Sermon Cloud

Tonight I am so excited and overwhelmed with the amazing gift that God has given me to be able to be a pastor of his bride, the church.  It is the most amazing privilege I can imagine.  Over the past week I have been thinking really hard on what to preach about at the first service.  Do I want to talk about vision, the direction of the church, our core values, or what do we want to talk about?  I think all these things are really important and worthy to be talked about but I found my heart just going to one place.  I found my heart going to the person of Jesus and how beautiful and amazing he is.  This week I have just found myself fascinated and overwhelmed with Jesus.  And I know that ultimately he is the one I need and he is the one that each of us here need.  He alone can satisfy, he alone can give us rest, and he alone can comfort us in the midst of the storms of our lives. 

So, tonight I just want to talk about one of the things I personally find to be beautiful about Jesus.  Tonight I want to talk about how Jesus treats failures.  You see all of us know what it is like to fail don’t we?  And all of us know that one of the craziest things about failure is how it isolates us.  When we fail miserably at something or we let someone who was counting on us down or even when we just feel like we have failed, we get so self-conscious and insecure.  We feel like everyone is looking at us and thinking terrible things because we are thinking terrible things about ourselves.  The shame caused by our failures can seem unbearable.  Often times the only reprieve we have after failing is to distract ourselves, to numb ourselves with food, TV., alcohol, work, sleep, or friends that don’t know how bad we have messed up.  All of us know what its like to just wish we could disappear.  We all have had people in our lives who we dreaded ever seeing again because we were so ashamed of what they knew about us.

One year when I was a college pastor, I took one of my students to Africa with me on a discovery trip.  We had an amazing time but he had to go home early, so I dropped him off.  He got partway home and then there was a mix-up in his ticket and so he ended up being stranded in Nairobi, Kenya for about 50 hours.  I remember getting a call from his Dad who was not happy and trying to figure things out with the airlines and all this drama.  I felt like the trip had gone so well and then this had to happen.  I remember worrying about my friend and how he was holding up and feeling responsible.  It was just absolutely overwhelming and I was absolutely powerless to do anything about it.  I remember after getting off the phone in these situations I would go outside in the streets and there would just be tons of little African kids.  They would all run up to me and we would talk, kick a soccer ball around, play games, jump on my back, and say the funniest things.  It was seriously the craziest feeling.  There was a freedom that came from just laughing with these kids.  They didn’t know me.  I wasn’t a failure to them.  They just loved the fact that I was there and they wanted to play and laugh together.  All of us love relationships like this.  But the problem is that if I stuck around long enough these African children would find out the truth.  They would find out who I really was, and then what?  You see that is the question, what happens when people find out who we really are?

Our fear of how people would treat us if they really knew us impacts all of our relationships.  It’s what causes us to keep certain things a secret.  It’s what causes us to tell white lies to look better then we are.  It’s what causes us to always want to look our best.  But the crazy thing is that our fear of how we would be treated if we were truly known doesn’t just impact our relationship with others and how vulnerable we will be or how much we will try and hide; it radically impacts our relationship with God.  That is why one of the biggest questions we must have answered before we will ever be able to truly trust God and give him our hearts is how God treats failures.  All of us know deep down inside that if our every thought were revealed, our every motive laid bare, our every desire put out on the table we would prove to be failures.  Hebrews says that before God everything is put on the table.  Hebrews 4:13 says, “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”  So, because God sees it all, the only question that remains is, “How does the one who sees it all and knows every hidden thought treat messed up people like me?”  This is the question that drove Adam and Eve to hide in the bushes when God came walking.  They were afraid that God would condemn them for their failure.  They were afraid that he would come and give them what they deserved and they knew they couldn’t bear it so they hid.  We too will live lives hiding from God until we finally understand how he treats failures.

