He Went Out And Wept Bitterly

So this morning, we're going to be studying the betrayal of Peter, or his denials, where he says three times, I don't know Jesus. I don't know the man. And I want to give a bit of context from just a few weeks ago, because Peter's betrayals were something that Jesus had just told him he was going to do. And so in Luke 22, earlier in this same chapter, 31 through 34, Jesus says to Peter, he says, Now this interaction between Peter and Jesus has happened just a few short hours before Peter actually denies him. There's not a long expanse of time. Jesus tells him when they're in the upper room, this is what's going to happen. And Peter says, may it never be. I would never do that. And the sun hasn't even come up by the time that he does it. And so this morning we're going to be studying Peter's foolishness, his betrayal, his denial.

And as before we even read our text for this morning, I want to say to you what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10, 12. He says, Peter's temptation to believe he could withstand Satan's temptations led to his downfall. And I want us as we begin this morning to realize we're not as strong as we think we are. As we read through this and we see what Peter... does and why he does what he does and how he came to do what he did, we ought to see ourselves in it. We ought not to look and be like, man, that guy Peter, he just, I don't know what happened. We ought to look at it and go, yeah, I understand that. I get that. Lord, help me not to do that anymore. Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he may not fall. Peter couldn't have conceived just a few hours before he betrayed Jesus that he would ever do that. And yet he did.

Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke 22, verses 54 through 62. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, This man was with him too. But he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him. A little later, another saw him and said, You are one of them too. But Peter said, Man, I am not. After about an hour had passed, another man began to insist, saying, Certainly this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean too. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you are talking about. Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had told him, before a rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to start by asking, how did Peter...

betrayed Jesus. And the most outright answer, the simplest answer, and it is a true answer, is that he denied his association with Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. That's his failure. That's how he betrayed Jesus. When he was said to have been associated with Jesus, he lied. He lied. And he said, no, I'm not. It's like when Abraham was going into Egypt and his wife was beautiful. And he got together with Sarah and he says, They're going to kill me if they know that we're married because you're beautiful and they're going to want to take you as their own wife. So don't tell them that I'm your husband so they don't kill me. Tell them you're my sister. That's what they did. Just a lie. Just a flat-out, bold-faced lie. Here's the truth and here's what was said. That's not true. That's what it amounted to. This is Peter's betrayal. But there's more to Peter's betrayal than that.

While that's the apex, there is a crescendo building up to it. It didn't come out of nowhere. So what led up to Peter's betrayal? Well, we read in the beginning of our text that as they were leading Jesus away to the house of the high priest, Peter was following, but at a distance. Now, if I ask you, why was Peter following at a distance? Any one of us could answer, why did Peter follow at a distance? He's not going to get caught. It was this weird, I want to follow, but I don't want to follow closely enough that I'll be seen because I don't want them to do to me what they're going to do to Jesus. Just before this, when they come out to arrest Jesus, Peter takes his sword, cuts off the high priest's servant's ear. Jesus tells him to stop it. Put your sword away. Heals the man's ear and all the disciples take off. Now, Peter didn't go far.

It's very dark, dark like you don't have dark in the city, dark like you can't see 10 feet in front of you dark. And so they flee but not far. And so Peter's following in the darkness as this crowd goes with their torches toward the high priest's home. And he follows at a distance because he doesn't want to be caught. He doesn't want to be put to death. He doesn't want to be beaten or what have you. His goal was to keep himself out of danger. As we look at Peter following at a distance, what we see is the manifestation of fear. What does fear do? It keeps him at a distance. There's this conflict inside Peter where he didn't just go away and leave Jesus. He wanted to follow, but not in a way that would cost him anything. Fear often leads to self-preservation, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but when we act to preserve ourselves by denying our association to Jesus, we've made a grave error.

Peter's preferred his life and his freedom and his comforts. Perhaps we would add to that our reputation over and against our affiliation with Jesus. On Peter following at a distance, Matthew Henry says, he followed afar off that he might be out of danger. He thought to trim the matter, meaning to split the difference, to not abandon but to not be associated. He thought to trim the matter, to follow Christ, and so to satisfy his conscience. but to follow afar off, and so to save his reputation and to sleep in his whole skin. So Peter could see what was happening, not only with his eyes, but Jesus had foretold him what was going to happen. The Son of Man is going to be handed over. He's going to be mocked, he's going to be beaten, and he's going to be killed. Peter knew what was happening. And so Peter kept his distance because he was afraid. And when they reached the chief priest's house, Peter continued to maintain his distance. As they take Jesus in,

