What Is Your Greatest Failure?

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This is the Truth Network. So what is your greatest failure? What are you laying bed at night, beating yourself up over? Just something stupid that you said, or something you did.

How do you deal with the paralyzing guilt of past mistakes and even past sin? Well, we are getting into probably the most famous denial of history, and Robbie Dilmore is with me. Robbie, I'm not talking about a river in the Middle East that runs through Egypt, okay? Not talking about that. I am talking about the denial of Peter.

It's been portrayed in famous art, it's been spoken of, it's been cinematically portrayed and acted out in all kinds of artwork and cinema and whatnot. It is in Luke chapter 22 verses 54 through 62, and we're going to continue our study on experienced truth through the book of Luke. And with me is the Christian car guy, Robbie Dilmore, today. It's always fun when he can jump in with us here with his crazy schedule. Robbie, read the Scriptures, and we're going to jump right into this study as we have been in Holy Week in Luke 22.

All right. Having arrested him, they led him and brought him into the high priest's house, but Peter followed at a distance. Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, this man was also with him. But he denied him saying, woman, I don't know him. And after a little while, another man saw him and said, you also are of them. But Peter said, man, I am not.

Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed saying, surely this fellow also was with him for he is a Galilean. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you are saying. Immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. So Peter went out and he wept bitterly. So this is the account, and Robby hit us with that first question that takes us right into the context.

Sure, what's the danger of spiritual overconfidence? So in Luke 22 verse 33, what is Peter saying? Just a few verses before this, in the same time zone, the same area. What is he saying? He is saying, I will follow you to the death. I will never betray you. And Jesus predicts, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times. And so this is what happens. Peter has just cut off Malchus' ear.

You think he's solid as a rock up till then? He does this against Christ's will. Christ immediately heals that ear, which we talked about last time.

It's the only open wound healing of Jesus in the whole Scriptures, where he literally picks up a fresh wound and puts that ear right back on. To everyone's amazement, they still didn't follow him. They seized him.

They arrested him. He's supposed to be allowing the redemptive act of Christ to take place, but he doesn't. He's back in control. He's trying to run things.

He's got his plan. And this is the greatest statement, by the way. May this never be said of us as believers, but how many of us has this been true of, Robbie? Quote, he followed Jesus from a distance. Peter followed Jesus from a distance. When you follow Jesus from a distance, the more and more space that comes between you and Jesus, there's a great hymn, nothing between my soul and the Savior. Well, when things get between you and Christ, this was Paul's prayer. The author of Hebrews, could have been Paul, but whoever wrote Hebrews said, let us lay aside every encumbrance or the thing that, you know, so easily besets us. Let us, you know, cast it off so that we can run the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finish of our faith. So when things block our view of Christ... So Peter is, this is the first problem. Right here, earlier in the text, verse 54, he followed Jesus from a distance. And you have a real, it's a real challenge, and it opens up a whole other thing.

Go to the next question. I love it. How did Peter feel when the Lord turned and looked at him? So, you know, the thing I think about this particular, is one of my actual favorite chapters in the Bible from the standpoint of, here is the unmasking.

I mean, we're in COVID season, right? So maybe when you're hearing this and everybody's unmasked, but this is the great unmasking of Peter. Peter himself didn't know he was wearing a mask. And so what was it that was between him and the Lord?

He didn't realize that he was posing as something that actually would be tested. And fascinatingly, if you look in the Song of Solomon, chapter five, here's a little Robbie insight. You really want a joy, study Song of Solomon, chapter five, because you'll see that the Shulamite woman says, after a night with her head covered in dew and all these things that relate to Gethsemane, she says, the watchmen on the wall, they took away my cloak. They beat me.

Right? And so what happened that night with Peter was he got his cloak taken away, and he got beaten. But it was actually the greatest thing that ever happened to Peter, because the thing that was between Peter and God was the fact that he thought he was something that he wasn't.

Yeah, I mean, this is the famous thing called the look. The look of Jesus to Peter. Just imagine being on the receiving end of when the Savior, and this has been portrayed in art, a dear friend, a pastor, Barnes, who pastors in Winston-Salem at First Presbyterian. I was sharing this with him. I said, Pastor Peter, how do I share this with our Wednesday in the Word guys? And on the radio, Experience Truth, and he said, I got to send you this picture that hangs in my study.

And he took a picture of it and sent it to me. And it's Jesus looking at Peter. Peter can't even imagine when the eyes of Christ locked in with the eyes of Peter, after Peter has denied him three times. So you have this look, and so you have them kindled a fire.

