Peter Denies Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

Music Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg briefly reviews the highs and lows of the apostle Peter's faith to demonstrate how it was his utter brokenness that led to his usefulness in God's kingdom.

And I'm going to read them as you follow along. 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 girls 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. Amen. Well, a brief prayer. Make the book live to me, O Lord. Show me yourself within your Word. Show me myself, and show me my Savior. And make the book live to me. For Jesus' sake.

Amen. Well, I wonder if we were to assess the keys to Peter's usefulness as we think of him in all of his powerful declaration of the story of redemption on the day of Pentecost as we see him there at the beginning of the book of Acts. I wonder how much significance we would attach to this particular section that we have just read here at the end of chapter 14. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us would have, if we had been discussing this in a more interactive setting, many of us would have been tempted to say, I think probably the launching pad for his usefulness was in his great declaration when, in Caesarea Philippi, he was enabled by the Father to say, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Someone else may say, Well, I wonder if it wasn't the privilege that he enjoyed on the Mount of Transfiguration to be taken in that intimate setting with the Lord Jesus Christ himself and to encounter all that unfolded there.

And that, I think, bears certainly a lot of consideration. But as I've thought about it this week, I've come to the conclusion that a large part of Peter's usefulness may be actually traced to the scene that is described for us here—that the subsequent usefulness of Peter is tied in significant measure to the brokenness of Peter that is recorded for us. Sir Edward Elgar, who was a significant composer, was once sitting, listening to a soloist, a young lady, singing one of his songs that he had written. Someone had suggested that he would come and listen to her.

I think it was in rehearsal. And it is recorded that she sang with a beautiful voice, wonderful pitch, and faultless technique. And the individual who had invited the composer to listen turned to him and said, And what do you think?

What's your assessment? Elgar responded, She will be great when something happens to break her heart. She will be great when something happens to break her heart.

In other words, her faultless technique—her pitch, her skill, her wonderful voice—still needed another element in order to transform who she was and what she was as a singer of songs. Now, I think that our generation, this generation, more than perhaps any other in most of our lifetimes, is really unwilling to embrace such an idea. We recoil from such a notion that brokenness may be the key to usefulness. We're encouraged all the time to make sure that when we write our resume, everybody knows that we're virtually flawless, that we are absolutely… Even the things that we've done badly, we've done them wonderfully badly, and that we are able to be as positively negative as it is possible to be. And so it is that Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, observing this, writes, For thirty years the self-esteem movement told the young, They're perfect in every way.

It's yielding something new in history. An entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy. No proper sense of inadequacy. Nothing that has happened to break the heart, to break the pride, to break the arrogance. And so we find ourselves looking in the mirror and singing the song, My Life Filled with Only Me.

And that's the way we're told it ought to be. Well, it's fair to say that to this point in the record of Peter's life, we would not be accurate in using the word inadequacy to describe him. There is really very little that speaks of inadequacy, either in his background, in business, and so on. In actual fact, I think the word that we could best use is the word audacity. Audacity. And it is the first of three words that I have this morning to help us trace a line through this passage.

Audacity. In other words, Peter displays in his life what is defined in Yiddish as chutzpah. Right?

I never knew that word before I moved to Cleveland, but here in Cleveland I find that it's used every so often. At its best, it depicts a reckless courage at the high end, and at the low end, at its worst, it is representative of an arrogant self-confidence. So you have that kind of continuum. At its best, reckless, courageous, go for it.

At its worst, stuck on myself, unable to do any wrong, knowing the answer to just about every question, and able to contradict all the teachers. Now, I'm suggesting that this word fits. Then you would have to say, well, you have to give evidence of that, and which I'm happy to do, beginning in chapter 8 and verse 31, a little rehearsal of what we've seen before. This kind of audacity is displayed as Jesus is rebuked by Peter.

Even the terminology ought to stand us up on our heels. Peter has made this great confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and he is commended for this. And then Jesus, in verse 31 of Mark 8, began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark tells us that he said this plainly—in other words, there's no possibility of misunderstanding what he was saying— and then here you have the audacity of Peter.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. You have the very same thing when he seeks to correct Jesus. And we can fast forward into chapter 14 and to verse 29.

Or we should really go to 27. Jesus said to them, You will all fall away, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.