So, tonight I want to talk about one of the biggest failures in the Bible and I want us to take a look at how Jesus treats him.  The failure I want to look at tonight was a strong Galilean fisherman who was one of Jesus’ disciples.  Now this man was a very confident vocal leader among the disciples.  In Matthew 16 Jesus tells him that his name is Peter, and upon his good confession Jesus was going to build his church.  Now the word Peter means Rock.  So here is a man who Jesus named Rock.  He was the one who spoke for the disciples when Jesus had asked, “Who do you say that I am?”  He had answered, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God” (Mt. 16:16).  This man knew who Jesus was.  He had seen Jesus’ glory shine on a mountain.  He was not just one of the 12 disciples; he was one of the inner circle, one of the three disciples that Jesus sometimes took aside.  Peter had given up everything to follow Jesus and he was confident that he was going to be the very best of Jesus’ followers.  In John 13:36 when Jesus was about to go to the cross, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” and Jesus told him “Where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” 

Peter didn’t like being told that he couldn’t follow now.  He couldn’t imagine a task too hard for him.  He said, Lord, why can’t I follow you now, I will lay down my life for you.  Basically he is saying there is nowhere that you can go that I won’t be able to follow since I would be willing to die for you.  In Mark 14:29 Peter says, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”  Later, when Jesus is about to be arrested, Peter showed his boldness by grabbing his sword and cutting off one of the servant’s ears.  Think about how crazy a scene that must have been.  There is a whole group of soldiers armed with weapons, and Peter, like some kamikaze, grabs a sword and wants to start a fight.  Peter was a tough man committed to defending his master. 

But then Jesus is taken away and he is bound, mocked, and mistreated.  Peter follows Jesus from a distance, and while Jesus is being mistreated in the high priest’s house, Peter is out in the courtyard standing around a charcoal fire trying to keep warm.  And a servant girl says, “You are not one of the disciples are you?”  And he replies, No.  Two more times he is asked and he adamantly denies even knowing who Jesus is.  And while he was still denying Jesus, the rooster crowed.  Luke tells us that as soon as the rooster crowed Jesus looked at Peter and Peter remembered the prediction that Jesus had made that he would deny him three times.  You see, Jesus had told Peter that before the rooster crowed in the morning Peter would deny him three times.  As soon as Peter realized what had happened he went outside and he wept bitterly. 

Here is the story of a failure.  Here is the story of a tough man who talked big but denied the one he claimed he would die for because a servant girl questioned him.  It is important for you to understand how pathetic this is.  This is crazy.  Peter followed Jesus for three years.  He left everything for him.  He promised Jesus that he would die for him, and then when a servant girl asked him if he even knew Jesus, he denied it.  And then, when he was given a chance to correct his story, he did it again.  And when, in God’s mercy, he was given a third opportunity to be bold and proclaim his allegiance to his Master, he grew angry and denied Jesus even more firmly than he did at first.  This is pathetic; this is failure; this is ugly.

But this story didn’t just happen, it was written down.  It was written down in the Bible so that we could read it and understand how it applies to us.  How do you think the Bible wants us to understand Peter’s denial?  I believe that the Bible wants us to realize just how much like Peter we are.  I think that the Bible would want us to understand that despite all our self-confidence, we too have denied our master.  You see, just as Peter’s confession of faith is an example of what all true disciples are too confess, so too Peter’s denial of Christ is an example of what all of us have done to our Savior.  Not only do we deny Jesus, but we deny him for pathetic things just like Peter did.

We deny Jesus every time we disregard his word in order to watch another show on TV. We deny him when we see people in need and think, “I hope that they find clothes and shelter,” and yet we give them nothing.  We deny him every time we look down at another human being and believe that we are better then they are.  We deny him every time we fall in love with something he made and are so enamored with it that we give it our soul and don’t believe we could ever be happy without it.  The Bible calls this worshiping God’s creation instead of the creator.  We deny him every time we complain, and we complain a lot about such small things.  Every time we complain we are saying, “You are not as good of a God as I would be if I were in control.  If I were in control this building would not be this hot.  If I were in control this traffic would not be so bad.  If I were in control my kids would stop being such punks.  If I were in control my spouse would listen to me better.  But the fact is I am not in control and God is messing it all up.”  That is what I say when I complain.  We deny Jesus every time we give into our feelings and say that the way we feel is more important than what God says is true.  We are all like Peter.  We have denied the God who made us and who sent his Son to give his life for his people.   We have denied him, and we have done it for a bunch of pathetic things. 

