There are many kinds of power. Man power, brain power, but failure power?
I don't think you'll find a market for that. Today on Truth for Life, we'll learn how one man's failure of faith actually empowered his future effectiveness. Alistair Begg is teaching from chapter 14 in Mark's Gospel.
We begin today with verse 66. 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 firsthand 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've got to 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. Certainly, Peter was in some measure identifiable to this girl. I don't know how to convey this in American terms, but in British terms, what is actually unfolding here in the Galilean contingent in Jerusalem would be akin to a group of people from Yorkshire in the north of England hanging around in London, the capital city of England. And they would be identifiable in some measure by their dress, especially if they came from a farming community, and they would be identifiable by their accents. So it would be impossible for them to move around incognito. People say, Well, you're not from here, are you?
That's exactly what is happening. That's the significance of these little statements here about Jesus being the Nazarene, about these people coming from Galilee. He's making the point that they were identifiable by their distinctiveness. So she looks at him, and she says, You also were with the Nazarene Jesus.
Well, the answer was, Yes, I was. In fact, back a long time ago in our studies, in the fourteenth verse of Mark chapter 3, when Jesus calls the twelve—you have the record of the calling of the twelve—it says right there in Mark that he called them to be apostles and to be with him. To be with him.
That was the distinguishing feature of their lives now, that they were called into the company of Jesus, first to be with him, then that they might go for him, then that they might tell others about him. 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. I think I would have made a run for it at that point. You know, okay, I've done pretty good, they all were hiding, I showed up, right into the court, this is going to get crazy here, you know, if I'm gonna roll over, as it were, and deny on the strength of a simple assertion like this by a servant girl, goodness knows what'll happen to me next.
But no, no, Peter, no, no, no, no. He's gonna hit the next pitch. He will hit the next pitch. He knows.
He has the chutzpah. Yeah, that was a strike, but what should 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, she 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.
The progression—you can rehearse it for yourself—is pretty straightforward. It's a sad progression. He followed Jesus, as he said he was going to do. He denied Jesus. The rooster crowed, as Jesus had said it would. That rang the bell for him. And he then remembered, and then he wept.
He followed, he denied, he remembered, he wept. And that is how chapter 14 ends, and that is how Mark ends anything that we have in relationship to Peter, except for one little statement that I'll point out to you in a moment as we close. Because I want to be able to say, with the late Paul Harvey, and now you know the rest of the story. Because it would be wrong for us to finish here.
Why? It finishes here in Mark 14, yes, but we're not studying Mark 14 in isolation from the entire drama, are we? We've said all the time that every passage of Scripture we need to understand in the context of what sets before it and what follows it. So our last word is recovery. Recovery.
Audacity, disloyalty, recovery. Now, as we've gone through this study, we've been moving back and forth between the various Gospels, the different records, the little bits and pieces that are recorded as one Gospel writer fastens on something that another Gospel writer determines not to include. And here is a case in point. Let me quote to you from Luke's record of this, Luke 22. Peter said, Man, I don't know what you're talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And then here, look with his eye for detail.
This is verse 61 of Luke 22. And the LORD turned and looked at Peter. The LORD turned and looked at Peter. That's the same verb as the lady, the servant girl, she seeing him, she looked at him.
Now we've got eye contact again. Now, what do you think Peter saw in the eyes of Jesus? Condemnation?
No. Compassion. Compassion. John explains that Jesus loved his disciples, he loved them, and he loved them to the end. He loved them in a way that was unconditional.
He loved them in a way that was not related to their effectiveness or to their usefulness or to their success quotient. I can't remember, I read so many books all the time, but I just read the title page of a book. Maybe it was a book by Ken, yeah, I think it was by Ken Venturi, the golf commentator and the guy who won the U.S. Open years ago. Ken Venturi, I think the title page says, to my mother and father who love me unconditionally, who love me unconditionally. And here you have Jesus looking into the eyes of this Peter fellow, the one that he said to at the very beginning, Peter, I want you to follow me.
I'll make you a fisher of men. The one who's made all these great statements, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. The one who's been told, Get behind me, because you're like Satan. You don't have in mind the things of God but the things of man.
Your head's in the wrong place. The one who has to swipe with a sword and Jesus has to put the ear back on, all of this is wrapped up. And he looked at him, he looked at him, and Peter saw his eyes, and Peter wept. I'm not sure he would have wept if Jesus had said, That's exactly what I thought of you, Peter, a worthless character from the beginning, despite all of your protestations, despite all of your great affirmations about yourself, begone with you, you and Judas as well. No.
Why? Because the good work that he begins, he brings to completion. Judas went out from them, because he was not of them. Peter is restored to him, despite the tragedy of these circumstances. Because remember, you'll find this in Luke again, that Luke records that Jesus says to the disciples, he actually addresses Simon, speaks to the group, and then applies it to Simon peculiarly, Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you.
And after you have been restored or after you have turned again, then strengthen the brethren. He knows us. He knows our stumblings. He knows our great boasts.
He knows our dreadful collapses. The mystery of this little drama is the mystery that is there between what is happening upstairs and what is happening downstairs. As I said in passing in one of the services last Sunday, there's a kind of Downton Abbey thing that is going on here. That upstairs, inside, in the high priest's home, this drama is unfolding as they are interrogating Jesus.