to try him, there's a fire built out in the courtyard outside. And who are the people who've built the fire? We can rightly assume they're the people who went out to arrest Jesus. They've come back, and now they're warming themselves in the middle of the night by a fire in the courtyard. And there's a servant girl out there. Where's Peter? He's sitting with Jesus' oppressors, those who came to arrest him. He's now drawn into them, trying to hide among them, trying not to be noticed, trying to see what's going on. but still keeping his distance and keeping himself safe. You might wonder, well, what's wrong with that? I mean, Peter's followed and he's there and he's nearby with Jesus. What's wrong? And I'd simply say to you as an example, if someone that you loved was sick and about to die, where would you be? Would you not be with them, by their side? We all know that that's where you belong.

And so Jesus has reached his hour of trial. Where should his disciples be? They should be right there with him. There's no other place they ought to be. They ought to be right alongside of him, at his right hand. And so we know where Peter should have been. And we also should acknowledge that we understand his temptation perfectly. That when something gets scary, the toughest of us think we're tough. Get your life threatened and watch what you do, and we'll see how tough you are. We'll see if you're not running and hiding. Would any one of us say, not me. I wouldn't do that. I'd say it sounds an awful lot like what Peter said a few hours ago. Fear leading to self-preservation is very, very strong and very active. We'll do a lot to keep out of harm's way. And so Peter's temptations are our temptations. Peter said, I'll follow you to prison and even to death. And I've said in that sermon, that was Peter's failure. He didn't count the cost of what

was coming. He didn't prepare for what was coming. He thought he could handle it. And now that it's come just a few hours later, he fails. He denies his Lord. He was unprepared when the difficulty came. And so this is a good encouragement to us to count the cost before the time comes. We ought to count the cost of our decisions. We ought to count the cost of our allegiance. It would be a failure for me to say to you, you all need to love Jesus and you need to follow him and it's going to be great and it's going to be wonderful and it's going to be easy. In one sense, all of those things are absolutely true. But that's not the cost of the matter. The cost of the matter is not the reward you receive. The cost is the suffering that you'll endure to receive them. And if I don't tell you about the costs, I've lied to you. I've misled you. Peter didn't count the cost.

He didn't consider his own weakness. He didn't consider the intensity of what might come. And because of that, he was unprepared. The one who said he was ready to die just a few hours before is now hiding with Jesus' oppressors, keeping his distance. And so now we come to Peter's actual denials. A servant girl, seeing him, sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, this man was with him too. But Peter denied it, saying, woman, I do not know him. A little while later, another man came. You're one of them too. But Peter said, man, I am not. And then an hour later, again, the same thing.

And if you were to read in the parallel text, it says that Peter denies with cursing that he knew Jesus. With vulgarity, with foul language, with trying to convince them he didn't know Jesus. He abandoned his Lord and his commitment to him. So you've got one woman and two men accusing Peter of following Jesus. And you've got him denying it to all of them with increasing intensity. Now there's a couple of things for us to learn from this. The first is... when we consider the question, why did Jesus deny Peter in the first place? Why did he flee? Why did he deny him? What was he trying to get? What was he seeking? Well, what he was seeking was safety. He was seeking to avoid being put to death, being beaten, being arrested. He was trying to avoid all that stuff. And so I want to ask you, did it work? I mean, you can say, well, yeah, he didn't get put to death and he didn't get arrested. And I go, well, okay, yeah.

But did his abandonment remove the danger? No, it didn't. They said, you're one of them. We know you. When it says, he's a Galilean, he's talking about his accent. Could you imagine if we had a southerner here from the deep south? And we said, other than Sarah. You don't have the accent, though. But you know what I'm talking about. They come and they say, you're from Mississippi. Listen to the way she talks. And they go. And she's, I don't know, I don't have a southern accent, so I'm not going to try to, you know, fake one. But she very clearly with her southern accent says, no, I'm not. It's just laughable. It's like you're just lying and everybody knows it. And so Peter's efforts to avoid his association with Jesus were in vain. It didn't work. This servant girl says, you're one of them. These two men who've most likely been out to arrest Jesus, you're one of them.

What do you think? I'm just thinking about this now. What do you think they would have done if he'd said, you're right, I am? Yeah, I mean, it's like they knew who he was. And here he is lying against the obvious truth. They knew he was with one of Jesus' disciples. What would they have done to him? I think they would have done the same thing they did, which was nothing. Put it this way. If they knew who Peter was, And it wasn't a sincere question. They were like, are you one of those guys with Jesus? That's not the tone of, that's not the implication of the way they speak to him. They're like, you're one of them. He's one of them. No, I'm not. Do you think they were convinced by him saying, no, I'm not? No. If you were one of these accusers, would you not be thinking, you've come all this way. Go be with him. Go stand with him.

