Turn with me back in your Bibles
to John Chapter 13. We've looked at something of
the fall of Peter, that great apostle. He says, Peter says to the Lord
in verse 37, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay
down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, wilt thou
lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also
in me. In my father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be
also. What's the place? Him. Don't you love those three verses? They are probably some of the
most comforting verses in all of the scriptures, aren't they?
Don't let your heart be troubled. Your sin is grievous. Your sin is public. Your sin is completely inexcusable
in any way, shape, or form. Your sin is exposed before men. Imagine if your sins were written
down in this book. for all the world to see, for the rest of time. And yet the
promise, the promise of God is don't let your heart be troubled.
The promise of God is that when you are turned, when you are
turned by my grace and my mercy, when you're turned back to me,
you're gonna strengthen your brethren. I'm just so thankful that the
Gospel is a Gospel of comfort to the children of God. That's
what it is, isn't it? We have a Gospel that declares
comfort. I have a command from God and
so does Norm and others who preach on God's behalf. We have a command
from God. You comfort my people. You comfort
my people. You tell them that their warfare
is over. You tell them that they will receive double from the
Lord for all of their sins. You comfort them. The first words
of the Lord Jesus Christ when he preached in Nazareth was in
Luke 4, verse 18, Peter was made to be very poor that night. He was stripped of all righteousness,
wasn't he? He was stripped of anything in
himself. He said, I will, and he was stripped
of his I will. He was stripped of all of his
good deeds. He was left naked and destitute
as a leprous sinner before the almighty sovereign power of God. Anyone poor here? He has sent
me to heal the broken hearted. See a broken heart is not a heart
that's not working very well. A broken heart's a dead heart.
A broken heart's a heart that doesn't work at all. He sent
me to heal the broken hearted. He sent me to preach deliverance
to the captives. If you do not have a real, living,
breathing, God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're
captive. And the greatest captivity in
the world is the captivity of people who don't know they're
captive. The greatest captivity is the captivity of those who
think they're free. The greatest captivity is the
captivity of those who can still say, I will. Look what I have
done. It's terrible captivity, isn't
it? Satan is a liar and a murderer. So the first thing he does to
you is lie. He lies about who you are, and
he lies about who God is, and most of all he'll lie, and he
continues to lie throughout this world, about who the Lord Jesus
Christ is and what happened on the cross. If you want to find
out what Satan's lies are, just go and examine what religion
is saying about the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. He sent me to preach deliverance
to the captive. The recovering of the sight to
the blind. The blind. They can't see. They can't see who God is and
they can't see who they are. It's the one messianic miracle
in all the scriptures is the healing of the blind. One thing
that was reserved for the Lord Jesus Christ and he did it regularly
and he did it on a Sabbath and he did it in such a public way
that the Jews would be openly offended by him doing it. And
if they opened their Bibles up they would have seen that five
times in the book of Isaiah it's a messianic miracle. And that's
exactly what we need, isn't it? We are blind. We're blind to
who we are. We're blind to who God is. We're blind to what his
word says. And we need the recovery of true sight and to set at liberty
them that are bruised, them that are crushed. Has life crushed
you? Have your sins crushed you? Are there any beggars? Are there
any broken hearted? Are there any captives? Are there
any blind? Are there any bruised? I've got
good news for all of those people. And for any who have something
in themselves and they've got some I wills and I do and I've
done's. I'm sorry, throughout the Word
of God, when the broken-hearted come to the Lord Jesus Christ,
begging for mercy, 100% of them go away having received it. When
the righteous come to the Lord Jesus Christ with their righteousness,
100% of them are sent away by God. And he never chases them
up, ever. Oh, what a mercy it is to be
broken hearted. What a mercy it is for God to
crush us. So here we have, as we close,
I'll just head off to India. We've had the word of promise
from the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of pride from Peter,
and we've had the word of humbling and the act of humbling You're
going to deny me three times, and here we have these words
of comfort. What glorious words of comfort.
See, what's the Lord's solution to the problem of humanity, broken
humanity? And again, the Lord Jesus Christ
came as a Gospel preacher. In fact, in Mark Chapter 1 there's
a great crowd of people that need healing and he turns away
from them and says, I'm not sent to do that, I'm sent here to
preach. And he goes off and preaches the Gospel. He preached the Gospel. Peter declares the error of all
the religion of man, as I will. There is something that I can
do to get myself right with God, and there's something that I
must begin, there's something I must continue, and there's
something I must do of myself. And the Lord Jesus Christ declares
the fall of that awful work of men. But in the midst of it he
declares the glory of his works, isn't he? He says, you can't
come where I'm going, but you're going to follow me hereafter.