We are just like Peter.  All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  It’s okay to be mad at Peter, its okay to see his denial of Jesus as absolutely pathetic, but it is also vital that we see ourselves as making the same mistakes.  It is important that we realize that we too are failures like Peter.  In a few moments we will see that it is only those who have understood themselves to be failures like Peter was in Luke 22 that God can later use to be bold proclaimers of his Gospel like Peter was in Acts 2.

It is our failure that sets us up for the Good News.  Because Jesus didn’t leave Peter outside in the cold weeping.  No, even though that is what Peter deserved, he deserved to spend all eternity away from God, in outer darkness, weeping.  You have to understand that this is exactly what Peter deserved.  Not just for a few moments, not just for the rest of his life.  For denying the Holy Son of God who made heaven and earth and gives to each person their every breath, for denying him in front of a little girl, Peter deserved to weep for all eternity.  But you see Jesus came to make another way.  I want to show you something unbelievable.  I want you to turn to John 18 and I want you to look at what Jesus was doing while Peter was denying him.  You see even as Peter was denying Jesus, Jesus was loving Peter and he was making a way for Peter to come back.  You see John’s portrayal of Peter’s denial is totally unique.  John actually breaks up Peter’s Denial of Jesus so that we can see what Jesus was doing at the very same time Peter was denying him.  Notice how in vs. 15ff. Peter denies Jesus the first time, then in verse 25 Peter denies Jesus again.  But in between Peter’s denials John tells us what Jesus was doing.  As I was reading it I was amazed.  Notice one of the themes of this passage.  While Peter is lying about even knowing Jesus, Jesus is claiming himself to be innocent of any deceit.  Jesus is proclaiming that he has spoken openly.  Jesus tells them that they can go and test him because he is innocent of any wrongdoing.  And so in the same moment that Peter is lying and denying the very Son of God, Jesus is proclaiming himself to be perfectly honest.  But the crazy thing is what happens next.  Notice that Peter lies about knowing the son of God and yet nothing happens.  You would expect him to be struck by lightening or for him to break out in leprosy, or for some terrible thing to happen to a failure like him.  When Moses’ sister spoke out against him she got leprosy, and how much better than Moses is Jesus.  And yet when Peter denies him he is not accused of wrongdoing, he is not punished.  But notice what happens to Jesus, Jesus speaks the truth and he is struck.  This is important, Peter speaks out lies against the Son of God and he is left alone, while Jesus speaks out the truth before the high priest and he is struck for disrespect.  Does this make any sense at all?  The innocent one is struck while the guilty one goes free. 

And yet this is the Gospel.  This is what our Savior came for.  He came to bear Peter’s punishment.  He came to take the fist that Peter should have received.  He came and ultimately went to the cross to endure the wrath of God so that failures could be forgiven, so that failures, sinners, like Peter, you and me could go free.  Everything that we see Jesus going through is what should have happened to Peter.  It is what should have happened to someone so foolish as to deny the Son of God.  And because we are like Peter, everything that we read Jesus going through is what should happen to each of us.  That should happen to all of us who, after seeing how amazing and beautiful our Savior is, still find ourselves denying him in order to keep our comforts, independence, or reputation.  Peter denied Jesus in front of a servant girl while today we deny him in front of a computer screen, or a TV, or a boss who promises pathetic money that will never buy us happiness.  And yet Jesus came to earth to die so that he could welcome us.