There's no record of any of the other disciples having followed at a distance and warming themselves around this fire. Peter alone is said to have done this. Would you not have expected them to simply go and stand with his master instead of standing with his oppressors lying about who you are? What's this mean to us? A few things. One, Christians ought to stand out like Peter did. They knew who he was. And here's the crazy thing. People will expect Christians to act like they're Christians. They will expect you to act like you actually love Jesus. If you say you're a Christian, that comes with expectations. And when you don't act like you love Jesus, say you do but don't act like it, the whole world sits by and watches the hypocrisy. Now what I want to say to you about these accusations is that they were God's kindness to Peter. It was God's kindness to him that he was accused three times. To show to him and to us

the foolishness of thinking that you can deny your association with Jesus when you're scared and you'll get away with it. To be a Christian means to be a Christian all the time, no matter what comes. And that's the lesson that Peter's being taught right now. You don't get to be my disciple when I'm healing everybody and a stranger when they're killing me. And so there's a cost to following Jesus. There's a cost to loving him. And it's not like a coat that you can take on and take off. Peter ought to have stood by his Lord's side. He ought to have owned his association with Jesus and trusted that God would take care of him, whatever trials he might face. Don't you ever find in your own life that it's God's kindness to you that he doesn't let you get away with your junk? You try. You try and hide it. First you try not to do it, and then you fail. And then you try to hide it, and then you fail.

And then you try to make excuses about it, and you fail. And in the end of it, if you'll submit to the process all the way through and learn the lessons, isn't it God's kindness to you that he didn't let you off the hook? But he kept the tension on until you turned. That's what's going on with Peter. It's God's kindness to him. God doesn't allow Peter's denials nor ours to go off without acknowledging them, both in our hearts, and here's the hard part, and in public. Peter's failures were not hidden failures. They were public failures. And there wasn't one of them, but there were three of them. You ever wonder why there were three of them? Why did you deny the Lord three times? Why not just once? Other than to say, well, he got asked three times. You ever been asked the question and you lie the first time and somebody asks you again and you're like, well, I wasn't entirely honest with you the first time. Maybe you lie the second time and they say, no, really. We can tell by your accent. You got me. Peter's denials didn't deliver him from the pressure.

And the reason is because Satan's way is to exploit our weaknesses. If we start down a path of unfaithfulness, lying, we'll have plenty of opportunity to confirm our lies, for them to grow. Satan's like a shark, and there's blood in the water, and he can smell it, and he goes to it, and there's pressure. And that's what these second and third accusations are. You denied him once. Will you do it again right now? Again? And so when we give in to sin, when we go into it, even just a little bit, just dabble in it, it pulls us in. We think, well, stick my toe in, I'll pull it back out. No, you won't. Certainly not been my experience. And I venture to say, if you're honest, it's not your experience either. That when you decide, oh, I can't, I have to, you find out that you have to do something more very soon afterwards. And that is the nature of temptation. You sin, you fail in some way.

And does the temptation to do the same thing again not come right on the heels of it? You think, well, I'll do it, and then I'll stop, and I won't do it again. And it's a lie. Think of it this way. Here's an example. You've got a dating couple. They're being pure. Then they have a small failure. Does their temptation increase, stay the same, or decrease to do the same thing again? It increases. And then they think, well, I won't do that. No, no, we can't do that. I won't do it for a while. How soon are they falling into sin again? Stay the night at their house, first night. How soon will they be staying at the house again? Three months later? No, they'll be there the next night. This is the way that temptation works. This is the way that Satan works. This is the way he exploits our weakness. When we open the door to sin and when we give ourselves permission or give in to fear, he comes in and sets up shop.

and works to corrupt us further and quickly. Three times in the matter of an hour and a half, he said, I don't know Jesus. By the end of it, he's cursing it. Is it true that the third denial was worse than the first one? It was. It was because he had owned it three times and not just once. He had opportunity to turn, to say, no, I am one of his followers. Do with me what you will. But Satan makes Peter own his betrayal by making him repeat it. These sorts of temptations and sin always lead to further sins. And often, as I've said, right on the heels of the first temptation. Now our text ends with Peter going out and weeping bitterly. And we understand that this is a part of his turning that Jesus had foretold in the passage I read at the beginning. Just a few hours before this, he says, Satan's demanded permission to sift you. And I've prayed that your faith will not fail. So once you have turned,

