Denying Jesus

Like Dave Grohl once crooned, I've got another confession to make. At times in my life, I have denied Jesus. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, over the last twenty-six years of following Jesus, I have denied Him a grievous number of times. But one time that stands out happened back in 2018. I was travelling from one coast to the other amid a string of trips to preach at different conferences. I was tired, very tired, over tired because I was living out of an overpacked schedule and failed to recover well—talking to a few of you all right now.

As I was flying home, the flight attendant began to ask me where she had seen me before. I deflected and tried to go to sleep, but every time she came by, she asked some probing questions. Eventually, she googled me and discovered I was a pastor. Of course, I thought this would deter the attention, and I could go to sleep, but it only sparked more questions about everything in the world. It was like she had been waiting for the right person at the right moment to pour out all the things she had been carrying in her soul. My disinterest at the moment became apparent, body language speaking louder than any words ever could. I saw her hesitate for a moment, and then she said, "I thought Christians would be eager to talk about Jesus."

My heart sank.

No, I am not obligated to talk to everyone about anything they want to discuss. At the same time, at no point did I stop and pray and ask God what He would have me do at the moment, I just reacted out of my emotions, and in the end, I denied Jesus. Denied Jesus, you ask? Yes. Denied Jesus. No, I did not say I thought Him less than God, did not pretend I wasn't a Christian and did not do anything outrageously anti-Christ—all of which I have been guilty of at points in my twenty-plus years' journey with Him.

However, I did deny Him by failing to represent Him, failing to speak for Him, and failing to be present for what He wanted to do in that curious woman's life at the moment. And I am positive you can admit to having done the same on various occasions.

In benign and baneful ways, we all deny and have denied Jesus.

There are many places we could take this idea, but the question I have been wrestling with for the last few weeks is this: can you or I genuinely do something remarkable with Jesus if we openly deny Jesus? I would like us to consider that question from the vantage point of everyone's (at least all the church folk) favourite disciple, Peter. Peter's story is a fascinating one. He was not an overtly religious person or a follower of a local Rabbi in ancient Israel. No, he is an ordinary guy with a solid business, living what seemed to be a reasonably contented life. Enter Jesus. Dr Luke tells us in his gospel narrative that one day Jesus was preaching along the seashore. Jesus noticed two empty fishing boats sitting in the water near the shore.

He stepped into one of the boats and asked the owner, Peter, to push off into the water so that He could teach from the boat because the crowd got to be a bit much as they were pressing in to hear Jesus communicate the Scriptures. Here we have Peter's entrance into ministry with Jesus and the beginning of one of the gospels' most complex and fascinating human interest stories. After Jesus had finished speaking, He turned to Peter and asked Him to go out into deep water and cast down his nets to catch some fish.

Peter, at first, protests, seeing only through the lens of his experience and not through the lens of the One giving the invitation. He and his brother had been fishing all night and had come up empty-handed. If Jesus insisted, however, he would drop the nets once more. To Peter's surprise, his nets became so packed with fish that they began to break. His cries for help signal his partners, James and John, and they rush over with their boat to help haul in the catch. Soon both boats were so full that they were on the verge of sinking. Overwhelmed by what Jesus had accomplished right before his eyes, Peter feels unworthy to know Him… he feels unfit to even be in Jesus' presence. "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

When we see Jesus as He truly is, we cannot help but see who we truly are—without Him.

They are astounded, but Jesus is focused. He encourages Peter not to fear; his life will change forever. From now on, he will use his energy to draw in people. Fast forward about three years, and much has happened. For three years, Jesus revealed to Peter and His other friends God's ultimate plan to redeem and restore the entire world.

During the Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates God's miraculous deliverance of Israel, while God brought justice to Egypt, who had enslaved them for four hundred years, Jesus pulled his twelve closest friends together for a Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus said, "one of you will betray me." Distressed by the notion, each of the twelve began to say, "surely not me."