And the crazy thing is, Jesus knew who he was dying for.  Jesus didn’t just get burned on a bad investment.  He didn’t come down and think that if he just showed us a lot of love and told us he was God we would all be amazing disciples and then after he died he realized, “Wow, those people were certainly not as good as I expected them to be.  I thought I died for better people.”  No, Jesus was not caught by surprise.  Jesus knew from the beginning that he had come to die for sinners, for failures, for people who would deny him.  Luke has an amazing passage about Peter’s denial.  You remember that even before Peter denied Jesus, Jesus had already told Peter what would happen.  Jesus told Peter that he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed.  And then Luke tells us that while Peter was still speaking the third time he denied Jesus, the rooster crowed.  And so when Jesus heard the rooster crow he knew what Peter had done.  He knew that he had denied him.  And so Luke tells us that Jesus looked at Peter.  Can you imagine that?  Peter hears the rooster crowing and he remembers Jesus’ words and then he looks up and there staring back at him is the Savior he has just denied three times.  But Jesus doesn’t look at him with an “I told you so” look.  He doesn’t look at him in utter disgust.  No, he looks at Peter, to show Peter that he knows.  He knows it all.  He knows that he has denied him.  He knows that Peter has failed to live up to any of his claims.  He knows.  And the question that we began with this evening can now begin to be answered.  You see Jesus knows.  He knows that Peter is a failure, he knows that he has denied him, he knows that Peter has failed to live up to any of his promises and so we watch to see what Jesus will do.  How will Jesus treat this failure?  What will Jesus do now that all of his disciples have fled and proven themselves unworthy of his love?  The answer is found in the next few chapters.  The answer is found as Jesus continues down the road to the cross.  The cross is how Jesus responds to failures.  The cross is how Jesus treats failures.  He dies for them.  The Bible says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”  Jesus’ response to Peter’s failure is to go to the cross for him.  You see Jesus looks at Peter and his look says, “I know what you have done, I know who you are,” and then by continuing on to the cross we hear Jesus say, “I love you still.” 

And tonight you must know that Jesus looks at you.  He looks at you and calls out, “I know who you are.  I know that you are a sinner, I know that you have denied me for lesser things.  I know, and I love you, I went to the cross to pay for your sin, and now I am calling you to come and follow me.”

Tonight I want to talk to you for a few minutes about what that call looks like.  What does Jesus’ offer to reconcile sinners and failures back to himself actually look like?  Even though Jesus looked at Peter to show him that he knew, Peter still didn’t understand did he?  That is why Peter runs out into the darkness and weeps.  And some of us have heard all these things about Jesus and yet we still feel alone.  We still feel like Peter, alone, in the darkness weeping.  We still feel like the weight of our shame and guilt is too much for us.  We are still afraid to come to our Savior because we feel so dirty and ashamed.  Tonight I want to talk about how we can find release from our shame and guilt. 

Tonight I want to close with one last amazing story about Jesus.  I want to close by talking about how Jesus restored Peter.  Because in this story I believe that we will find how we too can be restored through Jesus.  You see what I love about our Savior is that he didn’t just go to the cross for Peter, or just die to forgive his sins.  He didn’t leave him out in the darkness weeping, but after the cross he went out and found him in a boat after fishing all night and catching nothing.  He found him tired and frustrated and empty.  He found him trying to do something on his own and falling woefully short.  He found him unable in a whole night’s work even to catch enough fish to eat breakfast.  Can you fathom that?  Peter and the disciples had spent the whole night fishing and yet they had not even caught one fish.  They didn’t even have enough to eat breakfast.  Think of their frustration.  But Peter’s inability was not nearly as great as Jesus’ provision.  And so Jesus went out and found Peter in order to restore him.  He went out and found him in order to provide for him.  In love he went out and found Peter to bring him back. 

