So, uh, Diane and I and our family would like to thank you as a congregation and as individuals for praying for our granddaughter. It's been eight months since she had those eight major surgeries in two weeks. And, uh, we haven't sent an update because there's not much to say. In fact, we were commenting today that if you were to put them with the two Walton children, who are very close in age, you wouldn't notice any difference, except for the tube in her nose. Two weeks ago, she had an assessment from an occupational therapist who said, I don't need to see her again. She is functioning perfectly normal. Uh, she's eating well. They've cut down her medications dramatically so that some of them have been taken away completely. Some of them have been greatly reduced. She only goes to see the liver transplant team once a month, and she also only goes to see the pediatrician once a month. From Grandpa's viewpoint, her lab work is absolutely beautiful. You can't distinguish it from a normal fourteen, fifteen-month-old baby. And so we, we thank God for his goodness to us. On, uh, Friday, we took her to the park, and, uh, first time she'd ever been on a slide. And, uh, so she went down and promptly tried to turn around and climb back up the stairs, or up the steep part of the slide, and for half an hour she kept mom and dad busy on that slide, and I'm thinking she's no different than any other child. And so we thank you for your prayers. Uh, that doesn't mean to say we quit here. We need to keep on praying. She's come a long way. There's a long way to go, and uh, but we thank you for your prayers and concern. It's, it's there's so much, so little to update these days because she's doing so well, and we thank you. So this morning, I want to talk about a friend of mine from Britain called Mike. Mike worked on the shop floor of a large steel, uh, gr- uh, plant, and he became a Christian, literally on the shop floor. His foreman was a Christian, and his lifestyle so impressed Mike that he asked him what the difference was between his life and the other foreman, and the foreman told him about Jesus Christ, and he became a Christian on the shop floor in a steel mill. Mike put us to shame. He memorized, we would memorize verses, he would memorize whole tracts of the Bible. We would learn one verse, he would learn one chapter. Here was a guy that was on fire. He witnessed to his workmates, he witnessed to his friends, he witnessed to his family. He was on fire for God. And then Mike did something what he called, he said, I did a very stupid thing. And as he talked to us about it, we said to him, you know, our God is a God who can and will forgive. And we pointed to the story that we're going to look at today, Peter's denial. I said, Peter was a guy who denied the p- that Jesus, that he even knew Jesus. And yet God was able to forgive him and use him in his service. A- and Mike, although he knew all scriptures, he knew what they said. He could not grasp what it meant. He could not grasp that if he came and asked for forgiveness, God would forgive him. Mike dropped from being a Christian. He dropped out completely, and it doesn't matter how much we tried to talk to him, he could never get his head around the fact that our God is willing to forgive. Now, I suspect he's not unusual in the Christian life. I- I suspect all of us have messed up. All of us have done something stupid in our lives. And we've looked and said, can God forgive us? Can God use us? After all, we've messed up really badly. Well, the message we get out of the passage this morning is God is able, willing to forgive, and God is willing to reuse us in his service. It doesn't matter when we s- mess up and mess up real bad, and we do things that are real stupid. Our God is a God who can turn us around. I- if we look at one perspective of Luke chapter twenty two, things can go no lower. They can go no deeper. The leader of this new movement, Jesus, is captured by his enemies. He's going to face certain execution, a- a- and so the leader is going to disappear. The person who follows him the closest, who's recognized as the leader among his followers, denies Denies him him 3 three times. times. One of his closest friends betrays him. His ten closest followers abandon him. Things could go no lower. It was like the movement got stopped before it even got started. But I want to go fifty three days beyond the events talked about in Luke twenty two. Here is this individual who denied Jesus three times, on the day of Pentecost, standing up and talking about Jesus. Here is the individual Peter, who when was taunted once around a fire, denied that he even know Jesus, when people taunt him again, replies boldly to them. There is a tremendous movement between the events of Luke two twenty two and of Acts two. and yet it's only fifty three days. And the story that comes across really powerfully is that when things appear to be at their lowest, and that God cannot act, God cannot move, it's come to an end, we need to remember that we have a powerful God. There is nothing our God can't do, and he can transform that group of ten miserable, running around, running away people into people who will stand behind people- Peter and say, we believe, we were there, we saw it. Today's story is a story full of deceit. It is a sordid story. It's full of denial. It's full of abandonment. It's full of betrayal. It's full of desertion. It is a sad, sad tale. And it's amazing to me that God can turn those sad events, and from them comes the powerful message that Jesus has died and risen again, and those people are transformed into agents of God. And so this morning, I don't know your individual status, but if you're down, if you're really wondering, can God use me? There are things that I've done in my life that I really have messed up on. Take hor- heart from the message of Peter. Here is a man who denied Jesus three times, with oaths and curses and swearing, And yet, fifty three days later, he's standing boldly in front of people, proclaiming God's word. God can forgive you, and God can use you in his service. The trouble is, we're very often like Mike. We don't believe it. We don't accept it. We know the text, if we confess our sins, he will forgive us our sins. It's one thing to know it up here, it's another thing to believe it here. So let's take a look at Luke twenty two. We're going to take a read of a couple of verses in Luke twenty two. The first passage is from, uh, verse, uh, Thirty nine. Luke twenty two. Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, pray that you will not fall into temptation. He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him, and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. Why are you sleeping? He asked. Get up and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation. Down into verse fifty four. Then seizing Jesus, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, this man was with them, with him, but he denied it. Woman, I don't know him, he said. A little while later, someone else saw him and said, you also are one of them. Man, I am not, Peter replied. About an hour later, another asserted, certainly this fellow was with them, for he is a Galilean. Peter replied, man, I don't know what you're talking about. Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him. Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly. A couple of comments one could make. First of all, the Bible shows people as they really are, warts and all. If you ever read biographies, they they tend to gloss over people's deficiencies. They tend to gloss over some of the tough points in their life. The Bible doesn't do that. The Bible shows the human beings as they really are, warts and all. He shows the followers of Jesus, the disciples, as they really were, warts and all. The Bible is amazingly descriptive of the faults of human beings. The second thing is that the Bible doesn't only cover it, but it also provides the response. It doesn't leave Peter outside the room weeping bitterly. It continues the saga down the road. It is not the end of, uh, despair and destruction and the loss of hope that the Bible leaves us. It is always a message of hope, of redemption, of forgiveness, of salvation. It doesn't leave us in the mud at the bottom of the pond. It always wants to bring us into the house and sit down and enjoy fellowship with God. So let's take a look at the two individuals. Judas, the one who betrayed him. Why? Let's take a look at the life of Judas. Judas was an influential member of the twelve. When he spoke, people listened. One time a lady anointed Jesus with ointment, and Judas said, what a waste of money. We could have taken this money and given it to the poor. They would have been blessed, not just Jesus. That argument went home to the disciples. After all, this was Judas speaking. And so, the next time a lady anoints the head of Jesus with ointment, you will notice all the disciples say, what a waste of money. We could have taken this money and used it for the poor. When Jesus- Judas spoke, people listened. He was influential. He was also a thief. In the three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you read very little about him. But when we come to John, John has a few pungent comments to make about Judas. It's like he's had time to think about what went on, and his comment about Judas was that he was a thief and that he kept part of the money that was given to Jesus for daily necessities. And if we hang on to that text a little bit. Ju- Jesus was coming to toward the end of his ministry, and the crowds no longer followed him like they did. He was no longer the popular individual he was three years earlier at the start of his ministry. Jesus had said many tough things that people found hard to understand. They couldn't grasp what Jesus was trying to say. And so the number of people listening to him had dropped off. A- and so maybe there was not the same revenue coming in as there were was. And Judas looked and said, you know, this gig is getting to an end. It's about time I cut my losses and get out of here. And the way I can get out of here is by earning some money by betraying Jesus. And so he sold him for thirty pieces of silver. In today's terms, that's six months work, A hundred and twenty days of work. The normal working day for individuals in Canada is two hundred and fifty two days in a year. So a hundred and twenty days salary is just under half a year. So Jesus was sold for just under half a year's wages. Did it last him very long? Judas was overcome with remorse, and he went out and hung himself. Why he did it? The only reason that I can come to is that he realized that the source of money was drying up, and he needed to cut his losses and get out. Now let's take a look at Peter. Peter is one of the twelve. the leader of the twelve. the man who Jesus said, you are Peter the rock, and upon this rock I'm gonna build my church. Here's the guy who is the leader of the disciples, the most prominent of the disciples, the disciple who could make the tren- tremendous confession, you are Christ, the Son of God. The disciple who could mess things up so badly you wondered whether he understood what was going on. Where did Peter fall down? What were the circumstances that led to Peter's denial? Because I think they bear for us a lesson. Because all of us face temptation. All of us face circumstances whereby whereby... we we can't compromise our Christian integrity. And we need to take lessons from Peter. Lesson number one... is if you are warned, take the warning seriously. If you are warned, take the warning seriously. Jesus spoke to Peter. He was well aware that Jesus had predicted that before the cock crew crowed, he would deny him three times. Now, I suspect a lot of us think we're invincible. A lot of us think we're immune to temptation. And so when people come across and say, be very careful, be cautious about doing that, about going there, about doing that, we really think we're invincible, that temptation doesn't hit us, that we're immune to temptation, we're immune to trouble. And we go right into it with our eyes open, and we mess up. And so caution number one is when people flash warnings, when they say such a place is dangerous, such a place is a place where maybe Christians shouldn't go because, you know, you're going to get tempted there, and, you