After the meal, Jesus turns to His friends and says something that disturbs them… on that very night, every single one of them will run away because of Him. Peter… oh Peter, always first to speak, blurts out in reaction to Jesus' words. Even if everyone else runs away, he will stand tall by Jesus' side. Jesus does not miss a beat with His reply. Peter will deny Him, not once but three times… on that very night before the rooster crows to signal the start of a new day.

We can imagine, can we not, how disheartening that would have been for Peter to hear? He only wanted to declare his faith and fidelity to his friend and Saviour. Peter, of course, rebutted Jesus. I have often been foolishly guilty of the same. "Even if I have to die with you," Peter says, "I will never deny you!" Have you ever had a moment like that, where you believed wholeheartedly in what you said and could not foresee the cost of that belief?

The night unfolds just as Jesus predicted. The religious leaders who so intensely despised Him take Him, prisoner. He faces a mock trial in the middle of the night, which is illegal and immoral according to Jewish Law. They beat Jesus, slapped Him and spit in His face. They mock and taunt Him. The disciples flee, except for Peter, just as Jesus said they would. Peter slyly stays close enough to witness much of what Jesus suffered. He sits outside of the trial in the high priest's courtyard. Just then, he is approached by a servant, who says to him, you were with Jesus!

What would you be thinking? "I want to do the right thing, but I am afraid. What if they do to me what they are doing to Jesus? I do not want to die tonight. Jesus told me I would deny Him, and now… I am about to do it." Maybe he was not thinking about any of those things. Perhaps he just reacted. Would we do the same?

Peter does exactly what Jesus said he would. "I do not even know what you are talking about," he lies. But before he could get away, another woman caught him. This man was with Jesus, she shouts! Peter again lies, claiming not even to know Jesus, Him down to "the man." No longer Lord. No Longer Saviour. No longer friend. Just a man he did not know, and he does it this time with an oath.Soon someone else challenged him, calling him out for his pronounced accent. Indeed he had been with Jesus. Peter matches their energy, and this is where it gets interesting. Peter first invokes a curse on himself. In other words, "may I be accursed if I am lying about knowing this man." But then he added to this invocation by swearing an Oath to God, in front of those people, that he did not know Jesus.

Why is this interesting? If Jesus is God, as He self-designated so many times, then Peter swore to God that He did not know God. Immediately, the day broke. A rooster crowed. Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him just hours before. He likely remembered his own bold talk as well. What a crushing moment. All he could do was go out and cry.

Things go quiet in Peter's story after that, at least for a while. But if we turn over to John's record of Jesus' life and work, we find that Peter did what we all do when we feel we have failed so big that we are surely no longer fit to do anything remarkable with God—He returned to what was familiar. He returned to his fishing business as though the precious three years had not happened. Enter Jesus. Just as He had met Peter on his boat and told him where to fish the first time, we find Jesus doing the same.

Cast to the right side of the boat, Jesus says, and there you will find some fish. They did as He instructed, just as they had at the start, and the result was abundance, just as it had been at the beginning.

Jesus had come for Peter, even though Peter had abandoned Him.

Jesus does not look at his friend and follower through the lens of his failure. He instead sees him through the lens of who he can be and who he will be.

Feed My lambs…

Shepherd My sheep…

Feed My sheep…

I know that you love me, Jesus implies, so now live as you love Me. I will not allow you to be the sum of the last worst thing you did.

If you are familiar with the Scriptures, you know that Peter went on to faithfully serve the church, write letters that became Scripture, and literally give his life as a martyr for the sake of the gospel. What we see in his story is that even if we deny Jesus, to the point that we swear an oath to God that we do not know Him, that is not the end of our story; it does not have to be. We may even run and return to something familiar to avoid the pain of failure, but even there, Jesus will come looking for you and love you right where He finds you. Denying Jesus does not permanently disqualify you from doing remarkable things with Jesus. But there is one thing you must do when He comes to find you, and He will, run toward Him and not away because all He wants is for you to know that He loves you and will never be through with you.

Want to hear more of Peter’s very relatable story? Check out The Magnificent 7 | The Heretic on our Youtube Channel or Podcast.