“This Very Night You Will All Fall Away” (Mark Sermon 79)

Scripture probes the people of God for the hidden recesses of the sinful heart. It also tells us the truth of the indomitable grace of God in Christ to save sinners like us.

- SERMON TRANSCRIPT -

As I look at the life of Christ and the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I look at the statements that Jesus made, and Jesus made many stunningly audacious statements during His ministry. Depending on how you look at it, perhaps none is more audacious than His proclamation about the grand and glorious construction project that He was initiating, the church, which would be the eternal dwelling place of Almighty God. This audacious assertion was made right after Peter had declared rightly that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, in Caesarea Philippi. Jesus then said these words, "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Now, that's an audacious statement in every respect.

As we look at this image of a great glorious building being constructed, we begin to step back and think about what is involved in that. Every great building needs a wise architect and a skillful builder. Jesus is both when it comes to the church. Throughout history, human beings have studied the science of architecture and the art. In the decades just before Jesus was born, a Roman architect named Vitruvius wrote a guide for all Roman construction that would follow. He stated that all great buildings were defined by three characteristics, strength, functionality and beauty.

Strength because the building must stand strong, not crumble or collapse and thereby kill the people that use it. Functionality because the building must meet its purpose for which it was designed and constructed, its reason for existence. And then beauty because the building must ennoble both the builder and those who look upon it and use it day after day. These three characteristics must extend, of course, to the building materials chosen and the construction techniques that are used. The actual materials chosen by the builder must be of the proper quality. So any great architect must be a student of building materials, different kinds of stone, metal, wood. There are different attributes, how those materials behave in different conditions and how they look.

In the New Testament, this architectural image is clear and powerful. Jesus had already stated in Matthew 16:18, as I said, He will build His church. That's an architectural image. Ephesians 2 likens the church to a holy temple that is rising in which God dwells by His Spirit. Peter talks about all of us being living stones built into a spiritual house. Paul in First Corinthians 3 speaks of laying a foundation through the proclamation of Christ crucified and resurrected and now others are building on it, but they should be careful how they build. Hebrews 11 speaks of a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. And the Book of Revelation climaxes with a breathtaking tour of the new Jerusalem in openly architectural terms, speaking of both its foundations, its walls and its gates.

What is stunning in all of this, I would say even audacious as I began, is Scripture's honesty about the building materials out of which the church was built. Jesus said, "I will build My church on such a foundation as Peter, Simon Peter, and out of building materials like him, and they are deeply flawed, deeply flawed." What is stunning in all of this is Scripture's honesty about us as building materials for the eternal dwelling place of God. In this account, we will begin to see, it won't be consummated or completed in today's text, but we'll begin to see just how deeply flawed even the best of Jesus' followers really are.

Look at those basic attributes that Vitruvius saw in terms of architecture. The eleven apostles fail in all three regards. Strength, not at all. They are rocks that crumble when pressure is put on them as if they were made by compressed sand. Functionality, no. Their mission will be to testify boldly to the life, death and resurrection of Christ, even at the cost of their lives, but instead, they flee to save their lives. Beauty, no. They are at their most repulsive, in no way displaying the glory of God and of Christ, but instead showing darkness, selfishness, corruption, ugliness. But the glory of this story is not in where it begins, but where it ends.

And in God's sovereign, gracious power, to take building materials like you and I are, and make us eternally strong, eternally functional, and eternally beautiful, the new Jerusalem will be built of people just like the 11 apostles. In today's text, we are, in some respects, weak and useless and ugly, and we'll be transformed and perfected into living stones eternally strong, fulfilling our function and radiantly beautiful Revelation 21:14 says, "The wall of the city, the new Jerusalem, had twelve foundations and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." A few verses later, Revelation 21:19, "The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. Strong, functional, and beautiful."

"In God's sovereign, gracious power, to take building materials like you and I are, and make us eternally strong, eternally functional, and eternally beautiful, the new Jerusalem will be built of people just like the 11 apostles."

