‘ARE YOU DENYING JESUS”?
MATTHEW 26:69-75
David Brainerd, the famous missionary to the American Indians, proclaimed this truth throughout his ministry. He said, “I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified in my preaching. I found that once these people were gripped by the great evangelical meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, I did not have to give them many instructions about changing their behavior.”
Peter later on after the death and resurrection of Jesus would preach Jesus on the day of Pentecost and 3,000 would be saved. But before this would take place, we read this account of Peter denying Jesus. We are amazed to read that Peter would deny the one he
said he would never deny.
But before we get to hard on Peter, let us remember that many Christians deny Jesus every day in some way. I want to call to your attention to seven ways a Christian can deny Jesus.
I-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WORDS:
Matthew 26:74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.
1.John Maxwell was pastoring Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego he was asked "Are you praying that your people will get the gift of tongues?" "No" he replied, "I’m praying they’ll learn to control the one they’ve got now."
2. I have read that one strain of virus was responsible for what was probably the greatest pestilence civilization has ever experienced -- the flue epidemic of 1918-19. That scourge took more lives than all the years of World War I. The Bible tells of another small thing that can inflict great harm. It’s that "little member" known as the tongue. Unfortunately there is no vaccine to bring its deadly effects under control.
3.The way we speak and what we say reveals a great deal about our Christian character or lack of Christian character. The tongue is the most powerful influence in the Church and it is able to build people up or tear them down.
4.Have you ever squeezed too much toothpaste onto your toothbrush? And then have you ever tried squeezing toothpaste back into the tube? That calls to mind the old proverb, "Three things once released will not return again: an opportunity neglected, and arrow released from its bows, and a word spoken in haste." May we add a fourth--toothpaste squeezed from a tube.
Psalms 19:14- Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
II-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WALK:
Jude 16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
1.A rather pompous-looking deacon was endeavoring to impress upon a class of boys the importance of living the Christian life. "Why do people call me a Christian?" the man asked. After a moment’s pause, one youngster said, "Maybe it’s because they don’t know you."
2.He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was a master of outward religiosity--with no inward reality!
3. Fifty-four years ago on December 7,1941, the Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States suffered tremendous losses, including the death of 2,400 military personnel. Franklin D. Roosevelt described December 7,1941 as "A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY."
Enemy planes were still 50 minutes away when two U.S. soldiers manning a small radar station in the Pacific saw many dots show up on their radar screens. They immediately reported it to their superior officer, a young lieutenant. Assuming the dots were U.S. planes, he said, "Don’t worry about it." This man failed the nation because of his unwatchfulness. (His walk did not match his position)
I John 2:6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
III-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WORKS:
Matthew 12:33 "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by his fruit"
1.Good works are not what saves the Christian. However, if a person is truly saved, this fact will be evidenced by the work they do for Christ, and they will do it effectively. Not only do I have to practice what I preach, you have to practice what you hear.
2.This idea of being an effectual doer of God’s Word also extends outside the walls of the church. If we are one kind of Christian on Sunday mornings and another kind of Christian Monday through Friday, we are fooling ourselves about our spiritual health.
3. You are writing a Gospel,
A chapter each day,
By the deeds that you do
And the words that you say.
Men may read what you write,
Whether faithful or true:
Just what is the Gospel
According to you.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
4. “In January, 1995, according to an article written by Gary Thomas, J. Robert Ashcroft had fewer than forty-eight hours to live, but he was holding on to life, hoping to see his son, John Ashcroft, sworn into the U.S. Senate the following day. [John Ashcroft, as we all know by now, is in the process of being confirmed as our next Attorney General]. As family and friends gathered in Washington for a small reception, J. Robert Ashcroft asked his son to play the piano while everyone sang, ‘We Are Standing On Holy Ground.’” “After the song, the frail old man spoke some powerful words: ‘John, I want you to know that even Washington can be holy ground. Wherever you hear the voice of God, that ground is sanctified. It’s a place where God can call you to the highest and best.’” “Wherever we are in our vocation, if Jesus is Lord of our lives, that place is a holy place of service for Him”
IV-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WICKEDNESS:
Matthew 22:18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
Hosea 10:13 Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.
1. "Nothing will sink the ship of your life faster than unconfessed, unforsaken sin. Nothing will take you from the ‘thrill of victory’ and plunge you headlong into the ‘agony of defeat’ any faster than sin. Sin will take you from ‘hero’ to ‘zero’ in nothing flat." Just ask Joshua.
2. Regardless of how we classify it, big or small, black or white, serious or insignificant, ALL sin is dangerous and carries with it the potential for disaster.
