Including You

Okay, it's Easter, and so we're gonna be talking about the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus and what that means and why it's such a big deal.

And uh I gotta be honest, I've been looking forward to this service all weekend, this particular service, because this service, there's no service after it, so I can just go till I'm done.

All right.

About a quarter of you were like, I don't know if that's a good thing to clap about or not.

Uh no, I'm really, really honored to have you here.

I I want to um I'm gonna jump in.

I'm gonna I want to talk about Jesus' life, and I want to do a little bit of academic like teaching just before I get into uh the meat of the story because I want to make sure we're all on the same page.

I don't want to take anything for granted.

And the Bible sometimes can be a little bit confusing, so I think this will help us out.

The Bible is is uh, or the the story of Jesus, his death, burial, birth, death, uh, resurrection, all of that is found in what's called the Gospels.

The Gospel means good news.

That's what gospel means.

And it's the gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all named after the authors, first four books of the New Testament.

And uh each of those authors has kind of a unique motive and sort of a unique approach to writing their account of Jesus' life and death.

And uh when you know kind of a little bit about that, when you put the stories next to each other, you'll find that each one of them brings a little bit of nuance difference, and it really ends up giving us a good full picture.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about each of these authors before we begin to read.

Um, let's start with Matthew and John.

Matthew and John were both disciples of Jesus, so that was their motivation.

They had been close to Jesus, they had uh walked where he walked, ate where he ate, slept where he slept, and so they wanted to make sure people knew about him.

So it's a very much an eyewitness account.

Matthew's a unique guy because he was a tax collector.

So he would have been fluent in Greek, he would have been able to read and write very well, and also as a tax collector, he would have been trained in shorthand.

And the reason that that's significant is because he was able to document things as it happened.

Instead of 10 years later, 20 years later, trying to remember, hey, what happened, you know, way back then and getting it wrong, um, he was able to document as he went.

And of course, as a tax collector, um, he was good at record keeping, documentation, and accuracy.

How many of you know?

Nobody is more accurate than the tax collector, right?

They never sent your taxes.

They're like, you know, you owe us a little bit of money.

Okay, it's down to the penny.

And so, so the accuracy we have through Matthew.

Uh, through John, we have one of Jesus' best friends.

So we know Jesus had 12 apostles, but then he had three that were like his best, best, best friends.

And John was one of those.

And so in the in the uh account of Jesus' life through John, you find it very personal.

You there's an affection to it, there's a depth of the relationship that you can see, just like if any story was told by someone's family member or very close friend.

Who's Luke?

Luke was not a disciple, he wasn't one of Jesus' disciples, but um, he was a physician and he was an amazing researcher.

And so it think of it like this in the first four verses of Luke, so in Luke 1, 1 through 4, basically what he says is, hey, you're probably wondering why I wrote this book, why I made this documentary.

He's like, this story has to be told and it has to be well preserved.

And he said, Here's what I did.

I went and interviewed everybody who was an eyewitness.

I found as many eyewitnesses as I as I could.

No, uh not everybody, but he got as many eyewitnesses as he could to be able to put this together and piece this story together in a beautiful documentary.

So if you think about a documentary that you maybe are into, you watch, if it's from an eyewitness, it's going to have really their perspective.

But you have Luke, okay, you can get a phenomenal documentary from someone who wasn't there, didn't know the people, but they're a researcher.

They pull all of that data together and they present it in a powerful way.

And so you have Luke, he not only uh talked to Matthew and John and all this, but to many, many other eyewitnesses and made the most amazing documentary.

That's the book of Luke.

Now we have Mark, okay, is the one guy we left out.

Who's Mark?

Well, Mark also was not an eyewitness, he also was not one of Jesus' disciples.

He's mentioned in the book of Acts, and he's also referred to as John Mark.

So it's like, what's up with Mark?

Because Mark is the first guy actually to release the gospel.

He's the first guy to tell the story.

And so it's like, well, where does he get the validity?

Where does he get the credibility to do this?

And it's in the fact that he is in very, very close relationship, was in close relationship to the apostle Peter.

So in Peter's writings in 1 Peter 5 13, he refers to Mark as his son.

He says, My son Mark.

And so they had this really, really tight relationship.

It was familial, it was close.

He wasn't his biological son, but it was like his son in the faith.

And so Mark, even though he wasn't there for it, he was super tight with his father, essentially, Peter, who they were very, very close.

