Peter gave us an excellent example of how a disciple can still sin. This daily devotional looks at how it occurred and Jesus’ response.
Nuggets
- We don’t want to do as Peter did and distance ourselves from Jesus.
- Knowing Jesus should be our life goal.
- Jesus sees us when we sin and holds us accountable.
In the last Sunday Morning Bible Study devotion before we backtracked, we left Jesus as He was being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. We pick it up where Peter is fixing to betray Him.
Now, remember, Jesus told Peter he would betray Him three times before morning when they were talking after the Passover meal (Jn. 13: 38). What we are looking at now is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
Peter Distanced Himself from Jesus
“They seized him, led him away, and brought him into the high priest’s house. Meanwhile Peter was following at a distance. They lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, and Peter sat among them” (Lk. 22: 54-55 CSB)
We don’t want to do as Peter did and distance ourselves from Jesus.
I guess I have never really thought about what all it meant that Peter was following at a distance (Lk. 22: 54). I always figured that he was trying to not get arrested. Bottom line, I probably felt — as Braithwaite did — this was just a moment of cowardice.
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Mudge felt that it was more a decision of character. He felt Peter was “not giving the whole heart’s affection to Him.”
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I have to wrap my head around this. Yes, this is impulsive, wild-card Pete. We see Peter as a gruff, homely sort. To be a fisherman, he had to have some patience and determination.
Hitchcock thought we may not always be able to trust Peter’s judgment. He felt that was because Peter had such a big heart. The bottom line is he didn’t want to lose Jesus.
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But this is the guy that popped right up and said, “You are the Christ” (Mt. 16: 16). Peter not only was an apostle, but he also was in the inner circle.
I guess I have always wondered what happened between the Garden of Gethsemane and the courtyard. Peter wasn’t acting like an inner circle member.
Jesus told Peter point blank that he was going to deny Him. Even with his “wash all of me,” it didn’t help.
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What Peter was doing was distancing himself from Jesus. He may have thought he was keeping up with Him. He wasn’t.
Peter Denied Jesus
“When a servant saw him sitting in the light, and looked closely at him, she said, ‘This man was with him too.’ But he denied it: ‘Woman, I don’t know him.’ After a little while, someone else saw him and said, ‘You’re one of them too.’ ‘Man, I am not!’ Peter said. About an hour later, another kept insisting, ‘This man was certainly with him, since he’s also a Galilean.’ But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed” (Lk. 22: 56-60 CSB)
Knowing Jesus should be our life goal.
Here Pete was, saying he never knew Jesus. Not just once, but three times!
More than that, Peter just as vehemently denied that he knew Jesus as he did when he told Jesus he never would.
We do assume that Peter denied Jesus because he feared for his own safety. Hitchcock, though, felt that wouldn’t have been the case if he had acknowledged his attachment to Jesus.
That means there was no reason for Peter to deny Jesus.
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Braithwaite gave us four reasons why Peter could have denied Jesus. When Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him, he was so sure he wouldn’t do that. We can’t be confident in ourselves. We have to be confident in God.
Instead, Peter was blinded by the confidence. Gray contended that Peter was blindsided by the first of the accusations. But then, Peter was so certain of himself, that he didn’t expect the confrontations.
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That meant Peter wasn’t prepared for the confrontations. So, he fell to Satan’s trickery.
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Satan likes to trick us into denying Jesus. He will do anything to wreck our relationship with Him. We talked before about Jesus saying Satan was asking for the disciples.
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Denying Christ is a biggy. Mudge felt that we do because we either fear the consequences men will heap on us or love this world too much.
We let the opinions of others keep us from having a relationship with Jesus or destroying it once we make a profession of faith. We let our fears and insecurities damage it.
We have to make a decision about what we are going to do with Jesus. We can’t waffle. We can’t follow Him sporadically or half heartedly.
We have to be all in. We need to ask Him to be our Savior and Lord.
It is important that we realize we have to make the decision about trusting Jesus now. Putting it off won’t be good if it ends up that we don’t have that time.
Jesus Holds Us Accountable
“Then the Lord turned and looked at Peter. So Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly” (Lk. 22: 61-62 CSB)
Jesus sees us when we sin and holds us accountable.
