♪ Blessed be the Lord our God ♪ ♪ The God of Israel ♪ ♪ For he alone does wondrous works ♪ ♪ In all we know and serve ♪ ♪ And blessed be his glorious name ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? ♪ Glorious is your name ♪ ♪ For you have set the world aflame ♪ ♪ Your glory and your fame ♪ From infants and from children's lips, you ordered praise to sound. To silence all your enemies, the wicked truth confound. When I've been gone, what have you made? Your fingers will learn my trace. I see the moon and shining stars that you have set in place. I ask myself what praise, then, that you should give in thought, the son of man that you to him such gracious care have wrought. that you created him to be just as the Lord divine. You gave him honor as a crown, and made his glory shine. You gave him ruler of the world, created by your hand. He'll place all things beneath his feet to be in his command. All sheep and oxen and birds and fish shall meet no more than day. O Lord, our Lord in all the earth, how glorious is your name! Oh, all the earth in joyful shouts to God your voices raise, and sing the glory of His name, and glorious name His praise, and glorious name His praise. ♪ God declared how awesome are the wondrous works you do ♪ ♪ So praise your strength, your enemies ♪ ♪ In praise complete to you ♪ ♪ In praise complete to you ♪ ♪ Let all the earth well worship you ♪ ♪ Make praise to you, we'll sing ♪ ♪ And to your name, God's glory, us let draw ♪ ♪ Let all the praise your praise shall bring ♪ ♪ Let all the praise your praise shall bring ♪ O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! O come, all ye faithful, and worship the King! Good morning, everyone. I'm glad that you can join us, even if it's only over the internet. We can't worship together in person as we want to, but we can worship together in spirit. And so, I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus. So, special welcome to anybody who's joining us from outside of Christ Reformed Presbyterian Church. We're glad you could make it. This is, I think, kind of a special opportunity where we get to join a lot of other churches easily, because we can't join our own church. And so I know of people who are watching three or four sermons and services every Sunday, and I think that's a wonderful opportunity. So welcome, if you're one of our guests. Before we go any further, I want to read from Scripture. I'm going to read from a passage that is both a wonderful call to worship and leaves us a little shaken at the end, and I think you'll see why when we get through the end. I'm going to be reading Psalm 95, all 11 verses. Hear God's word. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah. As on the day at Massa in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work, for forty years I loathed that generation, and said, there are people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore, I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. The psalm brings together both a wonderful call to worship and also a very serious warning that we not be like the people of Israel were in the wilderness after they had left Egypt in the exodus that Moses led, that they not put God to the test. And he warns very solemnly, and this is something that the New Testament book of Hebrews picks up on quite a bit, that those who put God to the test, those who rebel against God, whether it's in the Old Testament or for us now as Christians in the New Covenant, they will not enter God's rest. And that's a very, very scary thing. And we like to have our psalms, especially, sewn up and buttoned up. We like to have them end on a happy note. But they don't always. Sometimes they leave us with warning. The passage we're looking at this morning is very similar in that sense. It leaves us a little bit shaken. And at the same time, it's through times of shaking that we become stronger, because we're taught not to trust in ourselves, not to rely on our own steadfastness, not to rely on our own holiness, and not to think ourselves incapable of sin and rebellion against God, but to trust in the Lord, who can both keep us from falling, and when we fall, who can restore us. Let's turn to God in prayer together and lift up. There's many things on our hearts and minds. I'm not gonna pray for people for the most part by name, but I think folks in our church will know who I'm talking about. We've got a lot of things to pray for, so let's turn to the Lord and, first of all, confessing sin and then going on to give Him praise and offer up our prayers and needs to Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to You, recognizing that we are no better than the people of Israel, who rebelled against You and put You to the test in the wilderness. And so we pray for Your mercy to us, that we would be humble, that we would not think ourselves incapable of falling into sin and even falling away. we pray that each one of us and all of us together would one day enter your rest. We thank you for the promise of that great Sabbath rest that remains, not just taking the time off of work as we like to do and as we seek to do in obedience to your word each week, but the final and great Sabbath rest that awaits all creation and that awaits those who love you. And so, Lord, we long for that day, we pray for that day, but in the meantime, we continue our pilgrimage in this world. And so we pray for your grace, and we