But downstairs, what is happening is also a drama, and it is unfolding. And the answer to all of the predicament in Peter's denial downstairs is to be found in that which is actually taking place upstairs. Because Jesus loves his own. He dies in their place. Because Peter actually, in this instance, loves himself more, and his security, and his safety.
He denies his master. But I said that there was one little indication in Mark of his future, and it's actually just in two words. In verse 7 of Mark chapter 16, we think in terms of now recovery or restoration.
You might like restoration better, but I'm using it in that sense. So, now we're at the resurrection day, and the angel has rolled back the stone. This young man is sitting there, and he says to the woman, Don't be alarmed. Verse 6, You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. You didn't see where they laid him. But go tell his disciples.
Here we go. And Peter. And Peter. Special mention. Wouldn't go tell his disciples have covered it?
Of course it would. Peter was one of his disciples. Aren't you one of them? He's one of them. You're definitely one of them. I don't know what you mean.
I'm not one of them. I don't know the man. God be my witness I don't know the man. Go and tell his disciples he's alive. And Peter.
How wonderful! Because the story of Peter doesn't end with the collapse in the courtyard. It doesn't even end with the breakfast on the beach. But the breakfast on the beach settles the demise that has taken place in the firelight of the cold evening in Jerusalem.
You'll need to read this for yourselves. How does it all end up in John's Gospel? Peter says, I'm going fishing. The friends say, you know what, we might as well go fishing as well. Commentators spend vast amounts of ink trying to decide what he meant by that.
Frankly, I don't know. But they went fishing. I know that for sure, because the main things are the plain things. I'm going fishing, so he was going fishing. Secondly, they didn't catch any fish.
That's easy to understand as well. And thirdly, a stranger on the shore said, hey, how's the fishing? They said nothing. He said, go the other side. We might as well.
We never caught anything. Now they can't even contain what it is they're bringing in. And somebody says, you know what, you know who just said, put it down on the other side? That was the master. That was the Lord. He's risen to life again. Peter's out the boat like a shot. And we find him up at breakfast with Jesus.
And what does Jesus say to him? He says, Peter, I've got three questions for you. Question one, do you love me? Yes. Question two, do you really love me? Yes. Question three, do you really, really, really love me? Yes. That's all I needed to know, Peter.
Now I want you to go out and live for me. Do you see how masterful this is? That his threefold denial is met by the opportunity for a threefold affirmation.
That here on the beach, by the power of God, the canvas of his life—and his life is not defined by the encounter in the courtyard, but it is marked by the encounter in the courtyard—the reason that it will be significant for him to call to mind is not so that he can bury himself in all of the agony of recalling what a dreadful mess he made of things, but in order that he might be able to say, When I was lost, you came and rescued me, reached down into the pit and lifted me. I'm the denier. I deserve to face the punishment.
I deserve to bear those nails. But you bore them for me. You bore my punishment in order that I might enjoy your forgiveness. Peter, when you have been restored, I want you to strengthen the brethren.
Time goes by. He's now writing to the scattered Christians of his day, This is your homework. You go to 1 Peter chapter 5, and as he gives advice there to the elders in their care of the church, as he gives counsel to young men to submit to those who are older, he then runs down a line where he gives these exhortations that are vital for the community to which he writes. And he says to them, Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another.
Do you think that sentence cost him? When you come up against an exhortation to humility, don't you remember not the times that you were so phenomenally humble, but the times you were so horribly proud? Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because I remember I didn't. I said that I was the only one out of the group. I was the top of the tree.
I was the man. Clothe yourselves with humility. Humble yourselves.
I didn't humble myself. Cast your anxiety on him. He cares for you. I was overwhelmed by the pressure cooker of life in that context. Be watchful. I wasn't watchful. I was vulnerable.
I didn't focus on what he said. And then he gives this great word of comfort and assurance. He says, After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Now you know the rest of the story. Despite his classic collapse, Peter was restored.
Restored to usefulness. Eventually, he would die. Legend says that he died by crucifixion.
Legend said that he asked to be crucified upside down so that he would then bear in his own body that reality of the fact that in that courtyard he got the whole thing upside down. But the glorious news is that the God who restored Peter is the God who restores all repentant sinners. That Jesus, who knew Peter, knew his vulnerability, is the Jesus who knows you and knows me. And God is the God who restores even the years that the locusts have eaten. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.
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Sign up to become a Truth Partner online at truthforlife.org TruthPartner or call us at 888-588-7884. Now here's Alistair with prayer. Father, thank you that the Bible speaks with clarity. Help us, Lord, to be equally clear in our understanding, in our believing, and in our application. Forgive us, Lord, when we are guilty of that self-centered audacity, when we crumble at the questions of our friends. But thank you that you are the God of restoration. Thank you that you bore all the punishment that our sins deserve in order that we might know of forgiveness that is not ours ever to assume. Thank you that the message of the Gospel is not do this, do all these things, try and be better and you will be accepted. But it's the story of what Jesus Christ has accomplished so that we might rest in him and find all of our righteousness in him, all of our joy, all of our peace. Look upon us in your mercy, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Thanks for studying God's Word with us this week. On Monday, we'll follow Jesus to the Roman governor's court, but we'll find out who was really on trial. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
