Peter’s Three Denials

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

It’s a frequent occurrence that Charla and I will be in a restaurant or someplace out in public and the kids will start acting up because, you know, they’re kids. I know you sometimes think, well, they’re the pastor’s kids. They’re supposed to be well-behaved.

They’re kids, right? And when you’ve got five of them, there’s never going to be a time when everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. But anyway, it’s a common occurrence that that’ll happen and I’ll look across the table at Charla or wherever we happen to be and I’ll say, somebody needs to come get their kids.

I don’t know them. Do you know them? Somebody needs to come get their kids.

Some of y’all are looking at me like, I’ve never thought that before in my life. I bet most of you have. At least once a week, one of my children gets brought to me by the principal and I’ll call Charla on the phone and say, I’m sitting here with your child in the office.

They didn’t get this gene from my side. Anyway. But when the chips are down, I don’t know anybody who would just deny their child outright.

Who would say, I don’t know you, I don’t have any association with you, because of that relationship, because of that connection. Even if the relationship is strained, typically the parent still wants to have that relationship. We wouldn’t think of denying our children, and yet there’s a real danger for us of denying Jesus.

There’s a real danger for believers to deny Jesus, if not in our words, even if not coming out and saying, no, I don’t know him, I’m not a follower of him. Sometimes, if nothing else, we deny it with our behavior. And we look at the modern world and we see how far things have gotten from where they ought to be.

We look at how lukewarm people can be in the modern era, and we think it’s a new phenomenon, but it’s really not. one of the biggest controversies in the early churches in the first, second, and third centuries of Christianity was what to do with what they called the lopsy. Being an oaky, I always thought that word was pronounced lapsi, but I looked it up last night so I wouldn’t embarrass myself.

Latin word lopsy, meaning those who have fallen. Those who in the times of persecution before the Roman Empire legalized Christianity, when you were found out as a Christian in order to prove it and not incur some kind of penalty up to and including capital punishment. You had to prove you were not a Christian by making a sacrifice to one of the Roman gods, or burning incense to one of the Roman gods, or bribing an official to give you a piece of paper that said you had made a sacrifice to the Roman gods without having to do it.

And there were people who saved their own skin by doing this, trying to demonstrate in a public way, I’m not actually a Christian. It’s just a vicious rumor somebody started. And those who remained faithful rightly looked at this and said they’ve denied Christ. And the debate was over what to do about them, whether to ever let them back within the church or not.

And I’ve been puzzled by that for a long time. You know, if there was no forgiveness, how could there be no forgiveness? Then I realized there were people who, while the persecution was going on while they might go and offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods and then come back to the meeting of the church expecting to just go on as though nothing had happened.

And then I kind of understand the frustration of those who had remained firm. But this is not a new problem, the idea that somebody might distance themselves from their Lord in order to save their own skin. Unless we look at it today or in centuries past as something that only really weak people would do.

That if you achieve a certain level of spirituality that you’re immune to such fallings, there’s a prime example of this in our Bibles. As we’re continuing through our series on the book of Mark, we come to Mark chapter 14, and probably the most famous example of this in history of somebody denying the Lord, and that’s Peter. Peter was the first Lopsy or Lapsi.

Peter’s probably the most famous one. And this morning I want us to understand why Peter did it. Because I think we can learn from it how to avoid doing it.

Because there’s already a time on the horizon where we may be forced to choose between Christ and other things. You may be forced to choose between your witness for Christ and a job. You may be forced to choose between your witness for Christ and a family member.

Certainly, you have to choose between your witness for Christ and social acceptance. And if the Lord tarries long enough, there may be a time that we have to choose between a witness for Christ and our freedom or our lives. So we want to learn from Peter’s example, see what happened here, and see how we can possibly avoid it.

So we’re going to be in Mark chapter 14 this morning. Mark chapter 14 verses 66 through 72. If you’ll turn there with me.

If you can’t find it or don’t have your Bibles, it’ll be on the screen for you here. I also have those grids at the door in the back and over here on the side. If you want to pick one of those up and compare how the different Gospels treat this story.

But we’re going to look at the three denials, the three times that Peter denied Jesus. And see how those worked and see what we can learn from them. Starting in verse 66, and once you find it, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

Starting in verse 66, it says, Now as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came. And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, You also were with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you’re saying.