Where is he going? The Lord Jesus Christ is going
to death. Psalm 16 says, thou wilt not
leave my soul in hell. The great transaction of the
cross is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son,
as recorded and promised by God the Holy Spirit and applied by
God the Holy Spirit to all of his people. He's saying to Peter,
the sin that you have committed, I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it. He took
a cup in the garden. The Father gave him a cup. And in that cup were all the
sins of all of God's children in this world. And the Father
gave him the cup. The cup's in the hands of the
Lord Jesus Christ, it's not in the hands of his people. And
the Lord Jesus Christ drank that cup, he drank the dregs of that
cup. And it's a picture of the fact
that in the extraordinary event of the cross, the Lord Jesus
Christ was made sin. He had never sinned in himself,
but when he took that cup, and took that cup and drank that
cup dry, of all of God's people, according to God Almighty, were
placed on him, including these horrible sins of Peter, including
the most horrible sins that you have ever done. You, like me,
have done and thought things which are so intensely embarrassing. If you knew of them, you would
flee from here now because you're in the presence of such a wicked
sinner. That's just what we are, brothers and sisters. One of
the glories of the Gospel, one of the glories of the restoration
of the brokenhearted, is that Peter can now be an honest man. And he can be honest with other
people, can't he? And he can declare a gospel where
all of the salvation of all of his people is in the high wills
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you love the fact that
Peter says, I will, and the Lord immediately makes that I will
to seem like nothing, but when he says I will, down there in
verse three, he says, and if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again. These are the words of God Almighty.
He's coming again to receive you unto myself. You're going to follow me, Peter.
He says, I'm going to a place that you cannot come. He bore
the infinite wrath of God and you cannot go there. There is
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It is
impossible for God to be holy and just and punish the sins
of his people in the Lord Jesus Christ and ever punish them again. He will deny every attribute
of himself if he ever does so. The sins of all of God's people
are gone. Don't you want to love what Jeremiah 50 says? They will
be sought for. in that day. They'll be sought
for and they will not be found. They're hidden behind his back.
They have been buried. The Lord Jesus Christ went to
a place. He says, I go to a place you
cannot come. I go to do a work that you cannot
do. You have absolutely nothing in
yourself whatsoever to pay for one tiny little sin, one tiny
little sin of a thought that no one else has ever seen. We
have nothing to pay. We are beggars before God. He's come to pay a price that
you cannot pay. He's come to satisfy a justice
that you cannot satisfy by anything that you do whatsoever. He's
come to bear, go to an infinite wrath that you cannot bear. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
When we talk about the cross, we're talking about things that
are just so beyond us. We're talking about an infinitely
holy, infinitely sovereign, infinitely knowing God doing this to an
infinitely holy, infinitely sovereign, infinitely knowing son. And when
he saw that cup in that garden this evening, he sweat great
drops of blood. His heart was broken according
to Psalm 40 within him. And he says in so many places
in the Old Testament, these are my sins. Such is the closeness,
the union of him with his bride, that he owned her sins as his
own. And he never committed them,
but he paid the price for them. He's come to suffer the curse
of a law, a broken law that you cannot bear. He's come to make
a way to heaven that you cannot make. He's come to die a death
that you cannot die. He's come to work a work of faithfulness
that God accepts. He's come to weave a robe of
righteousness to cover all of his bribe. He's come. He's come that his
bride might be with him. That's the goal, isn't it? That
he's coming. He says, I'm going. He says, let not your heart be
troubled. What's the solution to a troubled
heart? Verse one, believe in God. Believe what he's just said. Believe what he says in his word.
Pray that he'll give you the grace to believe. Where does
faith come from? Faith is the gift of God. It's not of yourselves. So there's
no boasting about my faith, but God gives it and it is my faith.
It is my faith. God gives it. Peter, this night
you're going to be exposed. You're going to be revealed as
the sinner you really are. This night you'll receive a wound
to your pride. and your fleshly heart and you'll
be broken and you'll be broken in such a way that only I can
heal. I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you. What was the difference between
Judas and Peter that night both of them behaved in the most abominably
wicked way? What's the difference? The only
difference is the difference that the Lord Jesus Christ made.
I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you. Satan has
asked permission to sift you. Satan says he's mine, he's weak,
he's impetuous and I've got him. But I've prayed for you. I prayed
for you that your faith fail not believe in God. See, Peter's
courage failed. Peter's commitment failed. Peter's promises failed. Peter's flesh failed. Peter failed. And you would do exactly the
same and you'd do the exact same thing over and over again. But
when all else fails, what God gives and what God promises holds
true. These are the words of God Almighty.