pray for your mercy, and we pray for your forgiveness. Lord, we pray to you today confessing our fear. We are afraid of many things. We are afraid of what the future may hold. We are afraid of the unknown. We are afraid of poverty. We are afraid of sickness. We are afraid of death. And we confess to you, Lord, that these things reflect a lack of trust in you, a lack of trust in your provision for us, and even, ultimately, lack of faith in your love for us. And we are ashamed of that fear. And worse than that, Lord, we read in your word that cowards will not inherit the kingdom of God. And we do not want to be those who shrink back to destruction, as the scripture puts it, but we want to be those who enter into your promises, into your promised rest and blessing. So now, Lord, we take time to confess to you our fears and confess to you our cowardice in the face of scary things, but also time to silently confess to you our many other sins. Lord, we lift these things up to you, knowing that you are merciful. And more than that, Lord, we find assurance and we find hope as we look to Jesus. We consider the courage that he exhibited. We think about the fact, Lord, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. And so we pray that you would fill us with courage, and we pray also that you would forgive us. And we pray that you would fill us with faith in Jesus's finished work, in hope in your blessing, now and in the world to come, and in the perfect love that drives out fear. Lord, we give you thanks in the same time for your ongoing care and provision. You continually care for us. You've shown such mercy to our nation as a whole, You have prevented a great plague from being far, far worse. You have given, though far from perfect, you have given effective means of preventing this to those who are in authority. And we pray for wisdom for them, that they would know how to balance the short-term needs of saving lives and keeping hospitals from being overfilled with the great needs of people to work and to earn their living. We pray that you would show us mercy and that good things would result in the long term. out of this pandemic and not bad things. We pray for the healing of those who are sick. We recognize that there are many, many thousands now in hospitals or perhaps suffering at home without being diagnosed who are in need of your care. We grieve over the tens of thousands who have died, and we grieve over the tens of thousands who will yet die, and we pray that you would show your mercy. We give you thanks, Lord, that you have given protection to so many. We give you thanks that you've given protection that cannot be accredited to doctors and to rulers. You have been merciful, and we praise you for that. Lord, we lift up to you the needs that are around us and among us. We grieve for the family of one of our folks in church who has lost her uncle this week, and we pray that you would please show mercy and show kindness through this. We pray for a time of mourning that is rich, and we pray that it would be a time when people can actually get together more and even in person at a time when people are separated from their loved ones. We pray for your mercy. We pray for our friends in Brazil who are facing pressures on their business. We pray that you would help them as they face a loss of income and as they face rising costs. We pray for Brazil and many other countries around the world that are not as rich as the United States, that you would provide them with what they need to get through this strange and difficult time. We pray for all those who are unemployed or who have had their hours at work cut and are facing shortages and difficulty making ends meet. We pray for your provision for them. And we pray for those who are sickened and those who are impoverished. We pray, Lord, that you would help us. Lord, we lift these needs up to you. There are many others on our hearts and minds. You know them. We thank you that you hear them and we lift them up to you in the name of Jesus. Amen. We're gonna turn now to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26. We're gonna be reading the last big chunk of Matthew 26. So if you have a Bible, you can take a look at Matthew chapter 26, starting at verse 69 and reading through verse 75. Hear God's word. Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant girl came up to him and said, you also were with Jesus the Galilean. But he denied it before them all, saying, I do not know what you mean. And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth. And again he denied it with an oath, I do not know the man. After a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you. Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know the man. And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. This is one of those stories that shows up in all four gospels, and that is a big deal. And it's also a story that can only have been told by Peter himself. And that's a big deal. This is something where there were only two people who would have seen any of this, and one person who would have seen all of this, at least among Christ and his disciples. Jesus was there. He may have overheard some of what Peter was saying, although it's unlikely. But Peter himself was the only disciple in the courtyard of the high priest. All four Gospels record this. Peter told everyone what happened that night. and his denial of Jesus. So Peter's inside the courtyard of the high priest's house, and he's trying to blend in with the crowd, including some people who are from the arrest team that had just taken Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. we might naturally wonder why on earth he would go there. Well, we read in chapter 26, verse 58, that he wanted to see, quote, the end. In other words, he wanted to see what would happen, and that's reasonable in and of itself. But I think there's more to it than that. I think maybe that he thought that even now, Jesus might call up those 12 legions of angels that he said he had at his command and break out and begin the revolution that would bring about the kingdom. And Peter had to be around if that happened. He was ready, still, for the great revolution that would bring in the kingdom of God. And maybe he thought to himself, maybe I just jumped the gun in Gethsemane, I should have waited for the Lord to do something, and he's going to let himself be taken into the courtyard of the high priest, and then he's going to do something, or at some other point. He won't die, surely. I think this is still something Peter can't compute. He knows he's doing something risky, of course, but he's counting on the darkness of the garden to keep him from being recognized. Remember that he had taken out his sword and attacked the arrest party, and he was such a bad swordsman that he'd only managed to cut off part of one guy's ear, which Jesus went and turned around and healed. And Peter was not very good at this whole revolution thing. He wasn't practiced at it. He wasn't a soldier. He was a fisherman. and then the disciple of an itinerant rabbi. But he was ready, he was ready, and he wanted to be there when the revolution began. But of course, he's not out of the woods, and this is, it turns out he was recognized. Two different servant girls recognize Peter and call him out, and they say, you were a companion of Jesus the Galilean, right? Or you were with Jesus of Nazareth. And there aren't a lot of servant girls that show up in the scriptures, but I have to note here that Peter seems to have really bad luck with servant girls. Later on in Acts chapter 12, when he's released from prison, he goes to the house of some of the disciples and he knocks on the door and a servant girl appears and is so startled that she doesn't let him in. Just a strange little note. Peter doesn't seem to have a great relationship with servant girls. But, of course, they're talking about nothing but Jesus in this courtyard in the middle of the night. He's a few steps away, possibly in a semi-open room overlooking the courtyard, getting questioned by the Sanhedrin and by the high priest, and then he's getting beaten. And so, of course, it's not like nobody's thinking about Jesus of Nazareth. Nobody's talking about Jesus of Nazareth. That's probably all they're talking about at this point. And the first time, the servant girl comes up to him and says, you were with Jesus the Galilean. He denies it. He simply says, no, that's not true. You've got the wrong guy. The second time, he invokes a curse on himself. Something like when a kid says, cross my heart and hope to die. Or when Prince Humperdinck says, may I never hunt again. He's invoking a curse on himself as he denies it. He's saying, if I'm not telling you the truth now, may something terrible happen to me. So, by the way, note that at the same time as the high priest is placing Jesus under a curse that he tell the truth, Peter is placing himself under a curse that he tell a lie. must have been nervously schmoozing and chatting with people in the courtyard around this time. Because the third time, and Mark indicates that this is a little while later, in Mark chapter 14, those standing around agree that this guy Peter, who keeps talking, has a Galilean accent. So he must be one of them, meaning Jesus' disciples. And now we read, he curses and swears that he does not know the man. Now the rooster crows three times, or depending, it could be in Mark, it says, for the third time. And Peter remembers the words of Jesus just a few hours earlier at the Last Supper. We read in Mark chapter, Matthew chapter 26, verses 33 and following, Peter answered him, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And all the disciples said the same. Now why did Peter deny Jesus? What factors could have led to this? I mean, this is crazy. Just a few hours earlier, he'd been swearing that he would rather die than deny Jesus. Why did he do this? Well, the first thing I want to point out is shame. The movement surrounding Jesus of Nazareth is utterly in shambles at this point. It's suddenly gone off a cliff. There could have been a dramatic confrontation in Jerusalem any day the previous week, but there wasn't. And instead, the movement had come to a halt, or at least a very serious interruption with the arrest of the rabbi. And Jesus' followers, who had been led by a sword-wielding Peter, the chief of the Twelve, had been unable to stop that. They had been unable to stop Jesus from being arrested. And worse than that, I think much worse than that in Peter's mind, Jesus had made fools of his followers. He'd rebuked them in front of his captors for trying to protect him, and he went willingly with the arrest posse. Who would want to identify with a leader like this? As I've said before on these events, Peter was willing to die for Jesus, but he