So here we are, we come to this passage. It was one that, in some respects, I wish I could skip, but I'm very thankful for it as well. Jesus Christ predicts the universal abandonment of His closest friends and most loyal followers. In a moment, as though their love were a morning mist, they will all turn away from Christ. They'll throw away their love and faith and their commitment in a display of weakness and sin. His closest and greatest follower, Peter, is singled out as a paradigm display of the sin at the core that they all have, all of His followers, all of them, not just some of them. All of us, if we are pressed hard enough by our earthly circumstances, would abandon Jesus to save our lives in this world.

Yet in this passage, we see ultimately, not this one passage alone, but as the story unfolds, the amazing grace of Christ to predict also His regathering of His scattered flock after His resurrection and His work in them to make them eternally strong and beautiful and functional. Scripture takes all the people of God on an intensely honest and stark probing of the hidden recesses of our sinful hearts. It holds up, Scripture does, a brutally honest mirror whereby we can see the truth, that our souls are corrupt, pockmarked with the disease of selfishness and worldliness, a willingness to flee from Jesus under the pressures of this present evil age, but also of the indomitable grace of God in Christ, to take sinners like us, to use our sins even for His glory, and finally, to save us in radiant glory. As Romans 5 says, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." Amen and hallelujah. We're going to actually spend eternity in heaven celebrating grace's triumph over our particular weaknesses. Grace's triumph over our corruptions and our selfishness and our cowardice and our laziness.

Ultimately, we’ll see grace's triumph over the most intractable foe there is in human history and that is sin, stubborn sin, relentless sin, devious sin, deceitful sin, tyrannical sin, a foe too great for any of us to defeat, but that foe will be overwhelmed at last, swallowed up in the victory of Christ. Now, of course, in this account, therefore, the central figure is not the eleven apostles and their running away from Jesus. The central figure is Jesus Christ, and in this case, His supernatural ability to predict the future as well as His amazing grace in going to the cross for people such as we are, and then His ability as a good shepherd to regather His flock after they've been scattered.

The second figure, of course, is Peter the rock on which Jesus said He would build His church. He doesn't look like much of a rock in this whole story, not at all, but God is going to make him a rock. He's going to make him a solid foundation for the subsequent generations. The case study of Peter, which we'll begin today, but we're not going to finish because it's going to be consummated when he actually does in fact deny Jesus in the later account, this case study is one of the most probing and insightful, troubling and ultimately triumphant in the Bible. Today's passage is just a key step in that journey that's actually already begun.

In this, this case study with Peter and in frankly the eleven apostles, we're really looking at the problem, as I said, of indwelling sin. The Apostle Paul lamented this issue in Romans 7:15-17, He says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is. It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. So I find this law at work, when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and make me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

So today, in this account, we're going to see the stunningly swift fall of the eleven apostles, especially Peter into denying Christ. We'll see the beginning of that through the prediction. We see the devastating power of indwelling sin. We also see the glory of Christ. We're going to look at predicting the apostles' failure, then probing Peter's sinfulness, just beginning that, completing it later in another sermon and then proclaiming Christ's glories.

I. Predicting the Apostles’ Failure

Let's start with predicting the apostles failure. Look at verse 27-28, "'You will all fall away,' Jesus told them, 'for it is written. I'll strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But after I've risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.’" Jesus makes predictions concerning His apostles. We've already talked about this even in recent sermons. Jesus' meticulous and careful ability to predict the future, His ability to know the hearts and the minds of His people and also the specific details of their actions even before they happen. This is the clear prediction that is rooted also in the prophecy of Scripture. Now as I've said, Scripture is brutally honest about the sins of its great leaders. That's one of the ways I know it's the word of God. John Calvin said at the beginning of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, "Nearly all the wisdom that we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves."

I think this is a very helpful way for us to look at every Scripture, "What does this scripture teach me about the majestic glory of God and what does this scripture teach me about myself?" It's a good way to come to this text as well. The Bible has given us words concerning ourselves to probe human sinfulness. Again and again, we see in the Bible a tremendous honesty about its great leaders and their sinfulness. John Calvin spoke powerfully about our need to have this work done, this humbling work because of our pride. Calvin said, "We always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy. This pride is innate in all of us. Unless by clear proofs, we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly and impurity."

