Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Today’s sermon text is found in John chapter 13. We’ll begin reading in verse 31 and read the first verse of chapter 14. So John 13:31-14:1. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

So when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him immediately.” Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. So now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake.” Jesus answered him, “Will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times.

“Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. And we pray now as we move into this section of John’s gospel where Jesus meets with his children, his disciples, his friends. We pray, Father, that you would illuminate this text for understanding. Help us to see, Father, our own sin, but also help us to see your great grace. May your spirit convict. May it cut us apart and may it heal us as well. May the work of your Holy Spirit be amongst us, Father, teaching this text to us and transforming us by it. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. There’s no outline today. And I wanted to mention as well in terms of the orders of worship that we’ve moved the two small tables on either side of the foyer as you come up the side aisles into the sanctuary right by the back pews. They’re inset a little from the door. So the orders of worship are available on those two tables inside the sanctuary as well as the two tables at the center in the foyer as you come in. It gives us a little more room in the foyer. So please remember if you come up the side aisles to go ahead and take those from those two tables there.

As I mentioned in my prayer, we move now into this section, this large section of John 13-17. Judas, which we have—the psalm we read responsively—is immediately quoted in the context of the New Testament and is referring ultimately to Judas and to our Savior. Judas has been dismissed now by our Savior and said to leave, and so now he is gathered with the disciples.

I want to talk today in terms of comparison of Peter and Judas. But notice this transition. I picked it up at verse 31 because he’s gone out and now the Savior addresses his people and his own children. So he calls them “little children” and calls this the most holy place in John’s gospel—the last moments the Lord spent with his own before his suffering, a moment in which he speaks words full of tenderness and heavenly meaning.

If possible, Alford wrote, these may be the most precious words of our Savior. Comparison of words to words like this are difficult, but you understand that these words now are spoken to his disciples without the traitor now in the presence of them. He’s dismissed the traitor. This is, as Alford puts it, the most holy place. And that it is, and I don’t want to take away from that perspective on what we talk about today. However, what we find nearly immediately in the context of this is a reference to Peter’s terrible sin of denying our Savior three times before the cock crows. That is foretold here.

And as I began to talk about last Lord’s Day, there is this comparison in the text of Scripture in John 13 between Judas and Peter. You know, these are two men who both sin greatly. They both are kind of coupled together here. This is really the second of three times in the Gospel of John where Peter, Jesus, and Judas are kind of wrapped together.

At the end of chapter 6, remember when everybody leaves the Savior after his bread of life discourse, Peter asks—or Jesus asks his disciples if they’ll leave and Peter says, “Lord, nowhere else can we go.” And he makes his declaration that Jesus is the Savior. And then Jesus, in the context of that, says, “I’ve chosen you and yet one of you is a traitor. One of you will betray me.” So this Peter and Judas thing goes on there. It goes on here as we’ve talked about. We’ll talk about more at length today—this comparison between Judas and Peter.

And we also see Judas and Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane. Of course, Judas has brought the authorities to arrest our Savior. And Peter, in stark contrast to that, or in John’s gospel, takes the sword out and begins to do battle with the men that would arrest Jesus. So Peter shows his courage there. And so this scene, however, links them together more by way of comparison, but also by way of contrast.

From the externals of it, however, if we just read through Jesus’s description of Peter’s coming denial, you know, we sort of have a picture that both of them are very much alike. They’re both going to deny the Savior. They both engage in really gross sin in response to the tremendous love of the Savior, pictured first by way of his washing of their feet and then by way of him going to the cross for them. So if we just look at it in the face of it, we don’t really see a great deal of difference.

Judas betrayed Jesus. Peter, in his hour of need, denied Jesus. And remember that he even denies him with oaths and cursings in the context of the Synoptics that talk about Peter’s denial in the courtyard of the high priest. Peter denies him with vehemence. Our Savior three times as the cock comes to crow.

And yet, you know, if we think of these two names—Judas and Peter—I don’t know very many people. In fact, I know none who have named their children Judas. And yet we know people, even in the context of this church, that have named their children Peter. Last week we had the delight of putting the waters of Christian baptism on some little ones in the context of our church. And as we noticed last week, all biblical names. Well, here are two biblical names: Judas and Peter. And one biblical name is very endearing to us, and we name our children after him. And the other is reprehensible to us. And of course, we do not name our children after Judas.

I want to talk today about the context. I want to do this comparison between Peter and Judas a little bit. But first, I want to talk about the context in which this comparison finds itself. I want to go back and remind us of the central teaching here of what’s happening in the upper room with the washing of the feet.

And then Jesus repeating here in this side of the text his new commandment to them—the Monday mandate, the new commandment—to love one another, pictured by way of parable so to speak in Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

So we’ll talk about the context of this comparison. And then we’ll talk about the sins of Judas and Peter and compare them. We’ll look at Peter, then, in the third point of the talk today as kind of representative of all the disciples of Christ. We’ll see that the text draws that conclusion for us, that Peter is representative of all the disciples. And then we’ll contrast Peter and Judas.

So we’ll look at the context. We’ll do some comparison of the sins of Judas and Peter. We’ll look at Peter as a representative, really, of all the disciples—and we can say all of us as well. And then we’ll look at a contrast between Judas and Peter. And then we’ll say a few words about what we’re doing here today and how the Savior gathers us together to teach us about Judas and Peter and our own nature—who we are as the called and elect of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay. So first: The context. The context for this comparison and contrast of Judas and Peter is the Savior’s loving his own to the uttermost. Remember, that’s the kind of the prelude, the prologue, to this entire section: that Jesus loved his disciples, those who were his own. He loved them to the end. And remember we said that “end” doesn’t just mean chronologically. He loved them to its conclusion, as some commentators put it. He loves them to the uttermost.

