Matthew 26:75 - Who Me?

For people in the current climate of this world, it’s not “Cool” to be a Christian, its not the “in” religion as Buddhism and being part of the Scientology movement is. I was bought up within a Christian home and from when I was born; I was within the church environment. In hindsight, I can see this a blessing that God was there in my life from my childhood.

The hardest part about this, as it is for many younger Christians at school, is standing up for your faith in an oppressive world that denies Christ. Moreover, it is also difficult for older Christians in their work situation and discrimination can happen from the highest director down to the tea boy.

The reason for this is clear. People are scared about what they do not know, and a defence mechanism to this is to make themselves look better than you.

I take my text today from Matthew.

Matthew 26 v 75 - Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Peter was one of 12 disciples. I’m sure if you had asked him before Jesus was taken away to be killed, he would tell you that he was one of the best. He would be the first to answer questions that Jesus would ask and would try and look for ways to impress him. At the last supper Peter was adamant that he would deny Christ, but as we know from this passage, he did just that.

Part 1 – Confidence within a group.

When I was growing up in the church, I went to Sunday school and went to many thousands of church services. I knew all the answers and eventually I knew what to say in different situations. I was top of my class and could recite from the bible at will. Big Wow. I didn’t have God in my life really; I just knew the bible but did nothing about it. Its like a doctor who knows all the conditions yet never practices it.

At this time, I was confident about my faith within the church environment, superficially of course but confident none the less. I would tell people within the church all these stories about how strong I was but never actually put it in place outside of the walls.

Peter in some ways was the same. He had Jesus Christ as a teacher, he was in the inner circle of Christ’s followers and he also knew the answers. As we look back at the last supper, we can see that peter says the following:

“But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same.”

That is some sentiment really; he is pledging to Jesus that he would rather die than disown his master. I would have done the same thing within the church but faced with any other situation I was completely the opposite.

Part 2 – Confidence in confrontation.

As I grew older and got a little bit more curious about the world I started to hang around with a few mates who really weren’t Christian and certainly wouldn’t go to church with me! There is one situation that sticks in my mind where I denied Jesus because I wanted to be cool.

My friend came around for tea, (I shan’t name the guy) and after messing about on the computer and generally having a right laugh, we were called down for tea. We all sat down, my mum and dad, my mate, my brother and me and the food was bought out. My mate picked up his knife and fork and started to eat. My dad said “mike’s friend, we will say grace before we eat thanking God for our food”.

Bang, this was a potential for any street cred I had to fly out the window. (Not that I had much anyway but you get the idea). Dad said grace and all through the prayer I could see my mate’s lip curling with a smirk. Nothing was said in the evening and he went home.

The next day however was a completely different story, I came into school and everyone was laughing at me, “your dad’s a priest”, “going to say grace before you eat that chewing gum” and so on and so forth. Great.

This was when my shame grew for even knowing Jesus and I started to join in the mocking of my parents, of my God and of all the standards I had been bought up to believe. I feel so ashamed of myself thinking back. I started to deny going to church and began my double life of Christian at the weekends and Rebel during the week.

Peter was also faced with criticism, and he denied Christ even when he was still alive and even though he was in the same room!

“He began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, "I don't know this man you're talking about."

That sentence sounds strangely familiar…

Part 3 – Forgiveness for Denial

I’m sure we’ve all been in exactly this situation. We’ve been faced with question of “Do you believe in God” or “what do you think will happen after we die”. And I’m sure a lot of us have taken the non-Christian route and glossed over it for fear of ridicule.

Peter knew he had done wrong as I knew I had done wrong at school. The difference is, I didn’t want any forgiveness because I thought that going to church every Sunday will make up for it. How wrong was I?

John 21:17

17The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

My point is this. When we are outside of the church and outside of the group of people we associate with that, how do we act? Do we deny Christ with our actions? Are we hypocritical with our words? I think it’s extremely important to remember that God will never deny us, if we don’t deny him.

The biggest cause of atheism in the world is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips but deny him with their lifestyle – a quote from, I cannot remember where. But its true, we should remember that God has never promised that being a Christian is easy, in fact quite the opposite, but God rewards those who are faithful.

God loves us, we should love God with the same enthusiasm and we should never deny who we are. Easy to say I know but just because we deny God, doesn’t mean he’s not there watching us!

Walk by Faith, Not by Sight

Mikey