Strengthen your brothers. And you see at the end of our passage, he went out and he wept bitterly. It's the beginning of Peter turning. But I want to ask you, how is it that Peter came to repent, came to turn from his sin? When you think of Peter denying Jesus, do you think of him doing it with an afflicted conscience? Do you think he had trouble saying, I don't know him? I don't think he had any trouble saying it. It would be easy to assume that he was conflicted. But I'm convinced he hadn't come under conviction. And the reason is because it says, immediately, while Peter was still speaking, these curses against his affiliation with Jesus, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed three times. Did that call him to repentance? Not by itself. Then you read the next line, and it's the most difficult part of the whole passage. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Peter was close enough.

to be seen by Jesus, which means he was close enough to see Jesus. They were nearby. And Jesus hears the rooster crow, and he turns and he looks at Peter and catches his eye. And in an instant, it says, then Peter remembered. He remembered what had been said to him, which tells us that he had forgotten previously. He wasn't tracking with what was going on. He thought he was just doing what he had to do to get by. But when Jesus looks at him, he remembered the word of the Lord, how he told him that before a rooster crowed three times, that he would deny him. It came over him as a wave. Can you imagine the weight that Peter would have felt in that instant? What it would have been like to be in his place, having put it together and closed the circle, realizing what you had just done, that you had just done the thing that Jesus had told you you would do, and you swore you would never do.

And here you are just a few hours after having done it. It would have been unbearable. Just unbearable. What Peter's going through is called contrition at this point. Contrition is not a word that we use very often in our everyday language. And so it may not be clear to you what contrition is. So I want to tell you. Contrition is the weight and the intense grief or remorse or sorrow. that you have over what you've done. That knot that you get in your stomach when you become convinced that you've done something wicked. That's something of what Peter's going through. That's contrition. It doesn't carry with it an excuse or a reason or a justification for your behavior. It is simply the sorrow or the grief of what you've done. Looking clearly in the face, without any veil, without any polish. I denied three times with curses that I knew him.

And he heard me say it. This remorse, this contrition is the reason that he went out of the courtyard and he wept bitterly. He couldn't believe what he has done. He was overcome with grief realizing how he betrayed Jesus. Now, I want you to consider how Jesus looked at Peter. What was in Jesus' face? What was he communicating to Peter when he looked at him? You see how Peter responds. After Jesus looks at him, it just breaks over him what he's done. What was in Jesus' eyes when he looked at him? What I want you to know about that look and that gaze was that it was a gospel look. And everything that the gospel contains, it was in that look. And what do I mean by that? Well, first, you can imagine that when Jesus looked over at him, having been drug away as a thief, to be killed as an innocent man, and having been abandoned by all of his disciples, that you remember he earnestly wanted to eat with.

He wanted to be with them at the Last Supper. He wanted to be strengthened by them. You can understand that in his gaze to Peter, there was certainly grief, a sense of abandonment. They've all deserted. The shepherd's been struck and the sheep are scattering. And the shepherd is grieved. His eyes ask Peter, you've denied me to my back. Will you deny me to my face? There's also displeasure. You can imagine that as Jesus looks at him, he doesn't have... Peter doesn't have Jesus' approval for his behavior. Peter's just sinned. And Jesus doesn't look on sinners and go, yep, I get it, that's all right, I understand. He's about to be put to death for these sins. And as the Son of God, he's rightly displeased with all of these sorts of failures. And it would have been in his eye to Peter. It would be as if his look said, consider how you've abandoned me in my hour of need, having added to my grief by your betrayal.

What else would be in his gaze? Discipline. You've been with me all this time. You've been my disciple. I've taken you in. I've cared for you. I've loved you. And this is what you've done? The sort of discipline that Jesus, when he spoke to Nicodemus, said, you being a teacher in Israel, you don't know these things? You of little faith, having seen all of this, you still not believe? That sort of discipline. It's a fairly awful look to this point. And you understand where Peter's grief comes from. And yet this isn't all that's in his look. There's also compassion in Jesus' look. While he looks on sinners and their sin with displeasure, he also looks on them with compassion and with mercy. Even as he's going to, in the moment, going to the cross to pay the penalty. You remember as Jesus was hung on the cross and was dying, what did he say? Of those who'd hung him, their father, forgive them for they know not what they do. There's mercy and there's compassion in Jesus to the very end.