That's Peter, isn't it? He thought very highly of himself and he's about to get clear proofs of his corruption, clear proofs, and it begins with this prediction. It seems that Scripture is given in part to help us see that truth, not just about Peter. We're supposed to look at this text and think we're looking in the mirror and have somewhat of an explanation of why we are not good witnesses, evangelists to lost people that surround us every day. The answer may in part be in this text. But our salvation depends on that humbling work by the Holy Spirit because it says in James 4:6, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." That humbling work is to teach you that you need a Savior.  As it says in Luke 5: 31- 32, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." We need to realize we're sick with sin. We need this Savior. We need this therapeutic, this healing work done in us by Jesus. So when we look at the great men and women of the Bible and we see them at their worst, the Bible's honest about their failings, the best response is to look inward and say, "How am I like this? I would not do any different than if I had been one of those eleven apostles. I would've done the same." Prediction should humble us and so should its fulfillment.

Now, as I look at this, I think about who the eleven apostles, obviously Judas is out at this point, but who the eleven apostles were in the kingdom of God, what their role was to be, what they were chosen for. Jesus spent all night in prayer and then chose these men. It began with His call to the kingdom. Mark 1:15 says, "The time is at hand. The kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news." It's a call to enter a kingdom, to take His kingly yoke upon ourselves. In medieval times, the knights of a king would swear oaths of fealty or loyalty to the king. They would pledge their devotion. They'd put their swords before the king and say, "I'm willing to fight for your honor and for your kingdom. I'm willing to give you undying devotion. I'm willing to obey you as king and follow you."

Effectively Jesus laid out what that oath would sound like, what the oaths of fealty would be earlier in Mark's gospel in Mark 8:34-37, "'If anyone would come after me,' He said, 'he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it. What good would it be for a man if he should gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul or what could a man give an exchange for his soul?’" You want to follow Jesus, there's your oath of loyalty. To follow Jesus, according to Mark 8, means to deny yourself and be willing to follow even if it meant your death, to take up your cross and follow, to not love your life in this world, so much as to shrink from death.

If you try to save your life in this world, He said you'll lose it. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to be willing to give up your life in this world. The soul for which you would then be living, if you're giving up your physical life here on earth, you're living for the next world to come, your soul is worth more than any earthly advantage you could ever have. Any power or pleasure or anything possession that you could ever have in this life, your soul's worth more than any of that. Jesus made it plain at the end of that Mark 8 in verse 38, "If anyone is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His father's glory with His holy angels?"

Jesus laid all that out. The apostles had effectively taken such oaths. They'd effectively made such promises. They'd been willing to stand with Jesus through all of His most difficult trials up to that point. As a matter of fact, that same evening, just a few minutes before this, Jesus said as much about them. In Luke 22:28-30, “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials." Think about that. "You've stood by Me in My trials and I confer upon you a kingdom just as My Father conferred one on Me, so that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." He said that to them, the eleven apostles. They had been loyal to Him.

You remember that time when Jesus fed the 5,000 in John's Gospel and then they come back the next day for another meal.  He has a serious talk with all of those so-called disciples that were there just for another meal, and it culminates in the hardest teaching He ever gave, "Eat My flesh and drink My blood. And if you do not eat My flesh and you don't drink My blood, you have no life in you and all that." Jesus is weeding out the big crowd at that point. It says in John 6:66-70, "From that time, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. 'You do not want to leave too, do you?' Jesus asked the twelve. Simon Peter answered on behalf of all of them, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.' Then Jesus replied, 'Have I not chosen you, the twelve?'"

They had stood by Him that night. Though they didn't understand what He was saying, they said, "We have nowhere else to go. You're it." "So you are those that have stood by Me." They felt that they were ready to die with Him, but they weren't. That very night, all of them, all eleven, would fall away. Verse 27, "'You'll all fall away,' Jesus told them, 'for it is written. I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.'" They would in fact be ashamed of Jesus and of His words in that adulterous and sinful generation. They would run away from Him in His moment, His greatest moment of need. The word translated “fall away” as “skandalizo,” from which we get the word to be scandalized or to stumble, to fall, to be offended, to be ashamed. That's what the word means. It is passive.

