When God Seemingly Loses Control

[00:00:00] In these weeks leading up to Easter's a church, we're focusing on Luke's account of Jesus' trial and his crucifixion, all leading up then to the celebration of Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday. And throughout history, many Christians, many churches have have taken this season leading up to, uh, the, to Easter as a time of personal reflection on Jesus' death and a time of preparation for the meaning of, of Good Friday and for Easter.

In fact, you know, some of you may hear, you know, sometimes churches will talk about a season of Lent. And, and, and that's kind of this idea, this 40, uh, day period leading up to that. And we don't always do that every year as a church, but this year is, you know, I really prayed about it. I felt that God was calling me, uh, to, to do this, uh, and to lead you kind of in this time of reflection and, and, and, uh, preparation.

And I, and I want to tell you, you know, many of us look at this and we say, oh, we know the story and. And, uh, even if you know the story, I wanna tell you, there's a tremendous amount that we can learn as we dig deeper into God's word, [00:01:00] and not only about the events and what happened, but it's very practical things that we can learn and apply to our own lives.

So this morning we're gonna be looking at Luke chapter 22, verses 54 to 71, which is the story of the first part of Jesus' trial, uh, including the story of Peter's denial of Jesus. And I know we're saying we're gonna start in 54. I'm actually gonna start in verse 53, uh, but I do encourage you if you have a Bible, to open it up to Luke 22 and to leave it open throughout our time so you could follow along.

From the scripture throughout the message. But let me begin, uh, by reading the passage, we're looking at Luke, Luke 22, starting in verse 53. Jesus said, when I was with you, uh, day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness. And then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance.

And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter [00:02:00] sat down amongst them. And then a servant girl seeing him in, uh, as he sat in the light looking closely at him, said, this man was also with him, but he denied it, saying, woman, I don't know him. A little later someone else saw him and said, you are also one of them.

But Peter said, man, I am not. And after an interval about an hour still, another insisted saying certainly this man was also with him for, he too is a Galilean. But Peter said, man, I do not know what you're talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking the rooster Crow. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly. Now the men who were hi uh, holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, prophesy, who is it that struck you? And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him. And when day came, the assembly of the elders of the people [00:03:00] gathered together both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council.

And they said, if you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, if I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. From now on, the son of man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. And they all said, are you son of God then? And he said to them, you say that I am. And then they said, what further testimony do we need?

We have heard it ourselves from his own lips. May God bless the reading this word. Let me pray. Father, thank you for the privilege that we do have to come together this morning, father, to be able to dive into the truth of your word. I thank you for the things that you continue to teach me through my own study.

And Father, I pray that you would now use me, that you would speak through me and in spite of me, father, to help communicate, not my ideas, not my opinions, but somehow you'd use me to communicate your truth. And Father, help each one of us to have hearts that are open to hear and not only understand, but to apply whatever you would speak to us this morning.

Father, I pray [00:04:00] this in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, when we watch that video in the beginning, and then as we read this passage that we just read, one of the things that I think becomes immediately obvious is that this whole scene is defined by kind of this overwhelming sense of darkness. In fact, if we think of all of Luke 22, from the time that Jesus is having the last supper with his disciples, to the betrayal of Judas, to, uh, the trial before the religious leaders, to Peter's denial of Jesus, all of them happened at night.

We often refer to this as the night that Jesus was betrayed. So there's a theme of darkness that's overwhelming throughout this whole passage. In fact, if you look at, look, uh, verses 52 and 53, as the religious leaders come to arrest Jesus led by Judas, who betrays him with a kiss, Jesus responds to them and look what he says and, and he says, have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs?

When I was with you day after [00:05:00] day in the temple, you did not lay hands of me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness. So even Jesus himself explicitly draws out this theme of darkness. But when he says it's the hour, the power of darkness, what does that mean? What is he talking about here? You see, when we read it, it sounds kind of like an odd statement, and it does, and, and part of that is because it's actually saying something that has multi levels of, of dimension, of truth to them.