We talk about Mom looks. Sometimes, moms discipline just by a look.
Jesus did the same thing to Peter. He looked at him (although the look isn’t described).
Peter showed us true repentance. He wept bitter tears.
We might say Peter was caught up in the horror of the situation. When he calmed down, he was disgusted with himself.
Braithwaite made a good point. This denial may have been sudden, but it was done soon. The incident took maybe two hours.
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It was a once-and-done. Peter never denied Jesus again.
This was all predicated on Peter’s genuine repentance. It had to be an ugly cry. It couldn’t be a light weep.
Carter was so right. He said, “The saddest part of our sin is, that we are so slow to confess it.”
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We want to bury our sin, not pull it out in the open. We definitely don’t want it to come under Jesus’ stare.
Ooo, baby. I have to process this. Carter wrote, “Now faith is not the belief of any particular dogma, nor is it the same as a spirit of assurance, neither is it any peculiar feeling appropriating some special promise; but it is the bent, the aim of the whole soul. It is the prevailing direction of all the powers of man toward God; it is the apprehension of the inner man embracing, grasping the invisible; living in things which are unseen and eternal, and raising him out of the sphere of sight which lives in things that are temporal. Faith may lay hold of one particular promise at one time, of another at another. And thus he had learnt to regard sin in the light of another world — sin abstractedly in itself, as a loss of spiritual life, as a thing abhorrent to God, as an utter contrariety to all that his soul was aspiring after.”
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- Faith isn’t about a specific creed.
- It isn’t based on our confidence in it.
- It isn’t about feelings at all.
- It is about Who our complete trust is in.
- It is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them.
Carter made another interesting observation. Maybe all of Peter’s actions — refusal to let Jesus wash his feet, cutting off the servant’s ear, denying Him — was more of a human, physical love.
It wasn’t yet love of the Suffering Savior.
Gray pointed out something that isn’t addressed in these verses. Once Peter got the ugly cry out, he sought out his fellow disciples.
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Peter may have felt unworthy to be called a disciple still, but he didn’t break his fellowship with his fellow believers. They probably encouraged him to take it all to God.
So, just think about how Peter felt when the women came back from the empty tomb and said, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee …” (Mk. 16: 7 ESV).
Think about, though, what Spurgeon said that the look looked like. He wrote, “When the Lord looked upon Peter, though He did refresh his memory, and make an appeal to his conscience, yet there was still more evidently a glorious manifestation of love.”
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Oh, I think so. Jesus knew Peter just needed a nudge into complete repentance. He gladly gave it — because He did love Peter and knew what Peter would become.
Making the Connections
We can learn a lot from Peter.
- We may have a rock-solid faith one day and sin big time the next.
- I want to say this right and am not sure I will. It really isn’t the sin that is the issue. We are going to sin because we are still in physical bodies. God will forgive all sins except the unpardonable sin, which I feel is unbelief. So, the sin isn’t the focus — it is the repentance.
- We have to weep bitter tears in repentance. We have to mean it and show we mean it by turning away from the sin.
It isn’t about us. It is about God’s grace.
We’ve already talked about how Jesus restored Peter.
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How Do We Apply This?
First, we have to choose to follow Jesus
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Then we really have to follow Him. Remember our mission statement.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Mission Statement
“… If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me”
(Mt. 16: 24 ESV).
To read a devotion in the What Does It Mean? series, click the appropriate button below.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
- We need to learn to meditate on the Person of Jesus.
- We need to learn to see our sins as God does.
- We need to be on our guard against Satan’s temptation.
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We will never be strong enough to resist Satan unless we are in Him.
Glossary
Foote make a good observation. Just as Jesus looked with pity on Peter, we too should long with pity on those who need our encouragement.
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No, we hope we don’t sin. We especially pray that we never deny Jesus.
When we sin, we need to ask for forgiveness. When we genuinely ask, God will always grant it.
Father God. Thank You that You included in Your Scriptures the occasion where Peter denied Jesus. It shows us that we can be forgiven — even after we commit terrible sins. We pray we keep Your laws and commandments but know we will continue to break them.
What do you think?
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