was not willing to look like a fool. But there are other factors that I don't think I've taken seriously enough in the past, and things that struck me as I read about Peter's denial this time around. And the first of those, as the great theologian Vince Lombardi put it, is that fatigue makes cowards of us all. And Peter was pretty dang fatigued at this point. He and most of the other disciples are used to hardship, constant travel, living off of charity, worried about their wives and kids back home in Galilee, many of them. It was a harder life even than the manual labor of fishing for a living that they had once known when they were younger. And beyond that, they had lived for some weeks, if not years, in an atmosphere of stress and uncertainty. Wherever they went, they were definitely on the wrong side of the authorities. And while that might feel cool for a minute, after a while, it's just stress. Now at Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus had entered in triumph on a donkey, and he had spent long days going deliberately into the temple to teach and to debate the most important thinkers and teachers in the land, and he'd made fools of them. And each night, they had left the city quietly in order to dodge arrest, and that had happened this night. And then think about what had happened After they had left the city, they went back in, and Jesus had taken them to a secret location for the holy feast of Passover. He had told them that one of them would betray him. He had spoken strangely of a new covenant in his blood, and of giving his body for them. He had made wonderful promises that they would sit on twelve thrones, judging Israel. He ate a meal with them, drank the wine, and then back out of the city into a moonlit garden where Jesus had cried and bled and labored in prayer. And what is Peter doing? Well, his Lord wrestles with God in prayer, asking that if possible, the cup of his suffering might pass from him. He and James and John can't help themselves. They pass out asleep. They're asleep on the ground near Jesus. And after that, the adrenaline, the confusion, the arrest team arrives. Peter almost murders a man. Jesus is gone. I think he's tired. I think he's really, really tired. No, fatigue makes cowards of us all, but Peter has plenty to make him afraid other than fatigue. He's unwisely decided to go sneak into the high priest's courtyard and play spy. There are no wanted posters or surveillance cameras. Maybe no one will recognize him. and he wants to be there in case the revolution starts after all, but if he is recognized, who knows what's gonna happen. It's not gonna be good. John tells us that one of the servants of the high priest, a kinsman of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, did I not see you in the garden with him? So Peter's realizing this is dangerous, this is really dangerous. Instead of dying a glorious death in battle, which would be hard enough, He's on the edge of dying a stupid death as the failed lieutenant of a failed messiah who, against all reason and common sense, walked into the den of the lions. He's afraid, and no wonder. So he denies the Lord. Well, what does it mean for him to deny Jesus? And I think this is what we need to kind of camp out on and think about for a little while. What does it mean that Jesus, or that Peter denied the Lord Jesus that night? Well, first of all, so much for the rock, right? Do you remember Peter's wonderful confession back in Matthew chapter 16? Jesus asked the question, who do you, you disciples, say that I am? And Jesus responds, or excuse me, Peter responds, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then think about Jesus's astonishing response to this. Blessed are you, Simon of Arjona, For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. He praises Peter as a rock upon which he will build his church. He gives authority to judge to the church, starting with Peter himself. Now, we don't believe that Peter is becoming the first pope here. We don't think that the Roman Catholic Church is right about that. But Peter is given real authority here on the basis of his confession. And when he denies Jesus, he denies that confession. That's what he's doing. He's going back on that confession. And by denying his confession, and I want to be careful as I say this, but I think this is true, He removes himself from the Church of God on earth. And this is so because Christianity is a confessional religion. Now the word confession does not mainly mean admitting that you did something wrong, although we usually use it that way in common, everyday English. It means saying something together with others. And the Greek word is actually homologia, which means same word or same speaking. And our church standard, our most important document, is called the Westminster Confession of Faith for this reason. To confess Christ is to state your belief in Christ together with the church, to say the same as those who believe in Christ. Now the entire New Testament actually speaks of this and makes this very clear. Many different authors speak of this. Paul says, that in Romans chapter 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. That's the, the internal part is the belief, the external part is the faith, or excuse me, is the confession, together with the church, and the confession as Paul puts it here, is that Jesus is Lord. Now why is this confession so important? It's because it's the same confession that Jesus himself made that night. So it's either standing with Jesus, or if you deny that confession, it's turning your back on Jesus. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 6, he says to Timothy, his delegate, fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Now listen to what he says next. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession. We confess because Jesus confessed. And what is that good confession? Well, just a little while later, we'll read that Pilate asks, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered, very much as he did to the high priest, you have spoken. Yes, I am the king of the Jews. Maybe not in the sense that you think, but yes, I am. I am who they say I am. Jesus maintained. before the Sanhedrin and the high priest and the Roman governor alike, that he was the Christ, the Son of God, the promised Son of Man, the King of the Jews, that, in a word, Jesus is Lord. And a confession, of course, can be false. Paul talks in Titus chapter 1, another letter to one of his delegates, about false teachers who profess, he uses the same word, to know God, profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. But a confession of faith in Jesus as Lord is central and essential. You can't be a Christian without confessing Jesus as Lord. John writes in his letter, 1 John, by this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. And John is here warning against religious teachers, many of them itinerant, who would show up and travel from city to city and ask for support from different churches. And he's basically saying, look, this is how you can tell who the legitimate teachers are. They're the people in whose spirit, whose spirit confesses that Jesus is Christ, that Jesus is come from God. And one day, Paul says, Jesus will In Philippians chapter 2 we read that God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is the reason why it is absolutely essential that we do not do what Peter did that night and deny our confession. We do not deny Christ. Now, Peter, of course, is called out by a rooster, and we don't know very much about this particular rooster. We imagine that he was quite a bit like other roosters, and the Greek word for rooster means rooster. Have you ever had a rooster? Probably some of you have. I have. And the description in Proverbs is perfect. In Proverbs chapter 30, we read, three things are stately in their tread, four are stately in their stride. The lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any, the strutting rooster, the he goat, and a king whose army is with him. Now, I'm not sure whether we should read that as a praise for the he-goat and the rooster, or as maybe a little bit of a taking the lion and the king with his army down a notch. But it's such an excellent description. The rooster, that's what the rooster does. He crows and he struts. And before that dreadful night, Peter was confident as he could be, like a king whose army is with him, or like a strutting rooster. He swore absolute allegiance, loyalty to death to Jesus, but there's another proverb that says, like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give. And Peter's confession turned out to be weak in the time of decision. His words turned out to be only words, his bravado turned out to be empty bluster, and quite a bit like the rooster who called him out, he turned out to be king of chickens. Now, how do we hold fast our confession? How can we not do what Peter did that night? Well, first of all, we need to understand that our confession of Christ is central to our identity as Christians and to our eternal salvation. Jesus said, back in Matthew chapter 10, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. And the reality is that you can be an atheist and a Jew, but you cannot be an atheist and a Christian. This is not a credit to Christians, it's a fact of Christianity, because ours is not an ethnic religion or a ceremonial religion, but a confessional religion. Peter has denied Jesus before men. He has every reason to think that Jesus will now deny him before God the Father and the holy angels. And for that reason, it's absolutely crucial that we do not do what Peter did. The book of Hebrews picks up on this idea of confessing and holding fast to our confession several different places. In chapter three, verse six, it says, we are God's house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting and our hope. In chapter four, verse 14, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. And later on, chapter 10, verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And we will all face stress that will make us loosen our grip on Christ and tempt us to deny him. It could be acute and frightening, as Peter faced, and as Christians under persecution often face. It could be long-term frustration and disappointment that grind you down and wondering why God hasn't taken your life in a different direction, one that you think is better. It could be the lure of wealth and comfort and pleasure, a soft life. What can we do about that? How can we face those temptations? Well, let me make some suggestions. I'll just walk through these quickly. First of all, you need to believe yourself capable of anything, anything bad. Now, Peter failed in this. He did not think himself capable of doing what Jesus said he would, which is denying him. You need to believe