Something will come to them to scandalize them. It'll be forced on them from the outside, but they will stumble and fall. It will cause them to be knocked down and to run away to flee. Now that very night Jesus defines friendship in John 15:13, "He said, 'Greater love has no one than this, that a man laid down his life for his friends.' 'You are my friends,' Jesus said.” and He was going to go lay down His life for them. One of the great tragedies there is in this world is unrequited love. At that moment, His love for them was unrequited. They were not willing to lay down their lives for Him, even though He was willing to lay down His life for them, and they aren't just anybody now. They are essential to Jesus' worldwide plan for salvation. They're essential. They're going to be the essential link that the rest of us would have, subsequent generations would have to the facts, the truths about Jesus' life. They would be essential eyewitnesses to Jesus' life, His teachings, His death on the cross and His resurrection. They would need to stand in the day of testing and testify to Christ for the salvation of those that would listen to Him. The church would be built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone, [Ephesians 2:20]. It would be fundamental.

They would have to be willing to lay down their lives for the salvation of others. Central to that was that basic principle of being willing to die. John 12:24, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." They were going to have to do that. They were going to have to imitate Jesus and that willingness to fall into the ground and die. He says in John 12:25-26, "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, My servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves Me." To love your life in this world is to lose it. You want to be with Jesus, you have to be willing to imitate this basic principle.

What's amazing is, in the end, they were. In the end, they were willing to die as martyrs. They all died as martyrs for the Gospel except John. And he would've, it was just God willed that he remained long enough in exile to write the Book of Revelation. But he, again and again, wasn't in enough hot water to have been martyred. It was not God's purpose. But all of them in the end were willing, as it says in Revelation 12:11, "They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." That's where they end up. That's where all the true witnesses for Christ end up, but it's not how they start, at least not that night. At the core, all of Jesus' disciples have a fundamental weakness in their nature, a self-saving tendency.

And the failure is predicted in scripture. Jesus said, "For it is written, I'll strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered." He's quoting Zechariah 13:7 which says, "'Awake, O, sword against my shepherd, against the man who is close to Me,' declares the Lord Almighty. 'Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered and I'll turn my hand against the little ones.'" The striking of the shepherd would be His arrest, His trial, His condemnation, and ultimately, His death. That's what the striking of the shepherd would mean. They were not ready to see that happen. They didn't understand, and when they saw that, something loosened within them and they were not able to continue in their commitment to Christ, and Jesus mad this prediction.

Now the disciples responded with shock protestations with Peter leading the way, verse 31, "Peter insisted emphatically, 'Even if I have to die with You, I'll never disown You,' and all the others said the same." Now let's just pause and say, "What's going on here?" They believed Jesus was wrong about them. Think about that. "Jesus, you're very talented teacher. You do a lot of right things, but You got me all wrong." Imagine the audacity of saying that to Jesus. But the consistent testimony is that Jesus is able to search hearts and minds. He knows people. In John chapter 2, He doesn't need people's testimony about people, He knows what's inside people. He says, of Nathaniel, "Here's a true Israelite in whom there is no guile." He sees Him and knows Him. He knows them.

But they're saying, "You're wrong about me," but He wasn't. If you look down on the page, not there yet, but in verse 50-52, this is the completion of the prediction, "Then everyone deserted Him and fled. They all left. A young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus. When they seized Him, he fled naked leaving his garment behind." I'll leave that until the later sermon, we're not covering that today, but there's a guy that's willing to leave behind a garment and flee for his life naked. Jesus wasn't wrong about them. Now they're not Judas, Judas was never a follower of Jesus. He hated Jesus truly. He was not a believer. Jesus said that very time, "Have I not chosen, the twelve? And one of you was a devil. Not one of you will later become a devil. He's a devil now."

