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The famous English military and political leader Oliver
Cromwell is remembered by many for his great successes, and by others for his
great failures. It is almost universally agreed, however, that Cromwell was not
a handsome man, nor did he claim to be. When Sir Peter Lely was commissioned to
paint a portrait of Cromwell, he reportedly told the painter, “Mr. Lely, I
desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not
flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and
everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.”[1]
The Bible often portrays men and women in this same way:
“warts and all.” Their heroic deeds are portrayed with honesty alongside of
their disastrous failures. Of course, one of the most obvious examples of this
is found in Simon Peter. Ask the average Christian what he or she knows of the
Apostle Peter and you will not often hear them mention his powerful preaching
in the early chapters of Acts, or his brilliant New Testament epistles. You
will hear of of his denials of the Lord Jesus. Peter’s story, like those of so
many others in Scripture, encourages us that our God uses ordinary men and
women to accomplish extraordinary things in the world. Like Peter, we are all
flawed and imperfect. So, as we read of his failures here, we are able to
identify some warnings that, if heeded, may safeguard us from spiritual
disaster. There are at least six of them that I hope to draw from our text.
The first of these warnings is this:
I. Don’t follow Jesus
from a distance (v15).
When I first began to drive, I was pulled over by a police
officer one afternoon. He asked, “Do you know why I stopped you?” I hate that
question. I knew I wasn’t speeding, I hadn’t crossed the center line, I’d
signaled for my turns and lane changes. But, I’d been so paranoid about the
police car behind me that I had failed to pay attention to how close I was to
the car in front of me. I had not left one car length for every ten miles per
hour. I learned a valuable lesson that day – it is dangerous to follow another
car too closely. But in my spiritual life, the even more valuable lesson I have
learned is that it is disastrous to follow Jesus too distantly.
Following Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane
Throughout the Gospels, there is a recurring theme of
following Jesus. His first call to His disciples was for them to come and
follow Him. Jesus never glossed over or minimized the costs and risks involved
in following Him. Following Jesus is dangerous business – potentially deadly,
even. So there are always going to be those who follow, but not too closely;
not so closely that they risk personal danger or inconvenience; not so closely
as to be considered a fanatic or anything. There is a safe distance kept – from
intimate prayer, from regular study of the Bible, from faithful church
attendance, from opportunities to serve. They follow just close enough to be
considered a follower by other followers, but far enough away to not be
implicated by the world. If you are following Christ from a distance today,
heed the warning of Peter’s example and close the gap. James 4:8 says, “Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you.” There may be danger, but it is
better to face danger alongside of Jesus than to enjoy ease from a distance.
When you follow Jesus, danger will come but disaster doesn’t have to. Don’t
follow Jesus from a distance.
Now we immediately find the second warning:
II. Don’t be ashamed of who you are (vv16-17).
Once upon a time in America, being a Christian was so
culturally prized that even the non-Christians claimed to be Christians. Today,
the tide has shifted and the cultural pressures are such that Christians find
themselves often embarrassed, intimidated, or ashamed to claim their faith
openly. But, when we look at the history of Christianity and the state of the global
Church, we find that being a Christian has rarely been popular. Yet to such a
culture, the followers of Christ are called to be vocal witnesses for Him. In
our text, Peter had the opportunity to do that, and failed.
Verse 15 says that the “other disciple” who was with Peter
was known to the high priest. We have already said that this “other disciple”
is John. John never refers to himself by name in this Gospel. He typically
calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” In John 20, “the other disciple”
and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” are used interchangeably to refer to the
same individual. So, how did John know the high priest and his servants? It is
at least plausible that John knew them from his father’s business. Before
following Jesus, John worked in his father’s fishing enterprise, which was
prominent enough to support the labor of hired servants. If, by virtue of his
reputation as a leading fisherman, John’s father was the supplier of fish to
the high priest’s home, it stands to reason that his father may have sent John to
make deliveries. Whatever the case, he was known well enough to gain entrance
to the courtyard, and to secure admission for Peter as well.
