Handling Christians (Part C)

Peter went out and wept like a baby uncontrollably.

He was devastated. That was the first phase of putting him back together because the look, we know, was a look of love, a look of understanding, not condemnation, or else there would have been no restoration of Peter. The next phase was when the Lord rose from the dead. Peter had a private session with the Lord.

He still wasn't back together. The third phase came when they were by the sea and Jesus asked him three times, do you love me, Peter? This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in Mark Chapter 14 with his continuing study called Handling Christians. We should also not lose sight of who we are in this world. Anyway, our New Testament, it emphasizes what is inward, what is spiritual.

There's no way around that, but that's not all it does. It leaves a place for those things that are tangible, those physical things about us, not only the inner man but the outer man and his senses. They're ministered to also, and singing does that, which Christ did with his disciples. The meal did that very thing. It's not all spiritual.

That's primary. But there are just other things about us. It's okay. It's okay to enjoy things. They build us up. If you're doing a budget for yourself, you should leave some space for fun. I mean, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and can drive you nuts. It's okay to do that.

Years ago, as a young man, God put this accountant in my life who just did so much for me to get me to Virginia and be able to preach, and we're laying out a budget, and he said, you got to have some money here for just you. And it was wise advice, trying to be the stoic. I know some of you husbands are like, don't say it. Don't. Maybe the wives are saying it. Don't say it.

Because the men can be brutal too. Look, I just bought the new boat. Oh, man. You know what they say?

Love goes out the window when poverty comes in the door. So watch out for those things. We're all born with a full sack of luck and an empty sack of experience.

And the goal is to fill that sack of experience before the sack of luck runs out. And I don't believe in luck as the world believes. But I am saying, you've got to experience things. You can do them by putting your hands on it and getting them gnarled, or you can perceive. I prefer perception. You know, when I hear somebody say, hold my beer, I'm not holding it. I'm getting away from that person.

It's just that person does not perceive anyway. So our Lord, he goes to Gethsemane. But how does he go? Fortified.

The communion table, his disciples with him. He knows the traitor is loose. He knows what's coming. But he is a fortified man.

He has allowed his inner man and his outer senses, the tangibles, to be ministered to. Verse 27. Then Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

No exceptions. All of you. This is the word of Christ. It is the word of scripture. It is a twofold witness here. He could have just said all of you, but he says as it is written.

He puts that in. Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble because of me for it is written. And we'll get to the written part in a moment.

No exceptions. They will scatter in panic, simply leaving the Lord to do his perfect work, but not without messing things up a little bit. He says, for it is written. Yet another fulfilled prophecy, as I mentioned, one of hundreds. Zechariah 13, verse 7 is what he is quoting here. Now in Zechariah chapter 11, God addresses the false shepherd, antichrist, ultimately. But here in chapter 13 of Zechariah's prophecy, he's now addressing Messiah. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion. And the Hebrew word for companion, translated companion, like New King James, is actually the equal. So the father is speaking about Messiah and he is calling him his equal here in Zechariah 13. That's a bonus.

Won't charge you for that one. Anyway, says Yahweh of Host. Incidentally, one of the Hallel Psalms that they would sing said, Yahweh is God.

So we don't lose sight of that either. So where it says Yahweh here is God. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

Then I will turn my hand against the little ones. And that's the persecution that, of course, is followed. So there we have Jesus quoting scripture. Now we have to remember, they've never witnessed him fail. He's always, he's walked on water, he stops storms, he cleansed lepers, he just, I mean, Christ could just go into a hospital and just empty the place with just, you know, everybody's okay now. And everybody get up and go.

It's incredible. But now they're going to see him fail. So they can't get their heads around this easily. Anyway, it wasn't up to them to understand.

They had been exposed to enough of him to submit, just like you and I. We've been exposed to enough logic from scripture that we're just off to obey now. There's no more trying to convince me. You know, Satan coming along, having, in the early stages of your faith, perhaps you read the Bible looking for contradictions.