They'd already heard Jesus predict that one of them would betray Jesus to His enemies. They're not going to do that, but maybe they felt they were better than Judas. But just because they're better than Judas is no reason to boast. Matthew Henry put it this way, "Though God keeps them from being as bad as the worst, yet we may well be ashamed to think we're not better than we are." "Well, at least I'm not as bad as Judas," but they still fled for their lives. 

II. Probing Peter’s Sinfulness

Let's look briefly at Peter's sinfulness. We're going to finish this story in a later sermon, but Peter was the leader in all respects, including this denial. Look at verse 29-31, "Peter declared, 'Even if all fall away, I will not.' 'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'Today, yes, tonight, before the rooster crows twice, you yourself will disown Me three times.' But Peter insisted emphatically, 'Even if I have to die with You, I will never disown You,' and all the others said the same."

Peter was the leader. He was the rock on which Jesus said He would build His church. Here, we have an example of Peter's arrogant self-esteem. Peter is confident that he would not do as badly as the rest of his disciples in verse 29, "Though all would fall away, his brother's standing there next to Him, yet I will not. I'm better than all of these other guys." He supposes himself not only stronger than the others, but so much stronger that he's going to be able to receive the frontal attack of the trial to bear up against it all alone, to stand with no one else with him. Matthew Henry said, "It is bread and the bone with us to think well of ourselves and to trust to our own hearts."

But Christ tells him he's actually going to do worse than any of them. They're going to desert Him and run away to their own homes, but he's going to deny Him not once, but three times that very night. Peter is a study in sin, his descent. We're going to finish it in a later sermon, but the descent actually has already begun before any of this. Back in that very passage that I cited in Mark 8, you remember how Peter made that amazing confession, [Peter],“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [Jesus],“I tell you, Peter, this was not revealed you by man, but by My Father in heaven, but the Spirit of God revealed this to you, Peter, and you are Peter. And on this rock, I'll build My church and the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it."

But then Mark 8:31-33, "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law and that He must be killed, and after three days, rise again. He spoke plainly about this and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him." Remember that? I always thought that was amazing. "Jesus, do you have a minute?”, pulling Jesus aside. It's incredible, the arrogance in Peter. It's already begun. The seeds of his own destruction, the seeds of his pride, it's already there. “But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’" That was a vigorous rebuke to Peter, a warning to him, but he didn't take the warning.

He has his next warning in today's text, "'You will all fall away in account of me this very night,' but Peter responds pridefully, 'Even if all fall away, I will not. I'm better than any of them.'" And not only pride horizontally to all His disciples, but pride in reference to Jesus, "You're wrong about me." Such incredible arrogance to say this to the Lord of all the earth. Jesus says, "All right, let's go to the next level. Let me get more specific about what's going to happen tonight." Look at verse 30, "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'Today, yes, tonight, before the rooster crows twice, you yourself will disown Me three times.’" This is remarkable precision.

Notice by the way, only Mark mentions that the rooster crows twice, but you don't need more than one mention to say that's what happened. The rooster crowed twice, and before the rooster crowed twice, Peter would deny Him three times. Peter is actually, as I said, going to do worse than anyone else, but the reason he would do worse than anyone else is he was so prideful as to get himself in over his head and immerse himself in the enemies of Jesus because he thought he could handle it. Peter doubles down in verse 31, He insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with You, I'll never disown You."We're going to track this out in later sermon. 

But look at Peter's faulty assumptions first about himself. He's making assumptions about his virtue, his courage, his loyalty, his faithfulness, his love. He's making faulty assumptions about his life in the world. He still has a worldly conception of the kingdom that Jesus is going to build. He can't imagine Jesus dying. He thinks Jesus is going to triumph, and if Peter stays right near Jesus, he'll be fine. That's why he pulls out the sword and starts swinging it. That's the whole thing, "If I stay close to the shepherd, I'll be fine," but if the shepherd actually passively gets arrested and let away, bound up and let away. Peter doesn't know what to do, but he's got faulty assumptions about the kingdom, about his life in the world, his power, his glory, his wealth, the things that were going to come.