And, um, and so we read it in the, in, in the translation. We use the English standard version and, and it says, this is your hour. The power of darkness, and he's, so part of it is he's speaking to the religious leaders. This is your hour. This is what you've been working towards. But even beyond that, he's talking about, okay, this is also an hour that darkness reigns.

And so it literally could be translated. This is the hour, the authority of darkness. It's the hour of the religious leaders of their agenda. But also, in fact, I like the way the New Living translation reads it. This is your moment, [00:06:00] the time when the power of darkness reigns. Again, it's not all just that the religious leaders were doing this all at night.

It's not that they were just trying to hide their activities from the many in the crowd that loved Jesus, but it was also that their actions were driven by the dominion of darkness. They were blind to the truth and it, and it was a time that it appeared that the forces that were opposed to Jesus we're in control.

The darkness was in control. But let me ask you this, when, if it says it's the time when the power of darkness reigns. Does that mean that God was not reigning, that in this time that God wasn't in control? Oh, from all human perspectives. It definitely appeared to be that. It appeared to be that the followers of Jesus were, and Jesus himself were now the victims of evil forces.

But the big question that we have to ask when we look at this is when we look at what it's saying here, is this the hour of darkness when God is out of control. When darkness is raining or is it [00:07:00] a period where it appears that darkness is in control, but in reality, God is still sovereign? You see, it's a huge question, not only in understanding this passage, but it's huge in understanding the periods of difficulty in trial that we're gonna go through in our own lives.

There're gonna be times in our lives and many of us have gone through that, where it appears that evil is winning. It we, we can't sense and see God's presence. The, there's times where it looks like darkness and evil is in control, but is that just something that appears to be the case or is it really the case or, or is it appears and God in reality is still in in charge.

He's still working out his plan, but in unseen and unexpected ways. You see, the fact is that all of us are going to face circumstances and times when it feels like darkness is in control and it feels as if God is out of control. There are gonna be times that we are doing what's right and yet it seems as if we're suffering and, and it looks like those who are doing wrong are prospering.

That it doesn't [00:08:00] seem right. It it, there are gonna be times where it's feels like that you know that the lie is winning and the truth is lost, where it feels like God has lost control. And when the time of the power of darkness reigns. Have you gone through that? You see it's one thing to go through times that you've realized that you're not in control.

Well, we've all gone through that. We realize that I don't control things, and some of those are times that God tries to drive me back to trust in him. I don't control this, so I've gotta rely on God because, because he's in charge. But what about those times where you feel like, I'm not even sure God's in charge?

What about those times that you, you know you're doing what's right and you pray and you really believe this is what God wants. And you pray and you pray and God doesn't answer. God, are you there? Are you hearing my prayer? Or, or maybe you've been through a time where you've trying to do what's right, and, and meanwhile you have a friend or a coworker or a neighbor who just is disregarding God and his life with every aspect, and, and you look back and it [00:09:00] seems like you're not being rewarded, you know, but they're prospering.

In fact, sometimes they may be prospering at your expense. They're harming you and, and, and there's no justice, and you're saying, God, this isn't right. God, if you are really in charge, won't you reward faithfulness? Won't you establish justice? But it seems like evil is winning? Or perhaps you've been through a time where you've had a crisis and man, it's an incredible crisis, or a series of crises that drag on longer than you could have ever dreamed.

And you pray for God's peace and understanding, but yet it doesn't seem to be there. It feels like God is not in control. I wanna tell you, if there was ever a time in human history where it looked as if God had truly lost control, it was that last night of Jesus' life. Even Jesus said it was a time when the power of darkness rings again.

No one felt that more than the disciples. So what do we do when it seems like God is out of control? Well, well, let's look at the story and we [00:10:00] see in the disciples kind of that initial response, our natural response. When it seems like God is in control. Remember the disciples had been with Jesus for three years.

They had stayed with him faithfully. Not only in the good times when they had lots of crowds, but even in the hard times when there was opposition, when, when many who had fallen actually left him. They believed that he was the Messiah. They had incredible hope and, and yet in the midst of that, there was an in instinctive confidence that, okay, no matter what happens, we're going to stay faithful.

