David: Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. My name is David Bowden, and I'm sharing with you our fourth and final installment of a short little series we've been doing, where I've gotten to share some of the sermons that I've preached at our local church on the Gospel of Mark.
We got great feedback last time we did this, so we wanted to share a few more. We started off by looking at some of the first sermons I preached on the Gospel of Mark in chapters one, and two, and three, and then five. But now I wanna jump to the end of that series, uh, where I got to preach on Jesus' trial, uh, with the high priest, and Peter's denial of Jesus three times before the rooster crows.
And I wanted to share this one because I felt like it captured the heart of Jesus so beautifully, that He knew that everyone would bear false testimony about Him. He knew that everyone would deny Him. He knew that Peter, one of His closest disciples, would betray Him and hand Him over and, and, and say he wanted nothing to do with Him.
And yet, even though He knew this, Jesus willfully, joyfully, lovingly went to trial on their behalf. He, He endured everything, even though He knew He would be betrayed. And that just spoke to my heart so deeply because Jesus is so willing to endure what He endures, even though He knows everything that I have done, am doing, and will do to betray Him.
And His mercy, and grace, and long-suffering just shine through in this passage. So I'm so excited to share with you this final sermon in this series for us on Jesus' trial and Peter's denial.
I am very glad to have a passage today that is not one of the most hotly debated passages in the Bible. [laughing] If you- [laughing] yeah!
Uh, however, I think this passage is, is almost heavier, but in, like, the best way possible. I have a very firm and, dare I say, zealous agenda [chuckles] for us today, and it is to rightly testify to our own souls, and to our congregation, and to the world around us, who is Jesus? Because I think that we bear false testimony of who He is to our own hearts, to one another, and to the world around us all the time.
And I don't mean that we deny that He is the Son of God or that He's the Messiah, like some theological claim. I think we deny His character. I think we deny how forgiving, and merciful, and long-suffering, and faithful He is, and I think our hearts do not believe how merciful Jesus is.
So my agenda today is to try to get us and myself to grapple with the unbelievable mercy that Jesus has for us. Does that sound like a good plan today? Yeah? Can we get on board with that?
Crowd: Amen.
David: All right, [chuckles] let's go. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we need your help.
We have weak, enabled, like, not like E-N, like un-abled souls, who just don't wanna believe that You are the God of love, that You are the God of mercy, that You love being steadfast, that You love forgiving, that You throw our sins away from us, that You forget our iniquities, that You forgive us a thousand times a day. Our souls don't wanna believe it. So God, we join the prayer of Paul in Ephesians, and we just say, "God, would you strengthen us, all of us, in our inner beings?
Would you enable our inner selves to believe, to know the heights, the depths, the lengths, the breadths of Your great love for us?" Do that work in us, Holy Spirit. We wanna know Your love today. Oh, do what- do it, do it, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Crowd: Amen!
David: Okay, so I'm gonna kinda overlap where Hayden left off last week, not 'cause he forgot anything, because there's continuous themes here that I just wanna make sure we pick up. So Jesus has been in Gethsemane, preparing to go to the cross. He's prayed to the Father, preparing Himself for this sacrifice of laying down His life, and now Judas has betrayed Him, pointing out the high priest's guards to Him and saying, "Here He is.
Take Him away." And we have this line that Jesus says that was just read for us. He says, "Have you come out against me as a robber with swords and clubs to catch- capture me? Day after day, I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me." So He's saying this, He's saying, "You're treating me like a robber, but all I've ever been is a rabbi." So He's presenting them two identities of who He is.
"You've treated me as a robber, but all I've ever been is a rabbi." This word robber, we have to understand, like, what a strange accusation that Jesus would claim, that they're treating Him like a thief. That's not what this word means. This is the word in Greek, not that you need to know it, but it's l?st?s.
But the, the reason it's important is because it's the same word that the Roman authorities used to talk about the people who were crucified next to Jesus. The same word that, that was used by the Roman authorities to talk about Barabbas, the man who was freed by the mob instead of Jesus, whenever they said, "Crucify him and free Barabbas." This word robber, l?st?s, is the word used by the Roman authorities to talk about Jewish zealots who would g- have, like, guerrilla warfare tactics on Roman troops as they would travel around the countryside, and they would spring upon these Roman legions, attack their troops, steal everything from them, not because they were thieves and greedy, but because they were trying to dismantle the Roman Empire. They were trying to fulfill the scriptures.