And he went out on the porch, and a rooster crowed. And the servant girl saw him again and began to say to those who stood by, This is one of them. But he denied it again.

And a little later, those who stood by said to Peter again, Surely you’re one of them, for you’re a Galilean and your speech shows it. Then he began to curse and to swear, I do not know this man of whom you speak. A second time the rooster crowed.

Then Peter called to mind the word that Jesus had said to him. Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And when he thought about it, he wept.

And you may be seated. So let’s walk through what happened in each of these situations. Because as you read through and you compare the four Gospels and their treatment of these events, it can get a little dicey.

It’s taken me a while to piece through what happened here. And especially with the second denial, there’s a place in here where sometimes skeptics will seize on it and say, oh, it’s a contradiction, it’s an inaccuracy. No, there’s an explanation if you take all four Gospels together.

But we come to this place where they’re at Annas’ house, the first hearing that we talked about last week, and it’s important to understand that these denials and that hearing were going on at the same time. There’s some overlap here. Like there might have been questioning, and while Jesus is being questioned, Peter’s being questioned.

And back and forth. There’s an overlap. We’re just, for simplicity’s sake, we’re taking the denials all at once, in those two hearings all at once.

Peter has managed to gain access to Annas’ house where the first hearing is taking place. And John explains that the reason for that is because John was familiar with the family of the high priest. John was familiar with some of the people that worked in the house of the high priest and was able to sneak Peter in. So Peter and John are there somewhere around.

We don’t know how long John stayed, but Peter was there for most of this milling around. There were probably dozens and dozens of people in the courtyard of this house, the courtyard area, as they’re there to witness the spectacle of Jesus being tried before this former high priest. And so there’s this servant girl that John identifies that had been guarding the door, been watching the door, and she is the one that John talked into letting Peter into the house. She’s also the one that comes up beside him.

I don’t know, they switch shifts at some point, And so she’s away from the door and she comes up to Peter and says, you were with Jesus too, weren’t you? Like, are you the guy that I let in with John? You also know Jesus, don’t you?

Not only did he know him, she asks according to John, are you one of his disciples? Are you just here with the crowd or are you with him with him? So Peter responded in verse 68 here, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Like, do I know who? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Luke tells us, he says, I don’t even know Jesus.

I don’t understand what you’re asking me. I don’t know that guy over there. John tells us, I’m certainly not one of his disciples.

John records that response from Peter. And as we look at these, we may say, well, one gospel records that he says this, one gospel records that he says this, and they’re not the same thing. Is that not a contradiction?

Have you ever heard somebody try to get defensive and defend themselves? they may spit out a lot of words. No, I don’t know him.

Yeah, I don’t know that guy. I’m not one of his disciples. I’m not with him.

Each of them is recording part of the story. There seems to be this explosion of words as Peter sputters to try to defend himself. When he finally gets done disclaiming any knowledge of Jesus, that’s when the rooster crows.

And we’ve talked a little bit in the past about the seeming discrepancy between the rooster’s crowing. If you picked up one of those grids, there’s another resource you can go read on there about why Matthew and Luke say the rooster crowed once, or they say the rooster crowed, and Mark records the rooster crowed twice. Just to simplify it, Matthew and Luke are stating the fact that it happened, and Mark just gives the extra detail of how many times.

That’s the simple explanation. So the rooster crowed in verse 68. Then we go on to the second denial. This is just a little bit later.

Peter walks out onto the porch. Maybe he thought, I need to distance myself. Let me go outside and cool off a little bit.

Matthew tells us he went out on the porch. And shortly after, he was seen again by the same girl who brought him to the attention of several other people. Mark tells us it was the same girl.

Matthew tells us it was a girl. Luke tells us it was another person. It was somebody different from the first time.

Wait a minute, there’s a contradiction. No, because John says they asked him. We are looking at a third person plural verb, meaning there were multiple people who asked him the second time.

And in that group, there was the girl from the first time, and there were other people. So not a contradiction. They’re all just focused on one aspect of the story.

So the servant girl comes back again, apparently gets the attention of several other people saying, this guy’s one of them. Here in Mark, verse 69. And in verse 70, he says, uh-uh, I’m not.

I’m not one of them. She’s attracted the attention of a crowd. They begin to question him and accuse him.