I mean, let's, we'll see this, especially in Peter here you have the last supper with the disciples. And Jesus predicts that one of the disciples would betray him. And at that point, Peter steps up and he makes these incredibly brave boasts. It's like, okay, you know Jesus, it might be someone else, but it's not me.

I would never do that. And then Jesus rebukes and challenges Peter in verses 2031 and 32, and this is what he says. He says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like we. [00:11:00] But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.

Now this first take I want to, she show four things that Jesus is actually saying. Four things. Number one, you know Satan has asked to sift you as we, he wants to come. He wants to attack you. He wants to have you. He wants to destroy you. And I've prayed that your faith may not fail. Now in that it's his faith.

But, and the third thing, what you wanna say, Simon? So when you have repented and turned to me again, now that's implying something. It means your, I'm praying your faith won't fail, but you will. Why? Because if you have to repent and turn back, it's gonna be, 'cause you're turned away. And so you're going to fall.

And the fourth thing is, and when you come back, I want you to strengthen your brothers. I'm going to redeem your failure so that your story of failure can be used to help strengthen other people. Now, we're gonna look at that [00:12:00] again in a few moments, but I want you to see that, that Jesus gives a pretty stark warning.

And what is Peter's response? I mean, his response is, no, Jesus, you don't understand. You know, the other guys might fail, but I won't, you know, uh, I wanna let you know, I'm, I would go with you to prison, to death no matter what. Now, think about it. What if Peter had responded, not with pride, but with humility?

What if he said, Jesus, really now I'm gonna do that? I have that in me. If that's true, help me. What do you want me to do? I mean, if he would've responded with humility, I think there would've been hope, but, but that's not the way he responded. He responded with an instinctive pride and self-confidence.

Jesus, you got the wrong guy. That's not me. So then in verse 34, he says, okay, let's be specific. You're so filled with self-confidence. You don't even your own know your own weakness and to prove it, I wanna know that before this evening is done, before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times that you even know me.

You think you're so committed, [00:13:00] so strong, you know, I wanna tell you, you know, you're gonna deny me three times. If it was just once, you could, you could argue, say it wasn't really me, it was a slip. But you're gonna do it three times so that you're gonna know how weak you really are. Now in this, we're gonna look a couple times at Peter here, and, and one of the dangers is when we study this passage, it's, it's easy to look at it and define Peter's sin very narrowly.

Well, he denied Jesus and well, and that means that denying that you know 'em, if somebody asks you, if you're a Christian to say no and, well, I, many of us, we live in a country where we don't face persecution. We may not struggle with that. I want you to see something here, something we'll see later about the root of Peter sin.

One is that his, the root of his sin was pride and overconfidence. You know, he thinks that he can thump his chest as you know Jesus. No, you don't understand. I will never do that. And in reality, what he needed to realize is that in his self-confidence, he never admitted his own weakness because he was so strong in his faith.

He never needed to [00:14:00] make himself dependent on God's strength. He didn't hear the warning of Jesus and saying, oh Jesus, how do you strengthen me? In fact, last week for those that were with us, we saw Jesus prayer in the garden. And we saw before and after the prayer, Jesus told his disciples twice, pray that you may not enter into temptation.

Okay? You're about to get, you know, wa wa whopped by what's gonna happen here. And, and don't be self confident. You need God's help. But they were too confident in their strength. And when things got bad, when darkness, it looked like darkness was really raining, they ultimately failed as we do when we go out in our own strength as well.

Now, even though before we're too tough on Peter, you realize that he actually had a lot of strength. We, we often look at this and says, oh, when he was tempted a little bit, no, think about Peter's story. Okay, here he's enjoying this incredible evening with Jesus. Um, and then suddenly there's a crowd of, of armed guards that show up to arrest him.

And beyond that, it's led by one of his friends, Judas. And, and Judas then comes [00:15:00] and betrays Jesus. And within minutes, Jesus led off. And, and, uh, and all the other disciples, you know, run away in fear. And it's, and it's only Peter and John, they had incredible bravery that they're the only ones that then followed Jesus to the trial.

All that the other disciples had run away and were hiding. But after sneaking into the trial, Peter finds himself in incredibly hostile ground, ground. Everyone else there was part of the group that came to arrest Jesus. They all hate Jesus. And, and, and Peter's watching this trial. He's seeing Jesus being mocked.

