begun to feel that since all the way back in chapter 12. When Greeks, proselyte Greeks, come to see Jesus, He knows that His hour has come, and He said that His soul was in turmoil. It had intensified in His anguish. And so His hour had now come where He would suffer under the hands of sinners, but most importantly, He would suffer the wrath of His Father for His people. And as we have seen, He would drink the cup of God's wrath for us. And as we read these chapters, or this chapter, we see this anguish of Saul, this turmoil intensifying. Last week we mentioned that in Matthew 26, right before he's arrested, he's, same thing, he is praying fervently to his father because he is disturbed, he is in anguish even to the point of death. Luke tells us that he was even sweating drops of blood because of that anguish. And so here we continue then to see the suffering of Christ under the hands of sinners. And what we see then here is Jesus Christ being presented as our High Priest, as we saw in chapter 17, suffering under the hands of false High Priests. The true High Priests in the hands of self-righteous and false high priests who had exalted themselves over God's true high priest. And so we see here then the mistreatment of Jesus, but we also see not just the mistreatment of Jesus, but the witness of Jesus, which will be our last point. But again, we see the mistreatment and witness of Jesus as the true high priest. And there are a few things that I'd like for us to observe in this section as we consider this text for us. And it is regarding the high priesthood of Jesus, his suffering by his own, and those who were his people by way of covenant. And so these three things that I want us to see is the true high priest mistreated by Jews. So this is in regards to the Jewish leaders, as we will see. The true high priest mistreated by Jews. But secondly, the true high priest denied by his own. the true high priest denied by his own, and thirdly, the true high priest witnessed by the church. So let us look at our first point, the first thing we want to note about this section, the true high priest mistreated by the Jews or the Jewish leadership. This scene only continues to illustrate for us the darkness and the hardness of the hearts of men. It is illustrating for us this in an ironic way. Here we have the high priest of the people of God questioning and interrogating and allowing to be abused the real and true high priest of God's people. We see the shadow and the substance in this scene. The shadow being the high priest of the Mosaic Covenant, whose office was to do what? To appoint to the true high priest, the one that was to come, the high priest that God had appointed for the salvation of His people. And so, the shadowy Old Testament figure of the high priestly office here, Exalting himself above the substance the substance of that shadow the true high priest So the one that this office was pointing to was right there in front of them This office had been established by God in the Old Testament to point to Christ to point to his true priest and he was right there and they didn't see him because of the hardness of their hearts and And so, as we see this, John also describes this scene in a way that he kind of intentionally brings some confusion as to the high priest in order to illustrate for us the necessity of Christ as a true high priest. So he doesn't necessarily tell us, but he shows us this through the problems with the current high priestly office. The office again itself was good as it was instituted by God himself. It had a specific purpose and design. It was a gracious and merciful office given to God's people in the Old Testament. But like all the ceremonial laws, offices, rituals, and even articles or the things the instruments in the temple, all of these ultimately pointed to Jesus Christ, His person and His work. They were shadows. Shadows cannot properly substitute for the real thing, the substance of those shadows. So when the substance of those shadows is here, there is no longer use for the shadow. The people can look to the substance now, no longer is the shadow necessary. But we see here an obvious failure, not with the office, but with the people who filled the office here in our text. And the first way that John describes it to us here is by intentionally showing us the confusion surrounding the high priest and who he is in this text. In verses 12 and 13, Jesus is arrested and bound, and it says that he was led to Annas first. Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas. John then identifies Caiaphas as the high priest that year. So Jesus goes on with Annas first, but the problem is that later, as the interrogation goes on, we read in verse 19 that the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. But here's the problem. The father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was his high priest that year, he's the one that is asking the questions. But verse 19 says it was the high priest that asked him the question. Some have tried to... And then in verse 22, one of the officers even calls Annas the high priest. And some have tried to argue that the interrogation going on here is actually the one being performed or done by Caiaphas. They'll claim that the interrogation by Annas was not recorded. The one mentioned in verse 13 was not actually recorded, and that this is actually the interrogation that is being done by Caiaphas. But, the problem with that is that in verse 24, John clearly says that once Annas was done with Jesus, he sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest. So this whole interrogation is being done by Annas, and we see in verse 19 and verse 22 that he is identified as the high priest, but then later, earlier and then later, Caiaphas is also mentioned as the high priest. And so the problem though here is that in the Old Testament, there was only supposed to be one high priest. You couldn't have multiple high priests serving at the same time. So who was the high priest? Was it Caiaphas or Annas? And the answer is both. In Luke 3.2, Luke references an historical marker by saying, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Jewish law, again, did not allow to have more than one acting high priest. So some have actually argued that the office had become so corrupt that there was actually two high priests at a time. And in this case, here, Annas and Caiaphas. But another theory was that Annas, having been high priest previously, retained that title out of respect and honor. And yet another view says that high priest would take 12-month turns being high priest. So it is possible that Annas and Caiaphas were alternating their high priestly service. So when John says that Caiaphas was high priest that year, he might be referencing to this. This particular year was Caiaphas' turn, and so he was high priest that year. But again, even then, this shows the corruption that had come into this glorious institution of the high priest. The office, again, was good when operating as it should and within its context. and with its goal to point to the true and ultimate High Priest, which was Jesus Christ. It was never meant to be the ultimate solution because it could not ever truly provide what God's people needed, which was a true and lasting and efficacious sacrifice and salvation, atonement for the sins of God's people. The office had become abused, and it is recorded that it was often bought and sold with money. But the main issue, again, with this office as it functioned in the Mosaic Covenant, again, was that its purpose was to prepare the people for Christ. It wasn't a permanent office that was supposed to stay and continue, but it was set in place to prepare the people and to show them their need of a Savior, of a true High Priest. So ultimately, it was pointing to Jesus Christ. And that is who we have here. Annas and Caiaphas are looking right at the true high priest, the one whom their office that they are holding pointed to. And yet they are abusing and mistreating and reviling him. So in this corruption of the priest and the office itself, in the continual replacing of high priests, and in the confusion about the identity of the real high priest, all of this points to the necessity of the true high priest who comes according to the order of Melchizedek. So not in the order of the Levitical priesthood, but in the order of Melchizedek, who was another priest found in the Old Testament, who was a type of Jesus Christ. Now, John has been showing this to us, preparing us to see Jesus Christ as a high priest even before this chapter. We see specifically in John chapter 17 that we just went through several weeks ago that Jesus here in his prayer, he is acting as High Priest. His prayer is structured in such a way that it mirrors the three basic concerns of the Old Testament High Priest. He was concerned first and foremost for himself, and we see this in verses 1-5 as Jesus prays for himself. In the Old Testament, the high priest would offer up sacrifices for himself first, before he then offered sacrifices for his family, and then for the entire nation. And so Jesus then, as he begins his prayer in John 17, he sanctifies himself through prayer, he sets himself apart for this last great mission, This is verses 1-5, but then he also prays for his disciples, specifically for the 11, and them alone in verses 6-19. But then, beginning in verse 20, he says that he doesn't pray for these alone, but for everyone else who will believe through them. So for the entire nation, the entire people of God, those are the three major concerns. So he's acting as high priest for the people of God. He is going to provide an everlasting sacrifice, one that will be once for all time. One that is so efficacious and sufficient to pay for the sins of all of God's people, that it needs never to be repeated again. And it is through this prayer in chapter 17 that Jesus sanctifies Himself, sets Himself apart for this very purpose, as He Himself says, for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. So Jesus is also being portrayed here as the high priest as he is contrasted then with these false high priests in chapter 18. And not only do we see the corruption and the abuse regarding this office, but the most tragic thing that we see in this scene is