That's okay. You work through that. But as you start eliminating those contradictions, you get to the point where you say, okay, we're done with this. Now I will reconcile it for theological purposes, but I don't doubt the word of God anymore because doubt brings confusion and confusion brings weakness and weakness can bring disaster and we're going to see that in just one moment. So they don't have to understand what he's saying.

They have to submit, which they do not. A thought-provoking point. Jesus says, because of me, you will all be made to stumble because of me. That is all the martyrs through the ages, all the believers who have accepted the hazards of following Jesus Christ understand that it is written and God's word is true and it is because of him that they suffer persecution and he's worth it.

Ergo the word worship. So here had Peter listened to what the Lord was saying, quoting scripture, instead of having his feelings overrule the Lord and scripture, he would have been ready. He would have been ready in Gethsemane and he was not ready in Gethsemane and he was not ready through that night. Verse 28, but after I have been raised I will go before you to Galilee. Now they're not listening to that part, especially Peter.

Peter is like, huh? What do you mean we're going to forsake you? I'm not the traitor. I'm not the guy you were talking about when he dips with me. That's not me. I stopped eating after that. I don't know if he did that but as I mentioned I would have had anything else for a week.

Well, milkshakes, but that's not eating. Verse 28, again, after I have been raised I will go before you to Galilee. Now he's in Jerusalem but his heart is in Galilee. Jerusalem is where they were sophisticated, cynical, snobbish, deadly. Galilee, they weren't so. In Jerusalem they were religious people there who stoned God's people.

What a thought. And look at history and how much religion. Imperial Japan, what drove them? Religion, Shintoism, we're superior, everybody else needs to be enslaved. They're not the only ones.

They don't take time and all that. Galatians, chapter 2 verse 12. This is after the church is born, after Christ has been crucified in heaven years later, in fact a couple of decades later. Christians from Jerusalem came up to Antioch in Syria where the church was thriving and the Gentiles were getting saved and Christians from Jerusalem came up and caused problems.

And Paul, he got involved. This is very important because Christianity almost died that day. That would have been the end of Christianity had Paul not stood up to these men. Christianity would just have been a sect of Judaism and we're nothing like Judaism.

We have the same roots and then we jettison. Galatians 2, he says, for before certain men came from James. James led the church in Jerusalem. Talking about Peter and Barnabas, he would eat with the Gentiles but when they came he withdrew and separated himself fearing those who were of the circumcision. Mostly, many of them were educated men. Or should I say formally educated men. And Peter was not formally educated according to the rules of men. And I think it bothered him in his earlier years of ministry.

He probably felt intimidated. These guys come up and they're scholars. They can pronounce words he can't pronounce. They can solve math equations that he can't solve. They can't fish though. And they can't cut people's ears off. Peter can do that. But he didn't think about it.

And I know what it's like to feel like, you know what, they're more formal. But then I know that anointing just blocks everything out. Anointing just dissolves. It can take the most brilliant man and make him a superhero. It can take the most ignorant fisherman and make him an equal superhero. And we see that in John and Peter and Paul and others. And so that's why Peter, I'm sure, caved as he felt outgunned.

And the pressure of that. But Paul didn't have that. Paul couldn't care less about anybody who messed with Christianity. The man was just a terminator. If you got in his way, you know, fine. They want to be circumcised and he would just go off.

All right, I went off too. Verse 29 now, keeping this in mind. So the Lord said that you're all going to stumble, but after I'm raised I'll see you in Galilee. They don't bring up Galilee.

All they're going to bring up now is this thing about the stumbling. Sermons are like that, are they not? Pastors can say one thing, one thing wrong. And oh, not in this church, because you all know, we will taser you on the greeting line. But other churches don't have taser materials. Anyway, we can't have fun with things? Yeah, we can.

So I'm telling you, that budget, you got to put a little fun in there. Verse 29, Peter said to him, even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be. Again, his emotions were always right there. You never had to dig for them. Paul, you might have to dig a little bit. Not Peter.

John, not Peter. Again, this probably grew out of speculating who the traitor was. They still don't know it's Judas.