3. In an article dated 4/9/97, a writer for USA Today wrote: Scientists now say that a series of slits, not a giant gash, sank the Titanic. The opulent, 900-foot cruise ship sank in 1912 on its first voyage, from England to New York. Fifteen hundred people died in the worst maritime disaster of the time. The most widely held theory was that the ship hit an iceberg, which opened a huge gash in the side of the liner. But an international team of divers and scientists recently used sound waves to probe the wreckage, buried in the mud under two-and-a-half miles of water. Their discovery? The damage was surprisingly small. Instead of the huge gash, they found six relatively narrow slits across the six watertight holds.
4. The late president Calvin Coolidge returned home from church one Sunday afternoon and found his wife sitting in the chair. Unable to go that day, she was still interested in what the preacher had to say. She asked her husband what the preacher spoke about and he said, "Sin."
Like most women, a one word answer to a question was not satisfactory, so she pressed him for more details. Finally he responded to her by saying "Well, I think he was against it."
5. Let me tell you something, God is against sin ... any sin ... all sin. It makes no difference how we dress it up or shrink it down or explain it away, GOD HATES SIN!
Acts 8:22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
V-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WITNESS:
Proverbs 14:25 A true witness delivereth souls: but a deceitful witness speaketh lies.
1. In 1992 a Los Angeles county parking control officer came upon a brown El Dorado Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day. The officer dutifully wrote out a ticket. Ignoring the man seated at the driver’s wheel, the officer reached inside the open car window and paced the $30 citation on the dashboard. The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued - and with good reason. The driver of the car had been shot in the head ten to twelve hours before but was sitting up, stiff as a board, slumped slightly forward, with blood on his face. He was dead. The officer, preoccupied with ticket-writing, was unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He got back in his car and drove away. Many people around us are "dead in transgressions and sins." What should catch our attention most is their need, not their offenses. They don’t need a citation; they need a Savior.
2. George Sweeting, in his book The No-Guilt Guide for Witnessing, tells of a man by the name of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1968, Currier’s sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the farmer for whom he worked had died.
Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned about Currier’s plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He was a free man.
Sweeting concluded that story by asking, "Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message -- the most important in your life -- and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?"
3. We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others still enslaved by sin. Are we doing all we can to make sure that people get the message?
Acts 10:43 To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
VI-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WORSHIP:
Deut. 8:19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.
1. After attending church one Sunday morning, a little boy knelt at his bedside that night and prayed, "Dear God, we had a good time at church today--but I wish you had been there!"
Well God is there, but sometimes people stay away and deny Jesus because of their gods. The god of sports, of fishing, of going to flea markets, of TV, of sleep, of family gathering, and many more.
2. The story is told about a professional football player who didn’t like to obey curfew, and many nights he sneaked out. He would take blankets & pillows & put them under the covers of his bed, so that when the coach checked his room, it would look like he was sound asleep like all the others. Well, in one city they stayed in a hotel where there weren’t enough extra blankets & pillows. So he improvised by taking the lamp from the nightstand by the bed & putting it underneath the covers. It looked just fine. But when the coach came by for the bed check & turned on the light switch, the bed lit up. "Be sure your sins will find you out."
3. A person failing to worship God will always show In their absence. But it is also possible to come to Church and not worship God.
John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
VII-SOME DENY JESUS BY THEIR WEALTH:
Job 21:13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
1. John D. Rockefeller’s three simple rules for anyone who wants to become rich: 1. Go to work early. 2. Stay at work late. 3. Find oil.
2. John G. Wendel and his sisters were some of the most miserly people of all time. Although they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves.
John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Her only dress was one that she had made herself, and she had worn it for 25 years.
The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. Even worse, they were like the kind of person Jesus referred to "who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:21).
3. There was a young boy who lived with his elderly grandmother in a small town. Every Sunday the grandmother would take the boy to Church and after they would go downtown and get an ice cream cone, which was a special treat. On one particular Sunday, grandmother was not feeling well. She told the boy that he would have to go to Church by himself today and she gave him two nickels, one for the offering plate and one for an ice cream after Church.
Now as it happened the boy needed to cross an old wooden bridge in order to get to Church. As he was crossing the bridge that Sunday, as boys will do he was watching the river below, skipping, hopping - generally not paying attention. All of a sudden he dropped on of the nickels. The nickel fell to the bridge and as luck would have it found a small crack through which it fell into the river below.
The boy dropped down and put his eye to the crack. He watched helplessly as the nickel fell into the river below. As the boy got up and put the other nickel in his pocket he said, to no one in particular, oh well, there goes God’s nickel.
CONCLUSION- At one time Peter had wayward feet, but Andrew brought him to Jesus. And then one night Peter had some wet feet because he was walking on the water.
Then he had washed feet when Jesus knelt before him and washed his feet (John 13). He had wandering feet when he denied the Lord. He had willing feet. “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace” (Rom. 10:15).
What kind of feet do you have?