the abuse and mistreatment of the true high priest of God's people. So he is arrested, he is bound, and then he is brought to to Annas and Caiaphas and then he's questioned, he's interrogated. He's accused of violating the law in Exodus 22 where it says that you shall not speak evil of a high priest. You shall not curse God nor curse a ruler of your people. we see something similar in chapter... in the book of Acts where Paul, chapter 23, stands before... he's standing before the council and the priests and Paul said, I was not aware, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is written, you shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people. He had spoken back to the high priest And he was warned because of it. And so there was this Old Testament precedent that you want not to speak or curse or speak in an evil way of God's ruler, the high priest. And so here Jesus is accused of doing that. But he says, if I have spoken wrongly, then show me. Show me the wrong that I have done. But in every time that Jesus asks, hey, show me where I have sinned or where my teaching is wrong, nobody has ever any accusations against him. Because he was sinless. He was perfect. Everything that he did was according to God's law. Everything that he did was according to God's will. It was everything that God the Father had sent him to do. But even then, we see that not only are they interrogating him, but he is struck by one of the officers. Now as we Consider that, just the evil, the wickedness of that. To see this officer so zealous for the law of God, zealous to defend God's high priest that he strikes Jesus Christ, not knowing that that striking right there was a striking of God's true high priest, the real one. He was sinning in a great way against the God that he was supposedly trying to defend. Last week we saw the zeal in which the Pharisees and chief priests desired to take down Jesus. They sent a Roman cohort, officers from the temple, led by Judas Iscariot to apprehend him. Judas was the ultimate mistreatment and betrayal. He comes as a friend to betray his master. But we saw there that even people who have a great zeal for God can be doing something against God. There's a lot of people that claim to know God, that claim to be doing things for God, but in reality, they are not. They are far from God. Their heart is not for God. But instead, it is far from God. It is darkened. It is wicked. It is unregenerate. We saw Paul as a perfect example of that, who persecuted Christians, thinking he was doing service for God, but he wasn't. And here again, we see the officer, these high priests, thinking that they are doing something good for God. but they are not. But even as believers, we can also fall into that error when we are not careful to know God's will. And as we saw this morning, God's will is not just something that we, you know, have some special revelation from. God doesn't speak in that way anymore. God speaks to us through his word. The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom and understanding of His Word so that we can make decisions and that they may be according to His revealed will. And so we are to then ask, what is God's will? It is found in His Word. And so we are to do those things that are in accordance with that. But even regarding mistreatment and abuse, oftentimes even as believers we can fall into this sin. Every time we take one sin lightly, Thinking it's okay because I'm under grace. I'm not under the law. I'm saved by grace. Every time we do so, we take advantage of His grace. And therefore, we abuse it. We abuse His goodness, His long-suffering, His love, and His mercy. We abuse the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. That blood by which He was sanctified and set apart. And that blood by which we have forgiveness of sins. Again, we all sin and struggle with various sins in various ways and to various degrees. The author to the Hebrews speaks about this when he says, the sin which so easily besets us, it so easily clings to us and brings us down. James says that we all stumble in various ways. And Christ, because He was also tempted, yet without sin, He understands us and has the most sympathy for us. And His compassionate heart of love is enlarged even greater toward us, even in our sin. Because He knows our struggle, but we can sometimes take advantage of that. Take advantage of His mercy and then sin, well, it's okay if I sin this time, or it's okay, you know, there's a difference between struggling with sin and then giving in to sin. Sometimes we just give in to it willingly and without a fight. That is not struggling. But even in those times, God is still merciful, but we should be careful not to mistreat or abuse His grace and His love and compassion for us. Now as we think then about this abuse and this mistreatment here of the true High Priest, We need to think that in another sense, we see this mistreatment here of Jesus as appropriate. Not in that it is morally right, right? This is sin. It's wrong what they are doing. But it's appropriate in that it is fulfilling what God has planned and decreed from the beginning. In his