You can open your Bibles up to the book of Mark. We're gonna be reading from Mark chapter 14, beginning in verse 66. So as we saw last week, Jesus was arrested, He was taken to the court of the chief priests, where he was put under a sham trial. False witnesses rose up and accused him of things that he had not done. And in the end, he was convicted of a capital offense, falsely. And he was beaten, and he was mocked. And we might ask ourselves, What was Peter doing during all of this? And so that's what we're gonna read about this morning. So let's pay close attention to the word of God. And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came. And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, you also were with the Nazarene, Jesus. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you mean. And he went out into the gateway, and the rooster crowed. And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, this man is one of them. But again, he denied it. And after a little while, the bystanders again said to Peter, certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean. but he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately, the rooster crowed a second time and Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he broke down and wept. This is God's word. Let's pray together. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are here this morning to hear from you. And so we pray that your word would be at work in us this morning. Lord, give us ears to hear, give us open and receptive hearts. We pray that wherever there is hardness in our hearts, that you would root it out We pray, Lord, that you would speak to us the word of life as we hear it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, Peter was supposed to be the greatest of the disciples. And here we find him failing miserably, failing miserably as a Christian. Peter had great thoughts about himself. He boasted that even if everybody else left Jesus, he would never do that. That he was reliable, right? And after all, that's kind of what his name means. The name that Jesus gave him, Peter the Rock. Each of us, we face all kinds of challenges in our lives. And we can begin to wonder, am I strong enough? Am I strong enough to face these challenges? Do I have what it takes to get through to maintain my integrity? Or maybe you don't wonder, maybe you are convinced that you are strong enough. That is definitely how Peter saw himself. Maybe you tell yourself, I am strong. I am a survivor. I know how to make it through. Well, here in this passage, the Word of God is giving us, in Peter, a mirror for ourselves. given us a mirror to see what does all of our strength amount to, really. Again, we have to remember who Peter is. We have to remember that he really was the chief of all of Jesus' followers. In Matthew 16, when Jesus asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they said, well, some people say that you're John the Baptist. Some people say that you're Elijah. Some people say that you're one of the prophets, and Jesus asked them, yes, but who do you say that I am? And here at this kind of early stage in Jesus' ministry, as he asked them this question, Peter said, you are the Christ. And this is something that was hidden from so many other people. And yet Peter knew that Jesus really was the Messiah, that Jesus really was the Savior that God had sent into the world, the Son of God. And he made that confession, you are the Christ. And Jesus told Peter, Peter, you are blessed. And so at that time, he gave him a new name. He had been named Simon. Now Jesus gives him a new name, Peter, that means rock. And he told him, he said, Peter, on this rock, I will build my church. That's an incredible word that Jesus spoke to Peter. An incredible word. On this rock, I will build my church. And Peter was quite confident in himself. As we saw, I mean, Jesus said, we saw this just a few weeks ago, as Jesus, after the Last Supper, and as they were on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, right, this would have been maybe just an hour or two before these events take place. As they were going to the Garden, Jesus told them, you will all fall away. He told this to his closest followers. He said, you will all fall away. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But Peter, when he heard this, said, no, Lord, even if everyone else falls away, not me, I will stay with you. He said, even if I have to go to prison and to death, I will stay with you. So Peter was very certain of himself. and he was boasting of his faithfulness to the Lord, even though the Lord spoke this, I mean, no word of God, no word of the Lord Jesus falls to the ground. Every word of God proves true. And it is the same with this word that Jesus spoke to his disciples. Yes, even you, Peter, even you will deny me three times before the rooster crows. And so, here, while Jesus is being lied about, while Jesus is being put under trial, what is Peter doing? Peter is sitting by a fire, warming himself in the courts of the chief priest. Now, Jesus had not only warned Peter you will deny me three times before the rooster crows. But in the garden, he continued to warn him, right? He told Peter, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he called attention to Peter. He said, Peter, are you sleeping? Are you falling asleep? And we see here the rashness of Peter. Here, Peter's received these warnings that he will deny Jesus before the evening is done. That along with all the other disciples, he is going to run away. And yet Peter, confident in himself, follows Jesus into the courts of the chief priest and the Sanhedrin. despite these warnings about his weakness, despite what he should have seen about himself as he was drifting off to sleep in the garden, unable to bring himself even to pray. And we see here that Peter lacks all self-awareness. Right? Here he is, falling asleep in the garden. Jesus is warning him, Peter, watch and pray that you don't enter into temptation. He's warning Peter, Peter, even you will deny me three times before the rooster crows. And yet Peter is telling himself, I must do this. I am strong. I will follow Jesus even to