They're all singing around a fire, and Peter has denied him three different times. And there's this overconfidence that Peter leads in. You think of that verse in Proverbs, you know, pride goes before a fall.

You think about how First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12 says, he that thinketh he stands take heed lest he fall. And how we all get overconfident. Some of the worst games of my college basketball career were when we went into the game thinking, we're going to kill these guys. We're going to destroy them. We were so confident. We thought, there's no way they're going to beat us. And we took a whipping on the basketball court after that overconfidence. So Jesus takes a look at Peter with those eyes of fire, Revelation 1.14.

Can you imagine that? It's interesting, two people looked intently, by the way, Peter. Before we even got to this point with Jesus, it says the servant girl looked intently. So this is the darkness.

It's dark at night, so there's a fire not just to provide light, but to provide warmth. And this young lady who's a fortress or a doorkeeper, she's staring at Peter. She's noticed there's something different about this guy. He doesn't sound like he's from Jerusalem. He's got this Galilean accent.

So his accent obviously gave away. We know Peter talked a lot, so how long did it take for him to get going and talking? And it's almost as though with each denial, he becomes more emboldened. And then the rooster crows. And then the Lord looks at Peter. And then the eyes of the Lord here are looking in the eyes of a failing sinner. And a whole lot of things, no doubt, are triggering in the memory of Peter. Christ words to him earlier in the garden. So Peter is weeping, these tears of repentance. And you see this, you know, it says he went out and wept bitterly.

And maybe this question here... Right. What's your greatest failure, and when have you wept bitterly?

Yeah. So one of the Beatitudes, Robbie, is from Jesus that Peter no doubt heard over and over again are, is, blessed are those who mourn. Who actually, that word is like, you know, who actually, that word is like a deep penitence or a deep pain of weeping and mourning. It could be mourning over my sin. It could be like one of the great Puritans said, do the things that break God's heart break my heart? And so there's a blessedness to mourning. The question is, and it says he went out and wept bitterly, which is a real strong statement of the pain of Peter that he felt in that moment. The very one that he said, I'm going to follow to the death, the one he followed for three years, the one he'd done powerful works in his name, now he's weeping bitterly because he's completely betrayed him, or he's completely denied him. And so I guess the importance is here, do we weep over getting caught, or do we weep over the sin?

The actual offense we gave to God, and the depth of his grace and forgiveness, does that even add to that? That's a great question. From my perspective, Stuart, it is a great question. Was he mourning, or was he weeping? You know, because mourning is a little different thing. It actually, in the Hebrew sense of it, requires support from others, which later Jesus comes in and helps him mourn.

We know at the great breakfast it's coming up later. But at this point in time, you know, is he where Judas is, right? Because Judas was sure sad about what he had done as well, but was he bringing in others, and was he actually facing the door of pain?

Or was he, you know, looking still to for self-protection? Yeah, I love it, and we're out of time, but I want to give this... Matthew Henry makes these points about the look, and then we'll talk about the backside of this and how God restores Peter. You know, why the three times, by the way? He denied Peter three times, but what happened? Matthew Henry says this about the look. He says, first, it was a convincing look. Jesus turned and looked upon him as if he should say, Dost thou not know me, Peter? The second thing, it was a chiding look.

Let us think that what a rebuking countenance Christ may justly look upon us when we have sinned. Thirdly, it was an expostulating look. Now, that's a big word, but basically, it was exposing Peter. He was the most forward in confessing Christ to be the Son of God, and now he's the most solemn and the most outspoken in denying him. But it was a compassionate look.

Peter, how art thou fallen and undone if I do not help thee? So it was a compassionate look. And then this is the fifth one. There's a bunch of them.

There's a sixth one, too. It was a directing look. To go and be think of himself.

To go and, you know, you need to go do business or, you know, work this out. And then, finally, it was a significant look. It signified the conveying of grace to Peter's heart to enable him to repent. The grace of God works in and by the word of God, brings that to mind, and sets that home upon the conscience, and so gives the soul the happy turn. Christ looked upon the chief priest and made no impression upon them as he did on Peter. It was not the mere look from Christ, but the divine grace with it that restored Peter.

How did that restoration happen? We've got to talk about that next time on Experience Truth. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, it's all there, and share the word of God with someone before your head hits the pillow tonight. I'm Stu Epperson. Thanks for being here with us this time. Next time, we'll be back with more of Experience Truth. This is the Truth Network.