They were trying to be Israel. They were trying to take back the Promised Land for God, and they were doing it through violent means. So when we read robber here, we should think like violent insurrectionist.... and so that's what they are claiming Jesus is. He's this violent insurrectionist who's come to overthrow Rome, and that's why they've come against him with clubs, and bats, and whatever, because he's not a rabbi, he's a robber, right? He's not an instructor, he's an insurrectionist, and so they're gonna treat him that way.
Why? Well, because they, they're trying to kill Jesus, and Rome's not about to crucify a rabbi. But they will crucify an insurrectionist.
They do it all the time. They've gotten really, really good at it. In fact, that's what crosses were basically reserved for during this time, is crucifying people who opposed Rome.
And so the high priests and the religious elite are gonna try to position Jesus as someone he's not. Oh, he's not a teacher of the law, a rabbi come to fulfill the word of the Lord. He's an insurrectionist.
He's a violent overthrower. He's got his eyes set on conquering Caesar's throne. And so that is what they're trying to do, is paint Jesus as someone he's not.
So I just wanna, like, hold that in our heads as a key idea for us as we go through the rest of this passage, that we're gonna be grappling with the identity of Jesus, and throughout the whole passage, everyone is going to bear false witness about who Jesus is. Every single person is going to say that Jesus is someone he's not, except one person, and who is that? Jesus himself.
I heard it whispered. You can, you can talk in here, it's okay. Right, Jesus himself is the only one who bears true witness about who he is.
Everyone else lies about him, even as his closest followers. And so Jesus is the only one who bears true witness, a- and he, a- and he- so they come against him as, as, um, as an insurrectionist to arrest him, to take him to trial, and to ultimately crucify him, and Jesus says, "Hey, you shouldn't be doing this. Like, I've been just a rabbi teaching about how I fulfill all scriptures.
But okay, let's go ahead and go al- along with this," and he says this is the reason: "Let the scriptures be fulfilled." Pause there real quick. "Let the scriptures be fulfilled." When we hear this, I think a lot of times we think about letting the scriptures be fulfilled in one way, and I'm not saying this is a wrong way to think about scriptures being fulfilled, it's just not the only way. But we think God promised, or prophesied, or predicted something, and then Jesus is the one who fulfills it.
He does what the prophecy said. And we've just seen one, like, he said, "Oh, the, the scriptures say the sheep are gonna be scattered." Well, that's gonna happen. The, the sheep, Jesus's followers, are scattered whenever the shepherd is arrested.
Okay, that's a, a type of fulfillment. But this word, "fulfillment," doesn't mean just do what the prophecy said would happen. [chuckles] This word means complete, to bring to fulfillment, to finish. And so w- what Jesus is saying here, is he's saying, the scriptures, this whole book, i- is, is telling a story, and that story i- is asking the question, is, is revealing the truth: Who is God?
What's God like? What, what's, what's his emotion- what are his emotions like? How does he treat our sin?
What does he value? This whole book is telling us what our relationship to God is like, but up until Jesus, the story isn't finished yet. Right, just like in, like, Lord of the Rings, the, the story isn't fulfilled until Frodo casts the ring into Mount Doom, like, it's not over yet.
I- it's like at a basketball game, the story, the saga of quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four isn't over until the buzzer sounds and there's a winner. Like, there, there's a fulfillment, a completion, an end to the story, and then the whole thing makes sense. Now, you have resolution.
Well, the whole Bible has been telling a story about who God is and how he's gonna treat our sin, and it's not completed yet. And so Jesus is saying, "Go ahead, arrest me, crucify me, so that I can tell you the rest of the story. So that I can tell you what God's really like." Because the story began...
Jim said, "Are we gonna go to the garden today?" Yeah, real quick [chuckles], but, like, the story began when we were with God in a garden, dwelling with him. This was, like, our ideal state, how we're supposed to be in community with the God who loves us, flourishing and bringing his life to the world. But we bore false witness about God.
We didn't trust who God is. God said, "I'm a great provider. Eat any fruit that you want.
It's a paradise!" And we're like, "I'm gonna take this one fruit, 'cause I feel like you're holding out on me. I think God's stingy." And we bore false witness about God, and so we were exiled from his presence, and then the rest of this book, the rest of this story, the scriptures have been telling us how God has been pursuing a betraying, denying, hateful, undeserving people. And again, and again...