He shall not fail, nor be discouraged. What God gives, God sustains
and God maintains. Don't you love the Gospel? The
Lord Jesus Christ does it all and he gives the faith to believe
it all. And then at the end of it he says, well done good and
faithful servant. It's glorious, isn't it? We have
a glorious saviour. This faith is the gift of God.
We have nothing we can bring to God and nothing we can offer
to God. I love what Hebrews 12 says. He says, you fix your eyes
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You fix your eyes on the Lord
Jesus Christ. For the joy set before Him, He
endured the cross and disposed the shame. looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God. He's the author. It means that he begins it. He's the origin. cause. Faith is the gift of God. It's
the fruit of the Spirit. It's the work of the Holy Spirit
to reveal the object of faith and to give faith in it. He says,
believe in me. And with his words come the power
to do as he commands. He's the author. He's the finisher. That word finish means to accomplish,
to bring He commands love one another. He gives the power to obey. He
says believe, and he gives the power to believe. Peter failed, but what God gives
can never fail. Peter walked out that night thinking
that he was a lost man completely, and yet, And yet, Peter was told
that when you are turned, you're turned back from this wicked,
I will pride that you have, you're going to strengthen your breath
and you're going to come establish them, you're going to come back
to them and you will, like all of God's servants, you will remind
people that salvation is by grace. Salvation is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Salvation was won and wrought
for us at the cross. All of the righteousness that
I had before God is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. All
of the sin payment that I need for me to be washed clean and
be in the presence of the Holy God is all the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the glory of it is, isn't
it, that God just doesn't leave it out there as something that
we have to do. He comes and He applies it to
the hearts of all of His people. He came to Peter, didn't he? He came to Peter, and I love
on that resurrection morning in Mark chapter 16, he said, the angel said, and
it may have been the Lord Jesus Christ, but certainly it was
an angel there at the tomb on that resurrection morning. And
he said, you go and tell the disciples and Peter. You go and tell Peter that he
still is a disciple. He's now as loved by me as he
was when he was sinning. Because God loves. God's love does not ever change. He's as accepted now as he was
when he felt that he was cast off. Because our acceptance is
in the beloved, Ephesians 1. Our acceptance is not in what
we do. Our acceptance is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let not your heart be troubled. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are
many mansions, and mansions is probably unhelpful, it just means
there are many places of staying. There's plenty of room for all
of God's children in heaven. If it were not so, I would have
told you, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. At the end of the Gospel of John,
there is this remarkable conversation. So if you turn with me to John
chapter 21, Peter is challenged about his
love. He says, do you love me? Three
times the Lord Jesus Christ says to Peter on that beach, Simon,
son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? And he said
unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And he saith
unto him, Feed my lamb. He saith unto him a second time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And he saith unto him,
Feed my sheep. And he saith unto him the third
time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because
he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto
him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Peter's confidence is not in
himself. Peter's confidence is in what
the Lord knows about him. Thou knowest that I love thee,
Peter said, feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither
thou wouldest. But when thou shalt be old, thou
shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying
by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this,
his conversation by repeating to Peter the very first words
that he ever said to him by the Sea of Galilee. You follow me.
You follow me. And when Peter turned and looked
at Joan, the Lord Jesus Christ said, That's none of your business. That's none of your business
looking around at what other people are doing. You just follow
me. You look to me. Believe. Believe and be comforted. Fallen sinners. Believe and be
comforted. I've done the work. It's all
been done. It's all finished. Everything
that you are God has been paid for. Everything that you are
God is paid in full. I cried out from the cross, it
is finished. It is finished. We're just left with love and
a command to fix our eyes and just to simply follow Him. Let's
pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that we would heed, hear and heed and love the commands of
our Lord Jesus Christ. That we, in the midst of Our
troubled hearts in so many things, Heavenly Father. Our Lord continues
to say to us today, don't let your hearts be troubled. I'm
done. I've done all the work. I've
gone away and I'm on my way back. And I'm going to come and I'm
going to gather you to myself. Oh, Heavenly Father, we pray.
that we would be found simply resting and trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when the trials come, Heavenly
Father, that shake to the very core of our being any pride that
we have in ourselves, we thank you, Heavenly Father, for the
words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's come to heal the brokenhearted. He's come to give sight of who
He is. to look upon your son on the
cross of Calvary and the glories of what he did there. But also
Heavenly Father see him seated reigning and ruling from heaven
and coming back to gather all of his bride to himself. Cause
us to be part of that number, Heavenly Father. Cause us just
simply to believe, like a child, to rest all of the hope of all
of our salvation in who He is and what He has done. For Your
glory, Heavenly Father, that Your Son might be seen and highly
esteemed in us and amongst us. We pray in Jesus' name.