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Denial,
Repentance, and Confession
Matthew
26:31-35, 69-75, John 21:15-17
It’s
the Last Supper. Jesus has just broken the bread and passed the cup around, and
the disciples are amazed (as usual) by their Master’s teaching. He has a way
of making ordinary things (bread, wine) mean so much more—connections with the
divine through the sublime. Wow. The Bread is his body, broken for them. The
Wine is His blood, poured out so that their sins may be forgiven through the New
Covenant.
He
has just shocked them by revealing that Judas will betray Him into the hands of
those who will kill Him. They are shocked that one of them, one of the
inner-circle of 12, would do such an awful thing. How could he disown Jesus like
that? How could he turn against Jesus? The betrayer!
Then
Jesus says something else that shocks them. Again. (He has an uncanny ability to
know exactly what to say, when to say it. He has the amazing ability to see into
hearts and know the reality behind our façades.)
31Then Jesus told them, “This very
night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will
strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32But
after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into
Galilee
.”
33Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I
never will.”
34“I tell you the truth,” Jesus
answered, “this
very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
35But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will
never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.
(Matthew 26:31-35)
Jesus
knows the hearts of these men who claim to be his followers. They saw the
insidiousness of Judas. When Jesus says “you will all
fall away,” they think, “We are
NOT like him! We are loyal!”
Peter
says, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will!”
But
Jesus knows better, doesn’t he? He knows that human beings like Peter and all
the other disciples are not able to withstand the test. They do not have the
ability in their own human strength to live up to Jesus’ high standards.
He
had told them not too long before, something quite cryptic:
“Whoever
acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in
heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in
heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33)
That’s
a very high standard! And then Jesus point-blank says to the very ones who are
closest to him, “You will fail. You all will fall away. Yes, even you, Simon
Peter, will disown me.”
They
react as we would expect—“No WAY! Not me!” Jesus says, “You’ll
see…”
Let’s
look a few verses later—Jesus has been arrested and taken away by the
Sanhedrin’s guards. Peter has followed at a distance, watching what is
happening to Jesus.
69Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant
girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of
Galilee
,” she
said.
70But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” he said.
71Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him
and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of
Nazareth
.”
72He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the
man!”
73After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter
and said, “Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.”
74Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to
them, “I don’t know the man!”
Immediately
a rooster crowed. 75Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.
(Matthew 26:69-75)
There
it is. Peter, the great Apostle Peter, denies Jesus—he shows himself a coward
in the face of persecution. The one who said, “Even if I have to die with you,
I will never disown you” proves to be wrong.
But
let me show you two glimpses of the grace of God in this passage—signs of
Jesus working his miraculous work of forgiveness so that he can make a broken
person whole.
1.
First, Jesus hinted that their failure would not be the end
of the story.
Back
in verse 32, Jesus said to them, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead
of you into
Galilee
.”
In
other words, “We will meet again—back at our old stomping grounds. Something
will happen then to make right the ugly events that will happen tonight.”
Their failure before the crucifixion
will be followed by their conversion after
the resurrection.
2.
Second, Peter is given the severe mercy of realizing his sin and feeling deep
remorse for it.
After
having denied Jesus three times, Peter hears the rooster crow. He realizes what
he has done in his fear. He has sinned—he has disowned Jesus! He has done the
very thing Jesus warned his disciples that they should never do! His response is
proper—he “wept bitterly,” which literally means, he “wept, crying out
in violent and uncontrolled despair.” He was crushed. He was in the deepest
depths of despair. He could do nothing but wail.