Jesus’s love to the uttermost is the context in which the horrific betrayal by Judas and then the also horrific prediction of the denial of our Savior by Peter three times—with oaths and cursings—that’s said in the context of the tremendous love of the Savior, loving us to the uttermost. Footwashing and then the cross, of course. This loving to the uttermost, demonstrated by the self-denigrating act of footwashing, calls for a reciprocal act of love from us to him and to those that love him as well.

We said last week that the coat of arms for Christians—you can think of it as having on that coat of arms a basin and a towel, the implements of footwashing. Jesus says, “This is the way you’ll transform the world. This is how you’ll describe whether you’re my disciples or not. This is in his closing words to his disciples in this most holy place. This is his last word, so to speak, to them all summed up together: that they should love one another as he has loved them.”

And he loves them in self-humiliating acts of service that only a slave, a servant, or maybe a child would do—to wash somebody else’s dirty feet.

Now, we mentioned that this is kind of the bookends of the whole upper room discourse. Look in your Bibles at John 17:9. So keep your finger back in 13. We’ll come back to in a couple of minutes, but look at 17. We said that this whole discourse can be seen as sort of having a center to it—where Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. But then on the outer edges of this—this 13-17—is demarcated by this love for one another and the love for the Savior for us.

In John 17, verse 9, he says: “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” So this is the prayer of Christ for those that God has given to him in distinction to the world. So that correlates back to this setting in chapter 13 of him and the disciples. And then in verse 20: “I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” That’s us. So for successive generations of the chosen who believe on Christ, his word being empowered by God the Father, he prays for us as well.

And what, as he prays? Verse 21: “That they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” And in chapter 13 he said that you know, “This is the way that people would see that really the demonstration of the gospel are the lives of service that we live out one to the other, to Christ, by acting in terms of service to one another.”

Verse 26: “I have declared to them your name and I will declare it, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” So he prays for unity, the unity of being pictured by that service back in chapter 13. And he prays for a commonality of love, one to the other, in 17.

So you’ve got love and service and unity being pictured here in the footwashing, and love and unity and service being what Christ prays for at the conclusion of the upper room discourse. So very importantly, this entire section is seen in terms of the community that Jesus has created—his instructions to that community, that they’re to engage in active love of service to him by engaging in active, loving service to one another.

Now, this past week—actually for the last couple of weeks—I’ve been praying through these. These are printed copies of the prayers, the different prayer groups from last month. And today is prayer meeting Sunday again. And Lord willing, I’ll get these in the next week or two from the prayer group leaders. And what I do now is I frequently ride the bus from Camas up to Oregon City, maybe two, three times a week, gives me exercise, walking, and then I get to sit in the bus for 25 minutes or so, and I use that time to pray for you.

And so I’m beginning to know very specifically what your prayer requests are, and to be able to pray for you on a very consistent basis. This has always been a desire of mine. And this particular change in my routine is one way that I’m affecting that desire.

And I didn’t need to look at these sheets to know what the common prayer requests are, particularly for our children. I mean, over and over again, you hear the same old ones. We could just probably make up multiple choice: What is it this week? Is it sibling rivalry? Is it talking back to your parents? Is it diligence in school work and doing your chores? Because those are the commonly repeated prayers, right?—prayer requests.

Well, that’s what we struggle with. And that’s what we’re called to be in a summary fashion here in the context of this last room, the upper room discourse. Sibling rivalry, you know, arguments among brothers. But this was the context, if we look at the whole Synoptic account of our Savior’s action of telling him to serve one another. The context is this argument that ensued in the upper room as they were eating. An argument ensued about who was greatest. So they fought with each other. There’s sibling rivalry in the context of adult disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who had heard the best preaching in the world ever to be imagined for, you know, three years and had seen these tremendous deeds that our Savior did—and still they fought with one another.

So of course it’s common to mankind. But Jesus says that he gives us the answer to our children: “Why is it that they fight?” Well, it’s part of our Adamic nature. “How will they overcome it?” Jesus tells his disciples, “Here’s how you overcome sibling rivalry: You serve one another. You wash each other’s feet. You humble yourself before your brother or your sister, either in your family or in the Lord, and you do things for them.”

That coat of arms again—the towel and the basin—is what it is. The answer to sibling rivalry.

Michael Card, in one of his CDs that Doug H. loaned me, has a song called “The Basin and the Towel” about this thing. And he calls what Jesus did kind of a parable, a visual picture of some teaching. And here’s one of the chorus lines: “The call is to community, the impoverished power that sets the soul free. In humility, to take the vow, that day after day we must take up the basin and the towel.”

So the call is to community. And the call in our families and in this church is to community. That’s the setting for this comparison and contrast of Judas and Peter—is this call to community that ends up with us impoverishing ourselves, not seeking our rights, our glory, but humbling ourselves to others in the context of the family. This is the key for dealing with this difficulty of sibling rivalry.

Our children also ask for diligence, well, in their schoolwork or whatever. Do you hear, again, in this text? Jesus loves them to the uttermost. He calls his disciples to love each other in the same way, eschatologically, always moving on to humble ourselves in whatever power we have to serve one another. Jesus is diligent. He will diligently fulfill his work. And we come together in the Lord’s Day, and Jesus gives us his diligence. He gives us his service and love to one another.

