Matthew 26:69-75, “Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest………Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”
Dear brothers and sisters,
When people look at us, what do they see in us? Everyone who is saved is living the new life and we should so live that the world may see Christ in and through our lives. In the passage in Matthew’s Gospel, Simon Peter was following Christ at a distance, till He was escorted into the palace of the high priest. Simon Peter would end up at a fire place outside the palace for it was a cold night. Peter should not have been there because it was the night of his greatest failure. He had the greatest opportunity to shine for Christ in a dark world but no one saw that light or Christ in him. And we are to ask ourselves too, “Are people seeing Jesus in me?”
Simon Peter by his own words of confession to the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 5:8, “…Depart from me, for I am a sinful man…” And Jesus said to him, “Fear not; from henceforth thou shall catch men” and thereafter, he was totally and completely changed to a new life.
In spite of a transformed life, Peter fell into sin and his greatest sin was to deny the Lord three times. Likewise, we may have experienced the change through Christ but we can be the next possible person to fall into a sin like Peter.
However, the witness of the new life is powerful if we yield to the Lord to lead and guide us in the Christian life. But there are also several factors to remind us of Simon Peter’s poor Christian testimony :
1. Simon Peter was in the wrong place. Peter followed Christ but he did not go all the way with Him. He would have been better off to be arrested together with Jesus or to be worst off to be without Him. To be where the Lord is, is never a mistake but to be where the Lord would not want to go, we will have no business to go there either.
2. Simon Peter was with the wrong people. He was with a group of people that were anti- Jesus Christ and it wasn’t long for him to behave like them in swearing and cursing that he did not know Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.” Matthew 26:75, “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”
3. There is remembrance in the new life. Simon Peter was restored to the Lord when he remembered what Jesus said to him. Your spiritual life may be low but when you come near the fire like Peter did, you will remember the warmth of God’s love and will long for it when your heart has gone cold.
4. There is repentance in the new life. Matthew 26:75, “… and he went out and wept bitterly.” When we walk away from the Lord in disobedience, we are to come back to Him in repentance of our sins. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Brothers and sisters, we are a living and walking testimony to the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ and that being so, we will be mindful and will always be asking ourselves, “Can people see Christ in me?”
Pastor Douglas Ho