I mean, did you guys hear the call to worship that Tyler read today for us? Like, [chuckles] He just loves steadfast as he casts our sins into the sea. Like, this is not the New Testament God, if th- like, there's not a dichotomy here.
This is the, the one true God that we've been reading about from the beginning, loves to pursue deniers, and betrayers, and forgive them. And Jesus is saying, "Arrest me, take me to the cross, so I can show you the end of the story." And spoiler alert, like, the end of the story is that God will die for those who betray him. That is how he wants the story to end.
And so Jesus is arrested, and almost as if we get, like, a picture of how Jesus is fulfilling the story, I think Hayden pointed this out last week, we get this strange little mention of a man running away naked, and a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body, and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. So again, this is a, a, another time we're in a garden, you've got a man with just one piece of clothing, [chuckles]-... He, he's, he's kind of following along, and they try to grab him.
They take the cloth away, and he runs away naked. The last time we had a naked man running away from God in a garden was Adam and Eve. And it's this idea that when we deny God, we are exposed, and we bear our shame publicly.
When we deny God, we are exposed, naked, and we bear our shame publicly. Uh, there's no goodness for those who deny God. Like, we're exposed as completely in need, completely ashamed, and we need someone to come and cover us.
And so they take Jesus away to the council of the high priest. The first, like, ten times I read this, I just read right over that, and then I, I was like, "Wait, who are the characters here? Who are the people that Jesus is around?" And I want you to picture this.
He, he's had run-ins with, with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes, but now he's with the high priest. This is a singular figure. There's only one high priest at a time in Israel, and this high priest, um, is very significant.
He's the one who brings Israel before the Lord in the temple. He's the one who, once a year, can go into the Holy of Holies and represent all of Israel to God. And whenever he does this, he wears these holy vestments, these, these holy clothes, garments.
Uh, they're, they're things that we're told in Exodus twenty-eight. They're things like he's got a breast piece and an ephod and a robe, um, and he's got a turban and a sash and all of these things. We can't go into all of them, but all of them are telling a story.
They're, they're all symbolically representing some truth that God is trying to communicate about how he wants to commune with his people. So, for instance, the ephod, which is like an... Like, if you could picture, like, a very intricate apron that the, the priest would wear over himself.
It was made up of gold and blue and purple and scarlet yarn, and on the shoulders of the ephod were these fine gems wrapped in gold that had the names of Israel's tribes written on them. And so symbolically then, whenever the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, he was literally carrying all of Israel on his shoulders, and he was bringing them into the presence of God. And whenever he would make atonement for their sins, he would be, he would be atoning for all of them 'cause he was bearing them on his shoulders.
So all of these holy vestments and garments that the high priest would wear were extremely symbolic of representing all Israel. They were these very, very holy things. A- and we know from ancient sources that most likely, whenever the Sanhedrin, which was this council of, like, the most religious, or, sorry, most, um, influential religious figures in Jerusalem, whenever the Sanhedrin would gather to rule on something, well, Herod, the Roman governor, wanted to keep them under his thumb.
And so in order to do that, he didn't want the Sanhedrin meeting without him giving them the go-ahead. And so what he would do is he said, "Okay, high priest, before you convene the Sanhedrin, you need to come check out your holy garments from me. And at every meeting of the Sanhedrin, you need to wear these holy garments." So that way, the Sanhedrin couldn't gather unless Herod said it was okay.
And so most likely, the high priest is wearing these holy garments to the meeting of the Sanhedrin, which I just think is absolutely incredible for a couple reasons we're gonna see. But first off is the, the only time he's really supposed to wear these is when he's going into the temple to meet with God, and now he's wearing these holy garments, ready to meet God, and God walks into his chambers in the person of Jesus, and he doesn't recognize him. Like, he's the one person who should recognize the presence of God, and he's dressed for an encounter with God, and God himself in the flesh, in Jesus, walks up to him.
And instead of falling on his knees and saying, "Forgive us, O Lord," and representing the people of Israel in repentance, instead, he tries to find him guilty. It's this twisted, ugly reversal of the role of the high priest. Now, ironically, [chuckles] the high priest will make a sacrifice that will atone for the sins of all whenever he sends Jesus to the cross.