He's seeing being beaten. And then we often look at Peter and say, man, I can't believe how weak he was. Would we have done any better in that setting, even to understand the scene a little bit more? What happened is in that day, uh, the large houses would have rooms that would be built on the outside and they would have a large courtyard in the middle, and that's where people would gather and they would have, you know, they had, um, um, you know, big events or things like groups of people that would come and meet.

And the especially large ones, they had the [00:16:00] courtyard and then they had like a little, kind of like a, a solarium inside that. And so the, the trial was probably inside the solarium. And, and, and Peter and all the other guards were in that courtyard and they could see what's happening. And, and as they're watching this, Peter comes and he sits around the fire with all these other guards, all these people that had come to arrest Jesus.

And somebody recognizes him and challenges him, and he denies that he knows Jesus and, and someone else recognizes it. And, and he denies. And then we're told the third time he's challenged and we're told in verse 59, after an interval, about an hour still another insisted saying cer, certainly this man was also with him for he too as a Galilean.

But Peter said, man, I don't know what you're talking about. And as soon as he speaks that third denial, immediately while he was still speaking the Rooster Crow and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the word say, how he had said to him Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly. [00:17:00] So now here's what happens. So he denies, and immediately the rooster crows. And then Jesus looks at him, he turns, and Jesus, who had been beaten, who's now scarred, who's bruised, looks Peter in the eye. And the question I wanna ask you, if you could imagine that scene when Jesus looked Peter in the eye.

What did Peter see? What did see Peter see in Jesus' eyes? Was it anger? Peter, I can't believe this was rejection. You rejected me. I'm gonna reject you. Was it, was it disappointment? What did he see? That's a really important question because it poison a mind what we think we see from Jesus when we fail.

I'm gonna come back to that question at the end, but be thinking about it. But we have to realize that in that scene, everything that was going around was screaming that Jesus had lost control, that he was now the victim of evil forces. He was about to be condemned and defeated. And how could Peter believe that [00:18:00] Jesus would take care of him when, when Jesus can't take care of himself?

But let's look, dig deeper into the story, because what we said in the beginning, the question is, is darkness in control or does it look like it? And what I want you to see is that God was sovereign. Even in this time of darkness, and the story makes it clear. At first read, it may look like its darkness is raining, but it actually is pointing us to the place that no God is in control.

So we're gonna see is that while evil seems to be winning, God is in control. Look at verse 36 or 63. First of all, we read, and the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him. As they beat him. They blindfolded him and kept asking prophesy, who is it that struck you? And they said many other things against him, blam him.

And what it looks like here is that God is weak. It looks as if evil is prevailing. 'cause we may read this and we could say, I can see that evil's prevailing, but how do you say that God is in [00:19:00] control here? What in the, in this whole scene makes you think that that God's in charge? And here's what we need to do, is we need to see this in context of another scene.

Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, a week happened probably about a week beforehand. You see what they're doing is they're blindfolding him, and as they're blindfolding them, they're smack, you know, smacking him, hitting him. And they're saying, if you're a prophet, tell us who's hitting you. And the irony of that all is when you look at what Jesus said earlier, they were attacking his prophetic power, but they were in the process actually proving it because he already did.

Um, pro prophesy what they're doing now, look back in Luke 18, this probably was about a week before Jesus said to his disciples, we are going up to Jerusalem. And everything that is written about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished, where he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.

And after flogging him, they will kill him. And on the third day he will rise. [00:20:00] Now here's what's happening. Jesus predicted the, the, you know what they're doing. They're saying, prove your power by telling us who hit you. And Jesus has said, I already did that a week ago. I already predicted this a week ago.

I predicted this whole scene. They're trying to mock his power and by proving him to be powerless, but they're actually proving his ultimate control now. Even think, why are they mocking him? You see, these are the religious guard. These are the Temple Guard. These are the religious people who, who believed claim to believe the Old Testament who, who talked about the prophets and talked about the Messiah.