He's got faulty assumptions about Jesus. He forgets that He's God in the flesh and cannot say anything false. Literally nothing that ever comes out of Jesus' mouth is false, ever, including hard things about Peter. He has faulty assumptions about Christ's kingdom, about its nature. It was not of this world. It was not established by fighting. It was not established by military power. It was not immediately glorious and radiant and powerful. It was a different kind of kingdom. His kingdom was not of this world. He didn't understand Christ's mission. He didn't understand that Jesus had to die on the cross for Peter's sin and the sins of the world. He didn't understand that atoning sacrifice and he didn't understand that the real danger, Peter's real danger, would not be from the Romans or from the temple police or from even the slave girls at the door that would be asking him questions that's about to come. He's not predicting that at all.

He didn't understand his real danger is from Almighty God, the Holy One on Judgment Day in which Peter will have no answer he can give for His own sins and he must have an atoning sacrifice to survive Judgment Day and not spend eternity in hell. He didn't understand the real threat. Sin had twisted Peter's mind, darken his understanding, entangled his affections, and as a result, compelled his will to make evil choices. 

III. Proclaiming Christ’s Glories

Now what of Christ's glories? Not overtly evident here, but there's a lot of themes that we can draw out here. We've already talked about Jesus' prophetic foresight. He has meticulous foreknowledge of the future. Only God has that kind of knowledge. Christ's prediction is extremely specific, "Before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times this very night."

Also, Jesus knows the scriptures perfectly. They'd not seen Zechariah 13:7 before. He knows the apostles' hearts perfectly. He knows all of the events before they happen. This prediction, though heartbreaking, proves Jesus' supernatural knowledge of all those things. 

We also see Jesus's glories in His loving warnings to them. Jesus' lovingly giving them warnings ahead of time." He told them that they would fall away ahead of time so that when they did, their faith would not be destroyed. Actually their faith would be strengthened because that's the very thing He predicted that would happen.  He says multiple times in John's Gospel, John 13:19, "I'm telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you'll believe that I am, that I am God again." John 14:29, "I've told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you'll believe." John 16:4, "I have told you this, so that when the time comes, you'll remember that I warned you." And again John 16:33, "I have told you these things, so that in Me, you may have peace. In this world, you'll have trouble, but take heart, I've overcome the world." Jesus' honest predictions and His honest evaluation of us only enhances our faith and our confidence in Him.

"Jesus' honest predictions and His honest evaluation of us only enhances our faith and our confidence in Him."

Thirdly, we see also Jesus' shepherd heart to restore them. "After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee. You'll all fall away on account of me, for it is written, I'll strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But after I've risen, I'm going to go ahead of you in Galilee and we'll meet again. I'll gather you there." There's so much hope in that. Their place as His sheep and His place is there, the good shepherd is not finished. It's not done. As a matter of fact, nothing will ever change that. "No one can snatch my sheep from Me. No one has the power to take my sheep from Me." Even though they're going to be scattered and they're going to run away through cowardice and unbelief, He's going to gather them back together again after He has risen. He'll go ahead of them into Galilee, He's going to forgive them, and He's going to restore them. Peter again will be the clear example of that. He's going to restore Peter. and He's going to use him despite his sin.

We also don't see in this text, but in another place, Jesus' priestly ministry is to pray for them. If you look at cover of your bulletin that's quoted there in Luke 22:31-32, very important text, "Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat," plural, "all of you, but I've prayed for you Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Satan is going to sift them that night. He's going to test them, but Jesus has specifically, as a great high priest, interceded for Simon Peter, "I prayed for you Simon to the end that your faith will not fail and it won't. So you're going to stumble, you're going to fall, but not so as to fall beyond recovery. You're going to be recovered and your faith will not fail. I'm going to bring you back."

The idea, the image of Jesus as our Great High Priest, interceding for us is so beautifully established here. It says in Hebrews 7:25, "Christ is able to save completely those who come to God through Him because He always lives to intercede for them." We're no better than these eleven apostles. We're the same. Isn't it beautiful to think that Jesus always lives to intercede for you and for me that our faith will not fail? And by the way, I think that's a vital thing for us to pray for each other. If you hear that somebody is going through a severe trial, medical maybe, a diagnosis, some other thing that's come in their family life or in their personal life, pray this. Pray Luke 22, "I'm praying that their faith won't fail."