Amen! But instead, he recognizes Jesus not as the Son of God, not as the Messiah, but as an insurrectionist, as a, as a violent overthrower of everything he and Rome are trying to build. And so he begins a mock trial.
They put Jesus on trial, and it, it's important to look at the details here because everything he and the other members of the Sanhedrin do breaks the very laws that they're claiming to uphold. So we're gonna... I'm gonna show you a few ways that the, that the Sanhedrin and the high priest break explicitly, Mark is showing us how they explicitly break God's law.
And the irony here is Jesus is saying, "I'm gonna show you how I'm going to fulfill and perfectly keep the Scriptures." All the while, the high priest, those who should be doing it perfectly, they are going to break the Scriptures. And so you have these two polar opposites of leaders, Jesus perfectly fulfilling Scriptures and the high priest basically perfectly breaking all of the Scriptures. And so let's look at these here.
So, um, they, they, they gather Jesus together, and first we're told that the whole council gathers together, and they're seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they find none.... Now, I'm not a legal expert. Maybe we got a lawyer in the group here, but I'm not a legal expert, but normally, I'm pretty sure trials are convened to prove a charge that already exists.
Trials happen after a crime is committed, and then only after the charge has been proven is the sentence determined. But here, bef- the, but, the, the, the sentence has already been determined, death, they wanna put him to death, but the crime has not yet been identified. So the trial is there just to put Jesus to death, and they're trying to drum up testimony that gets them to the sentence that they want.
Now, that's not a legal proceeding, right? That's called murder. That's when you're trying to put someone to death, and you have no right to, that's called murder, and I'm pretty sure, "Thou shalt not murder," is one of the Ten Commandments.
But that's not the only Ten Commandments that they break. They also start bearing false witness about him, which is another one of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." Verses fifty-six to fifty-nine: "For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, 'We heard him say, "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands."'" Yet even this, in, about this, their testimony did not agree.
So they're all bearing false witness. They're, they're lying about who Jesus is, what he's done, and what he's said, and this, again, breaks the Ten Commandments. Uh, again, Mark is just showing us how Jesus is going to perfectly keep Scriptures and reveal its conclusion, while all at the same time, those who were supposed to fulfill Scriptures break it to smithereens.
So then we get this accusation here about the temple. This is the one place I feel like the accusers of Jesus actually had an advantage because these are things Jesus actually did say. Jesus just finished talking extensively, and if you've been here during our series, you know, extensively about destroying the temple.
He hasn't been trying to hide this fact. He went in and prophetically showed whenever he turned over the tables and drove out the money changers, that he was going to destroy the temple. He cursed a fig tree and said, "That's the temple." He talked all about the Son of Man riding in a cloud, coming against the temple.
He's not trying to hide the fact that he's going to destroy the temple. So it's like, it seems like they've got him on this one, but Mark says that, "Even about this, their testimonies can't agree." It's 'cause they might have heard whisperings about what he's said, but none of it lines up. And so the, the, the, the Scriptures say in Deuteronomy that if you wanna press charges, especially in a capital offense against somebody, you have to have the witness of two or three that agree, so that you don't just have one person on a vendetta saying, "Oh, yeah, he's totally guilty.
Kill him." Like, the law's upholding justice, but they can't get two or three people to agree. So again, they're breaking the law. Amen!
But it is interesting here that even if they could prove that Jesus did say that he was gonna tear down the temple in three days and then build it up again, like, no one would believe that. [chuckles] What a ridiculous thing to say of an individual human, like, that he could just go and s- I don't know, claw at stones and dismantle the Devon Tower in one day. Like, it's not gonna happen, and then, oh, and then I'll build it again. So I don't think they could f- find him even on that charge, guilty of death.
Maybe guilty of being a madman- Amen ... but definitely not guilty of death. So this is just a sham trial. They're trying to murder Jesus, and they're breaking the law all the while.
So finally, they can't get anything to stick, and so the high priest comes up to Jesus in verse sixty and says this: "Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?" But he remained silent and had no answer. Why does Jesus stay silent here?
Well, I think first, to fulfill the Scriptures, as he said, to show that he is the Messiah that's been prophesied because it, the, the, the Scriptures say that, um, "As a sheep before his shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." He's showing that he is this faithful, suffering servant from Isaiah. But also, the reason he does it is purely pragmatic and truthful because the... He's saying, "Do you have no answer to make?