mistreatment as the true High Priest, Jesus is also being treated as the Passover Lamb. We are seeing Jesus in both His role as a High Priest, but also as the Passover Lamb. The false priests are preparing the Lamb of God for the slaughter. The Lamb of God that will bring eternal salvation to all of God's people. The Lamb of God that will bring an end to these false priests. It is through their attempt to destroy Him, the true High Priest, that they are only bringing upon themselves destruction. These ironies in Scripture are on the one hand beautiful as they show the wisdom and justice of God, but they are also chilling and hair-raising as we consider these men and how proud and sure they are of their actions, that they are doing something good for God. But when they stand before God, they will see the error of their ways. They will be condemned for having put the true high priest to death. It reminds me of one of the greatest ironies in scriptures. and that of Haman and Mordecai in the book of Esther. If you have not read it, read it. God turns Haman's evil plan against him in a powerful, powerful way. So the true high priest then is not recognized and he is abused, he is humiliated and treated unjustly by those who are supposed to uphold the law of God. But the negative treatment is not just done by those who hate him, who have already rejected them. Those who openly stood against Jesus and opposed Him. Sadly, even those who follow Jesus often do not treat Him as He deserves to be treated. And so now we look at the true high priest being mistreated or denied by his own. This is our second point. The true high priest denied by his own. Jesus had already predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crows. The saying here before the rooster crows was the crowing at daybreak. Peter would have three opportunities to confess Christ before the break of dawn. At this particular moment, all the disciples had fled and abandoned him. He walked alone as he was led away as a criminal to the authorities. But even then, all was not lost, for Christ himself ensured that none of those that the Father gave him would be lost. Thus, we see two of his disciples coming back and following Jesus at a distance. And these two characters in this story are another disciple, which John just calls another disciple, and Peter. The identity of this other disciple is debated, but the most likely candidate for this is the disciple whom Jesus loved, whom most agree was the Apostle John. So it's the Apostle John and then Peter who are following Jesus. So then, as we see the story then, as Jesus is being brought into the court of the high priest, because this other disciple knew the high priest, he was allowed to go in. But Peter was not, he stayed outside. And then we see that, or we read that the other disciple who had gone in spoke to the doorkeeper, the servant girl, to let Peter come inside. And so then Peter goes inside. And so here's where we see then, the first denial of Peter. While inside we read in verse 12 that the slave girl, the very doorkeeper who had just let him in, was going to be a cause for his stumbling. She said, you are not also one of this man's disciples, are you? Thinking that she was a help, a blessing for letting him in, he is now immediately confronted and probably caught off guard. The fear that had gripped him and caused him to abandon Jesus in the garden seized him once again. His desire for self-preservation, the love of self, rather than the love for God, took over. And what does Peter do? Sadly, he denies him. I am not, Peter said. But listen to Matthew, because John just simply records that Peter said, I am not. Matthew says, I do not know what you are talking about. Mark he says I neither know nor understand what you were talking about Luke whom a woman I do not know so there's this is an emphasis I do not know who what you're talking I don't know this guy he's it's not just a kind of instinctively denying Christ he is emphatically denying him and so we see here then this is because of his fear, because of his love of self and self-preservation, desiring to keep his life and not suffer persecution, what does he do? He denies the Lord. But once Annas was done with questioning Jesus, he sends him off to Caiaphas, the current high priest, and we see once again the scene outside the courtyard where Peter stood by by the fire trying to keep warm, probably staring, starting to feel the guilt of that first denial. What did I just do? I just denied my Lord. But he's there feeling the guilt, the shame, having just denied Jesus. And there, in that vulnerable condition, he is confronted a second time. This time from John, we don't know who exactly confronted him. It says, they said to him, Who is they? But they said to him, you are not also one of his disciples, are you? The other Gospels speak of another servant girl who questioned. In Mark, also the servant girl saw him and began once more to say to the bystanders, this is one of them. Luke says a little later, another saw him and said, you are one of them too. So which one is it? Was it they? Was it a group of people? Was it a servant girl? The