And I picture it as though there are questions being fired at him from all sides. Have you ever had multiple people yelling at you at one time? That’s how I picture this as we put the Gospels together.

According to John, somebody says, you’re not also one of his disciples, are you? He says, I am not. No, you are one of them.

Somebody says in Luke, man, I am not. And somebody says, this fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, I swear, I do not know the man.

I promise you, I swear on a stack of books, I swear. He begins pronouncing an oath. He’s pinky promising that he does not know Jesus.

He’s doing everything he can to try to convince them because now he’s surrounded by a crowd of people. And we don’t know necessarily that these people are hostile, But they’re certainly accusing him of being a follower of Jesus. Then there’s the third denial, which according to one of the Gospels takes place about an hour later.

The people around him started talking to him and about him. They talked about his accent. They said, we can tell you’re one of them because your accent gives you away.

Here in verse 70, it says, surely you are one of them for you are Galilean and your speech shows it. We might translate that as your accent told on you. From what I’ve read, the Galileans were kind of looked down on as backwoods people compared to the folks in Jerusalem.

And so if you came in with that accent, people automatically assumed you didn’t know anything or you’re just a hillbilly kind of thing. And they knew that a lot of people who were in the city, and especially around there, around that event, that were with Jesus were Galileans. And so they put two and two together, and they said, we can tell by your accent you’re not from around here.

You must be with him. At the same time, one of Malchus’ relatives recognized Peter, and according to John 18, he asked, basically, didn’t I see you with Jesus in the garden? Of course, he doesn’t say, aren’t you the guy that cut off my relative’s ear?

Trying to hack off his head. And so Peter pronounced a curse and said, I don’t know the man. Now, when I was growing up, I heard that and we were taught Peter got so mad that he started cussing and that’s what it meant that he cursed.

I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. Charla and I have been watching reruns of I Love Lucy and there’s something recently she was, I mean, recently, 70 years ago, but recently we were watching it and she’s trying to convince Ricky of something that’s not true. And she’s like, may I be struck dead if it’s not?

And when he turns around, she’s going, that’s the kind of thing that he’s doing here. May the Lord strike me dead. He’s pronouncing a curse on himself, trying desperately to convince these people he does not know Jesus.

I don’t know the man. And then the rooster crowed. One of the gospels records that at that moment, Jesus looked at Peter.

Across this crowded courtyard, across all this chaos, Jesus and Peter lock eyes. And in that moment, Peter remembered what Jesus had told him hours before, what we looked at weeks ago, that Jesus said, you are all going to be scattered because of me tonight. And Peter said, no, no, even if all of these deny you, I never will.

And Jesus said, no, before this evening is over, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And Peter still said, no, I’ll die with you. And remembering what Jesus had predicted, remembering what Jesus had said, Peter ran from there, weeping and sobbing, tears of despair, you might call them tears of repentance, tears of brokenness over what he had just done.

And it seems so unfathomable to us. I think we like to think if we were Peter, if we were in that exact situation, we would never do the same thing. And yet, isn’t that what Peter thought?

Just hours before, Peter had just told Jesus, I’ll never deny you. Now, we know from God’s standpoint, this had to happen. This was a fulfillment of not only what Jesus had said earlier in the evening, but it was a fulfillment of what God had said hundreds of years before through the prophet Zechariah, that he would strike at the shepherd and the sheep would be scattered.

But from a human standpoint, from the standpoint of Peter’s motivation and what brought Peter to the place of fulfilling what God said would happen, what was going on in Peter’s mind that would cause him to do this terrible thing. Why did Peter do this? It’s very simple.

Peter yielded to pressure and he denied his Lord. Peter didn’t set out to deny Jesus. He didn’t wake up that morning and think, you know what would be fun is if today I do something terrible that I’m remembered for for the rest of eternity.

That wasn’t Peter’s motivation. But he came to a point where the pressure was too much and he was willing to turn on Jesus. And we need to understand that this was about his relationship with Jesus.

This whole line of questioning, all this hostility, everything that was going on in there that was directed toward Peter was not about Peter. It was about Jesus. You see, nobody in that room was looking for Peter specifically.

I know they didn’t have photography and they didn’t have post offices, but it’s not like Peter’s wanted poster was hanging up in the post office in Jerusalem. Nobody was after Peter. He wasn’t on Jerusalem’s most wanted list. They were looking for Jesus.

