Truth For Life

Guest (Male): You find yourself making well-intentioned promises to God and then failing to keep them? If so, you're not alone. Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg examines the Apostle Peter's bold but prideful and ignorant declaration of his allegiance to Jesus. Let's open our Bibles to chapter 13 of John's Gospel.

Alistair Begg: Well, the question that Peter had posed was, where is it that you're going? We paid attention to the fact that this was something that Christ had not chosen to make known to him. And yet still, Peter wanted to have answers that would satisfy his own curiosity.

The response that Jesus gives to him is such that we might anticipate that Peter would then say, okay, I get it now. But what we actually discover is that Peter follows up his first question with a second question. And Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, why can't I follow you now?"

It is very clear that Peter has no real understanding about a number of things. He has no real understanding of how near the end is for Jesus. We don't say that in any spirit of judgment. How could he really know? None of the disciples could fully understand the proximity with which they were finding themselves before the departure of Jesus, and he had no clear understanding of that.

Nor did he or the other disciples have any kind of awareness of the dark and terrible forces that were at work that night in Jerusalem. They are also unaware of what Jesus has already explained to them. And Peter is actually showing how little he knows about himself.

I think that's the thing that is most striking to me. Because he is able to make these great protestations. I don't think we should judge him unduly. I think it is an expression of his confused devotion. He means exactly what he says. He just doesn't know what he himself is really like.

"I'm ready to die for you," he says to Jesus. And we read in the Synoptics as well that after Jesus has explained to them that they will all fall away, it is in that context that Peter then goes on to say, even if they do not, I will. In other words, he separates himself even from the other 10 that are around him.

I just paused as I was studying it to write notes to myself and I wrote down just a simple phrase: Beware the mischief of self-ignorance. Beware the mischief of self-ignorance. "I will lay down my life for you," he says. In other words, there is a sense in which Peter is actually saying that my future is to be built on the promises that I am making to you.

When in actual fact, his future is grounded in the promises that Jesus has made to him. "You will all fall away, but I have prayed for you, and after you are restored, then you strengthen the brethren." The life of faith can't be built on the promises that we make to Christ.

That actually leads to disaster because we can't keep our own promises. We're not even sure how to promise in the way that we should. Wisdom is found in the opposite direction. Casting myself on the promises that Jesus has made to us. That's the way to victory. The other way is the road to disaster.

Now, Jesus responds once again to the question that Peter has raised. "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." And it's interesting, isn't it, that Jesus responds virtually using what Peter has said word for word. "I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "You will lay down your life for me?"

In other words, it's actually quite common in conversation, and sometimes between a mother and a son or somebody, they give you back the very thing you've said. They turn it around the other way to point out the incongruity of what has been said, and that's what Jesus is saying.

After all, Peter and the others have been in his company in all of the material that we've been working through. They know, but has he forgotten that Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." It's me who lays down my life for you. Not you, especially right now, laying down your life for me.

I think actually there is something in that that I haven't really thought about till now, and that is that people like to do things for God. Like to do things, I like to do some things for Jesus. And the people who like to do things for Jesus may not be happy for Jesus to do something for them.

In fact, what I want to do for God and for Jesus and for religion and for everything else may actually be a smokescreen for the fact that I have never come to the point where I've said, "Jesus, I'm entirely dependent on you, on your promises and everything that you do for me."

"You're going to lay down your life for me?" This is so Peter is hearing Jesus say, listen, Peter, I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. And I know that your intentions are good, but your self-awareness is really poor. And then he says, truly, truly, I'm telling you, listen to me. The rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

So where are you going? Why can't I go? When is this going to happen? That's all I had for my notes: where, why, when. And the time is established here. Jesus, you see, knows what awaits him. And he loves these disciples. We saw that earlier in the chapter. Having loved them, he loved them to the end.

He knows exactly what is about to unfold. Mark records the fact that even after Peter had been told of what was going to take place, still he was prepared to say, well, I must stand out in this group. Three decades later, he actually would do this as we come to chapter 21.

But for now, but they all said the same thing. That's what it says in the text. "If I must die with you, I will not deny you." And Mark says, and they all said the same thing. There's a lot of nodding going on. "Oh yeah, oh yeah. Mm-hm, we feel that way too. Mm, you feel that way, Mark? Mm, yeah, I feel that way, mm. Yeah."