bystanders? Well, all of this is true. In Matthew, the servant girl seems to be accusing Peter, but indirectly. She is addressing the crowds, the bystanders, saying, hey, this guy, he was with Jesus. This is one of his disciples. So it's true. We can see the role that the servant girl is playing. She's bringing attention to him. And Mark corroborates the story when he says, the servant girl began once more to say to the bystanders, this is one of them. There is then a commotion being stirred up by the servant girl, and as a result, Luke says that another saw, and here the person is a man, since the gender of this adjective, another, is masculine, and he then brings a charge against Peter. So, instigated by the servant girl, they, or the bystanders, along with this man, question Peter a second time, are you one of his disciples? And again, he denied it. I am not, he says. I do not know the man. Again, emphatically denying his Lord. But then thirdly, one of the slaves, as John tells us, one of the slaves of the high priest who was a relative of the slave whom Peter cut, or the slave that Peter cut his ear off, that a relative of that slave approached Peter and questioned him. Did I not see you in the garden with him? And again, Peter denies it. And then we see more emphatic responses from the other Gospels. I do not know this man who you are talking about. I do not know the man. And we even are told that he began to curse and swear, basically bringing upon himself that divine curse. I do not know, basically those curses is not saying bad words, but saying that based on my testimony, if I am lying, may the divine curse fall upon me. So he was very emphatic, bringing upon himself even a curse if he was lying, that he did not know Jesus Christ. That's how much fear and the sin that had apprehended him, led him to. And so as he is denied, or as he denies Christ for the third time, Luke tells us that the Lord turned and looked to Peter. And it was then that Peter was immediately convicted of his great sin, having denied his Lord. And then Matthew and Luke tell us that Peter went out and wept bitterly. It was an agonizing weeping. He wept bitterly for what he had done. That moment when Christ looked at him and he realized what he had done, he was immediately convicted and wept bitterly. The piercing, sin-exposing look of Jesus is an example of the power, the authority, and the majesty of Christ Which we saw last week as he identifies uh, or not last week. We saw a couple weeks ago As he identified himself as god when in in the garden When they the the soldiers come looking for him and he says I you know, I am I am I am he I am that man you're looking for What happened to the soldiers they fell back That was a demonstration of his of his glory and his majesty the power of his authority that they fell back And here too, just this one look, without saying anything, looking at Peter, and Peter was in that moment just exposed, spiritually naked before the Lord. This is similar to the woman at the well in John chapter 4, when he tells her, go call your husband. Tell him to come here, and the woman says, oh, I don't have a husband. And Jesus says to her, you have correctly said, I don't have a husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband. This you have said truly. And this was all that he said to her about her personal life. He didn't say anything else. But now listen to how she describes this conversation with the man of the city later in verse 29 of chapter 4. She says, come, see a man who told me all the things. that I have done. He told me all the things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is he? So it was not just the words, but Jesus himself. Maybe even the way that he looked at her as he said it. But as he said those words, that exposed her entire life to her. He did not need to say anything else, but just those words. that pierced her heart and exposed her sin, exposed her life right before him. And that is the power of God. It's the power of Christ. And with Peter, Jesus did not need to say anything to him. He had already forewarned him. All it took to expose him and to reveal to him his inner corruption and sin was just that simple look. That powerful, majestic, authoritative look, and he was undone, as Isaiah felt when he saw the glory of God. And we find out in John that he was actually seeing the glory of Christ. But though it may be painful, we also need that look, even as believers. The heart-piercing look, or those heart-exposing words of God. That is His grace and His mercy towards us as believers. It is His loving kindness when God exposes to you your sin. When you read a simple scripture, a verse in the Bible, when God speaks to you through the preaching, it is His look, His words that are exposing us, that are piercing our heart, Searching our hearts and exposing our inner corrupt and things that we didn't even know were there at times But we need this look we need this convicting and exposing look and work of God in our lives This is God giving that individual the grace to be utterly convicted of their sin which results in their salvation and As with the Samaritan