And so he had access to Peter's memoirs, he had access to stories straight from Peter's eyewitness account.

And so what most historians refer to, Mark, the book of Mark, is the gospel according to Peter.

Now, before we start looking at this last night of Jesus' life before the crucifixion, I want you, I want to think, I want us to think about this.

The account of Jesus' life, the story of Jesus' life, was not written by Jesus and was not pushed out by Jesus.

The story was documented and distributed from people who, frankly, in the story, make a lot of errors and mistakes.

It's quite an unflattering story.

Particularly, we're gonna look through Peter's compilation of errors and mistakes in the last night before Jesus is crucified.

But to think about how sort of odd it would be to go tell your son about your four biggest failures and make sure that he tells everybody else.

It's kind of like our worst fear, actually.

I'm worried that a hundred years from now they're gonna still be talking about the dumb stuff I did.

Like imagine that what you're remembered for, that you know, 2,000 years later, a bunch of people gather in Columbus, Ohio to talk about the worst night of your life.

To talk about you making a decade's worth of bad decisions in one night.

We don't want to be remembered.

In fact, this is the kind of story that if you're Peter, you would want it to never see the light of day.

Let's sweep this under the rug.

If your son asked you about it, you'd be like, eh, I don't remember.

But what he did was he told him details and he said, make sure you get it out.

So this story is pushed out by people who, frankly, it's an unflattering, unfavorable light that they're putting in the story.

Let's just think about that for a second.

So let's talk about these failures.

We have actually, it's it's it's the last night.

Think about the Lord's Supper, right?

They're headed to the Lord, the Last Supper.

You have Jesus and his 12 disciples.

They're gonna have a last meal before he's crucified.

And in the gospel, according to Peter, in Mark chapter 14, um Peter uh remembers this that Jesus told them, All of you will desert me.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

For the scriptures say God will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

But after I'm raised from the dead, I'll go ahead of you to Galilee and I'll meet you there.

And Peter said to him, Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never.

I never will do that.

And Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, Peter, this very night before the rooster crows twice, you'll deny me three times that you even know me.

Jesus predicts his failure.

No, Peter declared emphatically, even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.

And all the others vowed the same.

Um, the first failure that we're gonna highlight here is uh I over-promised and under-delivered.

I over-promised and under-delivered.

When you read the words of Peter and you read the promise of Peter, you can feel that he means it.

I think he means it.

I think sometimes people over-promise and underdeliver because they're being manipulative.

I do think sometimes people uh, you know, they they just kind of throw their word out there.

But I think a lot of times people who over-promise and underdeliver, when they make the promise, when they make the statement, they fully intend to follow through.

But as it plays out, they end up not.

They end up not.

I think Peter here is trying to be a good friend.

Jesus is starting to talk about it's about to go really bad for me.

I'm I'm going into a dark season.

And like any good friend, what would you do?

You would want to give your friend some assurance that they're not going to be alone.

I I you know what?

I know there's a lot of variables in front of you.

I'm not one of them.

I know there's a lot of fluidity, I'm a solid, I'll be there.

You don't have to worry about, uh you don't have to worry about that.

I'll be there.

And so he's promising, he's making this promise, and yet he over-promises and underdelivers.

As the story plays out, he does the thing he said he wouldn't do and he doesn't do the thing he said he would do.

And friend, I can relate.

I can relate.

More stories than I want to admit.

There have been many times where I thought I could do it and I couldn't do it.

I thought that you could count on me and you couldn't count on me.

I expected to follow through.

I thought at the moment of truth I would deliver, and one thing led to another.

Circumstances happened as they would, and so you have to deal, and I think probably all of us have to deal with times that we overpromise and under-deliver.

Failure number one.

Failure number two, they they leave the Last Supper after they've had that.

They go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

And in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus takes nine of his disciples, including Matthew, and he says, Hey, you stay over here, and I'm gonna take uh Peter, James, and John, his three best friends, and he takes them into the Garden of Gethsemane to have a quiet moment.

And we've been looking at this scene for the last month where Jesus becomes very vulnerable.

We see his humanity on display.

He says to his closest friends, uh, it's kind of a private moment.

He says, I'm gonna be honest, my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.

It's like panic attack language.

He's saying, like, what's going on inside of me is overwhelming.

And I feel like it's going to kill me.

I can't contain it.