And you know, why they're mocking him as they're saying you can't be a prophet because you have no power. 'cause prophets, they, they have somebody with power. You know, they thought of stories like in the Old Testament, Elijah. Elijah called down fire from heaven. And that's power. Or they thought of Second Kings two, where some kids started mocking the prophet Elijah and for being bald.

And the, and the prophet Elijah called Bears out and they came [00:21:00] out and bald the kids, which, just a little warning about anyone thinking of, of mocking the hairline of your spiritual leader. It's a dangerous thing to do. I mean, second Kings two, it's, it's a, now, I'm not gonna call it bears on anybody, but, you know, but they're looking at it and they're saying that's what prophets do.

Prophets have power. And so they're thinking. Jesus. You claim to be a prophet. Where's your power? You can't be a prophet because if you were a prophet, God wouldn't let these things happen to you. If you were a man of God, you wouldn't be weak. You wouldn't be vulnerable. God doesn't work with through weakness and vulnerability, they were looking at the appearance senselessness of Jesus suffering.

They looked at his weakness and vulnerability and they mocked him because God doesn't work like this. You can't be the Messiah. You can't bring God's work of salvation. But what they missed is that that is exactly how God brought salvation. You see, if he said, let me show power and, and wipe them out, or if he, if he even write out the Romans, he might've saved people from bad political leaders, but he wouldn't [00:22:00] have saved humanity.

It was only in allowing himself to be beaten and crucified, that he took the sins upon the world of the world upon himself, that he would bring ultimate salvation. Now as we look at this though, there's a trap here that we have to realize that we can be vulnerable to as well. And that is that we can look at the tragedy in the world.

We can look at bad things that have happened and say a loving and powerful God wouldn't let those things happen. You know, we, you know, you know, if God was really in charge, you know, evil wouldn't happen like this. The bad things in my life wouldn't happen. How can I believe God? But we need to realize is that this story shows us that God often works in very unexpected ways.

God will at times work allowing evil to seem to be in control, when in reality he's, he's ultimately in charge, that God is sovereignly working out his plan. He did then, and he still does it now. Lemme even give you a picture of this. Uh, I mean, sometimes you go outside and you, if you [00:23:00] see an incredible storm coming over, I, I remember we used to live in South Florida.

And we would see hurricanes come, and when you would see this big hurricane, I'm, it'd be enormous. And everywhere you could see, you'd see these dark clouds and the winds and the rain and, and it would be overwhelming to the point where, I mean, it was the, you know, it was dark. Now the question is, is even when you have a hurricane that come in, does it affect the, the sun, does it change the stars?

No, the sun's still out there. You just can't see it. The stars are still out there. The sun continues to shine and in time the clouds will go away. And we'll be reminded of that. I mean, sometimes you see that if you've ever been in a storm and you take off in an airplane and you take off there and it's dark and it's scary and the winds are there and it's threatening, and, but then you have the plane break through the clouds and suddenly it's like, where did the storm go?

Suddenly the sun is there and, and, and if you look down, you see that, but suddenly you realize the sun was never threatened in the slightest way. [00:24:00] And that's what we need to realize. In the same way that we will go through periods where it will look like it's dark, where there's incredible storm clouds, where we don't see the sun shining at all.

We don't see God's purpose and, and yet we need to realize that the clouds are there, but it hasn't changed the sun at all. The sun is still shining. God is still on the throne. He's still accomplishing his purposes, and in time the clouds will blow away and will remember that we need to take hope. We see this in the second picture as well here in the end of Luke.

And it's the condemnation of Jesus by the religious leaders. They condemned him because he failed to be the the kind of messiah that they wanted. He failed to meet their expectations. Look at verse 66 when they came, the assembly of the elders of the people gather together, both the chief priests and scribes, and they let him away to the council.

And they said, if you are the Christ, tell us it's the Messiah. And he said to them, if I tell you, will not believe, and if I ask, you will not answer. But from now on, the son of man will be seated at the right hand of the [00:25:00] power of God. And then when you look at it, you say, how is Gods sovereign in this?

Here's what's happening. The religious leaders, were trying to somehow make their condemnation of Jesus look legitimate. You know, they're trying. In fact, you know, mark and other gospels tell us that they even brought in, uh, different. Witnesses to try to, to condemn Jesus, but the witnesses, their stories didn't match up.

