The Day after Easter: But Peter

After Easter, it can be easy to wonder what comes next. In Mark 16, the angel at the empty tomb gives a message that seems simple, but carries the heart of Jesus: “Go, tell the disciples and Peter.”

This message explores why Peter was named specifically after denying Jesus three times, and what that reveals about grace, failure, restoration, and the relentless pursuit of God. For anyone who has ever felt disqualified, ashamed, excluded, or defined by their worst moment, Peter’s story is a powerful reminder: Jesus does not shame us. He restores us.

Your story is not over. You are still included. And Jesus is still calling your name.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey yeah, the Bible says this in Mark chapter 16. We're gonna be reading from verse 2. Um we've been doing this is our third week of uh like an after Easter series. We um we build up to Easter. Our faith was birthed at Easter. Without Resurrection Sunday, there is no Christian faith. And Jesus' resurrection, that empty tomb, for us as Christians, is our that's our calendar hallmark, isn't it? That's our that's the moment that we look forward to. But after Easter, um it's a little bit like Boxing Day when the kids, you know, they kind of open all the prisons and they think that the next day they're gonna just continue on the prison receiving um joy, and they're not, because it's Boxing Day. It's not Christmas, you don't have two Christmas days in a row, and you can you can build up to something, and then after the fact, you can kind of sometimes feel a little bit like what's next for me exactly. And so we've been doing three weeks on a little bit of a post-Easter conversation about some things that we noticed Jesus do in the scriptures. And so the first week we talked about Thomas, also known as Didymus. Thomas is uh the Bible says that Didymus is Greek for twin. But we realize that in the scriptures Thomas doesn't have a biological twin. So what does that mean? We talked a little bit about faith and doubt resting on the inside of all of us. Then last week we talked about Jesus the gardener, about how Mary came to the tomb and thought that Jesus was the gardener, a worker, a servant. And what Jesus is, and I think what he's exhibiting by that is that he in our lives is still that gardener. He still wants to serve us, he's still humble and lowly. And today I want to talk to you. This this might be, you I mean, you look, as a father of four, you can't have favorite children. But you do, you know what I mean? You can't, but you do. And you can't have a favorite verse, but this might be for me one of my absolute favorites. And I just want to highlight two words for us today, and I'll I'll actually see if you can pick them up. It says this very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were there on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, who will roll away the stone when we went. This is such a these are men talking, these are two men chatting. This is classic. When we get there, who's gonna roll away the stone? Because it's heavy, that's what they're thinking. But they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in white in a white robe, sitting on the right hand side. They were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, he said, which is something that angels always say in the scriptures. Don't be afraid, don't be alarmed. Maybe they're scary looking, I'm not sure. You are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, verse 7 says, and uh this is going to be our highlight verse. But go, tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you, trembling and bewildered, the woman went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. Verse 7, one more time says this. This is the angel speaking, but go, tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him just as he told you. And Father, we just pray. God, that you would bless this time together. Father, I'm praying for the kids that are gathered here in this room. Lord, that as they hear the preaching, they might not understand much of what's going on. But we do believe that as we read the scriptures, as we hear your word, it washes us clean, it makes us new. And Father, we're praying for families that are gathered here before we have some Akai today. God, that you would just shape us, just nudge us, just rearrange us a little, that as we come around your scriptures, you would do something great in us today. And Father, we're asking that you would illuminate from the scriptures, revelation for your people, expose and reveal something, Lord, that you want us to see. I'm praying today that you would meet specific needs, relational needs, financial needs. Father, there are people here that need physical breakthrough in their body. And right now, God, by your Holy Spirit, that you would bring healing, miraculous healing today, we pray. And we believe that in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. Two words. I wonder if you could notice what they are. Could anyone hazard a guess today? What are the two words that we want to focus on today as we look at a window into Jesus' heart? Two words. What do you think they might be? What was that? Told you. That's good. That might be a follow-up sermon. Disciples? Yeah? His disciples? Was that you, Paul? You're always good for it, thank you. These are both great. But they're not it. Yeah. What do you think, Ezekiel? But goes good. I thought that that was going to be the first one that someone would say. That's really good, bro. That's not it, though. Pause that going ahead. Again, excellent. All great sermons we could preach today. See him, what did you say? See him, no, but good. But go, no, but good. Just as, no? Into Galilee? No. You will see him, no. No, it's not Jesus, but that's the best one I've heard so far. Tell? No. That's excellent, also. But that's not it. Galilee? It's not Galilee.