In verse 17, the girl who kept watch over the gate says to
Peter as he enters, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” There
may be a heavy dose of cynicism here, but it is not necessary to assume that
there was hostility in her words. After all, she already knew John to be a
follower of Jesus. Her question to Peter seems to be something along the lines
of, “Oh no! Not another one!” If John could be known as a follower of Jesus in
that courtyard without fear, then Peter could as well. But Peter wasn’t willing
to be identified as a follower of Jesus. When asked if he was one of Christ’s
disciples, he said, “I am not.”
All around us every day is a world filled with people who
want to know, who need to know, whether or not you are a follower of Jesus.
Sometimes they will come out and ask you, and other times they merely leave the
door open for you to acknowledge it. Opportunities abound. Jesus was not
ashamed to be identified with you when He bore your sins on the cross, so we
must not be ashamed of who we are as followers of Christ when we bear scorn for
Him in the world. Heed the warning of Peter: Don’t be ashamed of who you are.
We come to the third warning:
III. Don’t be too cozy with the world (vv18, 25).
In John 17, Jesus prayed for His followers, whom He said
were “in the world.” He said that we have been “sent into the world,” and
prayed that we would not be “taken out of the world.” But He also said very
clearly in that prayer that His followers are not “of the world.” The Apostle
John heard Jesus pray that prayer and it stuck with him. In his first epistle,
John warns, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life,
is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and
also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 Jn
2:15-17). In the same letter, John says that the world does not know us because
it did not know Christ, and he warns us to not be surprised if the world hates us
(3:1, 13).
Throughout the New Testament, the world is described as being
under the domain of the enemy, the devil. Those who are of the world walk in
accordance with his purposes, at odds with the will and purposes of God, and at
war with Jesus Christ. We see the world represented in the latter chapters of
the Gospels by those forces which conspire to put the Lord Jesus to death. And
sadly, here in our text, we find Peter alongside of them, warming himself by
the charcoal fire that they have kindled in the courtyard. It is stated twice,
in verses 18 and 25. Peter comes alongside of the enemies of Christ for warmth
and comfort.
The fires of this world are cozy and inviting. There’s warm
companionship to be enjoyed by those fires, and a circle that will always be
willing to widen to make room for you, as long as you don’t try to speak for
Christ around that fire. As the circle of these officers widened to make room
for Peter, they asked him, “You are not also one of His disciples, are you?” We
can see Peter in our mind’s eye, jostling himself into their circle, as he says
yet a second time, “I am not.” Had he told the truth, that circle would have
shut on him as quickly as it had opened, and he would have been left out, cold,
alone, isolated and outnumbered.
This is where Christians will often find ourselves standing,
and a place that we must not be afraid to stand! The writer of Hebrews points
us to Moses, who enjoyed all of the privileges that this world has to offer,
but who by faith chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than
to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season (Heb 11:25). That fire that the
world tends will provide warmth for a season, but that fire will die out, to be
replaced by the fire of God’s judgment. There is no blessing of God found around
the fires of this world. Peter knew the Psalms, and surely he knew the first
words of the first Psalm: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the
counsel of the wicket, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of
scoffers!” But here he was standing in the midst of them, warming himself by
their fire.
We must heed the warning we see in Peter’s example. We are
in the world, but not of it, and we find no comfort in the warmth of this
world’s fires. We are in the world to be a witness for Christ to it. But if we
become too cozy around the world’s fires, we will face a great temptation to be
silent and even to deny the Lord, as Peter did.
We come to the fourth warning now:
IV. Don’t be afraid of confession.
It’s often said that the hardest people to reach for Christ
are our closest friends and our family. Many of us have found that to be true,
but why is it? One reason, I think, is that these people know us too well. They
have seen us at our worst, and they are privy to our most humiliating failures.
Because of this, we cower in silence before them, and if we speak, their ears
are often dull to our message. We get a glimpse of that sort of thing with
Peter here.