prison. and to death, and let's be really clear, right? There are good works out there that would be great if we could do them, and the truth is that there are some things that we cannot do in our own strength, and woe to any person who tries to do those things in their own strength. In the early church, when there was great persecution, and Christians were being arrested and tortured and put to death, the early church kind of had a rule, which was you did not give yourself up to the authorities in order to be put to death. And the reason they had that was because they recognized that we do not have what it takes in ourselves to suffer to the point of death for the Lord. That's a good work. That's a wonderful thing when a Christian is able to do that. But that is not something that any one of us has in ourselves to go all the way to that point. And so the early church said, you know what? That's a bad sign. It's a sign of immaturity. It's a sign of foolishness when Christians deliver themselves up to be put to death. And because what they saw time and again was that the people who would deliver themselves over would very quickly turn tail. They would very quickly deny the gospel under suffering and deny the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, there's a little lesson here for us, right? If we will not pray in the garden, then we will not stand in the fire. And if you are not trusting God in your home right now with your family, then definitely don't go out on the mission field, right? If you are not trusting God in little problems that the Lord brings to you now, then don't go out searching for big problems. Right? We are weak people. We are very weak people on our own. Well, not only do we see Peter's rashness, but we also see here, Mark really draws attention to this. What is Peter doing? He is sitting by the fire, warming himself. All through this evening, what we see Peter doing is we see Peter curling up on the ground, taking a nap. We see him snuggling up to the fire, warming himself. Jesus is suffering. Jesus is being lied about. Jesus is being spit on. Jesus is being beaten. And Peter is desperate to comfort himself. He has this desperate animal drive to get rest and to get warmth and to make the bad feelings go away. In other words, we see here a man who has been overtaken by self-pity. He is just concerned. He is licking his wounds. He is skulking. He is shivering. If you undertake to do something, if you undertake to serve the Lord, and you begin to see cracks in your character, you begin to pity yourself because of the hard things that are coming on you. You know what this is? This is exactly a time to pray. This is exactly a time to humble yourself and go to God and tell God, you know what God, I am in over my head. I need help. I cannot do this. It is exactly the time for prayer and for humiliation. But you know, Peter, we can be just like Peter. Peter had boasted in himself. He had said that he would be with Jesus to the bitter end and he was not about to change his mind about himself. He had this idea of himself as strong and as great and even as he should have seen, his weakness, he should have seen his fatigue, he should have seen that his attention was turned on to himself and how he felt. Even in this weak position, Peter was still hanging on to his idea about himself, that he would be strong enough in the end. Oh, my friends. We can all do this. I know I can do this. And again, this is why the Holy Spirit's purpose to put this account of Peter's life in scripture for us to hold it up as a mirror to see ourselves, to see our own weakness. And really, I mean, we see how very weak Peter is. Now this is Peter who is ready to draw swords and to fight and to enter into combat and to suffer all kinds of pain in his body. And who is it? Who is it that just drives utter fear and terror into Peter? It's a teenage girl. Here's the big man. Here's the big, powerful man, right? Here's the big, strong, strapping Peter, the rock, the fisherman. You know, he's got big muscles, he's got hardened calloused hands, and yet, here, a young girl singles him out, and he... is terrifying. And you know, make no mistake, this girl, of all the people in that building, of all the people around that fire, she was considered by everyone to be the least important. The little servant girl. Well, what is it that God told his people much longer before this in the book of Leviticus when he told them Look, if you will listen to me, if you will follow me, then I will make you bold and courageous. I will make you valiant. So that even just a few of you will put thousands to flight. But he says, if you go after other gods, if you will not listen to me, then you will jump at the sound of a shaking leaf. You will walk outdoors and you'll hear that dry leaf scraping across the pavement on your driveway and you will scream like a little girl. Or like a little boy. They can scream pretty good too. Where is your mouth now, Peter? And he actually gets up and leaves. He leaves the fireside, goes into another room. He is so afraid. He's so afraid of being exposed. He's so afraid of being identified as an outsider. He's so afraid of being called these nasty names, right? One of them. One of them, that's what she calls him. One of them, oh man, how much, right? I know in myself how much I fear being called one of them. They call him a Galilean, right? In one of the other gospels, it's clear that Peter had an accent. He had a Galilean accent, right? And maybe you know what that's like to have an accent. and to go somewhere and someone says, oh, you're one of them. I can tell by how you talk. How much pressure that puts on you. I will tell you, I changed the way I talk when I went to college. It's because people, not real mean, but people tease me. You talk slow. Don't leave voicemails on my phone anymore. You talk too slow. And Galilean was, I mean, these were kind of the, these were kind of the hicks, right? Remember, this is the, this is the court of the chief priest. And so these are the, these are, these guys are the big deal. These guys are the rulers and the leaders. These are the educated people. And Galilee was where, I