What do you say about these things that these men have testified against you?" And Jesus doesn't have to say anything. No one has been able to bring together a cogent argument against him. There's nothing to defend.
Jesus can just stay silent because all the arguments that they've had are self-defeating. So he can just be quiet 'cause nothing's sticking. So instead, Jesus waits to answer until he's asked a different question, one that does necessitate or at least need, or he chooses to give a response to.
In verse sixty-one: Again, the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ," the Greek word for Messiah, "the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven." So here we have the question that Mark has been leading to th- throughout his entire gospel. It's actually how he starts his gospel, these two titles of Jesus, uh, Christ and Son of God. Mark one, one, it says, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." So you see, we have the, the biggest Markan sandwich, if you remember us talking about this, that we've ever tried to take a bite out of, it's this one, and it's the very beginning of Mark's gospel to this moment.
Is Jesus the Messiah, the promised King who will restore the rule of God on Earth? And is he the Son of God? Is he actually God himself in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity?
Is this who Jesus is? And he's asked straight up by the one person who's meant to represent God to the people, the one person who should know the answer to this question.... and Jesus says, "I am." And then he says, "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power, coming with the clouds of heaven." We actually just unpacked this reference in a, a few sermons ago in the Olivet Discourse, when we talked about the destruction of the temple. Um, so I won't go fully into it, but just to remind us here, Jesus is again evoking the language of Daniel 7, and Daniel's having this vision where he sees all the nations of the earth, these beastly empires that are just oppressing people with violence and evil, and Jesus, the Son of Man, comes down from the clouds of heaven, comes among the empires of the earth, and rules over them, and creates an eternal kingdom that none of them can ever overthrow.
So that's what Jesus is saying that He's come to do. He's like, "Yes, I am the Messiah," but they had their own categories of what that would look like. "Yes, I am the Son of God, the Son of the Blessed, and I'm also...
Let me just show you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ride against all evil empires and bring an eternal kingdom to earth." At this, the high priest does something unthinkable. Verse 63: "And the high priest tore his garments and said, 'What further witness do we need?
You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?' And they all condemned him as deserving of death." So the high priest tears his garments. I- i- in this culture, tearing one's garments was a sign of deep mourning or repentance, and the high priest was reacting in this way to what he saw as blasphemy and law-breaking.
He saw a human claiming to be God, and so he rips his clothes to mourn and to, to try to separate himself from such unholy talk. But ironically, Jesus didn't break the law in His claim that He was the Son of God, that a human could be God, that He was the Messiah. Jesus isn't breaking the law.
Climactically, the high priest explicitly and clearly breaks the law in his reaction, because the law explicitly forbids the high priest from tearing his garments. In Leviticus 21:10, "The priest who is chief," uh, which is another way to say high priest, "among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured," that's something that happens only to the high priest, "and who has been consecrated to wear the garments," the garments we just talked about, that the high priest was wearing at the gathering of the Sanhedrin, "shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes." In falsely accusing Jesus of law-breaking, the high priest actually breaks the law. Again, we're just seeing...
Mark is trying to show us the difference of who is falsely and rightly telling us who Jesus is, who is correctly showing us how the scriptures are being fulfilled, what the end of the story will look like, and who is telling us the wrong end of the story. And here we get the biggest picture of it, when the high priest actually tears his clothes, 'cause not only is he breaking the law very explicitly, he is ripping and tearing holy garments that were meant to represent all of Israel to God. So whenever he tears his, his ceremonial robes before God in denial of Jesus as King, all of Israel is symbolically doing that with him.
He's bearing their names on his shoulders as he denies Christ and rips his clothes asunder, and in so doing, he actually repeats what exactly just happened when the naked man ran away from Jesus in the garden. This h- this high priest is also exposing his nakedness in his denial of Jesus to show that he is bearing the same shame as everybody else who's run away from Jesus. So like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, everyone, from Jesus's disciples all the way up to the high priests, have exposed their shame and have been cut off from His presence.
Now, all of this is happening inside the high priest's courtyard, court, house. Let's zoom out and see what's happening right outside, because all of His disciples have abandoned Him, except one. Peter has stayed hot on Jesus's heels, and he's been following as close as he could get, so much so that he goes up to the fire where the guards are waiting outside the courtyard, the very guards who just arrested Jesus, just saw him with Him, and, and he goes up to the fire to warm himself.