As he is enjoying the warmth of the fire, its glow provides
a clearer image of his face. Immediately he is recognized by one who says, “Did
I not see you in the garden with Him?” John says that this one who questioned
him was a relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off. Remember from verse
10 that as the mob encroached upon Jesus, Peter took up his sword and struck
off the ear of a servant named Malchus. Peter can only imagine that the man
must be plotting revenge for Malchus. Maybe he will draw the sword on Peter; maybe
he will hand him over so that justice could be served upon him. And to save his
own skin, Peter denies his relationship with the Lord Jesus a third time.
The world will often throw our past sins into our faces. And
the easy thing to do is to cower in silent embarrassment and shame. But the
easy thing to do is seldom the right thing to do. We must not be afraid of
confession. When our sins are presented to our faces, we must be bold enough to
say, “Yes, I did that. That was me. I am a sinner, and that is why I need the
Lord Jesus to be my Savior.” That is what Peter could have done here. He could
have said, “Yes, I am the one who cut off Malchus’ ear, but I remind you that
the Lord Jesus, whom I serve, has the power to heal Malchus’ ear and to forgive
me of my sin. He has already rebuked me for my impulsive act, and I have
repented of it.” That may not have earned him the forgiveness of the crowd.
They might have still killed him, but it would be better to die with a
testimony for Christ on our lips than live by denying Him.
Confession is never easy, but it’s always right. When others
remind us of our failures, we must take responsibility for them, whatever the
consequences, and use the opportunity to testify to the grace of the Lord
Jesus. Spiritual disaster looms whenever we are afraid to say of ourselves what
God Himself says of us: that we are sinners who desperately need a Savior. Heed
Peter’s warning, and do not be afraid of confession.
Now, fifthly, we want to enlarge the view and see the bigger
picture of what precipitated Peter’s failure, and find a warning in it:
V. Don’t overestimate yourself (v27).
Most of us grew up hearing encouragement from our parents,
teachers, and others who told us that we can be anything we want to be and do
whatever we set our minds to. A little bit of that kind of confidence is
healthy I suppose. Too much of it can be disastrous, especially in our
spiritual lives. Throughout the Gospels we find in Peter a man who was overly
confident of his own abilities, his own strength, and his own commitment to
Christ. John MacArthur says of Peter that he had “a habit of revving his mouth
while his brain was in neutral,” and calls him “the apostle with the
foot-shaped mouth.”[2]
Peter had boasted to Jesus, “Lord, with You I am ready to go
both to prison and to death” (Lk 22:33). He said, “Even though all may fall
away because of You, I will never fall away. … Even if I have to die with You,
I will not deny You” (Mt 26:35). And just hours before this incident in the
courtyard, Peter had said, “I will lay down my life for You” (Jn 13:37). But it
was after this final assertion that Jesus said to Peter, “Truly, truly, I say
to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times” (13:38). And
John tells us, after the third denial, “immediately a rooster crowed.” The
Lord’s prediction came flooding back into his memory, and Luke 22:62 says that
Peter “went out and wept bitterly.” This brazen man became a broken man as the
façade of his self-confidence came crumbling down.
The Proverbs say that pride goes before destruction, and a
haughty spirit before stumbling (16:18). In 1 Corinthians 10:12, Paul puts it
this way: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that does not fall.” Some of
my closest friends over the years have shipwrecked their ministries and their
marriages by sins of pride, greed, and lust. Leaders I have respected have been
exposed in scandals more times than I care to remember. And I have to confess
to you, every time I learn of another one, there is this surge of
self-righteousness rising up within me, screaming, “I’m so much better than
those guys! I could never do that!” But then I remember, every single one of
those guys thought the same thing. By watching others around me fail and fall,
I have been reminded often that there is no depth of evil that could not
overtake me at any moment if I were to rest in my own strength and forsake the
grace and empowerment of the Lord Jesus and His Spirit. Every single one of us
must heed Peter’s warning to never overestimate ourselves. We must remember
what the Lord Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Let us
learn from Peter’s example, lest we become yet another example ourselves.