We’re having prayer meetings today, and these are opportunities for us to take up the basin and the towel. You know, we pray for one another. And we don’t just pray for each other, you know, mechanically. We enter into—we have a sympathy, an empathy—for the difficulties that each other shares in our prayer times together. It knits us together in community.

And you may not have thought of it this way, but really we come together to wash each other’s feet this afternoon, right? We come together to speak to our Savior, making requests for those around us. And maybe we come together as well to hear things shared from each other that we can actually then not just pray for each other for, but actively serve each other by helping to meet the needs that are shared in the context of those prayer meetings.

Now, our motto, our vision statement for Reformation Covenant Church is: loving the triune God and transforming the fallen world. And our Savior assures us both in chapter 13 and in chapter 17 that this call to community, to see each other in the context of community—this call to love each other self-sacrificially in community—this is what will transform the world. No, this is the power. The exercise of this service results in power to transform a fallen world. And so it’s linked to our mission as we go forth from this place.

These acts of service, particularly one to another. Jesus took off his robe to do this. We should be thinking and talking in our family worship time: What are the robes that entangle us? What sins entangle us that keep us from doing this kind of self-sacrificial service one to the other? God says that we’re called to do this.

Now, on the other hand, we’re not called to do this to everyone. This is a call to community in the context of the body of Christ. Some commentators have looked at John’s gospel and said that he had a low view of love—if you can imagine that. He had a low view of love because here in this text, as well as in other portions of the gospel, he narrows this kind of community self-sacrificial love to brother-to-brother actions, right?

Jesus emphatically now is dealing with his own, that the Father has called to him. He’s even dismissed the traitor. And these are the ones he focuses on to really enforce in this action of self-sacrificial love, one to the other. Jesus calls on us to focus on particular people in the context of our community.

In John 17, he’ll pray that God might sanctify us by the truth. His word is truth. So our love is fleshed out by the descriptions of what the law says, how we should treat one another. And the law gives us specific ways, then, to enter into acts of self-humiliating service, one to the other. So we have the application of God’s word and law in self-sacrificial service in a discriminating fashion—not to all men generally or even to all Christians generally, but rather very specifically, one to the other.

I was reading that Michael Card song this morning, and Charity heard me. And she said, “Is that for the wedding of Jonathan and Joanna?” And I said, “Well, no, but you know, come to think of it, it’d make a great wedding song, too.” Because that’s what you need to do in the context of a husband-wife relationship: take up the basin and the towel for each other, right? Not to wait for someone to serve you, but to serve them.

I saw a cartoon this last week where a woman is, I don’t know, vacuuming or cleaning the house, and there’s a husband sitting there and his young son. And there’s a picture of their wedding day on the wall behind him. And his son is saying, “Dad, is that the day that Mom came to work for us?”

See, that’s the way it often can be seen in our households. But we’re supposed to be, you know, taking up the basin and towel, reciprocally loving one another. And this is the very core of the Christian message according to our Savior. It’s a discriminating love. And because it’s a discriminating love in terms of our family and the particular church in which we live, primarily, it is a real love.

I heard some commentators talking after the elections, and Chris Matthews, I think, said—and that was always interesting to hear (he’s liberal, but he said)—the liberals are the rudest people he’s ever seen to actual people they meet on the street, the beggars or whatnot on the street, guys with the hands up. The liberals are rude to those people and just have nothing to do with them. But they always vote in big benevolence programs, welfare programs. Whereas conservatives never want to do that in terms of the government, but they usually are characterized as people that are openhearted, one-on-one.

Well, that’s kind of the model we’re supposed to have. We’re supposed to have this openness, one-on-one, to deal with people that God has put into our path. It’s very easy to say we love Christians in general and to do things impersonally. Much more difficult to do things personally, one-on-one, to humiliate ourselves by washing someone’s real feet. But that’s the kind of love that the Savior calls us to. That’s the context for this comparison between Judas and Peter. And this is the love that God calls us to.

And it’s a love, as we said last week—and I know I’m reviewing here a lot—our Savior does throughout this upper room discourse. He goes back to general themes over and over. And so should we. And I’m repeating this because I think it’s so important to drive it home in us that this is what our goal should be. This is what we should be thinking of. And particularly today as we meet together to pray for one another.

I’ve got a little watch here. And this is an example of something else—an example of a major point I made last week: that at the center of that narrative structure of the footwashing, we don’t have what we have at the center of it. We have the unwillingness for one of the disciples to let his feet be washed. And I said that’s our problem, all too often.

I don’t have a band for my watch, and it’s kind of, you know, it’s a—I would like to have one. And a couple weeks ago, I thought to myself, “Well, you know, I’ll just pray about it. I don’t know if I should go buy one or not. You know, I’d like to save the money, use it for other things. I’ll pray about this, and maybe Jesus will give me a watch band.” You know, and you hear this, right? You go make your needs known to other people, make them known to Jesus, and he’ll meet them miraculously—and that’s a good thing.