And so in sheer desperation, they're trying to trick Jesus into saying something that they could use against him. They've been doing it all week and basically they're saying, if you're sang the Messiah, then we can go to the Romans saying, saying he wants to be a king and you gotta get rid of him. That's what they're trying to do.

And, and they've tried to do it all week and it's failed time and time again. And so finally they're coming and they're saying, okay, well let's try to do it this trial, putting it straight out there. And he's saying, if you say the Messiah, you know we're gonna go to the Romans. And Jesus said to them, if I tell you, you will not believe.

And if I ask you, you'll not answer. And basically saying, you're asking if I'm the Messiah, you don't wanna know. You. You're not trying to [00:26:00] find out because you wanna know truth. You've already decided I'm not, and you're just trying to get me to say something you can use against me. Again, these are the religious leaders who claimed to believe in the Bible and they claimed they wanted to see the Messiah.

Why are they rejecting Jesus? Was it because they studied the Bible and they said he doesn't match up with biblical pro prophecy? No, he did. They weren't studying the Bible. You know, what was happening is that they were saying, we want a certain kind of Messiah. We want a political Messiah, and, and, and you're not the kind of Messiah that we want.

It's not that he wasn't the Messiah, the, the Messiah of the Bible. They were not, he wasn't the Messiah of their own making, and so now they're rejecting him. See, now, in the same way I see people do this all the time today. That people will look at it and they reject God. Not, not because the Bible isn't true, not because, but because in their mind it's like if God were, if God were true, he would be like this.

They have a God, not of the Bible, but a God of my own, making [00:27:00] a Jesus of my own making. He would do this, he would say this, and then I'm frustrated that, that he isn't, and, and people then try to argue against God or, or disprove God. People will say, well, I don't believe in God for this reason. I give an answer and it's, well, here's another reason they don't wanna know.

They don't wanna know. Yeah. They're, they're coming. And you're basically saying, here's the conclusion that I have and, and I'm trying to just give intellectual cover for my rejection of God's authority in my life. And so, so that's what we still do. And we've gotta say, give that you, and if that is, I'm gonna be honest in your pursuit of God.

So now I love it though, in Jesus' response because here's where you see they're trying to do this. They've rejected him. They're trying to trick him. And Jesus comes back to them and he's saying, you know, I see your trap. I see what you're trying to do, and I'm not gonna give you what you want, but I'm gonna give you new information.

In verse 39, he says, from now on, the son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God. He's saying, you wanna know if I'm the Messiah, if I'm the Christ, and then you're gonna try to use my answer against me with the Romans. I'm not [00:28:00] gonna answer that question, but I'll tell you that the one who sends the Messiah, the son of man, God, I'm him.

I'm the one that gave that prophecy. I'm the one who is behind the Messiah. I'm, I'm, I'm, God. I'm gonna one up you on that. And so he's making in this his clear, his sovereign control over everything. He's not falling into the trap at all, but he's saying, I'm willingly stepping into this path that I've chosen of my own volition.

And here's what we need to realize. There are gonna be times that it seems like people are manipulating and things that we're being tricked. And God has never tricked. God isn't planned. You know, God doesn't, when we look at everything that is going wrong here, it's looking like from a human perspective, God can't be in charge, and yet God is in charge.

And the greatest event of all human history is working itself out in what appears to be a an hour of darkness. And we need to realize that Jesus' life, in a sense, is a sort of mini version of the whole of human history. And if God could take the [00:29:00] senseless tragedy of Jesus' death and turn it into something that is comic or cosmically, wonderful.

Do you think that he's gonna do that in our lives as well? That he's, any lesson can charge. And so we need to see God's sovereignty and his good plan in the darkness of night. And when it looked so dark that Jesus himself said, this is your hour, the hour, the power of darkness. And if we can believe that God was sovereign there, can you believe that He's sovereign?

Whatever you're going through in your own life. Now, let me circle back to one last part of this from an earlier part of the story in Peter's denial. And there's an incredible truth here in Peter's story. We need to see. And that is that we see God's sovereignty, not only in the events that are taking place, but I want you to see God's sovereignty.