know, you could run into trouble. We need to remember we're not immortal. We're not immune from temptation. Area number 2. The text that you were asked to learn for the week is pray that you enter not into temptation. Pray. So the second thing is prayer. Prayer that we enter not into temptation. In the Lord's Prayer, one of the three stanzas of, um, events related to us, the disciples are taught to pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation. And we need in our prayer life to pray that in the society in which we live, that we find ourselves guarded against temptation. Now, now does that mean that we switch off and drop out, and we live in a little holy huddle, and the only people we ever talk to are Christians. The only people we ever meet with are Christians, and we have this holy huddle because we don't want to go anywhere else. Well, for those of you who are at fifty five plus, you know what my example is. It's Lord, Scotchguard us. I love that example. Lord, Scotchguard us. Scotchguard is the stuff they put on carpets so that when, uh, juice hits it, sure it hits it, but it never pierces into the material. That's what God, we need to ask God. Lord, Scotchguard us. We don't need to switch off from the world around us and get into our holy huddle. What we need is that when temptation hits us, when troubles hit us, we are Scotch guarded by God so that they do not penetrate in and change us. A- and so this idea that Christians have that, that we, we can only mix with Christians, that we can only talk with Christians, because if we don't, we're going to run into problems. I, I think we go too far sometimes, and we need to say, Lord, lead us not into temptation, but Scotchgard us, so that when those challenges come, when those temptations come, that we are protected, that we are Scotch guarded against difficulty. The third caution that we need is that the buddy system that Peter and John had broke down. Peter and John were like two peas in a pod. They were buddies. When they ro- run to the tomb after the Jesus's resurrection, they ran together. Peter and John are very often linked together. And after the betrayal of Jesus, Peter and John follow Jesus from afar, and they end up at the high priest's house. Now John's family, obviously had political connections. They were politically influential. That's why their mom asks Jesus if John and his brother could sit on the right hand in the kingdom of heaven. She wanted them to get the political position that she thought their family should get here on earth. They were politically powerful. They were politically connected. And it says in John's gospel that John went to the high priest's house, and they let him in because they knew him. They knew John. And Peter's left outside. And you know, that buddy system broke down. John is on the inside. Peter is on the outside. Now, f- for John to deny that he knew Jesus would be stupid, because obviously the high priest would know he was in the garden with Jesus. He saw John there. It would be stupid for John to deny it. It would be impossible. So, so John's in a lot different predicament. But Peter? Peter has lost his buddy. Peter has lost his backup, his support, and he's vulnerable. And when those questions come, he doesn't have John nudging him at the side. Peter, you gotta answer yes to this one. Peter, you can't deny it. They know you. Accountability is something we don't very often use in evangelical Christian circles. Maybe we should. Maybe we should be accountable to others for our actions. Maybe we should get together and have a buddy and say, we're going to go together, and I'm going to keep your back. I'm going to support you. I'm going to be there for you. If Peter would have had a buddy, if Peter would have had someone there to support him, he may not have denied Jesus. A- and I wonder how many times you and I have been tested and tempted and fallen because we didn't have a buddy with us. We didn't have someone at our side who said, you know, we should get out of here. There's problems. There's challenges here. This is somewhere where we shouldn't be, and we should get out of here. It's just a thought. In evangelical circles, we are really reluctant to be reportable, accountable to anyone else. The end part of the story... Well, Peter was probably as low as you could go. He had denied Jesus those three times, denied that he even existed, denied that he even knew him, and yet fifty three days later, he's up in front of that crowd of three thousand who are making fun of him, and he stands forth boldly and says, this Jesus, who you crucified, God has raised from the dead. No ands, no ifs, no buts, it's plain. And the moral of the story is, the truth that comes across is that God is able to use all of us, no matter how deep we fall, no matter how far we fall. God is able to turn things around with us. The God we have is all powerful. He's almighty. There's nothing you can do, can't do. If we confess, he will forgive, he will use. Let's pray. Father, we come to you this morning, and... it- it's always tough talking about human failure. We- we really like to think of ourselves as immune, immortal, invulnerable to any temptation whatsoever. And when we look at our own lives, we realize how weak we are, how vulnerable we are to the temptations of pride, the temptations that creep within us. Lord, we thank you that you are still willing to forgive us, and you are still willing to use us human beings in your service. Lord, help us to realize what a powerful, transforming God you are. That you are a God who forgives and a God who wants to work with us and within us. And so this day we commit ourselves to us, to you. May we appreciate and understand your love for us. May not we be just readers of the word that know what it says, but may we be those who know it in our hearts, because we've experienced its reality. And so we commit ourselves to you this morning, and to your grace, and to your kindness. May you go with us this week. May you go before us to direct us. May you be behind us, above us, and beneath us, protecting us. May you be within us, filling our hearts with love and joy and peace. We commit ourselves to you. Amen.