All of this brings us to the final warning:
VI. Don’t underestimate Jesus (v27).
The word “Gospel” means “Good News.” The Good News of Jesus
Christ includes the bad news that we are fallen, frail, feeble creatures who
are subject to frequent failure. We are inherently sinful. This bad news is
what makes the Good News good! Because we are inherently sinful, we are
desperately in need of a Savior, and Jesus has come to be the Savior we need! And
just as surely as we must never overestimate ourselves, we must never, ever
underestimate Him! You didn’t stop needing the Gospel once you came to faith in
Christ. You need the Gospel every day that live as a follower of Jesus! Never
underestimate Him, or your need for Him.
Peter learned the hard way not to underestimate Jesus. He
underestimated Jesus’ word. Jesus said, “You will all fall away because of Me
this night,” and Peter said, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I
will never fall away” (Mt 26:31-33). Jesus said, “Truly I say to you that this
very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times,” and Peter
said, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” The crowing of the
rooster after Peter’s third denial was an indictment against him that he had
underestimated the word of the Lord. Friends, we must never do that! Every word
that the Lord Jesus spoke, and by extension, every word of Scripture, is true
and will come to pass just as the Lord promised it. His word is food for our
souls, more important to our lives than the next meal we will eat. His words
are the words of life, and we depend on them every day for strength, for
comfort, for encouragement, for correction and conviction. Don’t ever
underestimate His word!
Peter would later come to learn that we must also never
underestimate Jesus’ love and grace. As Luke records, after his failure, Peter
went out weeping bitterly. He had blown it and there was no way to change that.
But Peter’s failure ultimately would not be final. With the warning of his
impending denial, Jesus also told Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has
demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that
your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen
your brothers” (Lk 22:31-32). With the promise of Peter’s failure there is also
a promise of his restoration. He will fail miserably, but he will be turned
back to the Lord and restored to a place of usefulness for Christ.
John notes that the fire by which Peter warmed himself in
the courtyard was a charcoal fire.
That seems to be an unnecessary detail, does it not? They say that scent has a
strong connection to memory, and most of us have experienced that. Charcoal
fires have a unique scent. When I get a whiff of a charcoal fire, I can
remember the old rusty black Weber grill that we had when I was a kid. The most
interesting thing about this detail of the charcoal fire here is that the Greek
word only occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the Gospel of John.
The first time is here in our text. The second time comes later, in John 21.
There, after the disheartened Peter has returned to his
former career of fishing with a few of the other disciples, the Risen Lord
Jesus appeared to them on the shore
of Galilee
When you fail the Lord – not if, but when – don’t
underestimate His love and grace. We may fail like Peter, but we can also be
forgiven like Peter when we return to the Lord and seek restoration with Him.
Our failures do not have to be final. Jesus comes to us in our brokenness with
subtle reminders, like the scent of a charcoal fire, reminding us that our sins
need not drive us away from Him. Rather, they must drive us to Him. He died for
our sins so that we can be cleansed in His blood, made right and whole by His
grace, reconciled by His love, and restored to His service.
Peter’s threefold denial of Christ can’t be erased from the
pages of Scripture. God paints His people with a fair brush, warts and all. His
failures will never be forgotten, nor will ours. But they can be forgiven as we
turn to Him in repentance and faith. And we can be safeguarded against disastrous
failure as we heed the examples we find in Scripture – examples like Peter.
Remember the warnings: Don’t follow Christ from a distance; don’t be ashamed of
who you are as His disciple; don’t be too cozy around the fires of this world’s
pleasures; don’t be afraid to confess, to take responsibility, and to accept
the consequences of your sins and failures; don’t overestimate your own
strength, ability, or commitment to Christ; but most of all, don’t ever, ever
underestimate His Word, His love, or His saving grace.
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