And after the week passed and I didn’t get a watch band, I thought, “Well, maybe it’s time to go buy one.” I thought, “No, this is that time of year when I tell my kids, ‘Don’t buy things for yourself. Let your needs be known to each other, so that when we buy gifts for each other in the context of Christmas, you’ll minister to each other.’” And I thought it’d be really nice if one of my children were to buy me a watch band. And then next year, all year, while I’m looking at my watch, I think of them. I think of Ben. He gave me this watch a year or so ago. And I love gifts that are personal, that come from somebody that you’re using every day. And every time you look at them, you think of that person. And those covenantal bonds between you and them get thicker and thicker and thicker.

You see, now the point is this: I think that Peter’s, you know, not wanting Jesus to wash his feet is like us. We don’t want real people to know our needs. We think somehow Jesus should minister to us directly. But Jesus says that the way he ministers to us, usually, normatively, is by the disciples washing other disciples’ feet. He tells them, “I’ve given you an example that you should do to each other. You’ve got dirty feet. Let people know that. If you know they’ve got dirty feet, wash their feet.”

It’s very proper for us to share our needs with each other, anticipating Jesus to meet those needs—not in some mysterious way that somehow would authenticate it as Jesus’s real love to us. No, but in some personal way, that Jesus would minister from someone else to us and meet our needs by way of people. You see the difference?

Christianity, I think evangelicalism tends to kind of stress this kind of mystical thing where Jesus is not seen in the context of each other. But Jesus here, in building this community, says that this community is built up of real people. We’re to anticipate Jesus washing our feet through other people, washing our feet and meeting our needs. And we are Jesus. We are the actions of the Savior as we go about washing each other’s feet, as we go about serving other people.

And like I said last week, this means that when we do the simple things—acts of service to one another in the context of the home, whether it’s the wife, the husband, the brother or sister—this is not some lowly thing. Ultimately, this is enacting out the very image of who Jesus is and was, at the height of his love toward his disciples, washing their feet.

And Jesus says that this isn’t just him—because over and over again in 13 and 17, he says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” It is of the nature of God the Father, God the Son, and the motivating spirit of God—God the Holy Spirit—to serve others in the context of the Trinity. And now bringing us into that relationship.

So what we do now is, we understand this text correctly. It gives us the ability to exalt what we’re doing, to really see it as massively significant in the demonstration of the character of God that we are called to follow as his disciples. So this is, this is the context for this comparison and contrast.

Let’s talk a little bit now, in relationship to what happens here, of the fact that both Judas and Peter are described as sinning against this very Savior. He’s given us this tremendous picture, this tremendous model and parable. And he predicts, in the context of that call to commitment to him, he predicts the denial of him by Peter—actually not just once, not just twice, three times before the cock crows.

And as I said last week, the text already has drawn a comparison from Peter to Judas. Judas objected at the next-to-last supper of an act by a woman in terms of washing feet. And Peter objects at the last supper in terms of his own feet being washed by the Savior. There’s a comparison drawn.

Even the fact that Judas is described in chapter 13 as the one who had the money box also connects up this picture of this supper to the next-to-last supper a week before, where again Judas was described as the treasurer. There’s a connectedness between these two narratives that is impossible to miss once we look at the detail. And we see, then, this comparison of Peter and Judas.

Judas was the worst of these. Of course, he was the one when we read about betrayal. He is the one who actually betrayed Christ. I talk two betrayals: Betrayal in the hard sense is Judas. Betrayal in a softer sense, as we’ll see, is Peter. Judas is the ultimate picture of this betrayal.

The Puritans used to call men who would stay with Christ for a while and then fall away “temporaries.” And Thomas Goodwin called Judas the ultimate temporary of all time. So he was with Christ for a while. You know, nobody knew it was Judas, right? He says, “Somebody’s going to betray me.” And they start saying, “Well, who is it?” Judas has been given a position of power and responsibility. He’s a treasurer. He holds the money.

Peter was sort of one of the main guys too. One of the people in the Mount of Transfiguration. He was kind of right up there—not right next to the Savior the way John, the disciple whom he loved, is. Judas or Peter—he has to beckon in the meal to John to ask the Savior who it is. And the Savior then answers John, right? But Peter doesn’t know who it is. So they’re both in positions of power and influence.

Nobody really knows, can see, Judas. Now we can, because throughout the narrative of the gospels we’re told over and over again that Judas is a hypocrite—that he said he wanted money for the poor, but he actually didn’t. He wanted it for his own pocket. He’s a hypocrite. He’s a thief. We know the story. We know he’s the scoundrel of all scoundrels. We know those psalms like we read earlier about, you know, how awful he was and how cursed he is because of his great sin.

But they don’t know that from external appearances. Judas is just like you or me. And of course, that’s a warning to us. It’s a warning to us, lest somehow our external appearance may fool not just other people around us, but fool ourselves, that we have right relationship to Christ.

Judas is this picture of a temporary—and a horrible picture of that as well. Even if you think I’m being a little over the top here and saying you should worry as well, remember that Paul, the tremendous apostle to the Gentiles, even he said that he had to be careful because he didn’t want to be disqualified after ministering to all kinds of other people. He didn’t want to be disqualified at the end. He searched his own soul. He engaged in a proper comparison of himself to Judas to see if he was of that mindset, if he was a temporary, in the words of the Puritan.

So it is an example. These were written to us as examples, that we might be careful, right, as we come to the table, not to be like these men. So we want to distance ourselves from that hypocrisy, of self-interest, of Judas.

However, there is, as I said, so he’s the greater of the sinners. But still, there is this comparison. Both these sins—of Judas and Peter—are both foreknown by our Savior, of course, and also foretold in the context of the upper room discourse.