unknown 5:34

Eh?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Ahead? No, it's not ahead. Okay, okay. Okay, Bible scholar in the second row, Michael, he's got it. And I can't believe the biblically illiterate people in our church didn't notice this. But go tell his disciples and Peter. That would be so bizarre. If we could use Paul as an example, that's like God turning up, an angel turning up and saying, Go and tell local church today and Paulinight. Paul, correct me if I'm wrong, but you might sit there and be thinking, did he not see me? Why might he be, why might he be highlighting me or calling me out out of nowhere if I'm already a part of the crew? Go and tell the merry churches and rider. Go and tell the warriors and carn Pereira. Like there's there's up the waz, there's already there's already a person involved in the tell the disciples, Peter is not just a disciple. Peter, you you could argue in the scriptures, he's the spokesman of the group. He might be, he's the leader of the group. We often think about Peter as the guy who would uh talk first, think second, which is why we like him, I think. But Peter's the guy that walked on water, peter's the guy that cut off the air of the high priest's servant, Peter's the guy that that announced that Jesus was the Messiah and that on that rock that his church will be built. Peter was was a leader in this group. Why Peter? Why might the angel of the Lord say, tell the disciples, and this one guy who's in that group? I guess that's the question I'm gonna try and help us answer today in the next 11 minutes and 56 seconds. And my belief is this is that Jesus and the angel that was speaking on his behalf wanted to highlight Peter because Peter was the one who repeatedly and publicly denied Christ. And I thought if there was a thesis point of our sermon here today, I would say this that for those that have made mistakes or felt like you've been excluded or disqualified from following Christ, this verse is for us. Sometimes we come to church and we look around. I mean, this front row here, what an outstanding bunch of people you all are. Like just well dressed, well presented. There's no empty seat on the front row. This is a pastor's dream. Much better than this half of the front row. And then look on that side. There's not even anyone on that side. Sometimes we turn up and we get that sense like everyone around us has got it together. I mean, Leila just came off stage playing bass with her old man. Like, this is this is an incredible family. Darcy opened the church with prayer today. Woman of great mana. And we come here, we look around, and we see people, and it looks like everyone's got it all together. And this verse might be for you if you think that on the inside you don't. Because Peter at this point did not. Peter was such a paradox that he told Jesus to his face, I would rather die than deny you. And Jesus said, Peter, relax. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, Before the rooster crows, you deny me three times. And Peter's like, like, like there's no way. It'd be like if it was a Hurricanes chiefs super final. And you said, Levi, before the night is out, you will support the winning team, which is not the hurricanes. And I'll say, I will deny this to my last days. And then the chiefs get up and win miraculously. DMAC from the corner slots it close game. 17-15, they're down one, they win by two. And then I would have to be included in a prayer from the angel that said, Oh, tell local church they're in chief's territory and make sure Levi knows. We come to church, we look around, we see people. It looks like we've got it all together. But this sermon today is for those of us, and hopefully all of us, who realize that that is just not true. This verse is so central and so significant in the scriptures that it's recorded in all four Gospels. Peter's denial of Christ is recorded in all four Gospels. Let me tell you a few things that are not recorded in all four Gospels. Number one, the birth of Jesus. Okay, I thought that was significant. The ascension of Jesus is only recorded one time, the transfiguration is recorded three times, and the Lord's Supper is recorded three times. And here's Peter's worst moment recorded in all four Gospels. Even the Gospel of Mark, which we believe is his own gospel. And Peter are the words that change everything for you and I. This grace with this is grace, I think, with a name attached to it. It's a window into Jesus' heart. My main point is this today. For those who think that you're disqualified, you are still accepted. Peter was the spokesman, he was the leader. Mark's gospel is Peter's viewpoint. Mark 16, verse 7 shows us that Peter was pursued after his failure, and I want you to understand this this afternoon. So are you. Things didn't end well with Peter and Jesus, eh? Saying goodbye is a funny thing, isn't it? I think saying hello can be awkward, but we understand that because you know the handshakes can be strange. I had a text from a friend yesterday, he said, bro, you never believe it. Four bad handshakes today. That's the kind of friends I have. They let me know intimacies of their of their inner world, you know. Four bad handshakes. And I'm like, that's nasty work from those guys. He says, No, my fault. Then I caught up with him. He said, they were so bad I had to send an apology text to someone whose hand I shook. We understand like greetings can be, you know. Every time I see Brooke, I always say happy birthday, because on the first time I met her, it was her birthday. Then her mum invited me to her birthday, and it just was a thing, and now it's happy birthday. But that works. But saying goodbye can be awkward. That's why you get lingerers. That's why you just get people just shuffling their way around, you know? Because we don't know how to say goodbye. We want, but we want closure, we want it to be good. Do we hug? Is it a shake? Was it how's it