woman and with believers, it results in what? In sanctification, the peaceable fruit of righteousness. It results in us being preserved and kept. If we do not here and now, in this lifetime, experience this heart-piercing look or words that expose the inner corruption of the heart, all the secret sins, we will experience it one day on Judgment Day. when all the secrets of the heart of man will be exposed. Not that all the sins of every guilty sinner will be made known to everyone else, but rather, when the individual, when the sinner, unbeliever, stands before Jesus, and before the one who will judge the world, he will look in their eyes, and with what few words he may utter, the sinner will know his guilt. You know, there's a lot of atheists who will say, you know, when I stand before God, if there is a God, I'll tell him this, and no, they won't. they'll have nothing to say. When they stand before the Lord, He will look at them, whatever words He says to them, they will know in that moment they are guilty. There will be no argument. They will be exposed before an all-knowing and all-seeing God. And so we need, you know, I think it was Charles Spurgeon that said that, that it's a blessing to have these corrections and this exposing of our sin here and now, even though it might not feel good because If you have it here and now, you will be ensured that when you stand before God, you will stand before Him justified. But if you don't, if God just leaves you to be in your sin without exposing it, and you happily go on living in your sin, well, one day those sins will be exposed. But by then, it will be too late. Another thing that we observe here is that in Peter's great fall, we see the great weakness of the flesh and the condition of us all. If we think, I would never deny the Lord in times of persecution, we need to be careful. It is good to be confident in God and His strength that He will preserve us. And it is good to have a desire to remain faithful and not to deny Him. But we need to be careful that we are not putting confidence in the flesh. that we are not putting confidence in our own strength, because the outcome of that will be just like Peter's. As we consider the sin here of Peter and its root cause, it is interesting to note that Peter's fall is partly due to a previous sin which occurred just a few hours before this. His third and final denial of Jesus was brought about because of one of the slaves of the high priest who happened to be a relative of the one whom Peter cut the ear off, and this is the guy that then exposed him, that caused him to deny Christ again. So though Christ had put an end to that whole situation, and he had even brought restoration to some degree by restoring the slave's ear, yet the problems that followed from that sin do not always go away, and we see here that it didn't. Sometimes we do things and though we repent of them and we are forgiven for them and we will not experience eternal judgment for those things, yet sometimes, depending on the sin, there's still problems that follow from that. People that, you know, maybe do drugs or have committed a crime. Though God will forgive your sins, the issues, the problems that might come with that might follow you for some time or even for the rest of your life. And so we need to be careful. But we can trace this denial, which is sin, back to an earlier episode. The immediate context here in the Gospel of John is Peter's fear of men. He fled in the garden. But there was also the confidence in the flesh mentioned already, which led to his presumptuous behavior. This can be traced back even further to chapter 13, when he so arrogantly and presumptuously said that he would die for him. Ultimately, it was Peter's pride that brought his downfall. He fell in the very thing he arrogantly boasted in. I will lay down my life for you, even though everyone else fall away. I will never fall away. The Lord knew his heart. The Lord needed to deal with this sin, with this part of Peter's character. It was a way to humble him and to teach him a lesson about his sin. This was a lesson that he took to heart since he writes about it in one of his epistles. In 1 Peter chapter 5, he exhorts his readers to clothe themselves with humility. And then he quotes from the Proverbs, God is opposed to the proud. but gives grace to the humble." And then he says, therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time. So don't exalt yourself. Don't think that you can do all these things in your own strength. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. So this exhortation here in 1 Peter is very informative. It seems to be the result of deep contemplation on his own weak human condition and his own experience and of course the illumination by the Holy Spirit. He exhorts him to cast all their anxiety on God because he cares. The trials God himself allows are for our good. So whatever trial we're experiencing, They are directed, guided, they are decreed by God, but they are decreed by God for us because He cares for us. He wants to sanctify us. And so we are to then go to Him in these hours of trial because He cares for us. But listen again to verse 8. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Now why is this important? Before the arrogant and prideful outbursts of Peter, there was a prayerless man. not keeping watch over his soul. He was not spiritually alert for the temptations that led to his fall." So, first and foremost, yes, he was proud, proud, and this is what he's talking about. Don't be, in one sense, as we read this, we can almost hear him saying, hey, don't be like I was. Don't exalt yourself, be humble, clothe yourself with humility, because God opposes the proud, right? Pride comes before a fall, and that's exactly what happened. But, He's also exhorting them not just to not be proud, but He's saying to be of sober spirit and to be on the alert. And if you recall, we mentioned this last week in Matthew 26, right before Jesus' arrest, Jesus exhorted them to pray with Him. He says, stay awake and pray with Me. And what was the reason? So that you may not fall into temptation. Jesus knew that in a few hours, a few moments, people were going to come and arrest him and they were going to be tempted to be unfaithful. They were going to be tempted to flee, to fear man and flee. So he tells them, be in prayer, be watchful. That is how you are watchful over your souls is through prayer. But they neglected that. And so because he neglected prayer, he and the rest fell into temptation. So we as believers are exhorted to pray, to keep watch over our souls through prayer, to be humble. It is through prayer that we can discern oftentimes the inner corruptions of our heart, that we receive grace from God to stand firm in times of temptation. But in all of this, as we eventually see in this gospel, that Jesus still cares for Peter. Peter not only had the promise that he was going to betray him, but he also had the promise that no one could snatch him or any of Christ's sheep out of Jesus' hand. And this is a promise that is for all of us. No matter what trial, no matter how far we stray away, God will not only preserve us, But He will restore us. He will keep us. He will restore us spiritually and so preserve us to the end. But this preservation and keeping is often done through hard trials of life in which we are exposed, left spiritually naked before God. Our sin, our secret sin before a thrice holy God is exposed. God wants to humble us, to cause us to be more diligent in our fight against sin, to be in prayer, relying and trusting in His grace and strength, but also then to appreciate His love, to appreciate His love because when we are in pride thinking that we're all that, We tend to think that God made a good choice in choosing us. We forget the sin that Christ forgave us for. In Luke chapter 7, when the sinful woman is anointing Jesus' hair and anointing His feet, kissing His feet, washing His feet with her tears and her hair, Simon the Pharisee is criticizing Jesus for allowing her to touch Him. And so he tells him a parable, but he concludes by saying that the reason why she loves much is because she had much sins that hurt her. She had a lot of sins that were forgiven. So to the one who loves much, or who sins much, much is, I'm sorry, the one who much is forgiven, loves much. If you have many sins that are forgiving you, you are gonna love all the more. Now, it doesn't mean that there's people that have few sins. We all have so many sins. But it's oftentimes we forget the sins that we were forgiven for. And when we forget that, we start to love little. But as God exposes our sin, as we grow and mature in Christ, and He exposes the inner corruptions and just how wicked we truly are, that's a way for us to really see how much we've been forgiven. See, Christ knew that Peter would deny Him, and yet He still went to the cross for him as a believer. And we need to understand that our sins as believers are greater than our sins before we became Christian. Because before we became Christian, we were in darkness. We were under the reigning power of sin. But now as believers, we have been delivered from that. We have been given so much light. We have been given the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey God, to teach us, to instruct us, to guide us, and yet when we sin, We are sinning against all that light and all that that God has given us, the blessings. So our sin as believers is even greater than our sin as unbelievers. But even so, Christ knew, just like with Peter, the sins that He would commit, that we would commit, and yet He still went to the cross for us. But we should not ever take that and then abuse that, take advantage of that. That should humble us and cause us to be grateful for such a wonderful salvation, to appreciate His love, and then to love Him so much more that we would seek and be more diligent to live lives according to His Word. So we see here that even in this denial, this great sin, that Jesus is merciful. Jesus, as our High Priest, would eventually go to the cross for Peter's sin, to forgive him and to provide an eternal salvation. But it's not all negative here in this section. There's also a positive thing here that we see, and that is the witness of the church, and