Don't think that that's impossible. We believe in, "Once saved, always saved." I believe in a dynamic faith that needs to keep existing until we don't need it anymore. That faith needs to be fed by the Word of God, it needs to be prayed for by the Son of God. It needs to be sustained by the God who gave it until we don't need it anymore. Jesus does that. He knows that He must pray for us that our faith will not fail and it won’t.

 We see also the King's heart to protect them. I'm not going to say much about this, but the fact is, in John's Gospel, when his enemies came to arrest Jesus, Jesus orchestrated an escape so they could run away. He orchestrated an escape, so that they would not be arrested that night.  In John 18, "He asked them, 'Who is it you want?' They said, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' 'I told you that I am. If you're looking for Me,' he said, 'then let all these men go.' This happened so that the words He had spoken would be fulfilled, ‘I have not lost one of those you gave Me.’" He knew they were not ready to be arrested that night. He wanted them to run away. He opened the door, said, "It's time for you to go," and they all ran away. The only problem is Peter did a U-turn. That was a bad mistake. We'll talk more about that in the future sermon. But Jesus orchestrated their protection because He is their good shepherd and would not let them get in over their heads or be tempted beyond what they could bear.

The courage also we see in Jesus to venture ahead alone with no friends with Him, whatsoever, to go to the cross and die for us. The courage of Jesus is unspeakable, it's infinite. He says in John 16:32, "A time is coming and has come when you'll be scattered each to his own home. You'll all leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone for the Father's with Me." He's going to venture out into the fiery furnace of the wrath of God. He's going to go ahead, completely alone. And He will do that to save us from our sins with no friends, no earthly friends with Him, just on His own. Obviously, the greatest glory in this text is only quickly alluded — to the triumph of the resurrection, "After I've risen, I'll go ahead of you in a Galilee." I'm sure we'll have occasion very soon to celebrate that, the glories of Christ in the resurrection.

IV. Lessons

What lessons can we take from this? First, stand amazed at God's grace in building an eternal and glorious city out of building materials like these eleven apostles and people like you and me. Stand amazed that He has the ability to speak truth over us and then make it happen in us. He has the ability, it says in Romans 4, "He gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were." I love that verse. He's going to look at Peter and says, "You are a rock, and on you, I'm going to build My church," and then He makes him a rock. How beautiful is that?

We say, ”O, Lord, I know what I am. I'm weak. I'm faulty. I'm failure. I'm not a good witness. I'm not a good Christian. Would you make me bold? Would you make me courageous? Would you make me faithful?" We have an opportunity around this time of year, I just alluded to the Easter, it's coming up, Resurrection Day, to talk to people that we're surrounded with every day who are without hope and without God in the world. We want to do it. The question is, why don't we? The sermon today kind of covered that, because we're weak. But all you need to do is say, "Lord, I know I'm weak. Would you please make me strong? Would you please give me the ability to speak to a co-worker or to a neighbor, even a total stranger, invite them to church or talk to them about Christ's death and resurrection? Give me that ability."

Along with that, obviously, be convicted of the weakness in your own heart. Part of it is that we're looking in the mirror here. Be honest about who you really are. Thank Jesus for His intercession for you, that He always lives to pray for you, that your faith will not fail, and join with Him in that intercession for one another. Then finally, the glories of Christ that are the basis of our salvation, His supernatural knowledge, His astonishing courage to die on the cross, to venture forth alone, His amazing resurrection, triumphing forever death. Trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the text today. It's difficult, it's a hard text. We're grateful for the honesty of the Bible to tell us the truth about ourselves, to tell us the truth about the apostles, and to see what You did in them despite their weakness and how much You use them to build an eternal dwelling in which You will live by Your spirit. Thank you for the text and for the things we've learned. In Jesus' name, Amen.