I want you to think about what happens in this story.  Peter and the disciples are out fishing all night and they catch nothing.  Jesus comes to them in the morning and tells them where they can catch fish.  He tells them to cast their nets on the other side and when they do, in that one moment, he provides for them what they couldn’t even begin to do in a whole night’s work.  And then Peter realizes that it’s Jesus and he puts his clothes on and jumps out and swims to Jesus.  He puts his clothes on even though they will get sopping wet and they will be a pain to swim in.  He actually puts his clothes on because he wants to be covered when he gets to Jesus.  As he is swimming he is full of both anticipation and fear.  He is going to be alone with Jesus and he knows that they still have not talked about his failure yet.  And so Peter swims to Jesus, and where does he find him? 

Tell me this isn’t absolutely amazing.  When Peter gets to Jesus he finds him standing around a charcoal fire.  Oh, what terrible memories Peter must have of charcoal fires.  When he looks into Jesus’ eyes around a charcoal fire there is no way he can forget about the last time he has looked into Jesus eyes around a similar fire, right before he went off alone and wept.  You know how God has made our senses and you know that the smell of the fire, the warmth of it, the look of it, all of them are jarring his memory back to the time that he denied his savior.  But here is Jesus and he has come to restore all things to himself and part of that is restoring charcoal fire.  So Jesus built a fire and on it he made his disciples breakfast.  Can you imagine it, the God of the whole universe had just risen from the dead and conquered death and yet took time to build a fire and cook breakfast over it for his disciples?  He was welcoming them back even though only a little while earlier they had all fled and left him alone. 

You have to see this.  You see our savior didn’t just die on the cross for a bunch of failures who were so afraid for their own lives that they ran away and fled.  He didn’t just die on the cross so if anyone was smart enough to figure everything out and then believe in him they could be saved.  He didn’t just die and say that’s enough, I have made a way for sinners I hope they can find it.  No, our savior died so that he could come and get us.  He died so that he could go and find the disciples that fled from him.  He died so that when he found them he could forgive them.  He died so that he could make them breakfast and have genuine fellowship with sinners.

A few moments later Jesus took Peter for a walk and asked Peter if he loved him.  Three times Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  I want to end by looking at Peter’s last response.  In his last response Peter says the only thing that a saved sinner can say, he says, “Lord, you know everything, you know I love you.”  I love this line so much.  I want you to think about this line.  If someone were to ask you if you loved Jesus what would you say? 

Most of us might say yes but of course that would never be enough so we would then try and back it up by listing things that we had done right.  We would say, “Of course I love Jesus, I read my bible, and pray everyday.”  Or maybe we would say what we were going to do for Jesus right.  We might say, “Yes I love Jesus, once I get things figured out I am going to start helping out at the church.” 

If you had asked Peter that night in the upper room if he loved Jesus, what do you think he would he have said?  He would have said, “Yes I love Jesus, I would die for him.”  But look at Peter now.  Look at him.  He can’t say anything like that anymore can he?  He hasn’t done anything good since the denial so he has nothing in himself on which to base his love for Jesus.  And yet the crazy thing is that Peter’s response is not timid is it?  Think of how bold his response is.  Peter stands before Jesus who is God himself and says, “You know everything Jesus, so you know that I love you.”  Look at how bold he is?  How can he do it?  That is the question that flies off the page at me, “How can the guy that just denied Jesus a few days earlier be so bold about declaring his love?” 

I will tell you, Peter is bold because he knows that his love for Jesus is not based on anything that he has done, but it is based entirely on what Jesus has done for him.  What is the only thing that has happened since Peter denied Jesus?  Jesus has died on the cross to forgive his sins, risen from the dead, come out and found him, and made him breakfast.  Jesus is the one who has been busy doing things.  All that has happened to Peter since he denied Jesus is that he has wept and been forgiven.  That is it.  But that is all that has to happen.  You see Luke 7 tells us that those who are forgiven much love much.  Later, when Peter writes his epistle he talks over and over about the precious blood of Jesus.  That’s it.  You see Peter loves the precious blood of Jesus because he is a failure.  Peter loves the precious blood of Jesus because through his blood Peter has had his sins washed away.  Peter loves Jesus because Jesus went to the cross and died for him even though he was a failure who wasn’t worthy of it at all.  And we are like Peter aren’t we? 