And here you have the audacity of the man. Peter said to them, Even though they all fall away, I will not. In other words, he contradicts Jesus. Jesus says, You will all fall away. He says, You got that wrong, Jesus. Now, I don't think this is at the high end of chutzpah.

This is at the bottom end of it, right? This is an arrogant self-confidence. You see it if you stay in the same verse in the way in which he sets himself apart from others. Even if they all go, you don't needn't worry about me. If they all fall away, I will not. So it's no surprise that although Mark does not identify him in the incident in the garden, on the occasion of the arrest of Jesus, it's no surprise that the other gospel writer tells us that who was it that gets his sword out and lops off the ear of the high priest's servant?

None other than Mr. chutzpah. Jesus has explained to them many times, His kingdom is not of this world. If it were, there would be an occasion for fighting. There's no need for fighting. Let your kingdom come, let your will be done, and let me help out in the process here. Let's try and take a head off, or at least an ear off.

Let's make the point. Who is it? None other than Peter. And so we now find him in the courtyard in the verse that we left from last time, verse 54.

Peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest, and he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. That's pretty gutsy, isn't it? At least he's holding true to what he said. Even if they all go, I'll still be there.

Well, that's exactly what has happened. They've all gone. One, to never come back again, and ten, into hiding, and just Peter has left. He takes his place amongst the guards.

That's pretty good. And they're in the courtyard warming himself in the cool evening by the fireplace. So let's give credit where credit is due. Before we criticize him for his collapse, let's commend him for his courage. He may, as it says here, have followed at a distance, but nevertheless, he still followed.

Let's be honest. Many of us, most of us, would never have been in the courtyard with him. So before we get on our high horse, saying, Well, I can't believe that somebody who has sowed and denied, denied, denied—I mean, this is amazing to me—are you kidding? We would have been with the ten behind closed doors. He, at least, has followed at a distance, and not simply at a mile and a half back, waiting to see if the news will filter out, but as Mark tells us, right into the courtyard of the high priest.

That's good. What he doesn't realize is his own vulnerability. You see, it's his audacity that says to him, in his psyche, I've got this covered.

I can actually handle this. You remember when Jesus had said, I want you to watch and pray, I want you to come with me. He had taken him as part of the inner group once again in the garden of Gethsemane, and in all of the sleeping that had followed, Jesus, back in verse 38 or so, had said to them, Listen, fellas, the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Peter hadn't fully figured out just exactly what that meant in his life. But his Spirit was definitely willing. Otherwise, we wouldn't find him where he is, but his flesh, as we're about to see, was weak. You have to love Peter for his devotion. You have to love a fellow like this. But he is an illustration of the fact that the best of men are men at best. And that is true for women as well.

So if audacity fits, what then of the scene recorded for us that we're now considering? Well, surely there's only one word that is able to encompass what takes place, and that is the word disloyalty. Disloyalty. Despite his audacious expressions of commitment and faithfulness and so on, this is an illustration of his disloyalty rather than his loyalty. I wonder, did Paul have this incident in his mind when he wrote to the Corinthian believers, Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls? Because Peter was pretty sure that he was standing tall, unlike the others, and now, in the flickering firelight, he is given the opportunity—a threefold opportunity—to identify himself with his Lord and Master.

But he collapses like a broken deck chair, doesn't he? All of this great and brave affirmation now is silenced. And this is a monumental collapse. That's why Peter is remembered far more for his failure than he is for his faithfulness.

It's a reminder of what we've seen already in our studies, that you may spend a significant part of your life building character and a reputation, and you and I may destroy it in a matter of moments. 2011, there was an earthquake in Washington, D.C., actually in the Virginia area. It wasn't hugely significant. It was 5.8 on the Richter scale. I wrote it down at the time.

That's why I know. So those of you say, Well, where did he come up with that illustration just in passing? You know, did he go in a book and found out about an earthquake? He looked up earthquake and then found it. No. No. When things happen, I write them down then, so that if I ever need to remember, I'll remember two years later that there was an earthquake, and it was 5.8 on the Richter scale.

Otherwise, how would I ever know? But anyway, that's, by the way, for those of you who are working on your teaching plans. It was the 23rd of August, so it was exactly a week after my wedding anniversary, and one of the things that it did was it completely rocked the National Cathedral in D.C. The reason I had interest in it was because I had been once in the National Cathedral, and I was struck by the building and so on, and so it just registered for me. But what registered for me was the publicity that the National Cathedral then put out in order to encourage people to donate to its refurbishment.