They won't find that out until he is actually arrested. However, he just heard from the prophets through scripture. The prophets have said you're going to stumble. He just heard it from the Lord of scripture, who did more miracles than anybody put together. He's still not getting that part. He did not care for the Lord's application of the scripture.

That's what it comes down to. I heard you, Lord, preach on Zechariah 13, and I didn't care for how you handled the text. Yeah, Paul says this to the Corinthians again, because they needed to hear it. If I seem like I am picking on the Corinthians' church, I am.

I feel bad. They messed with Paul. They made his life miserable. They were filled with the Spirit in many areas, and not all of them, just a good amount of them.

The rest, they needed a beat down. He did with his letters, but it broke his heart so many times. Anyway, 1 Corinthians 4. Paul says that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written. And that's what he's telling, that's what Peter needed to hear.

The letter wouldn't be written for another 20 years or so, but that's what Peter needed to hear. Peter, Jesus said this is scripture, it applies to you. Don't think beyond what is written, and certainly don't think beyond what the Lord has said. Love does not excuse overruling the Bible. You can't say, well, I love Jesus so much, I can disagree with him or the Bible. Love does not excuse overruling the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is what we're looking at. Peter is saying, I love you so much, I will never betray you. It's anathema to Peter for anybody to think that there's an iota of disloyalty towards Christ. That's not what it's about, Peter. There's more to it. It's not one thing. And then I'll say, unless I forget, Peter is no coward. None of these men were cowards, and I'll bring, hopefully you'll agree with me, if for your own sake, because when you get to heaven, you know, God's going to say, you went to Calvary Chapel in McCangsville? Wow. Come on in. And then you start hearing him say that about other churches, too.

You say, oh, man, I thought I was special. Anyway, this is the Holy Spirit warning us all. Let not our views overrule the word of God or God. This is Peter at his worst. Yes, this is the second time he's pulled this kind of a move, but this one is devastating.

The other one was bad, but this one is hard to recover. Last time, it was Satan voicing his disdain for redemption. Oh, you're not going to die, Lord, be it far from you. Peter, you're actually arguing against your own salvation. He didn't know he was.

He did later. This time, though, it is the flesh. It is his carnal nature, thinking that he has somehow superior knowledge to God's word and to God.

That is what's going on here. Again, 1 Corinthians, that you may learn not to think beyond what is written. And then Paul goes on, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one another against one another. And he is puffed up against the Lord right now. This is so great a train wreck for Peter, this self-exaltation, that it caused the Lord to put Peter back together in three phases, three miraculous steps the Lord had to use to get him back on track. The first step was after Peter betrayed the Lord and denies him at the, not betrayed, pardon me, I take that back and that's not what I meant. Once he denies the Lord, because he never traded, the third time, the rooster crows, Jesus looks right at Peter. That look was not wasted.

They made eye contact. Peter went out and wept like a baby, uncontrollably. He was devastated. That was the first phase of putting him back together, because the look, we know, was the look of love, the look of understanding, not condemnation, or else there would have been no restoration of Peter. The next phase was when the Lord rose from the dead. Peter had a private session with the Lord.

He still wasn't back together. The third phase came when they were by the sea and Jesus asked him three times, do you love me, Peter? And Lord, Peter, do you have that devout love for me? Lord, you know I love you, but I don't have as much love as I thought I had. Peter, do you have that? And three times, and finally, of course, the Lord says, do you have love for me? Peter, you know I love you. Peter was humbled, but he was put back together. And, you know, just we benefit so much from this man and his silly questions throughout scripture.

He's such a benefit to us. Anyway, the Lord never called any of these men cowards because they will stumble this night. Then why?

Why not? Because it wasn't fear of men that caused them to run, it was confusion of the will of God. Peter was ready to die, pulls out his sword. I mean, I think he just proved when he swung that sword against this sizable force that had come out to arrest the Lord. He didn't care about himself.

It was only the Lord Jesus. He would have never warmed himself by the enemy's fire. He would have been hiding somewhere under his blanket. But no, there he is, following the Lord after his arrest. Confusion weakens us. He didn't know what to think. He went to fight for the Lord.