yourself capable of anything bad, and this is key to humility. Do not be a strutting rooster. Be utterly as monsters in the sense of some other breed than you. Well, I could never do that. As wicked as others seem to be, you have the same wickedness deep inside your heart. All of life is a battle against an indwelling sin, the power of the old person, the old sinful person within us. Don't let down your guard. Believe yourself capable of anything bad. Second, constantly renew your hope and prayer. Serious prayer is like a touchstone for your desires and intentions. A touchstone, I don't know if you know what that is, but it's a kind of stone or mineral that if you take a precious metal like gold, you scrape it against this stone, if it's real gold, it'll scrape off and it'll look a certain way. If it's not real gold, it won't scrape off and the color won't be right. So you can tell just by basically touching these things together if you have real gold. Now, prayer is like a touchstone for our desires and intentions. You can pray for, and you should pray for, all kinds of hopes and desires. Sooner or later, as you continue to pray for those things, your course of action and your intentions and your motives will be revealed for what they are, if you keep praying about it. Along with praying, read the Bible. The Spirit speaks to us through the Word. Thirdly, confess together with the church. Confess together with the church, and that means worshiping together as we have opportunity when we get to do that together. Sing together, pray together, commune together in family, worship with friends, but especially in church. This is the body of Christ that we are confessing with when we confess Christ. Get together. worship and confess Christ. Fourthly, rest and listen. Now I want to unpack this a little bit, but the Gospel of John gives us one of the most tender and wonderful conversations Jesus Christ ever had with one of his disciples, and it's a conversation with Peter. This is after the resurrection of Jesus, and it takes place in John chapter 21 at the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and the fishermen, including Peter, Jesus and that is fishing and they're hailed by Jesus who's on the shore. They don't know it's him. But when Peter realizes who they're talking to, he jumps into the sea and swims his way to shore. And then John includes the strangest detail. Jesus, there on the beach, maybe in the dark in the early morning or in the fog, has prepared a cooking fire and he calls them to come and have breakfast. And he cares for his men So much that just as he washed their dirty feet on the eve of his own arrest and crucifixion, now he fills their hungry bellies. When God calls us to repentance, he does not flog us and beat us. He is gentle, and we ought to be gentle with others when they fall into sin too. Peter was exhausted on the night of his denial. This was not an excuse, but it was a reason. And we tend to fall apart when we're grieved and exhausted. Receive the mercy and gentleness of the Lord. Take refreshment, eat, sleep, listen to what he has to say. And then repent with sorrow. After breakfast with Jesus on the beach, the great restoration begins. And Jesus has a conversation with Peter in which he asks him three times, Peter, do you love me? This is an answer to Peter's three denials. And after the third time, we read that Peter was grieved and answered, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus does know everything, and he knew all about Peter's denial. Peter is repenting as best he can. You know my sorrow for my sin and my love for you. When you have sinned against the Lord, when you've denied him through your actions or your words, repent with grief for your sin, and then begin again with humility. We don't stay in that zone of sorrow forever. we take up the work that the Lord has given us. For Peter and for ministers of the gospel and for all Christians to some degree, that's the ministry of the word. And Jesus' word to Peter was, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. He was already called to be a pastor and an elder as well as the chief of the apostles, and now that work is renewed and underlined. He is restored to the church and his place in it. And his work will begin again. but now as a gentle shepherd, a humble shepherd, a sheep among sheep, and not as a strutting rooster. And then finally, prepare for your cross. Jesus finishes speaking to Peter with these words, in John chapter 21, verses 18 and 19. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. This, he said, to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after saying this, he said to him, follow me. Peter had run from the cross on the night of his denial. And that was the root of his sin. He wanted to strut and crow like a rooster not die nailed to a tree. But Jesus had said, if anyone would follow me, he must take up his cross. And now restored, he hears from the Lord that when he is old, after a full life of service to the kingdom of God, he will embrace the cross, quite literally. You will stretch out your hands and go where you do not want to go, means precisely that Peter will die on a cross. It should remind us of what the Lord said about Paul after his conversion. I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. The greatest figures in the history of our faith are not great because they did miracles or preached