To the Cross: Failing Forward Luke 22:54-62 Englewood Baptist Church Sunday morning, April 10, 2011 Please open your Bible to Luke 22. Today, we continue in our series To the Cross and we follow the figure of Christ as he leads us to the hill called Calvary. The final days leading up to his crucifixion were tumultuous times. Like a plane that hits sudden turbulence, the Lord and his disciples face great stress and overwhelming circumstances. Peter, the rock man as Jesus once called him, now crumbles into a pile of loose gravel. The pressure proves to be too much. Peter fails and his courage wanes. Today we look at the embarrassing three-fold failure of Simon Peter. Elbert Hubbard once said, A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience. Elbert Hubbard Find any successful man and turn over the stones in his past. What you will discover, with no exceptions, is a man who has cashed in on his mistakes. All of us mess up. And it s not just sometimes. All of us mess up all the time. Nobody is perfect and we put so much pressure on ourselves to get create that perception that we are. We aim at perfection and we miss it every time. There are few things more discouraging than to feel like a failure. Evidence of our inadequacies abound and we do our best to cover the tracks. We hope nobody finds out how inconsistent we are, how impulsive we can be, how insecure we feel sometimes. We work hard at depravity management, don t we? But even Peter, whom Jesus appointed as chief leader of the disciples, the leader of leaders, proved to be a failure. Not only did he mess up, but he messed up in such a way that it was recorded in holy scripture! Aren t you glad that most people don t know your most embarrassing mistakes? They are lost in time, but not so with Peter. His error is put on public display and still talked about today. You ve read it before. Let s read it again, with fresh eyes and open ears. Read Luke 22:54-62. Peter was an acquired taste. He seemed to grow on Jesus and the Gospels are full of him. Just take in a little Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you will swallow a lot of Simon Peter. No disciple gets more face time with Christ than he does. No disciple was put in
his place more than he was. And Peter was given a special place in the 12. To use corporate lingo, Jesus had 12 direct reports, but inside the 12, there was an executive team three: Peter, James, and John. And even still, inside that circle of three, there was one: Simon, the Rock. Jesus singled him out more times than any other, and put the heaviest investment in his stock. And one of the important things that Jesus taught Peter was how to bounce back from his mistakes. And Peter was always making mistakes! Proverbs 10:19 says: When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise. Prov. 10:19 Something tells me that Peter never memorized that verse. His words were many and some commentators say that he was the first recorded case in history of the foot in mouth disease. He was always putting his foot in his mouth. Even still, Jesus knew what Peter was capable of, if he could only lose the self-sufficiency. And Luke 22 reveals that moment. In this chapter, something snaps in Peter s heart and he is never the same. He is humbled. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald Somebody needs to hear that today. Somebody sits here today with a defeated spirit, feeling like a sorry excuse for father, or a husband, or a friend, or a leader, but you have the power in your hands to cash in on the experience of failure. You can fail forward. Don t forget: Guilt led Judas to suicide, but guilt led Peter to Pentecost. After Peter learned from his errors, he was far more powerful. He proves that sometimes failure is the best thing that ever happens to us. Let s see what happens in Peter s case. Let see What Can I Learn From Peter s Fall? 1. I am not as strong as I presume to be. (vv.31-34) Now we have to back up to pick up this principle. It s there. V. 31 Sometimes creatures overestimate themselves. Show image of cat and mouse.