As a matter of fact, even the person who was related to Malchus and recognized him as Malchus’ attacker, the guy who tried to remove Malchus’ head for him, even that guy who recognized him didn’t say, hey, aren’t you the guy that tried to kill my cousin? No, because they weren’t looking for Peter. Jesus fixed the ear, everything’s fine now.

This was about Jesus. The question in John 18, 26 was, did I not see you in the garden with Jesus? It wasn’t about anything Peter had done other than his association with Jesus.

His association with Jesus was the problem. All three times that somebody comes and confronts Peter or comes and accuses Peter, the basis for their accusation, the basis for their question was his connection to Jesus. Do you know Jesus?

Do you follow Jesus? Are you here with Jesus? These are the things that they were asking.

Even when they’re asking things so broad as, aren’t you one of them? Who’s the them they’re talking about? Followers of Jesus.

And each time he was asked about his connection with Jesus, he denied even knowing Jesus. And as wrong as it is, it’s hard to fault Peter too much. Because Peter’s human.

Peter’s subject to the same frailties and fallenness that we all are. This was a dangerous situation for Peter. The Jesus that they’re questioning him about is on trial right there in the same room.

This is a dangerous place to be a follower of Jesus. And Jesus had previously warned them that these things were going to happen. Jesus had warned them that times like these were going to come.

Now, if Peter had just scattered, like Jesus said was going to happen, if he just scattered at the beginning with the others, he might not have put himself in this situation. But way back in chapter 13 that we looked at months ago, Jesus had told them, watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them.

He warned them there’s going to be a time of persecution. There’s going to be a time of trouble. There’s going to be a time when you are called to account before the authorities, before the powers that be, for your association with me.

Prepare yourself because it’s coming. Peter did not take the warning seriously. And so the pressure got to him.

And Peter’s denials of Jesus here are a warning to us about the ease of stumbling. If Peter, who spent three years with Jesus, could stumble, any one of us could. If we’re not prepared.

If we’re not taking the threat seriously. See, Peter was acting out of fear. It was understandable fear.

Am I going to be put on trial with Jesus? Am I going to endure the floggings and the crucifixion with Jesus? What is this going to cost me to be associated with Jesus?

It was an understandable fear, but he was still driven by fear. That fear put intense pressure on him. And what we need to understand is we all face pressure of some kind as believers.

Now, especially as American believers, we don’t want to walk around with a persecution complex. They quit wishing me Merry Christmas down at the store, so I’m persecuted. It’s not the same thing.

There are people around our world today who will give their lives because of their association with Jesus Christ. And we don’t want to trivialize that by calling everything persecution. At the same time, we all endure a cost on some level. We all face some kind of pressure to conform to the ways of the world, as opposed to the calling that we have in Jesus Christ, the call to follow Him.

And so just because we understand His fear, just because we’re under pressure as well, even though it’s a different kind of pressure, it doesn’t diminish the shame of what happened here. Just because we look at it and say it could happen to any one of us doesn’t make it okay. When Peter was given the chance to stand up, when Peter was given the chance to do what he promised he would do, when Peter was given the chance to do what he was called to do and swore he would do, he refused to and he backed down and he betrayed Jesus.

And it was just as Jesus had warned back in Verse 27, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night. That was bad enough. All the disciples fled from him.

When he was arrested, all of them fled. That was bad enough. But Peter’s stumbling here was more dramatic than the others because of his pride.

His pride would not let him acknowledge that it was possible he was going to stumble. His pride would not allow him to acknowledge that he was going to betray Jesus. And so he kept digging in further and saying, I’m going to the trial. I’m going to do all these things.

If he had just gone along with what Jesus said at the beginning about all of you will be made to stumble for my name because of me tonight, and he had fled with the rest of them, things wouldn’t have gone this far. It still would have been a denial and a stumbling, but it wouldn’t have been quite so dramatic. Even in his exchange with Jesus, we see this pride.

Peter said, even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be in verse 29. And Jesus pretty forcefully said otherwise, but Peter said, if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And we see this warning all throughout Scripture, this warning against pride and against thinking that we are more self-sufficient than we really are.