Both sins are linked to nighttime. You know, it says that Judas went out, and it was night. And then Jesus tells Peter, “You’ll deny me three times, and then the cock will crow.” Calvin says the reason why the cock crowing is here is to point out to us this is going to happen at night. So it correlates Peter’s actions to darkness just the way it correlated Judas’s actions to darkness as well.

Both sins are linked to nighttime. Both sins are really, in effect, denials of the Savior. Judas denies the Savior, that he is Messiah. He denies Christ as his Lord and Savior. And Peter three times says, “No, I’m not one of his disciples.” And he does it with oaths and curses as well.

They’re both denials of the Savior. Both sins also occur—I think this is important to point out and to stress. Both sins occur in isolation from community, right? Judas leaves the company of the faithful to do his sin, to betray the Savior.

Peter, and it’s interestingly, it’s because of his great desire to follow Jesus that he’s just said, right? “I’ll follow you. I’ll die for you.” And he does that in the garden. He takes the sword, willing to die for the Savior. Then the Savior’s arrested. He’s taken to the high priest’s house. And there’s this scene where there’s a fire being built, and Peter is there.

It’s his desire to follow the Savior that ends up putting him in a position of lostness because now he’s apart from the disciples. Now he’s in the context of wicked men, isolated from the disciples. And it’s there that his hour of great dark hour of the soul comes, and he denies the Savior.

I want to quote from George Whitfield on this point. He says, “On the contrary, knowing his own interest is strengthened by society, he should first persuade—he would first point here—about Ecclesiastes and the need for a threefold or twofold cord not being able to be broken. If you have two, it’s better than one, because one will fall down and the other will pick them up.”

So he says that the preacher here, knowing his own interest is strengthened by society, he would first persuade us to neglect the communion of saints. I got it wrong. He’s talking about the opposition to us, the devil. The devil will try to break us off from the communion of saints and then bid us stand in the way of sinners, hoping thereby to put us into the seat of the scornful.

Judas and Peter are melancholy instances of this. Judas had no sooner left the company at supper, but he went out and betrayed his master. And the dismal downfall of the latter, Peter, when he would venture himself amongst a company of enemies, this plainly shows us the devil will endeavor—when he gets us by ourselves—to cause us to sin.

Had Peter kept his own company, he might have kept his integrity. But a single cord—alas, how quickly was it broken! Our blessed Savior knew this full well. And therefore, it’s very observable that he always sent out his disciples two by two.

And now, after so many advantages to be reaped from religious society, may we not then justly cry out with the wise men in our text, from Ecclesiastes: “Woe be to him that is alone, for when he falls, there is not another to lift him up. When he is cold, there is no other to warm him.”

So they both depart from community as they do their sin. And this is a tremendous warning, particularly to men. Proverbs tells us that it is the foolish man who isolates himself. “He who isolates himself rages against all sound counsel.” It’s when we are alone that we are more tempted to fall into sin—whether it’s complete rebellion against Christ or a wavering of faithfulness to Christ.

So both of these sins are compared for us in the text.

Peter—I think, third point now. Peter is representative of all of us as well, and certainly all the disciples. And here we go back to John 16, verse 28 and following.

So we said that you know there’s this discussion of love and unity in 13 and 17. Now there’s a picture—after Judas has gone out—of the betrayal by Peter, his denial of the Savior. And this is matched as we go into the end of chapter 16 by Jesus speaking of the disciples.

Verse 28: “I came forth from the Father. I have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”

His disciples said to him, “See now you are speaking plainly and using no figure of speech. Now we are sure that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question you. By this we believe that you came forth from God.”

So as Peter made the assertion “Lord, I’ll die for you,” now the disciples as a group say, “Oh, now we get it. Now we’re going to be steadfast to you. Now we believe in you. Everything will be great.”

You know, when Ahab—when Ben-Hadad came to him, when Ahab was king of Israel and boasted, “Oh, he’s going to tear Israel apart”—Ahab told Ben-Hadad, “Let not him who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off his armor.” So, you know, okay, you’re going to come to war. You’re already boasting about what you’re going to do. Boast after you’re done with it, not before you enter the task.

Well, here both Peter and the disciples are boasting before the hour of trial will come to them. You see, they’re saying, “We’re ready for whatever you’re going to tell us to do now. I’ll follow you to the death.” The disciples say, “We know. We believe. Everything’s going to be great.”

Jesus told Peter, “No, you won’t. You’re going to deny me three times tonight before the cock crows.”

And Jesus’s response to this assertion of belief by the disciples is found in verse 31. Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?”

See, it’s the same way Jesus answered Peter, right? “Will you really lay down your life for me? Do you now believe?”

See, the parallels are obvious.

Verse 32: “Indeed, the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave me alone. And yet, I’m not alone because the Father is with me.”

So, you see, Peter’s action, his portrayal of his denial, his prediction is matched by the prediction by the Savior at the end of 16 of the denial, the scattering, the leaving of the disciples from him as well. Peter is representative of the whole group.

Why? What’s going on here? Well, I think what’s going on here is that Peter is indicative of all of us. Peter is representative not just of the disciples, but Peter is representative of you and me. We are no better than any of these men. These men had gone with us for three years, and still, in a particular hour of trial and testing, they sinned.

Peter is representative, I think, of every one of us.

Let me read from another man who preached on this sermon, some quotes by him: “There would not be a great deal to distinguish the one treason of Judas from the other—the other being Peter’s. Both men stabbed the Lord in the back. Both men had no excuse whatsoever. Now we can say the disciples as well.