As this picture illustrates, there is a fine line between courage and stupidity. And Peter commits the sin of the mouse by overestimating what he is capable of. Without a doubt, overconfidence has killed many a man. Now hear me: courageous faith is exalted in the Old and New Testament, but courageous faith is different than heroic feats. David was not so much heroic when faced the giant, but faithful. In his heart, he had faith to believe that the Lord would slay this giant through him. He believed with all his heart that that God would rescue him from danger. The power was not found within. The same is true of Elijah the prophet, who faced 800 enemies on the Mt. Carmel. When it was his turn to build his altar, he laid down the wood, he poured water over the wood, and then he cried out to the skies, Lord, if you don t show up now, I m finished. Game over! Send down fire from heaven, that they may know that YOU are the Lord. Elijah knew where his power came from. Peter was a powerful man, ONLY, when he was pliable and teachable and humble. That s why, in v.31, Jesus says, Peter, I am praying for you, because Satan wants to sift you like wheat. This, of course, was an illustration that worked well in Peter s day, but poorly translates today. To sift wheat, was to pick up the grain with a fan-like winnowing fork, and to toss it in the air. The wind would blow and it would carry away all the chaff, all the dusty shell. Only what had weight and substance would remain. That s what Jesus is saying here: I m praying for you, Peter, that you would become a person of substance. This reminds me so much of the masterful psalm, psalm 1: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Psalm 1:1-4 Peter! The wind is about blow you down, but I pray that it would not blow you away. Satan is going to sucker punch three times, but when your head hits the mat, you stand up! Stay in the fight.
Because when you do, when get up off the floor, you re going to have a ministry of empowering others. For the rest of your life, you are going to give away strength. My mother-in-law likes to put happy sayings on the back of her toilets. Does your mother in law do that? There is always some little flip book with profound statements in the potty room. I guess that s where we do our best thinking. Last time I visited her house, I flipped on the light in the guest room potty room and there it was, the little statement staring me in the face: The worst thing that ever happens to a man can become the best thing that ever happened to him, if it doesn t get the best of him. from my mother-in-law s potty room Now that is good! You need that posted in your potty room. Jesus said to Peter, Peter, the worst night of your life is tonight, but I pray that you will bounce back. Satan may knock you down, but he will not knock you out. You re gonna rise, and when you do, you ll inspire others to do the same. Let me just stop right here and prick your heart a little bit. Let s park here a moment. Where have you allowed Satan to suck the life out of you? Where do you live daily in a spirit of defeat? Where are letting him sift you like wheat? He s brings his accusations: God can t use you! You re divorced. Who are you to encourage your friend about parenting? You re an inconsistent dad. Why do you keep praying for your troubled family? If you had done things right, you wouldn t have these problems. It s all your fault! You think God is going to bring someone for you to marry? You don t deserve a wedding. Look at you! Who could love you? You really think you can choose that major? You re not intelligent! Who are you fooling? You can t succeed. Satan, wants to sift you like wheat. He wants to remind you of your failures, but God wants to redeem your failures for good. He wants to make you into a person with substance, with depth, with weight, SO THAT you can strengthen others. Now, let s get back to Luke 22, and look with me at v. 39-40. We read this last week.. Later on, in v. 46, Jesus finds Peter dead asleep and prayerless. Now you can understand why Jesus was so upset with Peter and the others. He knew that self-sufficiency would lead to a fall. Faith prays, and he wanted them to stay alert and to be prayed up. Peter fails to pray, and so Peter falls in v.54, and following. Now, the text here in v. 54 unfolds, and three-fold denial of Christ transpires.
Notice, v.56, a servant girl first sees Peter as one who is out of place. It was a cold night and when the religious leaders took Jesus indoors, the servants and soldiers built a fire out in the courtyard. Peter, you have to admire his courage here, he pulls up a seat next the soldiers, one of whom he has already cut off his ear. He puts his head down and does his best to blend in because he wants to see what will come of Jesus. And the wind must have blown air into the fire, because the fire was stoked and a young girl catches a glimpse of his cheeks, and his nose and his eyes. And she says, Wait a minute, that rugged fisherman face doesn t fit here. You are one of his guys, aren t you? Peter panics and then he cracks under pressure. No, no, no, no, no, no! You got that wrong, lady. I don t know him. I just know I m cold and I need some fire. Surely, he felt a tinge of guilt at that moment, but he probably justified it and determined his white lie as necessary. But then, it happens again. V.58 That sounds slang to us today, doesn t it? Man, whatchutalkinabout? That s not what he is saying. He s saying, Sir, brother, that is not the case. You are mistaken. And Peter is so dogmatic in his response that the man drops it. Strike two. Shooo! Peter thinks he dodged another bullet. And then, an hour goes, by. V.59 says, about an hour later. That must have been one long, awkward hour of sitting by the fire. That must have felt like 5 days. Peter was sitting there silent, every once in a while, glancing up at the high priest s house and wondering, What are they doing to Jesus behind those doors? Suddenly, another man comes and says v.59-61 Now, we aren t told exactly how this happened, but we know that it happened on purpose. Jesus is outside of earshot. He does not hear what Peter just said, but he practices his omniscience, his all-knowing power, and he must have said under his breath to the master of ceremonies: Cue the rooster. And the chicken screams. Bang! Game over. And if that weren t enough, the Bible says that Jesus looked Peter straight in the face. How d that happen? We don t know! Did Jesus makes his way to a window and peer out? Maybe? More likely, though, the guards had brought him outside to begin his beating, which is about to play out in v.63. However it happened, one thing is for sure, Jesus locked eyes with Peter, and Peter s eyes began to pour out tears. What have I done?!? What have I done? Ever have a moment like that? Ever feel your heart want to jump out of your chest when you realize you made a big mistake and there is no rewind button? Peter felt convicted and received the invitation to become bitter.