mean, right, they had fishermen. Galilee was also known to be a place where people were violent. This is where a lot of the violence against the Romans had happened. This is where a lot of the revolts were. And so they were also known to be kind of unstable, angry people. And Peter does not want to be grouped in with them. He does not want to be grouped with Jesus. He does not want to be grouped with these unsophisticated people from Galilee. He is afraid. Afraid by this girl. And it's really striking, right, that Jesus told Peter, Peter, this very night before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. It's striking, right? Jesus said that to Peter, and do you notice the effect that that had on Peter? He said emphatically, if I must die with you, I will not deny you. So here is the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, speaking true, unfailing words to Peter, and Peter's response is, that can't be true. No fear. no quaking, no hesitation, no doubt, all confidence in himself. There's a little lesson for us here, right? If you will not shake before the word of God, you will shake before the words of anyone. If you will not fear when the Lord speaks to you, then you will fear when even anybody else speaks to you. It's a lesson for us. Jesus did not strike fear in Peter, but this girl did. And so Peter denies that he knows Jesus. You also were with the Nazarene Jesus, but he denied it. He said, I neither know nor understand what you mean. Three times. First, it seems like maybe a little bit kind of in private. Then more people are involved. She's talking to the bystanders and Peter is denying it more and more to the point where he is swearing. He is taking oaths. He is invoking curses on himself. He is being profane. He says, I don't know that man. Reminds me of a time when a president said that he did not know that woman. I don't know that man. He, this is what you call apostasy. Okay? Apostasy. Maybe not a word you are familiar with, but apostasy is when a person who is a Christian disowns Jesus Christ and disowns the Christian religion. When a person who believes in Jesus Christ says, you know what, I don't anymore, and they walk away from it entirely. It's a rejection. And it all happens with that little, teeny little muscle that is flapping in our mouths that is called the tongue. How quickly our tongues can get us in trouble. How quickly our words can dig a big old pit for us to fall into. James talks about the power of the tongue. And he says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. Think about that. James is saying that if you can control your tongue, you can control almost anything about yourself. If we put the bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also. They are so large and are driven by strong winds. They are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things." And James goes on to say that it is also a fire. It's destructive. Just that little flame in our mouths can set fire to the whole world. And you know, there's another lesson here for us in this, right? That first denial of Jesus, that first denial that Peter makes, I do not know what you're talking about. I don't know this guy. It's never enough. It's never enough. If we hope to get out of suffering as Christians by denying Jesus just this one time, just in this one situation, just to put the witness under wraps for just a second, it will never be enough. If you need to be welcomed and embraced by the world, it will never be enough. And the reason is that the world will never treat you like one of its own. Not once you have professed Jesus Christ. And so you will never be welcomed and you will go on denying Jesus again and again and again and again until your whole life becomes one great rejection of Jesus Christ. constant, explicit, at every turn, trying to persuade people and trying to persuade the world around you that you really are one of them and to please leave you alone and to please welcome you. And so Peter, he doesn't just stick with saying, I don't know what you're talking about. He doesn't just stick with saying, no, no, that's not true. He invokes curses on himself. I do not know that man. We could think for a second. We could contrast in our minds for a second, right? Really, what is the difference between Judas, who betrayed the Lord with a kiss, and Peter, who denied him and rejected him with oaths and vows and cursing? Which is really worse? Peter calls on God to witness as he tells a lie. He invokes all the wrath of God in hell. There's a whole genre of blogs and social media, Christians exposing other Christians for their weak witness, for their compromise, with the world, but you know, God has given us this passage about Peter as a mirror for ourselves. To remind us that each of us, on our own, we are strong enough to do exactly what Peter did. We are strong enough to fail. That is you, and that is me. We are strong enough to scandalize other people. We are strong enough to renounce Jesus Christ on our own. But the good news of Jesus Christ is that Jesus is strong enough to save people like Peter. And Jesus is strong enough to save people like you and people like me. You know, Peter was sliding. He was going straight down the slide. And he was greased on his way down. He was going fast. And he was headed straight for the bottom. And what was it that intervened? What was it that suddenly stopped him? What was it that turned him around? It was the word of Jesus Christ. He remembered suddenly as the words were coming out of his mouth, as all of his profanity and his rejection of Christ was coming out of his mouth, the word of Christ brought by the Holy Spirit came into his heart and he remembered what Jesus said. You will deny me three times. Here is that word in season. Here is that testimony at the proper time, and this is the power of God's Word, and this is the power of the Holy Spirit to use God's Word. Even the parts of God's Word that we don't necessarily like, that we don't necessarily want to think about, God can use His Word in our lives to snatch us out of danger. to snatch us when we are sliding all the way down like Peter. When we are well on our way to