“Both men were overcome by remorse after doing what they had done. Both betrayals were predicted by the Lord beforehand in the upper room. But one man went to hell, and the other man went to heaven. One man never saw the Lord Jesus again, and the other man was honored with a private conference with Jesus on the day of his resurrection.

“One man died by his own hands soon after his crime. The other man lived a long and extraordinarily fruitful life and died violently at the hands of others—a Christian martyr finally fulfilling the proud boast he had so foolishly made that night in the upper room.

“Peter, of course, will be martyred—hung upside down, crucified that way—actually giving his life for the Savior. And Peter, of course, becomes the great shepherd of the church at the end of John’s gospel. And as that shepherd he lays down his life for Jesus and for his people.

“One traitor’s name has lived forever in the annals of infamy. The other became one of the most celebrated and sacred names of human history. We use one name as a slur and brand our enemies with it. We give the other to our sons.

“At the moment of their betrayal of the Lord, these two men—for different reasons to be sure—would have appeared to observers as far more alike than different. In fact, we might have thought better of Judas than of Peter, for Peter’s betrayal was pure cowardice on his part. Judas has apparently had some reason or another to justify what he did.

“And ever since, this has been the way of it. Ever since, the church has been summoned to live this special life that we’ve been speaking of in the footwashing incident—this life of supernatural love—and then has had to be rebuked for failing to do so. And to be sure, ever since, the church has lived this wonderful life of love in Christ’s name. And ever since, she has failed to love one another as Christ loved her.

“And has it not been the same ever since? Christians truly and heroically loving one another and unbelievers as well, and at the same time betraying the Lord, and that especially by either ignoring or positively devouring one another.”

You see, this preacher is saying that the same thing’s true not just of the disciples or Peter. Peter and the disciples are representatives of all the church because they’re fallen men. They had the same sin that is common to us.

Now, let me ask you: you know, when was the last time you denied the Savior? Not in the way of Judas working against him, but in the way of Peter and the disciples. Yes, believing, but having unbelief. Yes, wanting to do whatever Christ would require of you, and yet finding yourselves talking to someone, perhaps failing to witness to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, covering up your Christian testimony, diverting a question that could have been used to speak to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Or this morning: when was it—when did you deny the very basic command that Christ gave you to love one another actively, with acts of service, leadership by way of service?

Parents, when was the last time you failed to model this servant attitude toward your children? Instead, thought that the way to care for kids properly was the sheer exertion of power and authority. Now, there is that Jesus commands us—parents command children—but how often do you do what he did for your children? Did you have opportunities, even this morning, for your wife, for your husband, for your children, for your parents, to go out of your way to see how they were doing getting ready for church, to think of some way you could minister in the name of Christ to them?

You know that as you look back, maybe this morning, yesterday, certainly sometime in this last week, you engaged in some practical denial of the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Peter is representative not just of the rest of the disciples here, but representative of us as well.

Christians, we are a mixed people. And don’t make it weird, you know. When Jesus says you’re supposed to live these lives of love and the world will know this—we say, “Well, how can that ever be because the church is such a mixed bag?” It’s always been a mixed bag. It always will be a mixed bag. It always will have these moments of brilliant shining and other moments of difficulty.

Bruce Coburn in the song called “Great Big Love” says, “Never had a lot of trust in human beings, but sometimes they manage to shine like a light on a hill, beaming out into space from somewhere that’s hard to find.”

Well, we know what each other is like, right? We know our unfaithfulness. We know how we’re not given to help each other. In fact, we’re given to betrayal of one another at times, either through acts of omission or sometimes acts of commission. We know that we’re like that. But we also know that we have acts of tremendous light as God works through us and power of the Spirit to minister to Christ by ministering to each other.

Peter is representative not just of the disciples but of us as well.

So there is this comparison between Peter and Judas. But there’s a difference: because Judas is a representative of all those who reject ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ and who do not desire him. And Peter is a picture—ultimately a representative of all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who want to follow Jesus.

And sometimes it’s our very uneducated zeal for the behavior that leads us into situations in which we actually commit acts of denial. That’s what it was with Peter. Following the Savior, departing from the company of the apostles, mixing with sinners—and now finding himself in a situation where the difficulties and the trials come crashing in upon him, and he doesn’t know what to do.

So like Peter, we have acts of denial of our Savior. Not like Judas, but like Peter. There is comparison, but there’s also great contrast between these two men.

These men are different in the way they end. As was pointed out earlier, Judas ends up with a sorrow, but a sorrow that drives him to suicide. Peter ends up, after his denial of the Savior, coming to biblical repentance and demonstrating a life of service for many, many years afterwards—and dying finally for the Savior that he said he would die for.

Their ends are contrasted for us in the Scriptures. Their sins are contrasted as well.

Our Savior, speaking of Judas’s sin, quotes in John 13 from Psalm 41:9: “Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread—lifted who ate my bread—is the one who sinned against me.” And the Savior describes Judas’s sin as lifting up the heel against him. To lift up the heel against someone is to hate them. It is to have positive animosity for them.

Judas, at the end of the day and at the end of his three years with Christ, wanted nothing to do with him. His sin was one of overt rebellion against the Savior.

Whereas Peter’s sin is certainly culpable. We don’t want to soften the effects of a practical denial of the Savior—a verbal denial with oaths and curses. And yet, we know ultimately that this was a moment of weakness for him. It did not characterize his life.

