This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Day 5, our last day of looking through Matthew chapter 26. We're
going to look at one of the most familiar stories from the night before Jesus
died. Most everybody knows that Peter, the leader of the disciples, denied Jesus
on this night.

This story really begins, we held in reserve beginning back in verse 31 to 35.
It begins back in the upper room when Jesus tells them that some are going to
deny him. Listen to what happens in verse 31.

Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for
it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be
scattered, but after I have risen I will go ahead of you into Galilee. ' Peter
replied, 'Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. ' 'I tell you
the truth,' Jesus answered.

'This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times. '
But Peter declared, 'Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you. '
And all the other disciples said the same.

'Never,' Jesus says. " Peter's faith had been growing and growing and growing.
It had begun to take on these titanic proportions, unsinkable, unshakable.

But the titanic here hits an iceberg. And real genuine faith faces the truth
about icebergs. There's going to be some things that happen in your life and my
life that shake our faith to the core, that like Peter, make us want to deny the
very one who saved you.

'I would never do that,' we say to ourselves. 'I would never commit that sin. I
would never think that way.

I would never get involved in that. I would never say that, or I would never
have to face that. God would never ask me to face that.

' What do you do when never becomes a part of your life? Where do you turn?
Well, look what happened with Peter down in verse 69, the last verses of this
chapter.

"Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard and a servant girl came to him. 'You
also were with Jesus of Galilee,' she said, but he denied it before them all. 'I
don't know what you're talking about,' he said.

Then he went out to the gateway where another girl saw him and said to the
people there, 'This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth. He denied it again with
an oath. I don't know the man.

' After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, 'Surely
you are one of them, for your accent gives you a way. ' Then he began to call
down curses on himself and he swore to them, 'I don't know the man. '
Immediately a rooster crowed, and then Peter remembered the words Jesus has
spoken, 'Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.

' And he went outside and he wept bitterly. " So Peter, the leader of the
disciples, Peter, who's going to be one of the leaders of the early church after
he goes through this experience, he denies Jesus. The man who walked on water
denies Jesus.

The fisher of men denies Jesus. And he's going to have to live with this the
rest of his life. Jesus told him, 'When you deny me that third time, the
rooster's going to crow.

' The rest of his life, Peter's going to have to live with the fact that he
denied Christ. Every time, every morning, he's going to hear a rooster crow.
Every morning there's an opportunity to remember, 'Yes, I denied Christ.

' So how's he going to live with it? You see, you can try to live in denial
about your denial, but Peter couldn't do that. He was going to be faced with it
every day.

The question is, how is he going to live with it? The struggles that you've had
in your life, the times when you've sinned when you said you would never sin,
the things that you've said that you wish you could take back but you can't take
back, the times that you have fallen away and not been a part of the church and
missed out on what God wanted to be doing in your life. How are you going to
live with that the rest of your life?

You could live in denial about it. You could live the rest of your life trying
to make up for it on your own power and strength. That's a guilt-motivated life.

You might look good on the outside, but you're going to cave in on the inside
every single day. As you look through this experience of Peter, you learn some
things about denial. A denial of Christ through our sin, a denial of Christ
through our words, a denial of Christ through our inaction.

You learn that denial has a source. Satan is the source. He's tempting us to
deny the power of Christ in our lives.

He learned that denial has a pattern. Notice he denies him three times and you
probably saw how it strengthened every time. First he says, "I don't understand
what you're talking about," but then all of a sudden he's saying, "I don't know
the man," and calling down curses on everybody.

So it's getting stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. But just like
there's this pattern, there's a process to the denial where you begin in your
mind and then it begins with a few words and it gets stronger in your life.
There's also a process of restoration.

I want you to know that you can fail without allowing your faith to ultimately
fail. You can fail without allowing your faith to fail. God knows that that
failure was going to happen in your life, just like he knew that this failure
was going to happen in the life of Peter and he intended from the very beginning
all the way through to restore him.

Now here we see one of the things that has to happen in order for us to be
restored. Peter went outside and he wept bitterly. As you look at the other
gospels and this gospel, in the life of Peter you see four things happen that
help him to be restored, to help him to go through this failure without his
faith failing.

The first thing that happens, Luke tells us this in chapter 22, is that he looks
into the eyes of Jesus. As he denied him the third time, Luke lets us in on the
fact that he caught the eye of Jesus in where the trial was. That's where you
start.

You don't look at the failure. You don't look at what other people might think
about the failure. You don't look in the mirror.

You look at Jesus. Get your eyes focused on Jesus because you know what you're
going to see reflected in his eye? Love, not condemnation.

He didn't come to condemn the world. He came to love. So first you look and you
see the love that's in his eyes.

But then the second thing you do is what we see so clearly outlined here. You
weep. You weep.

Peter went outside. He wept bitterly. Often that can be the first sign of
healing, is this weeping.

No excuses. No misplaced anger. No false front.

Just this moment of tears, this moment of sorrow, this moment of being honest
about the loss, of letting go of your denial about the denial. And when you let
go of that, when you're honest about that, honest tears can flow. But you don't
stop there.

You don't stop with the tears and you think, "Well, God's never going to be able
to use me again. He loves me, but he will never be able to use me. " No.

Jesus told Peter, "When you have denied me," he told him in advance, "you're
going to turn back. When you turn back, strengthen your brothers. You're going
to turn back and strengthen others.

" So the next thing you do, the third thing you do is you turn back. You weep,
but you don't turn away. You turn back.

You don't let your weeping make you think that somehow God won't accept you
anymore. Of course he accepts you. He knew the failure was going to happen when
he chose you.

He knew Peter's failure was going to happen when he chose him. He still chose
him. He still chose you.

So you turn back and then strengthen your brothers, strengthen the other
disciples. You find a ministry. You serve.

The failure causes you to feel like, or Satan's temptation, is that you will
feel like, "I don't have any way to serve anymore. " But the truth of the matter
is serving is one of the ways we find healing from our failures. By the way,
many times he will call you to serve him even at the point of that failure.

Maybe your failure is getting caught up in an addiction before you were a
Christian or even after you became a follower of Jesus. So you turn back and you
get involved in Celebrate Recovery. In that Celebrate Recovery, first you find
healing, but then you serve others.

Serving others is part of your healing. It's part of your healing. Don't buy the
lie that Satan tells you, "You can't serve anymore.

" Many times you will be serving him even at the point of your failure because
there's other people who have failed in the same way and they need the hope that
only you can share with them. Now the four things that Peter did to be restored,
the first is here. He wept.

And maybe you're at a point where you need just to share honest tears with
Jesus. I've betrayed you, Jesus. I've said I would never commit that sin again,
but I committed that sin again.

I'll never miss that kind of opportunity again, but I just missed it again. I'll
never say those kinds of things again, but I just said them again. I'll never
ignore you again, but I've just been through this period where I've been to
church, I haven't opened your word.

In prayer in these next few moments, let's just begin with a moment of honesty.
In an honest prayer, just say, "Jesus, I know that you know me. " And my heart
of hearts is that that would not have happened.

That sin, those words, that failure, that denial. You know my heart. I did not
want that to happen, but it did happen.

And so I begin just by sharing my regret with you. I want to return to you. I
want to serve you.

But the starting place is I just let you know, Jesus, how my heart is hurt by
the way that I know I have denied you. And my heart is lifted by the way that I
know you love me even through that. In your name, I praise you for that kind of
love.

In your name, I pray. Amen. Well, this love that we just talked about next week,
we're going to take a close look at it, a magnified look at it.

We're going to see the love of Jesus on full display as he gives his life for us
on the cross.