Even in Peter's failure. Even in our failure. Remember, Peter had made these incredible promises about, you know Jesus, everyone else will deny you, but not me. I'm never gonna fail. He was so [00:30:00] sure of his strength, of his commitment in his, but in his pride and self-reliance. At first, he followed Jesus when others left, but ultimately.

The darkness can get so dark that we give up. And I wanna tell you, and I hear this, I relate to Peter's failure. And again, it's easy to to, to define this narrowly and to say, well, have I ever denied that? I know Jesus well, I haven't done that. I don't live in a environment where that can cost me my life.

You have many people who do, do live in environments where that's their temptation. Let's define his failure more broadly. You see, his failure wasn't just in denying Jesus, it was in saying in his boast, I would never do that. Others may fall into that sin, but I would never do that. How many of us had said something like that?

I would never do that. You know, I would never leave my spouse, you know, I, I, I wouldn't, I would never give up on my marriage. I would never fall back into that old sin that I was addicted to in the past. I would, I would [00:31:00] never have sex outside of marriage. I would never hurt someone the way that they hurt me.

I would never turn into that dishonesty. I, I would never. And what is the, I would never, that you've said, and for many of us like Peter. When things then get really hard, when life gets so dark that we don't see God working, we don't feel him answering our prayers, what we, what's tempting to do is then we turn to that sin that we said I would never do because we're overwhelmed and, and I can understand that.

I relate to Peter in that. And if you've been one that has fallen into that sin where you told God I would never do it, here's the question. How does God look at you now? I wanna give you hope from this story. You need to see that God isn't surprised by our failure. Let's go back to the middle of Luke 22, when Jesus was at the Last Supper with his disciples.

And again, remember Peter's making these great boasts. I'm never gonna leave you. I will never. And then you see Jesus turn to Peter and look [00:32:00] what Jesus says to him. To Simon. Simon, Satan is asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers, he's looking at him and he is saying, okay, um, you know, Peter, you know, I prayed for you, you know, but I'm gonna come back to this.

But it's like, I'm praying your faith will not fail, but you're going to fail. And then he predicts the betray, you know, three times. You're gonna deny me specifically in a couple verses later. And then at the end of the story, if you have your Bibles, look at what happens in verse 60. But Peter said, you know, when he was challenged a third time, man, I don't know what you're talking about.

And immediately while still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, for he had said to him before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. And Peter went out and wept bitterly as soon as he denied him. The third time the rooster crows, he [00:33:00] looks, he looks at Jesus into his beaten face.

And again, the question I asked earlier, what did Peter see in Jesus' face? What did he see in his eyes? Was it anger? Was it disappointment? Was it rejection? Was it, I can't believe you. Let me down, Peter. I'm suffering here and, and you can't even stand with me. I can't believe how weak you are. Is that what you saw, what he saw?

No. You know, I think he saw. I think he saw Peter. I told you I knew you would do this and I love you. And remember I told you, come back. See, and this is a vital question because what happens is that all of us disappointed sometime. All of us see, have that sin. I would never, and we've done it. And when we ask what did Peter see in Jesus' eyes, I'm also asking, what do you see in Jesus' [00:34:00] eyes?

And there are many here that would say, I can't look at his eyes. 'cause I fear, fear, fear rejection. I, I fear disappointment. I fear God. How can I trusted you? I did, did better. And we are afraid to look and Jesus grabs us and says, no, I want to look. Was Jesus disappointed in Peter? No. Why? Why? What's disappointment?

Disappointment is I expected better and I can't believe you didn't do as well as I expected. Did Jesus expect better of Peter? No, he expected Peter to fall. Peter was disappointed in Peter, and in the same way, we are disappointed in ourselves, but God has been disappointed. We fail and God says, instead of, I expected better, I can't believe you're weak.

God's like, I've seen that weakness in you before. I knew it was there. I've been warning you about it, and now will you agree with me now, will you surrender now? Will you let me forgive you now? Will you let me give grace now? Will you let me give strength that you don't have? [00:35:00] Now, will you let me give healing?