hell, God can use His Word to stop us immediately and to turn us around. That is the power of the Word of God. And so, for you this morning, you may be looking at your life, you may be thinking about where you are sliding or where you have slid. You may feel like you are all the way at the bottom. And that's something for us to remember is that, of course, any sin can lead us to the bottom. Any sin at all can take us all the way to the bottom. But no matter where you are, the word of Jesus Christ is enough to seize you, to snatch you from the bottom, and to bring you back and put you where you need to be. The word of Jesus Christ is absolutely reliable. It is absolutely reliable. Jesus is strong. He is able to save. He is able to deliver you. And so even as Jesus is suffering, even as Jesus is arrested, even as Jesus is headed towards the cross, see the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Word of Christ, and that in his suffering, the Word of Christ is saving Peter right now. Saving Peter by convicting him of what he's done, by causing him to break down, to burst into tears, and to realize that he is weak and that he needs a Savior. And that Savior, is Jesus Christ. That Savior is the one who told Peter, you will all be scattered, but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. I will be with you. I will be your shepherd and care for you. So while we see the strength of Peter, which is not enough, we see that even in his weakness, even in his suffering, Jesus Christ is able to save. And we see that while Peter was comforting himself, pitying himself, warming himself by the fire, here we have a Savior who is strong, not to warm himself by the fire, but to enter into the fire, to be thrown into the furnace. to suffer the wrath of God for sin, that eternal flame, deserved by Peter, deserved by you, deserved by me. This is what the Lord Jesus enters into because He is strong to save. And we can think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they were thrown into the fire. And there, one like the Son of God appeared in the furnace with them and walked with them in the flames. to rescue them, to spare them from harm, and to bring them out. And how is it that our Savior rescues us? It is not simply by standing on the outside and calling us out, but by entering in, by going down into the pit, by being thrown into the furnace himself. And here we are so thankful that we see a Savior who, unlike Peter, who is scared, we have a Savior who is firm, to the end, a Savior who faced the rulers of his nation, who faced the angry and mocking crowds, who faced all the weight and the power of the Roman Empire, who faced death itself, and who faced hell and God's wrath, and he was faithful, and he endured. That's the kind of Savior that we need. Jesus committed himself in prayer to this work. He didn't take it on himself rashly like Peter, rushing in, but called by his heavenly Father. He committed himself in prayer, anointed by the Holy Spirit. He was prepared, and he was equipped. He didn't rashly seize it for himself, but he was called, and he was anointed, and he was equipped, and he endured. That's the kind of Savior that we need. And while Peter denied Christ three times, we see that Christ again and again makes the good confession. He makes the good confession when he is arrested and he tells them day after day, I was with you in the temple. He makes the good confession when he says to the chief priest, I am the Christ and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power." And he makes the good confession before Pontius Pilate as we'll see soon when he tells Pilate that indeed he is the king of the Jews. And all of this is in order to bring about the way of salvation that is rooted and founded not on our strength, not on what we can do, but it is founded on the unshakable word of God. And that is why when God gives his word about something, right? We call that a covenant. Because it's not just Peter who swears oaths and vows. It's also the Lord himself that when he wants us to be absolutely certain that he is definitely going to do what he says, he swears an oath. He swears by himself. Surely I will bless you. Surely I will be with you. We call that the covenant of grace. So while Peter says, I do not know that man, we take great comfort in this, that the Lord knows each of us. The Lord knows you. The Lord does not deny you. He knows your sin. He knows your weakness. He knows your failures, and He has spoken a word that will never be changed. that in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness, there is salvation, we can be adopted as his children, that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can be set free from our sin, we can be set free from our misery, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can enter in to a new heaven and a new earth and a new creation, a place where all evil and where all suffering and where all deceit is done away with. not because we've accomplished it, not because we planned it, not because we've carried it out, but because Jesus is strong to save. And so, my friends, if you have been relying on yourselves this week, if you have been boasting in yourselves, you are in danger. And so, like we read in the book of Proverbs, right? Put your hand over your mouth. But instead, learn that wisdom that we see. And those tiny little creatures, those small creatures that are very small but very wise, run to the rock and hide in the rock that was cleft for you. Jesus Christ, our strong Savior. Let's pray together. We thank you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that here in your word we have both a rebuke that points out our fatal weakness, and at the same time, the most wonderful news of all, that you are faithful, that you are good, that you are merciful, and that in you, we can find the help that we need at every turn. No matter the problems that we face, you will be with us. Everyone who calls on you and who believes in you. And so Lord, we pray that right now, beginning now, that we would be able, going into this week, to walk by faith, to walk with humility, and to know that you are with us. In Jesus' name, amen.