And so there was a sense in which Jesus' gaze was a comfort to Peter. Can you imagine feeling this? Think for a moment. If you felt the sort of grief and the sort of contrition and pain that Peter would have felt as he's realizing what he's done, and you caught the eye of the one you'd sinned against, and they were willing to look in your eye. Eye contact's a big deal, you know. Some of you don't like eye contact. Some of you avoid eyes like the plague, and especially when you've sinned against somebody. You don't want to look in their eyes, and when someone's sinned against you, you often don't want to look in theirs in return. Look all over the place, but not in their eye. And when you're the one who's sinned, and you're the one who's failed, and the one that you've sinned against looks at you and looks into your eyes, and they don't have to say anything. The fact that they're willing to look you in the face tells you that they're merciful, that they have mercy, and that they have compassion.

And so there's compassion in Jesus' look. There's also a call to repentance in this look. There's an acknowledgment of what Peter's done. When I say it's a gospel look, there's the breaking and there's the healing in this look. And so there's grief and there's displeasure and there's discipline and there's compassion and there's a call to repentance. When Jesus was telling Peter that this was what was going to happen, he told him, I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And once you've turned, which was the seed that was meant to start growing at this point, once you've turned, strengthen your brothers. In this look, Jesus says to him, you've done what I told you you would do. Now turn. And in turning, be assured that your sins will be forgiven. Be assured of it. Be confident in it. Be comforted by it. Rest in it.

All of this is in Jesus' look to Peter. How much can be done in a look? How much damage? How much restoration? And so Peter leaves the courtyard and he goes out and he weeps bitterly. And we have to contrast, at this point, Peter's remorse with Judas' remorse. Both of them feeling some sort of remorse over their betrayals. Judas for money, Peter for his own skin. Judas doesn't repent. Peter does what... Jesus told him to do. He comes and he returns and he strengthens his brothers. He preaches at Pentecost. You remember the people who Peter's application in his sermon at Pentecost has always stood out to me as being significant. Because he's preaching right after this and all of these Jews are here and what does he say to them? You killed him. You killed him. Now that's the most difficult thing to say.

Because the potential for them to revolt and to take Peter out for assigning the guilt of Jesus' death to them is incredible. And he stands up and says, you killed him. And God in his mercy preserves Peter. Because it says then that those men were cut to the quick. And they cried out, brother, and what must we do to be saved? And so Peter does the work of strengthening his brothers. But he has to go through this valley. This difficult, dark time. And I want you to know that repentance will always have this sort of difficulty attendant. You have to know that. It's not an easy thing. Satan's will is that you would not repent, that you would not turn, that you would not be saved. And so when you see Peter going through this season of overwhelming grief, if you have a principle in you to avoid that sort of thing, you've sealed yourself off.

From the mercy of God. You've said, I can never have it. But what you've really said is, I don't really want it. And it's my prayer that that would not be what any of us would do. That we would not seal ourselves off from the mercy of God that's extended to Peter, even as he betrays Jesus. Because we don't want to go through the weeping, the grief. And so as we close, I want to say to you that I know that the grace and mercy that Jesus has given to Peter in this look, in this gaze. on the heels of his sin, is the same grace and mercy that's promised to all who believe, that's promised to you. You say, no, no, not for me. And I say, only if you refuse it. You say, but God only, you know, if God doesn't save me, then I can't do anything about it. And I say, what do you want? What do you want? Do you want to be saved? Do you want to be in heaven? Do you want to be freed from the bondage of your sin and the guilt of it? Do you want that or not? Then that mercy is available to you.

It was available to Peter in this case, and the same is available to you. This is precisely what Jesus was going to the cross to secure for all of his children. Each one of us has betrayed Jesus as Peter did. Let us also follow Peter in repentance and turning from it, not neglecting or forsaking the valley of shame, trusting that God will bring us through safely to the other side and that he'll look on us with mercy and with kindness. Let's pray. Father, how many of us don't want to repent? Having believed, our faith is weak. We fear the consequences of our actions. We fear the fallout. We also love our sin. Satan's a good tempter, Father. And we are weak. And so we ask that you be merciful to us. And that you would save us. That we would turn from our way. And that we would commit our lives to your Son. I pray, Father, that you would comfort us in this process.

as you bore with Peter, that you would not allow Satan to tempt us beyond what we're able to bear, even in our grief, in our contrition. I pray that it would be with hope. I pray, Father, that you would strengthen us by the power of your Holy Spirit. Help us to look to the cross of Jesus for our life. Help us not to be ashamed of him, but to love him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, so that you would receive the glory of our lives. and that we would be saved, and that we would dwell for all eternity in heaven with you, where the griefs that we bear in this life are done, and we're free and complete to worship you without any hindrance or any pain or any sin any longer. Father, save us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.