Have
you been there? Have you felt so utterly GONE in your sin that you wail in
uncontrolled despair? Maybe you have. Maybe you haven’t wept bitterly over
it—maybe the way you deal with it is live in constant denial. Or maybe the way you
deal with it is to just get more busy with the stuff of this world so that you
will have less time for the stuff of the transcendent world. But you feel in
your heart that you have denied Jesus so much in your life that there is no way
that you could ever be accepted by him. You believe that you have fallen away
too far, sinned too much, lived for yourself for too long. You figure that you
might as well keep it up—Jesus could never forgive one who so clearly has
denied Him for so long…
But
then you are still drawn to Him. You actually want to watch the movie, The
Passion of the Christ, and you wonder if that kind of love—the kind that
would voluntarily allow himself to be whipped to a bloody pulp and to die on a
cross—if that kind of love is
extended to you. “Could he have died
that death for someone like me? Could
he be extending his nail-scarred hand to me
in love?”
The
answer is yes.
Let
me assure you—the answer is YES!
If
you are Peter, crying out in despair for you know that you deserve nothing less
than the condemnation of Jesus for your constant denial of Him, then you
are on your way!
Jesus
says to you, “You’re going to have to go through this dark night of the
soul. You are going to have to own up to how low you have fallen. It’s
important. It’s cleansing. It’s called repentance.”
It’s
like when the Apostle Paul sent a scathing letter to one of the churches he
planted. It caused many in that church to be shaken to the point of realizing
how sinful they really were. It was not pretty. In fact it was very messy.
But
authentic Christianity is always messy.
When we are forced to deal with who we really
are, then we will be very shook up! (And we don’t like it! In fact I might be tempted to go find some other group of
people who are less likely to challenge me like this—be it my old safe
friendships or a church where I can be more anonymous.
Now
I am a pastor, and (honestly) it is uncomfortable for me
to help people deal with their sin...
In
fact, that is how Paul felt when he wrote that scathing letter to the Corinthians. We
have recorded another letter Paul wrote to them, it’s in our Bibles. And he
says to them these words:
“I
am no longer sorry that I sent that letter to you, though I was sorry for a
time, for I know that it was distressful to you for a while. Now I am glad I
sent it, not because it distressed you, but because that sorrow caused you to
have remorse and to repent. It was the kind of real sorrow God intends people to
have, so you were not harmed in any way by us. For God can use real sorrow in
our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek salvation. We will never regret
that kind of sorrow. But trivial sorrow without repentance is the kind that
results in death.” (2 Corinthians 7:8-10, my
translation)
After
Peter denied Jesus, he was experiencing real sorrow—Godly sorrow. His distress
was genuine, he felt it down to the bones. He wept bitterly. That
is where God can come in and heal. God can use real sorrow in our lives to help
us turn away from sin and seek his deliverance. Sorrow (real remorsefulness) is
the first step toward real repentance.
 Repentance
is just an older word for “turning it
around.” It is when we are so struck by our lives of sin that we purposely
admit it is sin and “turn it around.” We choose to change our way. We choose
to turn from sin and live for righteousness. We choose to live differently. The
old joke is, “How many psychologists does it take to change a patient?” The
answer—“One. But the patient must want
to change.” That may or may not be true, but theologically it is
absolutely true!
How many Saviors does it take to change Bob? One. But Bob must want to change.
I
cannot change myself—I am as powerless as those first disciples were. In my
own strength, I will fail every time. In my own resolve, when you-know-what hits
the fan, I will disown Jesus. But if I choose to repent of that, God’s power
is capable of flowing into my life. I may be weak, but in my weakness, God is
strong. Only in God’s ability (not my own) can I live a life more like God
intended for us to live.
As
people ask me about the Passion movie,
I can only say this: It was sobering. It
made me take sin much more seriously. I have been much too glib about my
personal sin in days past, and the movie made it very clear to me how ugly sin
really is. It was sobering. I cried
tears of remorse after that movie. I repented after that movie.
>>Dismiss
the children to Sunday Schools.
Now
that the kids are gone, I want you (and me!) to stop for a moment and listen to
our hearts. What is it that you are most ashamed of? Is it your greed? Your
sexuality? That abortion you had? That shady business deal? That lie that you
are so afraid of being revealed? The habits that you seem unable to break? The
life you know is dishonoring of Christ that nobody really knows about?