You see, in Jesus' eyes, there's grace, there's healing, there's understanding. You know God. God knows us better than we know ourselves. And not only is there grace, not only is God not surprised, but I want you to see that in this passage. It teaches us that God not only has grace, but there's redemptive purpose even in our failure.

The God sits there and looks at Peter and not only we say, I understand, but now turn back and let's go back to what he said when he said in verse 32. And when he said, you're gonna fail me. And when he said, I'm praying for you. And when you have repented and turned backs, strengthen your brothers. Now, do you see what Jesus is saying here?

He's saying, Peter, you're gonna fail, and now I don't want you to come back. But when you come back now take that and use the story of your failure and use it to strengthen other people. Let me redeem it. Let me take it and use it as a part of your [00:36:00] ministry. It's not only that, that you failed me, and I can never use you.

No, I'm gonna forgive you. I'm gonna restore you, but I'm going to use you not only in spite of, but because of your failure. I'm gonna take that part of your story and I'm gonna redeem it, my friends. This is such an incredible part of God's grace that so many of us have a hard time understanding that we need to embrace.

So many of us feel like, man, I failed and like Peter and I wanna go hide and. I want to tell you that God is pursuing and say, I know you. I know your weakness beforehand. I'm not disappointed. I'm not rejecting you. I not only wanna forgive you, but I wanna redeem it. I want to take that and say, now use that.

And you know what we see, they see the story. We talk about all the time that God wants to take our story, our failure and shame, and he wants to buy his grace, turn it into a story of his glory. And we've seen that with some of these testimonies of baptisms in the last coup in the last month or so. We've, he heard some stories and people have shared things.

You're like, oh, that's terrible. That's, you know, and there are things that we would [00:37:00] naturally wanna hide. And we've heard that story and instead of saying, oh, that's terrible, we said, what a great story. It's a terrible me story, but it, by God's grace, it suddenly becomes a great God story. And many of us have been encouraged and, and, and, and, and, uh, given hope by these stories, these terrible stories that God has redeemed.

I want you to realize that even in the mistakes that we got is not sovereign or they're not in charge. He doesn't cause evil. He doesn't cause evil to happen to us. He doesn't, not the source of darkness, but he's sovereign over darkness. He's sovereign. He doesn't cause us to sin. He's sovereign even over our sin.

Look what it says in Ephesians. In him, we have obtained an inheritance. Heaven been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will. Do you see what it's saying? He works all things according to the council of his will. All things, the good, the bad, the things that are done against us, the dark times, the when evil seems to work against us.

Even when we like Peter, fail. If we let it, God will take our story of shame [00:38:00] and he will make it a story of grace. He will take the, you know, we said, man, we still wear these, these scars. God has the ability to take, yes, he leaves the scars of past sin, but he will take that scar and he will transform it into a unique mark of beauty.

If you let him, are you willing to let him do that? Are you willing to come and say, God, I, I wanna surrender this? I have the wanna have the courage to come and to look in the eyes of Jesus Christ and to look and see not his rejection, not his his disappointment, the things that I fear, but to see his grace I.

To see his forgiveness, to see even his restoration and his redemptive purpose. God help me to take all the things that I wanna hide and know how you wanna not only forgive me, but to redeem me and even to use me. Are you willing to bring that before Christ today? See, I hope that as we look at this whole story, it's a story of darkness and some of us, we might be in the the season where, man, I don't see, I'm under the cloud and I don't see where God's working.

Do you see God [00:39:00] as sovereign over all things? Look at the story of Jesus and if God was sovereign in that, can you believe that he's sovereign in what you face, that the sun is there still above the clouds and the clouds will pass. Or even if that darkness is your own failure in how you have turned or you have failed in those difficult times, I want you to see that God is still even sovereign over that and don't hide.

But bring, bring it before Christ. Look at his eyes and feel not only his grace, but his redemptive power. If you have a question about the Message Community Church or Jesus Christ, send us a text to 3 3 0. 432 42. You can learn more about our events and community groups at CCP Life slash Connect There you can also send in a prayer request.

We would love to pray for you. Have a blessed Lord's Day, and we'll see you on [00:40:00] Sunday.