July 03 2025

Thursday July 03

Luke 22:54-62

Peter’s Steps to Failure

54 Having arrested Him, they led Him and brought Him into the high priest's house. But Peter followed at a distance. 55 Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. 56 And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, "This man was also with Him." 57 But he denied Him, saying, "Woman, I do not know Him." 58 And after a little while another saw him and said, "You also are of them." But Peter said, "Man, I am not!" 59 Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, "Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean." 60 But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are saying!" Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." 62 So Peter went out and wept bitterly.

Welcome to Pastor's Chat. Today we're continuing in Luke 22:54-62. In verse 54 it says, "Having arrested Him, they led Him, Jesus, and brought Him into the high priest's house, but Peter followed at a distance." So, we're going to look at this passage of Scripture over the next several days and talk about how Peter fell into the temptation of denying the Lord at a time when Jesus crucially needed him to stand up for Him. And we're going to find out why we, you and I, so often with all the determination of our heart to stand up for Jesus, to love Him, to live for Him, yet we still fail. And we're going to see these steps that led to Peter's failure as we look at this passage of Scripture.

First an overview of the next events. Jesus has been arrested in the garden. After His arrest over the next several hours, Jesus actually endured six different trials before He was condemned to be crucified: three before the Jews and three before the Roman authorities. First, He was taken to Annas, the former high priest who was an influential man in the nation and who still retained his former title (John 18:12-13). Then Annas sent Him to Caiaphas, who was his son-in-law and the official high priest (Matthew 26:57). Finally, at daybreak on Friday morning, He was tried before the Sanhedrin and found guilty (Luke 22:66-71).

The Jews didn't have the right for capital punishment (John 18:31-32). So they then took Jesus to the Roman authorities to get Him crucified. First, they took Him to Pilate (Luke 23:1-4), who tried to avoid a decision by sending Him to Herod (Luke 23:6-12). Herod sent Him back to Pilate (Luke 23:13-25). When Pilate saw that he could not escape making a decision, he gave the Sanhedrin what they asked for and condemned Jesus to die on a Roman cross.

Now, it was during the second Jewish trial, the one before Caiaphas, that Peter in the courtyard denied the Lord three times. So how did it happen? Where did it begin? How did Peter come to a place where after he had boastfully said, "I will die with You. Though everyone else fails, I won't fail. I'll follow You even to death. I will not stumble"? (Matthew 26:33). First, let me just tell you, the first step for you and me to go in the wrong direction with the Lord is to get a heart of pride. Can you imagine Peter amongst the eleven other disciples at this time, making the statement that though all these other guys around here forsake You and leave You and stumble, I will not stumble?

My friend, the first step to falling into temptation and to following the world and leaving the Lord is pride. The Bible says, "Let a man take heed when he thinks he stands, lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). Pride enters our heart. We think we're stronger than we are. We think we can do it ourselves, and we then we start comparing ourselves to others and think we're better than them. That is a terrible condition to get in. It all started with pride. So, we see Peter's first step of pride.

Secondly, Peter didn't take the word of Jesus seriously when He said, "Watch and pray." Peter failed to pray. He failed to watch. The hour of temptation would come and Jesus had warned him that, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The spirit will say, "Oh, I'll never leave church. I'll never quit reading my Bible. I'll always be the best Christian ever. I know all these other people, they're not disciplined like I am. They don't have the commitment and surrender I have to Jesus."

When we have this attitude, we are headed for big failure. Jesus says, "Watch and pray." But instead of watching and praying, we find in the Scripture here that Peter was sleeping. Three times the Lord came and woke him up. Yet He continued to sleep. We tend to sometimes forget we can't make it without the Lord helping us.

Tomorrow we will continue to look at the other steps that led to Peter's stumbling and denying Jesus. May the Lord help us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus all the time.

God bless!