this brings us to our third and final point, the true high priest witnessed by the church. Here, this is found in verse 19. They're asking him, questioning him about his teaching and his disciples, and basically the answer that he gives is, look, I've spoken in public. I've spoken publicly, I've said nothing in secret, so you know what I've been teaching. You've had plenty of opportunity to know what I'm teaching about my disciples. For example, in John chapter 7, Verses 25 and 26, it says, some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill? Look, he is speaking publicly and they are saying nothing to him. So this was at when Jesus was at the Feast of Tabernacles and he's preaching publicly and the people are acknowledging, look, there they are. They want to kill him and he's teaching openly, but they're not doing anything. They're not saying anything. So he's got nothing to hide, basically is what he's saying. I have nothing to hide from you. But in this, he is pointing then to the church, recognizing that, look, I have taught, I have preached, and there are people who have heard me who understand, and they know my teaching. Ask them. If you want to know what I teach and about my disciples and what they believe and everything, ask them. They know. And in this, God is, or Christ, is pointing to the fact that it is His Church, His people, that will be, when He's gone, these are the men, these are the people that will carry the Gospel message to the world. And when you think about it, in light of Peter and his denial, his weakness, and all our weaknesses, that the beauty in that God has chosen to deposit his truth, the gospel, in vessels like us that are so weak that will deny him, yet he hasn't trusted those truths to us to carry out to the ends of the earth. And he will ensure that that gospel is preached. He will ensure that his people, in the midst of all their trials, their weakness, their struggles, they will be kept, they will be preserved. They will be restored whenever they fall, they will be brought back. But the Church will be the witness in this world, the light in this world to carry out His message. We have heard it and when people want to know about Christ, when people want to know about God, where do we direct them to? To the Scriptures, to the Church. That is the witness of God in this world, that is the Church. So we have seen various treatments of Jesus in this section and will continue to see it in the weeks to come. The true high priest has gone unnoticed because of the wickedness and the darkness in the heart of the false prophets or priests. Those who sought to keep their own life, their own position and reputation, one that was not theirs to keep, exalted themselves above the true high priest, interrogating and mistreating him. This is to be expected by those whose hearts are hardened against Jesus. But the tragic mistreatment of Jesus comes from those who are His. Peter's treatment of Jesus is representative, again, of all true believers and the weakness and the struggles of our flesh that we all face. We must understand that as believers, again, our sin against God is much greater than before we were saved. But we have been saved and delivered from this power of sin. Christ will ensure that we will be restored, that we will never fall away as Judas did, because he wasn't his own. He didn't belong to him. But we can also remember that Christ, our High Priest, as He's going through this ordeal, He is doing this knowing, again, our sin. Knowing that we still continue to sin, but He is working in us. As a great High Priest, He is praying for us. He is still interceding for us even now. He is working as a high priest. In 1 Peter 2 verses 25, as we read this morning and earlier today, Peter says, For you were continually strained like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. So like Peter, you and I have strayed away like sheep, but like Peter, our shepherd has and will continue to come after us. He will allow trials our way, He will allow us to fall into temptation, but He will do this to show us the deep corruption of our heart. And in contrast to that, and in light of that, He will show us just how much He loves us. So that we might have a better understanding of His love, that we might know experientially His love for us. So that we would know that though we may stray, we can never ever be lost or snatched away. So if you have not trusted in Him, if you have not trusted in Jesus Christ, you may think your life is good right now. And you may even exalt yourself thinking that you've got it all figured out. You don't need this religion. You may even have many earthly blessings and prosperity. Yet one day you will stand before God and what will become of you? You will stand before the Great High Priest and you will have to answer concerning your life. You will be cast down and you will be cast into everlasting punishment. So don't do what these self-righteous men did in rejecting Him. Instead, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this day. Trust in Him, repenting of your sins, and receive the blessings that come from this faithful high priest.