So he's not isolated from the reality. And Mark tells us that when in the garden scene Jesus is removed after Judas Iscariot has greeted him with a kiss, Mark says, and they all left him and fled. They all left him and fled. Not one of them was left. Peter too.

Actually, it says that Peter followed at a distance. At a distance. And I remember in my youth, way in my youth, barely memorable to me now, but I think I could find it where I gave a talk to a bunch of young people on the phrase, "Peter followed at a distance."

And my talk was, that was his problem, you see. He was at a distance. You're not supposed to be at a distance. You're supposed to be close up. I think I was a little hard on him. Because at least he followed. At least he followed. He might have been at a distance, but he was a lot closer than the other fellows.

And he follows him right into the situation that takes you into the 18th chapter of John. And it is there in the 18th chapter that we have the unfolding drama of the denial itself. And it's very interesting the way it unfolds. Simon Peter followed Jesus, 15 of 18. Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple.

We take it that this is John. He is writing in the third person about himself. And he tells us that he knew the high priest. Why John knew the high priest, we don't know, but since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

But Peter's not in the courtyard of the high priest. So John, he speaks to the servant girl, and he says to the servant girl, my friend is out here, Peter, and I'd like to get him in if that's okay with you. And you think about the providence of God that leads to this because if he had just left him out there, we wouldn't have this incident.

But it's because he wanted to include Peter and bring him in. And the servant girl then, of course, broaches the question, "You're also not one of this man's disciples, are you?" So the guy who was brave enough to take out a sword and chop off somebody's ear folds like a broken deck chair as a result of a question asked by a servant girl directly concerning his allegiance to Jesus.

"Jesus, even if I have to die with you, I won't deny you." "No, I don't know him. I don't know him." In short order, what has happened here? He has broken a promise, he's told a lie, and he's dragged down by the gravity of the momentum of sin. Lying is terrible because if you become a liar, you can do just about anything you want. All you have to do is lie about it.

And it is remarkable that this bold servant of Jesus finds himself capitulating in this way, especially after he has made these declarations. And again, you need to do your own homework for this, but in Luke 22, the way in which Luke records this incident is so straightforwardly helpful.

And this is what it says. Luke 22 and verse 60. Now the question has come again. Peter says, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about." Now listen to this. "And immediately, while he was still speaking..." While he is still speaking. The rooster crowed and the Lord turned, looked at Peter. Peter remembered, and he went out and wept bitterly.

The rooster crowed, the Lord looked, Peter remembered, and he went out and wept bitterly. Now let's not miss the fact that what we have here in the record of Holy Scripture, what we have here publicized for time immemorial, is the actions of arguably the leader of the discipleship band.

And if you're thinking, which I'm taking it that you are, you must realize that this speaks to the truthfulness of the gospels. The people when we come to the Easter time always emerge to explain that this is not really the historical Jesus, this is something that was manufactured later on, 200 years later.

They wanted to clean it up and so on. It doesn't make any sense at all. If it was an invention, why do you take your key guy and introduce him to the world as a complete and utter failure? The publicized record of the leader of the disciple band. Who would invent this?

If this can happen to Peter, what of us? "Let anyone who thinks he stands," says Paul when he writes to the Corinthians, "let anyone who thinks they stand take heed lest you fall." None of us know when we face that great combination of desire and temptation and opportunity.

And that, when that happens, we find ourselves up against a reality that only the grace of God can keep us from. And so when we read the story of Peter, as I've been challenged by it all week and now we're challenged together by it, let's beware of the posture of the attitude which says, "I could never do that. I can't believe she did that. Well, I haven't done that."

Because the fact is that the seeds of every sin are latent in our hearts. The seeds of every sin are latent in our hearts, and they may spring to life. They may spring to life in a dramatic moment. It may be by a fireside, it may be in a courtyard, it may be in some other context altogether when all of a sudden it all descends upon us as it descended upon him.

In a moment of carelessness, especially if it's accompanied by a cold heart. We've neglected worship, we've neglected our Scriptures, we've neglected the fellowship of God's people. We've begun to tolerate ourselves and we've begun to play in our own minds with all kinds of ideas and we thought that it's okay, it's just us and doesn't involve anybody else at all.