What's interesting there, the, the word that's used here d- does- isn't fire, it's actually just light, and so he's coming into the light. And the idea here is Peter's about to be exposed, and Peter's almost willfully going to expose himself. Like, we're, we're seeing some faithfulness of Peter, 'cause he's just said, "Jesus, no matter what, I will not betray you.
I will not deny you." And Jesus says, "Man, before the rooster crows, crows twice tonight, you're gonna deny me three times." And Peter's like, "No, I'm not." So he's like, he's almost trying to will himself into showing that he's not gonna be a coward and a betrayer, and he even says in, uh, 14:31, which we didn't read today, but it was right before our passage, Peter says so boldly, "If I must die with you, I will not deny you. I don't care if I have to die, Jesus, I'm not gonna deny you." And yet, we read the passage, we know what happens here [chuckles]. "As Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, 'You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.' But he denied it, saying, 'I neither know nor understand what you mean.' "... and he tried to get away from the light, and he went out into the gateway, and the rooster crowed.
And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, "This man is one of them!" But he denied it again.
Crowd: Amen.
David: And after a little while, the bystanders said to Peter, "Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean." But he again began to evoke a curse on himself and to swear, "I do not know the man of whom you speak." And immediately, the rooster crowed a second time, and Peter remembered how Jesus said to him, "Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times." And he broke down and, and wept.
Crowd: Amen!
David: So just like the high priest and the Sanhedrin, Peter also, the one who swore he wouldn't, bears false witness about Jesus. He denies him, he betrays him, and he says, "I, I haven't- I don't even know who this man is." Like, this is the same Peter... And he s- and just so we note, like, this is so much more offensive than what the religious leaders are doing to him in- inside the house.
Like, the religious leaders don't believe he's the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. The b- the, the, they haven't, like, borne witness to Jesus' miracles, and, and, and, um, exorcisms, and teachings in the same way the disciples have. Peter was a follower of Jesus.
Like, if the word existed before, he was a Christian. Like, he was a follower of Jesus, a disciple. He believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.
He saw him do miracles, cast out demons, and teach with wisdom that no one could match, and yet he still denied him. Peter was one of Jesus' closest disciples. If there was such a thing as an inner circle, man, Peter was in it.
Jesus shared so much with him, and yet Peter still denied him. Peter was a sort of representative of all the disciples for us as readers of the New Testament. He's the one who kinda speaks for all of them.
He has this special position, it seems, among the disciples, and yet Peter still denied him. The offense of this is so great, that a follower of Jesus flat out denies him three times. No one in the whole story, except Jesus, is innocent in their witness about him.
His foes and his followers all deny him, and both of them also take the full blame for their denial. They don't try to pass it off. The high priest rips his garments and exposes his shame, and Peter invokes a curse on himself, saying, like, "Man, if I'm lying about this, let me be put to death." Everyone knows the weight, the gravity of what they're doing, and they all bear the curse of shame and guilt because of it.
And this is really what we've all done. This is what we've all done in our, in our actions. Maybe we, we've actually denied Jesus, and we've actually said to somebody, "Hey, so, like, what, what are you doing on Sunday?" "Oh, going golfing." So when you're actually going to church or, like [chuckles] you know.
Like, uh, "Hey, what are you doing Friday night?" "Oh, hanging out with some friends." "Oh, you mean your community group at church?" [chuckles] And you, like, kinda obfuscate the question to try to get away from the fact that you're a Christian in public. Or maybe you've done something way more intense, where you've actually just been with people, and you've been like, "Yeah, I just don't know about this whole Bible thing," or, "I don't know if I believe this," or, "I don't know if I believe that," and you've actually denied Jesus with your lips. Or maybe you deny him with your life, like the actions that you take.
We say we follow this crucified Savior who lays down his life for others, but we constantly put ourselves first. We, we, we say with our lips that, that we, we, we worship a God who is generous, and yet we're stingy and greedy. Like, we worship a God who's forgiving, but we hold grudges.
Like, how often do we deny Jesus and betray him with our lips, with our actions, with our lives? It's what every single human being has done since the Garden of Eden. That's what we've all done.