His sin is contrasted: Judas was premeditated. Peter’s sin was on the spur of the moment. Judas is motivated by self-interest, whereas Peter, he gets to where he is because he’s motivated by a real though misplaced love of the Savior.

And it seems like Peter’s primary problem is fear. Now, it’s funny because he has great courage when the battle is going on in the garden, right? That’s the way we can be. But what do we do when it looks like we’re losing? When it looks like the Savior’s team isn’t going to keep the field, hold the field for the day. That’s where Peter was.

He was ready to fight to the death in the garden and protect his Savior. But when his Savior willingly gives himself up for his people, goes to the high priest for the Inquisition and the coming crucifixion, now Peter begins to waver in doubt. Now, it’s darkness for Peter, right? And in that wavering and doubt, he sins. But it’s not the sort of high-handed, premeditated sin of Judas.

Notice, too, that Judas can be seen as making atonement for his own sins, right? Peter doesn’t take his own life because he knows that the Savior goes to the cross to make atonement for his sins. Judas, on the other hand, will not accept the atonement of Christ and kills himself trying to make atonement for his own sins. He rejects the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Judas is going away from Jesus. Peter is going toward Jesus. Even in the context of the sin, as I said, it seems to be put in the context of Jesus’s desire—to follow the Savior. Jesus desires to follow Jesus wherever he leads. And while that leads to sin on his part, that is his heart’s desire is given to us clearly in the text.

And the sorrow of both men are different as well.

In Luke, after Peter goes through this denial of Christ three times, it then says that Jesus looked at Peter. And then Peter remembered the prediction of the Savior, and he wept bitterly. You know, it reminds me of when the Savior’s eye is upon the disciples rowing across the sea, he sees them. He sees us as well in our denials of him. And knowing that he sees us breaks our heart, causes us deep repentance for our sins. But it’s a different sort of sorrow than what Judas had.

Judas had an Esau-like sorrow. In Hebrews 12:17, it says that afterwards, when Esau wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. Esau was motivated by self-interest. What he wanted was the inheritance. He didn’t want relationship with the God who is our inheritance. And as a result, he had great sorrow over the effects of what he did. But it wasn’t a biblical sorrow unto repentance.

These two sorrows are contrasted for us in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11. Turn there if you would please.

2 Corinthians 7:9-11. And here we have the great statement. This is a wonderful place. All parents should be familiar with this text, to take their children to this text, to help them see what the difference is between Judas and Peter.

Verse 9: “Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death.”

See? Two kinds of sorrow. Sorrow does not equal repentance. Brokenness of heart doesn’t equal repentance. There is a sorrow that is linked to repentance. But there’s a worldly sorrow that Esau had, that Judas had, that does not lead to repentance.

Verse 11: “For observe this very thing: that you sorrowed in a godly manner. How is it described? What diligence it produced in you. You wanted to make up for what you did wrong. Peter wanted to be used more to speak to the Savior. Diligence in ministry is a result of a godly sorrow and repentance.

“What clearing of yourselves. You want to be clear of your sin. Get away from it. Judas reveled in his sin. He went into it deeper and deeper. Thought about it more and more. They wanted to be cleared of all of that.

“What indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. In all things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”

Our children should know that Judas and Peter are two pictures of sorrow: the ungodly sorrow that leads to self-annihilation, self-atonement, death, and the godly sorrow that leads to repentance, a change in the man, a movement away from our sin to positively then put on deeds of righteousness in relationship to that particular area.

Judas and Peter are contrasted in the sorts of sorrow, as this text tells us. Peter clearly had this sorrow—a sorrow that led to repentance.

But why are these contrasts pointed out for us? Why do we see Peter and the disciples as guilty at one level as Judas was?

I think the reason is because God wants us to always remember, dear Christian. He wants us to always remember that we are not here today because we are better than Judas. Peter was no better than Judas. He was on the same level in one sense—denying the Savior.

God’s call of us is solely by his grace to us. There is nothing in us—internally or extrinsically—that merits anything before God. And as we know and are convicted by God of our sins, that we’re disciples and we do the same thing—denying our Savior practically, maybe verbally—God wants us to realize that we are here because of his great grace.

Salvation is by the grace of God alone. And that’s why this comparison is drawn, I think. It wants us to realize that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, we are all Judases.

You know, like that movie “Unforgiven” by Clint Eastwood, there are no white hats and gray hats and black hats. There are no gray hats. Everybody’s a little of both. No, there are only black hats on everyone as we come together before God. We are all in Adam, fallen men. In and of ourselves, we all would put on the black hat over and over and over.

When God and his providence uses our sin sinlessly to remind us of our denial of our Savior, it’s a reminder to us of the tremendous love and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s a reminder to us that Jesus and Jesus alone is the difference between Judas and Peter.

Jesus will say later in this discourse, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. These are the ones the Father has given unto me.”

And what he says is that the difference between Judas and Peter, reflected in different ways of sinning and different attitudes and different ends, the ultimate difference is that Peter is in Christ and Judas is outside of Christ.

Peter is motivated now by the Spirit of God that has drawn him to the Savior, that desires fellowship. Even though he fails so often in his obedience and adherence to the Savior, yet that is his heart’s desire, that continues to drive him—past a worldly sorrow—to a godly sorrow that repents of the sin and then strengthens himself for further obedience to God.

Ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ is the difference between Judas and Peter. Ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ is the difference between Judas and us.

We’re called together today as Peters. You come together today. And if you understand the practical implications of what we talked about last week, you know that you come together as a Peter, as a disciple who have denied the Lord Jesus Christ in some very practical and obvious ways this last week. You know your sin. God brings you to conviction of that sin today. He tells you, “You’re not gathered together here as all Jesus’s. You’re gathered together as Peters and disciples.”

He wants you to be aware of your comparison with Judas, but also of your contrast with him.

You come here today. You come here today to seek Jesus, even though you know of your great sin. What does Jesus tell both Peter and the disciples in our text? And see, the parallels here are clear. They make an assertion of fidelity. He says, “Oh, is that so? No, you won’t be faithful to me.” And then he does one last thing in this dialogue, back and forth.

In verse 38 of chapter 13: “Will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times.”

In verse 1—this is where the chapter break is horrible. Chapter 14, terrible place to break the chapter because the very next thing that Jesus says, without skipping a beat, without that chapter break (which is not inspired), the very next thing he says is: “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. I have come to save you from this sin.”

Peter, he’s still talking to Peter. Let not your heart be troubled. And it seems obvious, but we see it also by way of parallel. Back to chapter 16.

In verse 32, he says: “Indeed, the hour is coming, yes, is now come, when you will be scattered, each to his own, and you’ll leave me alone. And yet, I’m not alone because the Father is with me.”

And the very next thing he says to the disciples: “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you’ll have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

You see, in both cases—Peter and the disciples—they stress their fidelity. You came together today to pledge your fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he renews covenant with us, you want to serve him. You love him. You know your sin. You know the depth of his love for you because of his crucifixion on the cross and his resurrection.

He tells us, “Well, that’s good. Really glad you’re here. You’re here because I chose you. It’s solely my grace. You’re in me. But you know what? This week, you’re sinning. You’re going to fall off the wagon. Corporately, as a group, you’re going to sin. Individually, you’ll sin. In your household, you’ll sin.”

But he doesn’t end it there. He goes on to say, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the fallen old world. I have made you a new creation.” And that’s what’s going to be dominant in your life. Your lives will not be marked by moments of betrayal and denial. Your life will be marked increasingly by moments of obedience and serving Christ and serving one another.

He tells Peter, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Be at peace. Be of good cheer.” He calls us together today to assure us that we are Peters. We do indeed sin against him, and we do indeed sincerely repent for that sin. But he also calls us here today to tell us, “Yes, you’re sinners, but be of good cheer. I have accomplished all things necessary for your salvation.”

Jesus knew Peter better than he knew himself. Peter thought, “I can go do this thing.” Jesus says, “No, you can’t.” Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. Jesus loves us more than we can understand. And Jesus understands what he is doing with us in the context of this new world and this new creation.

He tells you today, “You will sin. You are weak, but I am transforming the world through the self-sacrificial acts of service that you will indeed do, being powered and influenced by my Holy Spirit who dwells in the context of who you are.”

Jesus knew the capabilities of Peter. He knew that Peter, coming through this great denial—this Judas-like sin—would be the one who would be the great shepherd to feed the sheep entrusted to him by the Savior in John chapter 21.

Jesus, Peter would be the great apostle to the Jews. He’ll sin again. He would deny Christ in breaking off fellowship with the Gentiles. He’ll sin more. But Jesus sees what his plan is for Peter. And he sees what his plan is for you. He sees that he is indeed transforming the fallen world by your love of the triune community of God and entering into that love by building the community of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These words here—”Be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world”—that’s like when God tells Joshua over and over again: “Hey, be strong and of good courage. You’re going to conquer that land.”

Jesus, the greater Joshua, calls us together to remind us that we’re like Peter in our sin, but also to remind us that we’re like Peter in our service to the Savior. And Jesus is transforming the world through the actions of his disciples—fallen men and women, though they be.

Here’s what Peter wrote after his trial and tribulation was completed. Part of what his epistle was: 1 Peter 5:2-5.

Hard to miss the allusions to that fateful night in which he denied the Savior. “Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain.” That’s a reference to Judas. “But eagerly, not as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock”—the way that Jesus was the example, washing the feet.

“When the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.”

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, this is the assurance you have as well. You need not be called. You weren’t called here today to wonder if you were Judas or not. You were called here today to be given the assurance of the Savior’s voice that you are Peters. You are disciples. You are built up in the power of Christ through his forgiveness of your sins, to be the great shepherds of your families, your workplace, yourselves, and ultimately of the church and state as well.

You indeed are receiving the crown of glory that does not fade away.

“Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you, be submissive to one another. Be clothed with that towel. Be clothed,” he says, “with humility. For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

We’re called together here today as those who have been brought to a position of humility by our Savior, recognizing our practical denials, but then having received the grace of God, empowerment, the assurance that the crown of glory awaits you as you perform your labors this week in the power of the Holy Spirit who comes and ministers Christ’s patience, his diligence, his forgiveness of our sins, and his self-sacrificial acts of love as we minister to each other.

Let us praise him for this.

Father, we thank you for assuring us today of the forgiveness of our sins and for our empowerment. Forgive us, Lord God, for our acts of denial of the Savior this last week, and empower us to strive diligently to serve him this coming week. But help us to remember, when we do sin, that you forgive us, that you empower us through that forgiveness as we humble ourselves to one another and clothe ourselves with humility, that you do indeed exalt us. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.