And he says, Would you just keep watch with me?

Just don't leave me alone.

Have you ever been trying to support a friend who's going through something really big and you know you can't fix it?

Are you trying to offer them support?

I I have a close friend whose father died a few days ago.

And a few months ago, doctors uh diagnosed him with terminal cancer and they gave him a window of time.

It's gonna be a few months.

And when he told me that, when we found out that news, my heart was broken.

It was broken for everybody involved.

And so I'm now looking at my friend, and it's like I'm trying to, I want, I just want to be a good friend, I want to support him.

So I'm like, hey man, if there's anything I can do, let me know.

Have you ever been doing try to do that?

You know there's not really much.

You know, you you I can't solve the problem, I can't take the pain away.

But is there anything I can do?

This is where they're at.

So so Jesus, you know, he's not saying to Peter and James and John, hey, would you guys go to the cross for me?

He's not saying to these guys, hey, would you take this assignment away?

He's saying, look, I have to walk through this, but you're my friends.

Would you just stay awake with me?

And inevitably, they fall asleep.

They fall asleep.

They're so tired, it's middle of the night, they fall asleep.

Which leads to failure number two, which is my best wasn't good enough.

Have you ever given your best and it wasn't good enough?

Like at some point in life we fail and we have to kind of come to peace with the fact that my best wasn't good enough.

But but that's the reality, is sometimes you give your best and it's not enough.

It's the best you can do.

I mean, the best you can do is the best you can do, but sometimes the best you can do isn't enough.

And so this is here's Peter.

He's not trying to fall asleep on Jesus.

He's trying to stay awake, he's trying to be a good friend, but he can't.

He can't keep his eyes open, he falls asleep.

Now, here's how it's told in the book of Luke.

Look at this.

Luke 22 says that you know, Jesus in Gethsemane stood up again and he returned to his disciples only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.

Now, verse 46, notice this.

Why are you sleeping?

He asked them.

So in Luke's account, Jesus poses the question to the group get up and pray so that you will not give in to temptation.

Here's the gospel according to Peter, Peter's account in Mark 14.

It said, Then he returned and found the disciples asleep.

He said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Couldn't you even keep watch with me one hour?

So Luke says that when they fell asleep, Peter, James, and John fell asleep.

Jesus came over and was like, What's up with this, fellas?

Peter's like, no, he called me out.

He called me by name.

He called me, he singled me out.

And here's the reality: sometimes when we our best isn't good enough, for us, it doesn't make us feel any better that everybody else failed to.

I should have been there.

It was my kid, it was my brother, it was mine to do.

It doesn't matter.

I can't control James and John that they fell asleep.

I shouldn't have fallen asleep.

I should have been there.

And at some point you gave your best.

I tried and it wasn't enough.

I didn't have the right connections, I didn't have the right money, I could, I wasn't smart enough, I didn't solve the problem, I needed a bigger network.

It wasn't that I didn't give, but I I couldn't hang on long enough.

I ran out.

I ran out of time, energy, and money and expertise.

And the bottom line is I tried hard, it wasn't enough.

And so the failure took place.

And now we got to live with it.

That's failure number two.

Failure number three is after they leave the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is arrested.

And here's Luke's account of Jesus being arrested.

It says in verse 46, it said they grabbed Jesus and arrested him.

Now look at this.

This is the gospel, I'm sorry, this is the gospel according to Peter.

Peter's account.

They grabbed Jesus, arrested him.

Verse 47 says, But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest's slave, slashing off his ear.

Peter catches a case of amnesia as to who it was that would have cut the man's ear off at the arresting.

He's like, you know, I'd hate to put a name on it.

Um, you know, it was the middle of the night, it was dark out there, a lot was happening.

Uh I was pretty groggy.

You know, I had fallen asleep and dozed off a couple times, and you know, I just I wouldn't want to get too specific as to who might have cut the guy's ear off, you know.

So we'll just say one of the men.

John in John 18 says it was Simon Peter.

Man lost his ear, and if you want to know who was responsible, his name's Simon Peter.

He had a sword, he drew it, he struck the high priest's uh servant, cutting off his right ear, and if you want to know the servant's name, his name was Malchus.

Have you ever been trying to forget a story or a part of a story and someone has a real good memory?

You're like, shut up, John, okay?

Nobody asked you.

You didn't need to pipe up.