amazing sermons. Sometimes they did those things, sometimes they didn't. The greatest figures in the history of our faith are great because of how much they suffered for the sake of Jesus Christ. Well, if temptation can overcome the rock, is anyone safe? And have the gates of hell, in fact, prevailed against the church? Well, the answers are no and no. No, no one is so holy, so wise, so sanctified that he cannot stumble and fall. But also, no, the mission of God is not broken, not even for Peter himself. The glory of the rooster is to announce day, and that is good news for us when we are caught in our sins, because it means that God has not left us to die in them. It means that salvation is at hand. The rooster crowed that morning, not just to call out Peter and catch him in his denial of Christ, but to announce the day of redemption, because the day of Jesus' death, which for our sins. One medieval writer said that they say that the night-wandering demons who rejoice in darkest shadows at the crowing of the cock tremble and scatter in sore affright. The day of Jesus's death dawned on those who, as Psalm 107 puts it, sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Now the rooster is a figure you find in the earliest Christian art, sometimes at the feet of a character who's never labeled as Jesus himself, but is a good shepherd carrying a lamb. Back in the sixth century, Gregory I announced that he thought the rooster should be the symbol of Christianity. And three centuries later, another bishop of Rome mandated that the rooster be a decoration on every church, and even today, You can find weather vanes on top of many churches that are topped with a rooster. When we get a building, you know what we're gonna get on top? What an excellent symbol of our faith. The church's confession is that we are forgiven, not that we are sinless. So the church must be at all times humble and penitent because the rooster will crow for every one of us Remember that even the chief apostle, the Rock, was found out in his sin by the crowing of a rooster. And at the same moment, the crowing of the rooster greeted the day of our redemption, the day of atonement when our sin was paid for, and we were rescued from our hypocrisy, our despair, and our sin. And so I say to you, cock-a-doodle-doo, amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your mercy. We thank you that you do not leave us in our sin. We thank you even for your mercy in humbling us, and I pray that we would humble ourselves so that we don't need to go through the kind of thing that Peter did, but at the same time we glorify you for your grace. It is truly your glory to forgive, and there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. But I pray that each one of us, reading and thinking about this passage, would humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord so that at due time, he will lift us up. I pray that we would humble ourselves so that we would not be opposed as proud. I pray, Lord, that you would please give us grace and help in a time of need. That when we face stress, when we face pressure to deny Christ by our words or our actions, whether it's long and slow and grinding frustration, or it's acute temptation and attack, that we would be ready to do what is right, that we would be ready to confess Christ in the presence of men, so that when the time comes, we would be acknowledged by you before God the Father and the holy angels. Lord, until that day, we need your grace, we need your help, We need the humility that every one of us needs if we're going to stand before you. And so we pray that you would gently, but surely, humble us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Before we sign off, I just want to encourage you to sing, to sing some psalms. using the Book of Psalms for Singing, or excuse me, the Book of Psalms for Worship. There's some great resources that we have posted on our Facebook page, Psalter.org, P-S-A-L-T-E-R.O-R-G. Spotify, you can go to Spotify and your Spotify account and search for Book of Psalms for Worship. There's some great lists, they have pretty much every selection from the entire Book of Psalms You could buy a psalter from Crown and Covenant Publications in Pittsburgh. Just go to crownandcovenant.com and check that out. And if you are singing today, and I hope you will, either by yourself or with your family or with some others, I would encourage you to sing Psalm 107B, which is kind of a tough tune, so you might want to go to psalter.org to hear how it goes. 107B, 108C, 108D, and 41B, and I'll just say those again, they're also gonna be posted shortly on Facebook, 107B, 108C, 108D, and Psalm 41B. If you're a member of our church, please consider sending your tithes and offerings to our PO box, that's on our website, as well as on the Facebook page. If you're not a member of our church, we have no obligation whatsoever to give, but this is a way that we continue both to give God an offering that he's pleased with and also to support the work of the congregation. And I invite you to join us again at Facebook.com slash ChristRPC tonight at 6.30 as Gabriel Wingfield finishes up a short series on the book of Haggai. Now I will leave you with the blessing of God. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forever. Amen. Go in peace, or rather, stay at home in peace. Be well. We look forward to getting together again soon. God bless you.