We all have failed time and again just like Peter but if Jesus could forgive the man who denied him in front of a little servant girl certainly he can forgive us too, can’t he?  If his blood is bigger then Peter’s failure, then his blood is bigger than ours as well.  You see the Bible has hope for sinners.  I Timothy 1:15 says, “This is a trustworthy saying and deserving of full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  I love that verse.  I love that Jesus died to save people like Peter.  I love that Jesus died for failures and sinners.  I love that our love for Jesus is based on who he is and what he has done on the cross for us and not on what we have or have not done for him.  I love that we can confidently claim to love Jesus if we have confessed our sins and experienced his forgiveness. 

I love that we don’t have to be afraid anymore.  We don’t have to live in shame fearing that if anyone truly knew everything about us they could never love us.  We have a Savior who has looked at us in our sin, he has turned and seen all our wretchedness and then he has walked to the cross to shed his precious blood so that he could forgive us.  That is our Savior.  We can laugh with him, we can rest with him, we can eat breakfast with him, we can praise him, we can love him from the very depths of our being because we know this.  Once we were blind, naked, wretched, and poor but our savior has come and given us sight, washed us with his precious blood, and given us clean clothes to wear.  We love him because he first loved us.  We love him because he has forgiven us so much.  Don’t you see how freeing that is?  You don’t have to lie anymore.  You don’t have to hide your failure.  You don’t have to live in shame.  You don’t have to carry around all these secrets.  You don’t have to.  Your Savior came and died so that if you will turn to him you can find forgiveness and freedom from all your shame and guilt. 

You see our God is so amazing that he uses even our past sins to make us into the followers of him he has called us to be.  Isn’t that amazing?  Whatever your past, however deep your sin, God can use it for his glory if you will but come to him.  Look at how God used Peter’s denial of him on that fateful night to help Peter realize just how much he needed a savior.  You see Peter was like us before that.  Peter didn’t think he was that bad.  Peter thought that he could love Jesus on his own.  Peter thought that he would be the one who would lay down his life for Jesus. 

Until Peter was able to acknowledge his failure and how much he needed Jesus, he would never be able to truly love him.  All of us need to beware of being like Peter before he denied Jesus.  We need to beware of believing that we have it all together, that we are good disciples of Jesus.   All of us must come to grips with our own failure and our great need of Jesus.  When we realize how much we need him, when we realize how much we have sinned and failed him, then and only then does his blood becomes really precious.  Then, all a sudden, we love the cross because we realize that without the cross we would never have a chance. 

We don’t want to be a church of people like Peter before his denial.  We don’t want to fall into the deceptive lie that we have it all together, we know all the answers, or that we have figured out how to worship our God.  No!  Let’s be a church that can admit our failures.  Let’s own our wretchedness so that we can cling to Jesus and his righteousness as our only hope.  You will love your Savior to the extent that you believe you need him.  You will love his blood to the extent that you understand just how much sin it covers.  You will rejoice in his forgiveness to the extent that you understand how much of it you are using. 

I long for the day that I can stand before my Savior, and trusting only on his righteousness say, “You know all things, Jesus. You know my wretchedness and my great need of your blood.  You know how much you have forgiven me of and you know that I love you.”  And as your pastor my prayer is that one day when you too must stand before your God, that you will stand before him clinging to Jesus’ righteousness.  When God says to you, “Do you love me?”  I pray you will not say, “Of course I love you, I pray every day, I go to church, I even helped in the nursery.”  No!  I pray that all of us will say, “Look at me, look at how filthy I was until you sent your Son to shed his precious blood on the cross.  Look at how much I need him.  Look at how much he has forgiven me of.  God, you see all things, you know I love you.”