It was a very interesting piece, and this was the tagline that they used. See the lifelong impact a few seconds can make. See the lifelong impact a few seconds can make.

The earthquake didn't last beyond just a matter of seconds, but it was sufficient enough to rock the very foundation of that structure—so much so that it has cost multimillion dollars in order to put it back to where it was before. And that is exactly what is happening here. See the impact. See the lifelong impact in Peter's life and in the lives of others that just a few seconds, that moments, might make here in this scene. Now, something else that we ought to just pay attention to is the fact that as we've read Mark's Gospel together, we have acknowledged that Mark's primary source for his material is Peter himself. That Mark is not a first-hand observer of all of this material, but he has had it reported to him. He writes as it's being reported, and not exclusively, but largely, that material has come from Peter.

So you imagine that Peter is to tell Mark and tell others as well. I was so proud of myself. I was so sure that I would do fine. But I gotta tell you, I collapsed. I denied Jesus.

I denied him ultimately with oaths and curses. Now, look at it. There's a progression in it. You will see that Peter is warming himself at the fire. One of the servant girls—it doesn't say a big soldier, a big intimidating soldier. It doesn't say the high priest himself.

It doesn't say somebody of stature came and cornered him and confronted him. It just says that a girl—maybe she's making up this fire, maybe she's bringing materials for something—she sees Peter warming himself, and she looks at him. That verb there, she looked at him, is an important little verb. It means, you know, that she made eye contact with him. She looked right at him. She saw him. Perhaps his face was illuminated by the firelight, and there was just something about him, something that registered. After all, Jesus and the Galileans had been making quite an impact in Jerusalem in these past few days. Leading up to the Passover, it would have been impossible for anybody living in Jerusalem not to know that Jesus, the Nazarene, Jesus from Galilee, and his entourage were really making their presence felt in Jerusalem. And so it would be that they were identifiable, and certainly Peter was in some measure identifiable to this girl.

Oh, I wonder how that rang in Peter's mind when she said, You also were with him? And he blusters and bluffs it off. I neither know nor understand what you mean. I don't even understand your question.

What are you talking about? And you will notice, he went out into the portacore, into the gateway, and the rooster crowed. Now, that should have helped him right there, but there's no indication of a response.

She says, You were with him? He denies it, and he relocates. But he doesn't run for it. No, no, he's gonna hit the next pitch. He knows he has the chutzpah.

Yeah, that was a strike. But watch what I do with the next one. And what does he do with the next one? Exact same thing. Strike two.

Sixty-nine. The servant girl saw him. Presumably she's moving back and forth.

He's in the gateway now. She saw him. And she broadens the implication. And she began again to say to the bystanders, to the folks around and about, he said, This man was one of them. There's no allegation in it. It's just an observation.

This fellow is one of them. Verse 70, but again he denied it. And then it broadens out again. And after a little while, the bystanders said to Peter, Certainly you're one of them, for you are a Galilean.

If we don't know you by your face, we at least know you by your accent. And then you have his final denial that he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear. What is recorded for us here is not that he was guilty of profanity, using filthy language or something, but rather that he would be saying something, May I die if what I say is false. Or that he's saying, God is my witness to these things. In other words, he calls on something higher and greater than himself to affirm his denial. Remember, Jesus has said, Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

He fails in this as well. Unaware of what it means that his spirit is willing, that his flesh is weak, unaware of his own personal vulnerability. He'd been absolutely emphatic in denying that he would deny Jesus. He's emphatic in his denial of being a denier. Verse 31—we're still in 14—and he said emphatically, If I must die with you, I will not deny you.

I will not deny you. That's what makes this so dramatic, so memorable. It's not so much his denial under pressure as it is the absolute vast collapse from these proud, audacious affirmations of what he's going to be able to do and what he ultimately does. If I must die with you, I will not deny you.

But he collapsed like a pack of cards. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Today we discovered how easily and quickly Peter's arrogant affirmations of faith collapsed. Would you like to learn about genuine affirmations of faith and how those can just as quickly lead to salvation? Let me encourage you to take a minute and subscribe to a seven-day Easter reading plan from one of Alistair's most popular sermons called The Man on the Middle Cross.

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You'll find them in our online store at truthforlife.org slash store. Thanks for listening today. Tomorrow we'll learn how Peter's failure empowered his future preaching. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.