We've all repeated the story. God is saying, like, "I'm so plenteous, and generous, and merciful. Here, let me provide for you." And we say, "No, I don't want that.
I don't trust you. I don't believe you. You must be some impetuous, angry, stingy, holding-back God.
I don't want anything to do with you." And sometimes we do it with the Bible itself. Like, "Yeah, I don't know why God would do that in His Word," or, "I don't know why God gets kind of this temperament in His Word." And we start to judge Him and say, "You must be like the violent insurrectionists. You must be like something else in the world other than who y- you are revealing yourself to be in Jesus." And so what, what I'd like for us to do is something kind of unique this morning, but I'd like us each to silently, in our own chair, pray.
I'm gonna lead us in a little reflection on the ways we've denied Jesus, and, and I promise you this won't be a guilt trip. I promise you, on the other side is something I think God wants to do for all of us. But in order for us to get there, we kinda need to get where Peter got [chuckles] and weep bitterly over the actual ways we've betrayed Jesus.
So would you, would you do me a favor if you're comfortable? Bow your heads, close your eyes, and if you want, open your hands to Jesus as if receiving what He has for you. You can lay them right on your lap, but just open your hands.
I'm gonna ask you to pray these prayers. Ask the Holy Spirit these questions: God, when have my words, actions, or lifestyle given false testimony to you? Will you reveal times in my life as a Christian that I've denied you?
Take time and pray that now. God, Peter said he'd never deny you, yet he did. What promises have I made to you and to myself that I've broken?
Reveal promises that I have broken to you now.... Jesus, you've called me to follow you. Show me ways that I've failed to follow you and have lived counter to you instead.
Okay, we can come out of that moment, but holding on to who [scoffs] the enemy wants to say that you are in that, who your own ideas about who God is wants to say about that, that He's mad at you, that He's holding that against you the way you hold it against yourself, that the only way for you to possibly escape this would be to weep so bitterly and to tear your garments and evoke curses on yourselves so that God might finally forgive you. But what I find so beautiful about this passage is Jesus talked to Peter beforehand, [scoffs] and He said, "You're going to deny me three times, but I'm gonna go die for you anyway, knowing that that's gonna happen. You're going to betray me, but I will never betray you."
Crowd: Amen!
David: "I'm gonna go fulfill the scriptures to show you what this whole book has been about." Because ever since the Garden of Eden, humanity has been be- betraying and denying the God who has been pursuing and loving them. Every single part of this book is showing us a God who is infinitely merciful, who forgives your sins, who pursues you no matter how much you run away from Him. And Jesus came to say, "I'm gonna show you how I complete that story.
I'm gonna gather a group of people who are going to deny me and run away from me. I'm gonna do it inside a religious system of people who are going to s- who are supposed to represent me, are going to resent me, and are going to say that I'm not who I am. I'm gonna gather everyone who I can around me, who's gonna betray me and do everything wrong and bear false witness about me, so that I can bear true witness about myself, that I am a God of loving kindness and steadfast mercy and endless faithfulness, who forgives iniquity to a thousand generations.
So I know you'll betray me. I knew before you did! I knew before I saved you and chose you and set my love and affection on you.
I knew you would run away from me. I knew you would commit that heinous sin. I knew you would deny me.
I knew you would commit that horrible atrocity that you carry with you, but guess what? I don't g- hold it over you anymore. Like, I forgive you.
I died for you knowing you would do those things. I love you even though you deny me." Like, there is a mercy of God that He wants to just feed our hearts with this morning, and I hope and pray that we can feel that for ourselves. So I think in closing, I'd just like to say, everyone bears false witness about Jesus in this story, except Jesus Himself.
And I think our minds are full of false witnesses about God. [scoffs] We think He's an impatient father, that He's slow to forgiveness. We think that He's angry and impetuous. We think that He holds grudges.
We think that He never forgets, when Scripture tells us again and again and again and again, even Tyler read it over us this morning, that He forgets your sins. He pardons your iniquities. He enjoys and relishes in being steadfastly faithful to you.
And Jesus came to show us that truth, to bear tr- true witness about Himself to our minds and hearts of false witnesses, that He says, "Look, even though you betray me, I will never betray you." Peter said, "Even if I have to die for you, I won't betray you," but those words are really only true of Jesus. He said, "I will die for you, and yet I will never betray you." [upbeat music]
Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [upbeat music]