And all of a sudden, coldness of heart, moral carelessness, and a spirit of self-reliance. When those things combine, we have no adequate conception of how far we might fall. That's why Jesus had told his disciples when he was in the garden, "Watch and pray so that you enter not into temptation."

They didn't watch and they fell asleep. I need to be alert. First of all, to run quickly to Christ, to the comfort of his love. Our good friend Sinclair Ferguson reminds us helpfully, "My security as a Christian does not reside in the strength of my faith, but in the indestructibility of my savior."

So alert to our own potential collapses and then quick to run to the aid of those who have collapsed in the courtyard. In the readings this morning, part of them in Ephesians, Paul says towards the end of that fourth chapter, he says, "I want you to forgive one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Be tenderhearted to one another, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you."

Judas and Peter are famous on account of their failures. Judas, despite initial appearances, collapses, goes out into the night, kills himself. Peter collapses, goes into the night and weeps, but he's restored. It's a reminder of the difference between apostasy and backsliding.

Anyone who has ever been a professing faith, professing to be a follower of Jesus, who subsequently returns wholeheartedly to sin, who renounces their former Christian allegiance, who displays no remorse in doing so, and who continues in that apostasy to the end of their lives, must surely, despite initial appearances, never have been truly born of God.

A backslider, a Christian who stumbles and falls, may fall down a long way and for a long way. But the difference is that they know it. And even in that distance, geographically, emotionally, whatever it might be, in that distance, they still retain, if you like, in their minds, the notion of the far city, the notion of my father's home.

They know in their hearts they say, "I can arise, I will arise, and I'll go to my father, and I'll say to him, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight and I'm actually no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants." And so they retain an awareness of what they've left behind and a lingering desire to return to what they had, and they come back.

Oh yes, they do. And that of course is what takes us finally to the scene that would be etched just wonderfully in the psyche of Peter at the end of the day. And you must do this for your homework, you can read it before the week falls to its end. But the appearance of Jesus, now we've gone from, we've bypassed Good Friday, we've bypassed the Resurrection, and now we've got the appearances of Jesus, we'll backtrack in time.

But in that context there, Peter has three opportunities to affirm his allegiance. Remember? "Do you love me more than these? I do love you. Do you love me? Yeah, Lord, I know you, you know I love you." He said to him a third time, "Simon, son of John," he uses his old name.

Simon. "You are Simon, but you'll be Peter." He was shaky. "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you." And that actually will bring us to our final truly, truly, but we're not ready for that yet.

But I went to find where the verse is and I found it. It's the 50th verse of the 30th Psalm because I said as I thought about Peter, I said, this is, he would know the Psalms, he'd know this verse. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And he went out and he wept bitterly, but it wasn't the end. It wasn't the end. And it needn't be the end. If you're here tonight and you are backslidden. Nobody knows, but you know. Do not continue down that road. Stop. Turn your eyes to Christ again. Seek him with all of your heart and be ready for him.

Not to make your breakfast for you, but to provide you with everything that you need, to see your tears washed away and to see the discovery of a deep-seated joy that comes in knowing that he knows that you love him.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. At Truth For Life, we know how important it is to assure future generations of God's steadfast love and trustworthy promises. Are they listening? Well, Alistair is here with us, and you spoke recently, Alistair, at Liberty University back in March. At Liberty, it's an arena full of students you're speaking to, right?

Alistair Begg: There is nowhere else that I've been that compares to that moment, that hour. I was struck by not just the quality and enthusiasm of the young people in the morning hour, which is a sort of statutory event, but in the evening, when the Wednesday night event that I had the privilege of speaking at as well. There were probably 10,000 there in the morning, but there were 5,000 there easily, maybe 6,000 in the evening, who voluntarily show up for somebody teaching them the Bible so that the word of Christ can dwell in them richly and they can sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I'm glad of the opportunity to go, and it was a privilege to be there.

Guest (Male): Well, these exciting opportunities to reach the next generation are made possible by the generous support that comes from listeners like you. So if you share our passion for this, would you join our Truth Partner team today by visiting truthforlife.org/truthpartner? Or if you prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884.

Thanks for listening. Jesus performed many amazing miracles, so what did he mean when he said that his followers would do the works he did and greater works than these? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.