V.62. And Peter went outside and he wept bitterly. And here we learn a second lesson from Peter s fall. 2. I can become better or bitter through moments of failure. That word, in v.62, for bitterly, it means violently. It means that Peter literally broke down. It s not that he shed a tear, it s more than that. He went into a physical and spiritual hole. He disappeared and he went to awful pit where Satan lives and where many Christians choose to dwell the pit with a sign over it, which says, Unusable, disqualified, the dept. of Something s gone wrong, throwaways. Peter said to himself, I m useless. I just keep messing up and it s best that I just go away. I don t have to tell you that the hardest person in the whole world to forgive is the person that you see in the mirror every morning. Many people spend a good part of their day punishing themselves because they feel like they deserve it. Before long, their face gets hard, the mouth cements to a scowl, and the joy of the Lord has departed. Failure makes us feel bitter, and when we re bitter, we are truly good for nothing. We become like play-do that was left out for five weeks. We get hard, crusty, and we lose our ability to be conformed into an image. Every time you mess up, you receive yet one more invitation to become unteachable, unbendable, and permanently fixed. But let me tell you something, I like the words of G.K. Chesterton: "A characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. --G. K. Chesterton I m not telling you to downplay your sin, or to sweep it under a rug! No, true repentance is demonstrated by godly sorrow. Sin is humiliating. But it s one thing to lose face; it s another thing to lose heart. Don t let your mistakes make you bitter. And here s one more great thing about serving Jesus. He won t let you go, until you let your past go. Even after all this, Jesus pursued Peter. We all know what happened after Peter left. Jesus went on to Pilate, then was passed on to Herod, then came back to Pilate, and soon found himself fixed on a cross. He and Peter never had a chance to make it right. And Peter thought his life was over, just like so many other people who make mistakes. But I want you to see where this relationship goes next. Turn with me to Mark 16
In this chapter, the women have gone to the tomb of Jesus and they have found him absent. The stone has been rolled away, and the death clothes lie neatly folded. Jesus is gone. Now pick up with me at Mark 16:4 Go tell the disciples and Peter. Interesting, that he specifically calls the name of Peter. Peter made a big mistake, and his life was never the same, it was BETTER. When Jesus came searching for him, Peter cashed in on the experience. He didn t become suicidal; he became Pentecostal. In Acts 2, he s so spirit-filled, that he opens us his mouth, and spills our words, and this time, death does not result, but life! Through his first sermon, a megachurch is born. Clearly, the amazing grace of Jesus Christ had transformed him into a new man. Every day, you get up from bed, and you can listen to that voice that makes you bitter and hardened and sad. That voice that reminds you of your failures and the fact that you will never measure up. Or when you rise, you can listen to the voice that makes you better, the voice that calls out your name. Jesus comes to you and he comes with the power of grace. The voice that ascended and sent the power of the Holy Spirit. Henry Ford said, Failure is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Through the shed blood of Christ, you can begin again, and do it right this time. And if you re a believer, every single day is another chance to get it right. His mercies are new every morning. And what God is trying to do in your life, through difficulty, is not to humiliate you, but to make you into a person of substance. Put your confidence in him and He ll turn you in to a rock.