In fact, though the wild thing is, uh, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, okay, Matthew and Luke play along.

They're like, yeah, it was somebody.

We don't want to name names.

John's like, it was Peter.

It's like, Peter, come on, man.

Like, like, nobody likes you, all right?

Except Jesus.

You, you, you, only Jesus likes you, right?

I mean, John is like kind of self-absorbed, honestly.

He's like, he's like, you know, John's the beloved disciple.

It only says that in John.

That's real.

Fact check me.

The only place is like John's the beloved disciple.

Everybody's been calling him John the beloved all these years.

He called himself that.

So we don't know that, except you felt that way.

We don't know.

You know, John's the same guy that after Jesus resurrects, he's like Peter and John.

He mentions Peter and John speaking of himself, you know, in the third person.

Peter and John, they ran to tell everyone else, and John got there first.

Okay, John.

Okay, John.

We know you're fast, okay.

We know you won the race, okay?

And so you have John here calling Peter out.

It was Peter.

Um think about this now.

Peter gets a lot of heat for cutting this ear off, but what Peter is trying to do is live up to his word.

Just a few hours ago, he's telling Jesus, if everybody else abandons you, I won't, I'll die with you.

And what we see here is Peter's trying to be a good friend.

He's trying to do what he said he would do.

He not only was willing to die for Jesus, he was willing to kill for Jesus.

He cuts a man's ear off.

Do you know how hard it would be to cut someone's ear off if you were trying to?

Like Peter is a fisherman, he's not a swordsman.

This is not the princess bride.

This is not the mask of Zorro.

This is not the princess bride, you know, my name is Anugo Montoya, you kill my father, prepare to die.

This is not the dread pirate Roberts who can sword fight with both hands.

This is not that.

This is a fisherman who has a blade that he uses to gut fish.

He's not sword fighting and fencing.

How do you cut the man's ear off?

He's probably trying to cut the man's head off.

You're coming for my friend, I've come for your head.

So he as he's swiping his head, the guy's, you know, and there goes an ear.

So you have Peter willing to die.

In his mind, this has to be courage.

In his mind, this has to be the right thing to do.

Jesus is God, Jesus is pure, Jesus is righteous, Jesus is right, he is truth, he's the way, the truth, and the life.

I'll defend that with my sword.

And he goes in willing to die and willing to kill, and he cuts off Malchus's ear, and Jesus pipes in and goes, No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Back up.

He heals the man's ear and he scolds Peter.

Peter, what are you doing?

And Peter makes failure number three, mistake number three, which is I tried to do right, but I made a mess.

I tried to do right, but I made a mess.

How many of us in this room can look back at a mess?

A messy situation.

How many of in this room are living in a messy situation?

You're living in the middle of a mess that was created.

Not because you were wicked, not because you were trying to be bad, not because you were trying to hurt people.

You were actually trying to be courageous.

You were trying to do the right thing.

There was a problem, and you went and had a conversation, and you were hoping that conversation would bring healing and it brought more chaos.

You went in, you tried to be proactive.

I tried to do the right thing, and now we really don't talk.

And now that person talked to that person, and now my name is being thrown around in this stuff, and I've been misunderstood, and I've been talked about, and I've been corrected, and all I did was try to fix it.

All I did was try to do the right thing.

I tried to do right, but I made a mess.

Failure number three.

Failure number four is after Peter now has been corrected by Jesus, he doesn't know what to think about what's right.

How can defending Jesus be wrong?

How can fighting for Jesus being wrong?

How can be willing to sacrifice yourself or even kill for Jesus be wrong?

How can it be wrong?

And trying to save, he's trying to save the Savior.

He's trying to save Jesus.

And so he doesn't know right from wrong, he doesn't know up from down.

I'm I'm confused.

And so Peter, if you know, his personality, he's not one to run necessarily, so he's trying to hover around Jesus, but he's scared because he doesn't even trust his own instincts anymore.

And so here he is, kind of like, he's kind of close, but he's staying far away, and it's starting to get violent, and they're starting to beat Jesus up, and now it's starting to go, you know, Peter doesn't want to catch astray, and so he's kind of staying back, and they go.

So he's like, Aren't you?

You look familiar.

You were his friend.

Peter's like, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, not me.

So he's like, wait.

Talk again.

Say that again.

Say it again.

You hear it in his accent?

You're his friend.

You guys are from the same place.