What
are you terrified of? Most of us are scared
to death that the “REAL ME” will be exposed.
Somebody
will catch on and realize what a fake I am.
I
am a pretender.
I
act like a man, but I am just a wimp.
I
act like I am the perfect little woman, but I am so scared most of the time.
I
act like I am a fully devoted Christian, but I don’t live up to my
expectations.
I
act like I have it all together, but I’m actually desperately trying to keep
it from flying apart.
I
live life faking it—and I’m scared to death that someone is going to call
me out.
Know
this: You can hide your secret life from people for only so long, but you know
that you cannot hide the real you from God, ever.
Take
a moment and feel the remorse—feel the distress.
I
don’t want to force it, if it’s not really there. If it’s not there, you
may be alright with God, or you might not be ready to really repent. Either one
of those is okay. This is meant to be honest, unforced, and unhyped. Real
repentance is honest feeling,
uncensored, unedited, meditative, and reflective. Real repentance is when we DO NOT fake it with God.
This
is time between you and God. So, we have places around the room for you to go
and be alone with Him. Candles and crosses are there. Kneeling pads are there.
Some Bible verses are on placards around the room to help you keep your focus.
This
is the time to feel the real sorrow, the godly
sorrow, the kind that leads to repentance.
But
know that this is not the end of the story. We will reconvene in a few minutes in our
own version of “
Galilee
”—Jesus says to us, “I will go ahead of you to
Galilee
.”
He is waiting there for us
to restore us with His forgiveness.
PRAYER
TIME---QUIET REFLECTION
Peter’s
story did not end with him weeping bitterly over his denial of Christ. He went
on to live up to his name as “The Rock.” And it was not because of anything
in him, but because of the work of Christ in him.
Jesus
had told them that after his death and resurrection, he would go ahead of them
into
Galilee
. Let’s fast-forward to that time
and place. We find the resurrected Jesus in a heart-to-heart conversation with
the Peter, the one who had denied him three times. Let’s listen in…
After
breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of
John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
“Then
feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.
Jesus
repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love
me?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
“Then
take care of my sheep,”
Jesus said.
Once
more he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love
me?”
Peter
was grieved that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you
know everything. You know I love you.”
Jesus
said, “Then feed my sheep.
(John
21:15-17)
Do
you see it?
Three times Peter denied
Jesus. So,
Three
times Jesus asks
Peter the same question: “Do you love me?”
Three
times, Peter
confesses, “You know I love you.”
And
three
times Jesus says, “Be a shepherd to my people.”
Through
his confession (that is, through his confirming his love for Jesus),
Peter is completely released from the guilt of his sin. For each denial of
Christ, there is an equal opportunity to confess his love for Christ.
Not
only that, he is called to a higher purpose—he is brought up into the purposes
of Jesus Christ.
Not
only does real sorrow lead to repentance, it leads to forgiveness. Not only does
it lead to forgiveness, it leads to divine purpose.
Our
lives that are broken are mended and made capable of serving the Master.
We
are brought up into a larger life than the one we have been scrambling to keep
together in our own strength. God calls us up into a higher call—to be a part
of his working in the world, of helping others find the reality of Jesus Christ.
This
is why we come together to praise him in worship. We are transformed from
deniers of Christ into confessors of Christ.
“For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
(Romans 10:9)
Saved
from what? Just from Hell at the end of our lives? Yes, that—but MUCH
MORE!
Saved
from a life characterized by our fears, our retaliations, our addictions, our
scrambling to deal with dangers.
Saved
from spiritual hunger; saved from the SHAME of our hidden selves.
Saved
from all that seeks to separate us from the love of God!
Saved
into something grand! Saved into a new life overflowing with the love of God!
Saved
to a life where no force—neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any
powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be
able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38)
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