The Apostle Paul said, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall, in 1 Corinthians 10, 12. That’s a reminder that when we get to the point in our Christian life where we think, I’ve got this, I’m spiritual, I can handle anything that’s thrown at me, that’s when Satan’s going to get us. That’s why King Solomon said, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

We all have moments where we think we’ve got things better in control than we actually do. Peter had the benefit of three years training directly from Jesus, spending three years day in and day out with Jesus. But it became easy to fall when he became self-confident.

When he got to the point where he was relying on his own strength, on his own abilities, on his own just sheer force of will to move forward and handle things, when he began to rely on those things instead of humble obedience to his master, then it became a problem. When his walk with Jesus became more about Paul, I’m sorry, Peter, and what he brought to the table, than it was about Jesus and what Jesus did through him, that’s when he set himself up to fall. And there’s a lesson in there for you and me, Because sometimes we can convince ourselves that we’re stronger than we are spiritually, that we’ve got this more under control than we really do.

We might even convince ourselves that we’re super Christians. I’m not going to succumb to any temptation. And that’s exactly when it gets us.

Peter’s pride, Peter’s self-reliance is what resulted in these three denials. Peter’s pride is what led to this moment of shame that Peter is forever remembered for. But then Jesus intervenes again.

Where Peter couldn’t handle this, when Peter couldn’t handle the pressure of following Jesus, Jesus stepped in and restored him. Jesus still died for Peter, even after Peter denied him. Just a few hours after this, Jesus is going to go to the cross.

He’s going to endure multiple horrific scourgings on the way there. And then he’s going to be nailed to the cross. He’s going to shed his blood.

He’s going to die. He’s going to go through every indignity that their depraved minds could come up with. He was going to go through all of that to pay for our sins, including the sin of the man who just denied him.

The sin of the man who, when Jesus was at his low point there, looked at him and said, no, I don’t know him. Peter was fortunate. Peter was fortunate to serve a Lord who would still die for him and not look to the Father and say, no, I don’t know him.

Jesus was able to forgive Peter. And in fact, Jesus went through the ultimate sacrifice to secure Peter’s forgiveness. And that tells us something about the character and the nature of Jesus.

Because he went to the cross for Peter, even knowing what Peter had just done to betray him. And Jesus went to the cross knowing the things that you and I were going to do to let him down. And everything that we have ever done that has displeased him or brought him dishonor, Jesus paid for that on the cross too.

when we deny him with our actions, he paid for that as well. See, the whole idea of pride and self-reliance and self-sufficiency in spiritual things is the opposite of the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ starts with the bad news that you and I don’t have this under control.

We can’t do enough good to get ourselves into a right relationship with God. We can’t do enough good to undo the wrong that we’ve done. We can’t do enough to make peace with God.

We can’t. If we could, the cross was a mistake. But looking at us in our sin, in our pitiful condition, separated from God, and seeing this inability, God loved us enough still that He sent His Son.

Jesus came willingly and took responsibility for our sins because we couldn’t do it. And He was nailed to the cross and shed His blood to pay for that sin because it was the only way we could be forgiven. So the idea of looking at God and saying, no, I’ve got this.

The idea of looking at God and saying, I can handle this. No, no, I’m strong enough. That will keep us away from the gospel.

When what we need to do is what Peter should have done in the beginning, is acknowledge our weakness that we’re totally reliant on Jesus Christ. If you’ve never experienced that forgiveness, if you’ve never come to a point where you’ve realized you’ve sinned against God, if you understand this morning that you need to be forgiven, Maybe you’ve been walking through life thinking if you could just try harder and do enough good things that it would make you right with God. Maybe that’s why you’re here today. Trying to work off some of that debt by going to church.

We’re glad you’re here, but that’s not going to make a difference. If you realize that you’ve fallen short, as we all have, that you’ve sinned, you’ve disobeyed God in your words, in your actions, in your attitudes, your thoughts, You’ve disobeyed God and need that forgiveness. The only way to have it is to acknowledge that Jesus died to pay for it in full.

He died to pay for everything you’ve ever done. It’s not that He paid for part of it and you work off the rest. He did it all. He paid for it in full at the cross.

And He rose again three days later to prove it. And now He offers it to you. If you’ll simply believe you don’t earn it by good works.

You don’t earn it by your achievements. You earn it by putting your trust in Him as your one and only Savior.