Like, no, no, no, you got the wrong guy.

Not me.

Not me.

I'm just I'm just out here.

And it's getting hotter and hotter and hotter.

And it says in the gospel according to Peter, as Peter remembers the moment, Peter says to Mark that Peter swore, a curse on me if I'm lying.

I don't know this man you're talking about.

And immediately the rooster crowed a second time, and suddenly Jesus' words flashed through Peter's mind before the rooster cried.

Twice.

You'll deny me three times that you ever knew me.

And he broke down and wept.

In Luke 22, Luke gives uh his perspective on it, and he, through the eyewitness accounts of others, he said, actually, there's more to the story.

So when Luke says that when Peter denied Jesus, that Jesus looked at him and they looked at each other and they locked eyes.

And Peter says that he wept.

He broke down and wept.

But Luke says everybody saw Peter weeping bitterly.

Guttural.

Rock bottom.

You've just made four mistakes in a row.

Have you ever begun to compound failure?

One thing leads to another, to another, to another.

One bad decision leads to another to another.

I overpromised and underdelivered.

My best wasn't good enough.

I tried to do right, but I made a big mess.

The fourth mistake was he failed, he got caught, and he had to face the person he failed.

So you've made four mistakes.

What's the next one?

Luke gives us a beautiful nugget if we go back in time just a little bit, a few hours, to when Jesus predicts to Peter, he predicts that he will fail.

He predicts his denial.

And in Luke 22, 31, Luke says that Jesus said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.

But I have pleaded in prayer for you, I've been praying for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.

So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.

I want you to notice what he said.

He didn't say, Hey Peter, I've been praying for you that you will not fail.

He didn't say, Peter, I pray for you that you'll have so much faith that you won't fail.

He said, Peter, I pray for you that you'll have so much faith that when you fail, that you will know confidently of my loving grace so clearly that when you fail, you'll turn back to me.

The greatness of the faith isn't in the fact that you'll bat a thousand and you'll never fail.

It's the faith that after you fail, to not be sitting here wondering, will Jesus take me back or not?

Does Jesus expect me to be better than this?

After fail, fail, fail, fail four times.

He said, I pray that your faith would be such that you would have such a revelation of my gracious heart and my love for you that you'll bounce back and you'll come back and you'll repent and you'll come back so fast and so strong that you'll bring others with you.

So now we get to the crescendo of the story, right?

Jesus is arrested.

He goes on trial.

He's innocent, but they want him dead.

Pilate offers to a criminal exchange.

People say crucify him.

So he goes to the cross.

Once again, well, Jesus' body fails because he can't even carry his cross.

He's physically unable to perform.

Simon of Cyrene has to pick up his cross and carry.

And so Jesus is hung between two criminals.

Bodies battered, humiliated, as a sacrificial lamb, and he dies on the cross.

They put him in a grave, in a tomb.

Three days later, he's resurrected.

So this is the crescendo of the story.

We go to Mark 16, and three women are showing up, three close women, people women close to Jesus, show up and they bring spices to anoint his body because they expect him to be dead.

It's part of their burial ritual.

So they show up to anoint the body, and the tomb is wide open.

It's empty.

They walk in, there's an angel in there, and in uh Mark 16, the angel of the man in the white robe said, Don't be alarmed.

You're looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

He isn't here, he's risen from the dead.

Look, this is where they laid his body.

Now look at this, verse 7.

Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, including Peter, including the one who overpromised, underdelivered.

His best wasn't good enough.

He tried to do right and he made a big mess.

He failed, he got caught, and he had to face the person he failed.

Last time I saw him, we locked eyes.

And I'm calling for him by name.

I said at the beginning of the message, we started to consider why would people who have an unflattering portrayal of their story be so eager to take a story and to push it out?

Why would Peter tell his son to tell you and me about four consecutive mistakes in one night?

Embarrassing stuff.

Why would he be so eager to do that?

And the reason is because Peter wanted you to know, and Peter wanted me to know, that after my failure, he called for him by name.

Because Peter knew that including Peter means including you.

And so he figured he probably ought not keep it to himself.

So today I'm here to tell you.

Many of you have eyewitnesses.

You have your four failures.

You have five, you have six.

And today is a day that we look at the cross and we look at Jesus' work and we look through the lens of Peter and we understand that including Peter is including you.

It is including me.

And that's what we celebrate the good news.