been? How are you going? All right, see you later. Of all the goodbyes, this one might be the worst. I'll never I'll never deny you Jesus. And we have that, we have that vigor, hey. We have that passion, man. We meet Jesus and we're like stoked on the Lord and we're so fired up, and then we get in a situation to deny him, thinking that we never will, and then we do. We used to play this game called Smuggling Bibles into China. Basically, it was like the coolest youth group game ever, where youth group leaders would get in their vehicles, and especially vans were solid for this, like builders' work vans, and then all the young people would run around a suburb. I think that what we're not going to do this at our church, because we would never do anything uh illegal or to put anyone in harm's way. But if we did, the Mount Peninsula is perfect, eh? Like, you know, from the Mount to McDonald's or something, or even a bit further, maybe to Ata Tucky, whatever, but we would never do that. And you have leaders chasing around young people running through the neighborhood, hiding in people's like, you know, gardens, not getting caught. And then if you get caught, you get thrown in the van, and you know. Oh no, we would never do this. In the van, yeah, thrown at the van, then in the van, and then beaten up in the van. We would never do something like this. But the amount of times you would be in a bush with your mate, in a bush, and you could see the vans come past, and like this is in a small suburb in Wellington, C-turn in the in the in the eastern suburbs, and like quite gentrified, you know, nothing bad ever happening, you know. And so we'd be in the bush, and then we'd be like, bro, no matter what happens, man, no matter what happens, blood brothers, you know what I mean, stick together because we could take them. The three, four of us that are gathered, we could beat them up. And we had like uh first or three captains as leaders, some semi-professional rugby players, we're like, we can take them. And the moment the van pulls up and the door slides open, just that that sound of the van door sliding open, the how fast we scatter like we little cats, you know what I mean? After blood brother oaths. But I'll never leave you, man. Let's do this together. And here's Peter, the leader of a group of disciples that Jesus has raised up. He's instructing himself and the 11 others, saying, We got this, let's stick together. And Jesus is like, man, he sees it, and he sees our weakness today. He says, You can come to church and sing these amazing songs, but he knows that on Monday it's gonna be tough. He knows that at school during the week, that at work, that in our families it's gonna be difficult. He knows this. And he called out Peter and said, Look at Peter, relax. You're gonna deny me, but it's gonna be okay. But Peter's too stubborn to hear it. He says, I'm gonna, I'd rather die than deny you. Denies him three times. The Bible says in one of the one of the uh I think most difficult scriptures, he says this. This is this is now in Matthew 26, verse 35. Even if I have to die with you, he says, I will never disown you. And Luke 22 says this in 60 through to 62. Peter replies, Man, this is the last denial. He says, Man, I do not know what you're talking about. Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. And read this, verse 61. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter on his last denial. I will never leave you. And as he says it, as the rooster crows, Jesus looks straight at him. Imagine your worst moment, the worst thing you could do in your lifetime, knowing that the Lord that you love is staring straight at you. And from that moment, Jesus dies. And imagine how exhausted and how shame-filled, and how embarrassed Peter was at that time. Which is why Mark 16, verse 7 is so powerful. Because the angel of the Lord says, Go and tell the disciples, and then he, and I think he went like this. I think he's like this. You know, he's like angel doing angel things. He's like, Go and tell the disciples, and then I think he did this. And Peter. As if to say, make sure he knows. We're Peter, aren't we? As much as we want to be him, the person that's like, go and tell the disciples, I want to be the disciple that's like, I knew, I knew all along. I knew it, guys. We are not him, we're the one that we're not as good as we think we are. In his darkest moment, Jesus is present and he's looking. And in our darkest moment, he's also present and he's looking. But that same Jesus doesn't shame us, he offers us grace and forgiveness. Peter's restoration with with Christ, with grace, it mirrors his fall from grace. And I and I'll close with this. In the book of John, chapter 21, this I think this should be one of our favorite verses because it talks about something that many of us here love to do in our church. Says this in verse 13. This is verse 3, sorry. It says, I am going out to fish, Simon Peter told them. And they said, We'll go with you. So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Again, Jesus not recognized by doing simple things. Maybe they were looking for something else. He called out, Friends, have you caught any fish? Now, you know that I've talked to you about my fishing experience. It's not great. But as far as I can tell, with people that fish, this is not a question you want to hear from someone, especially if you haven't caught anything. Like similarly to me, you know, I love to run. When you run a marathon or half marathon, the first question people ask you is, How fast was it? You don't want to hear that. You want to hear, well done, good and faithful servant, you did great. Let's go and get a burger. That's what you want to hear. But people say, How fast? And most of the time it wasn't as fast as you wanted. We don't want to hear, how did you catch any fish? Because if we didn't, we don't want to talk about it. And here's Jesus rubbing it in. Friends, have you caught any fish? No, they said, throw your net on the right hand side of the boat and you'll find some. When they did, they weren't able to haul in the net because it was such a large number of fish. Then the disciple who Jesus loved, that's John, who wrote this book, this guy, said to Peter, It is the Lord, verse 10. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you've just caught. Verse 12. Jesus said to them, Come and have some breakfast. Jesus, such a good Lord and Savior. He's at the shore, shouting out, talking about fishing, and then cooks breakfast. This guy. None of the disciples dared ask him, Who are you? They knew that it was the Lord. Jesus came, he took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This now is the third time that Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. This here is a specific call out from Jesus, not for embarrassment, but for redemption. I remember when I was in high school, I was in year 12, and I had someone call out to me who was probably the most uh the most popular person in the school. I was at an all-boys' school, probably the most popular, sorry for offending you, he's probably the most popular person in the school, big, big, big personality. And in year 12, I we voted at the end of the year for um for prefects, prefects like key roles in the in the high school, and we were going through the voting process at about that time, and this guy who was the biggest personality in the school shouted out to me, Levi, big call out, and I was like, you know. And if I mentioned his name, everyone in here would know who I was talking about, but I'm not gonna do that. Levi. And I'm looking around, I'm like, hey, you know. And actually, Ben Lumus went to my high school. Hag is that? It wasn't him though. He's a nice guy. Levi. If you want to be head prefect of this school, you're gonna have to play sport. And up until that point, I'd not play, I'd stopped playing sport so that I could focus on my studies. And I think everyone around respected this guy, sort of, and kind of knew that what he was saying was true. And I was like hollow on the inside, like, man, you know, that is a goal of mine, Lord. But if it's anything to go by, I can I can kiss that dream goodbye. Call-outs like that when someone shouts are often negative and can leave you feeling hollow. And here's Jesus calling out from the shore and invites them forward. The same group of disciples that scattered and were nowhere to be seen are the same group of disciples that Jesus is calling out and fervently chasing. And as Peter, I want us to understand today that when we put a foot wrong and we're not in good relationship with the Lord or doing what we think that He should, we should be doing in our own lives to follow Him, He pursues us with that same passion. John 21 and verse 15 say this. When they'd finished eating, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said, Yes, Lord. Then he said, You know that I love you. And Jesus said, Feed my lambs. This passage here has Jesus asking John three times, Do you love me? Jesus, uh Peter's three denials are met with three questions from Jesus. That the mirror of what Jesus is trying to instill in our lives is that no matter how much we deny him, he wants to restore us. This for me is a look at me moment. The one who thinks he's disqualified knows that he's still included. For us, Peter's redemption means that our story is not over. Peter's interaction proves that he is not finished with you, and he's not finished with me. Jesus doesn't define Peter by the worst moment that he has, he restores him with a new one. If anybody's here today and you are perfect and need no reflection on bad decisions that you have made, it's this kind of interaction that can't speak to you. But man. If you're here and you've had moments in your life where you're like, I'm going so hard for God, and then immediately make a poor decision, immediately kind of just start acting outside of what you know the Lord's will is in your life, immediately let pride bubble up in your heart, become aloof from the Lord. This passage is for you. It's for us. This week, if I could pray anything over us, and I'll pray right now, it's this is that you would understand this week that the angel is speaking to you and saying that you are included in a body, but the disciples and Peter that he specifically calls you out and wants you to be restored into faith with him. Amen. Let me pray for you today. Father, we are so grateful, Lord, that you are a God who wants to restore that loves, that where there were three denials, there were three questions and three moments of restoration. That you took a man who might have thought that he was disqualified, God, and you gave him another chance. Lord, you pursued this man and you pursue us with that same vigor and that same passion. Our passionate denials of you in our private lives, our denials of you in our marriage, in our walk with you, our denials to pray first, but rather let it be a last resort sometimes. Those denials, Lord, are met by you with grace and love. And today, before we eat, we are grateful, Lord. We pray you bless your people today. Bless your people this week. Bless the food, Father, that we eat. Let it be our communion today as we interact with one another and have fellowship. And God, I'm praying for your touch and your presence, Lord, that today and this week you would restore your people in relationship with you. And we thank you, Lord, that you came to do that. Lord, we just take a moment just to still our hearts. And as much as we want to be that bold leader that Peter is, man, in the same breath where that weak man that denied you. But regardless of the boldness or the weakness, you pursue us with passion. All the same. This week, Lord, let us see your pursuit of us. Let us see this week, Lord, your hand of guidance on our lives. And we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.