The Lord told him, he who lives by the sword perishes by the sword. Put it away, Peter. That's not how we do business.

What was he left with after that? How about us today? You look at the insanity coming out of otherwise and people who know how to order coffee in coffee shops. I mean, that weird stuff coffee. They know how to do that.

It's always impressive. Okay, maybe I'm the only one that just likes coffee without all the other stuff. But other than that, when it comes to morality and government, they're morons. And we have to fight it in our heart to not want to take arms against them and do something. You know what?

We have a solution for these people. But Jesus says, no, you don't. That's not how you do it.

And then what happens? We're confused unless we know the word and know what our role is. This is where these men were. They could not fight with swords. What was left for them?

The Pentecost had not come. Verse 30. Jesus said to him, verse 30, Assuredly I say to you that today even this night before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times. Peter's resolve will dissolve.

That's what's going to happen. But where he says three times, it's brutal to watch. Imagine staring.

I mean, it's brutal for us to watch this. Peter, he's picking you apart. Submit. Shut your mouth. He doesn't do that. It's like an adolescent. And the dad says, hey, be quiet. And then kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. And then the next thing you know, the kid's on the moon wondering how he's going to get down.

You push dad's button. Anyway, not once, not twice, but three times, he says, Peter, you're going to do this denial thing. Peter, I know you think you know what you're saying, but you don't.

And I do. It's brutal to watch this. Verse 31, here he is arguing with Christ now. After the communion table, he's up in the Lord's face arguing with him.

Man, that's scary. I know you all have never left church and gotten into an argument with anybody on the road, in the car, or maybe grumbling. You know, they used to be said, most people go home after church and have roast pastor. You know, that's an old saying. I didn't come up with it.

Bernie McGee did. Anyway, though, I don't know, but I can blame him. He's not going to like come and get me. Anyway, where was I? Verse 31 now we are up to, but he spoke more vehemently and he's going on.

He's on a rant. That's what that means. If I have to die with you, I will not deny you.

And they all said, likewise. Stubborn human love for Christ can morph very quickly into stupid love, and we're seeing it happen right here. He loved the Lord, but now it was in the carnal phase. He had, you know, turned the switch to auxiliary love, and there is not to be an auxiliary love.

No plan B when it comes to things like that. And he will vehemently deny the Lord, too. Carnality says he's my savior, but he's not always my Lord. That is a carnal Christian. Why call him God if he does not know what he's talking about? Why is he the savior of Jesus Christ if he doesn't know what he's doing? I say, because it hurts.

That's why. That's why I fuss back at Christ, because it hurts. When Christ says, well, deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. My reward is with me.

You'll be paid for this. And we say, when? He says, maybe after you die. We say, that's too long.

That's why unions, that's why we have trade unions. So anyway, he says, if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. He's out of control. He's stubborn. He's angry. He's incensed that the thought of him not standing up for Christ, and he's still very wrong.

And all said likewise. Why not just keep quiet? Let Peter be the one. Peter is telling this story to Mark, and he wants Mark to know.

Listen, I wasn't the only one. That's what he's doing. And he's true. I mean, not lying, but he just wants it on record. That's what Matthew and Matthew doesn't do.

Don't bring it up. Anyway, just because Jesus lets Peter have the last word does not mean Peter is right. He's a know-it-all adolescent. There are those who grew up in the church, and they boast, as they don't follow Christ anymore. They grew up in a good church, many of them. And those that come out of a good church say, yeah, I grew up in a church. Yeah, I grew up in a church. What a smug little thing. But you never became a grown-up in the church.

That's the problem. You stayed a little teensy-weensy-teensy-tiny non-saint. Instead of just stop disagreeing with Christ, submit. The Lord did not take back what he said. He said, well, Peter, I didn't know you were that serious about it. Okay, okay.

You're not going to stumble. No, he sticks by it. Christ was not impressed by what Peter said. He let him have it.

Man, what a lesson for me. Did I say something? Did I do something that Christ just said, okay, fine.

I don't want that to happen. I want him to say, well done. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.