in Exodus chapter 34, and then our New Testament reading in John chapter 13. Exodus 34, one to nine, and then John 13, 36 to 38. Listen to the word of the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. excuse me, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children, and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, if now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance. Then our New Testament reading in text from John chapter 13, the last paragraph of this chapter, beginning with verse 36. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I'll lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, and let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. It proceeds from your mouth. It is true, infallibly true, to every jot and tittle, because you have inspired it. So Lord, when we read it, we receive it as your very word. We receive it without question. We long to understand it. We long for it to be applied to our hearts. Holy Spirit, do your work of illumination. and apply this Word read to our hearts. And now, Lord, prepare our ears to hear your Word preached. And, Lord, grant strength to your servant in his weakness, in his weakness in the flesh and his weakness because of his own struggle with sin himself and his own need for the very same gospel he offers to others. But Lord, you glorify yourself through bringing your word through servants that you appoint and that you grant unction and the strength of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel. Lord, your servant is relying upon you for that strength, that your people here gathered may be edified and encouraged and strengthened in their faith. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I would remind you that this interim period which is fleeting away quickly. Thanks be to God. The Lord's gonna be sending his minister here to you. But it shortened the time that I anticipated being able to be with you in this interim. And of course, I set out to look at this particular pericope, John 13 through 17, and we're barely making it through chapter 13 at this particular point. But I hope that you remember those earlier messages from John 13. All of this under the heading, the night that Jesus was betrayed. And as we come here to the end of chapter 13, and just before we see what's called the upper room address that Jesus gives his disciples, those words that he needs to speak to them before what's going to happen the next day when he'll be crucified. And before, 40 days later, when he will ascend to the Father and he will not be here with them any longer, but he'll send them another comforter. He tells them about all those things in chapters 14, 15, and 16. And then in chapter 17, we see the high priestly prayer that our Lord prays for his immediate disciples and then for those who had believed through their testimony. And of course, that's us as well in Jesus' high priestly prayer. We're not gonna get to most of that in this series. Who knows, perhaps the new pastor will take it up and finish the series somewhere down the road. But it's been my delight, of course, to be here with you. As we come to the end of chapter 13, we find the disciples are very, very confused. It's like they're receiving mixed signals from Jesus. He's not giving them mixed signals. Jesus has been very clear from Caesarea Philippi in particular, When he elicited from the same Peter the confession, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God, and he commended Peter for that confession that he made, he immediately then began to tell them the nature of his messianic ministry. that he's going to Jerusalem, he's going to be delivered over to the authorities, he's going to be crucified, and the third day he's going to rise again from the dead. He began at Caesarea Philippi. And nothing will divert the Lord Jesus Christ from that path. But the disciples are dull and slow. They remind me of me. They're dull and they're slow. They don't want to hear what he's saying. And so they're confused. And we've seen that throughout chapter 13. What do you mean one of us will betray you? Who will betray you? Who's the one that's going to betray you? And of course we know he took John into his confidence to point towards Judas. And now we come to Peter, and Peter is just, he's baffled. He's baffled. He's baffled by what the Lord Jesus has said. I would remind you that we've already seen in the paragraph that comes just before this, there were three points in the last sermon that I preached here, but we only took up two of them. The first and the last, where Jesus, in a five-fold way, spoke of his glorification, which begins in his crucifixion, and then he gives them a new commandment. But you remember that in the middle of that, what is it that Jesus says? Look at verse 33, moving back. And Peter takes up that question. He has a question that follows. And so Peter said in our text, Lord, where are you going? And Jesus answered, where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterwards. Note he doesn't answer the question where he's going. He will, in chapter 14, when he says, I'm going to my father's house and there are many rooms in my father's house, I'm going to prepare a place for you. But at first he doesn't tell them where. He just says, you cannot come where I'm going, not now, but you'll be able to follow afterwards. Now, in hindsight, we know what he's talking about. He's talking here about the ascension, when he will return to the Father, at the right hand of the Father, in the invisible heavens above. And he'll send his Holy Spirit. He's going to tell us about in 14 through 16, that they desperately need. And yes, he will come and bring them to himself. He's preparing a place for them. That's what he's going to tell us in chapter 14. But at this point, he just says, where I'm going, you cannot come now, but you will follow later. And Peter's not satisfied. And so Peter presses on and says to him in verse 32, Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I don't want to wait till later. I don't care where you're going. And then Peter makes a bold claim. I will lay down my life for you. He's confused. He doesn't understand. It seems to him like mixed signals. Jesus has been talking about bringing in a kingdom. And now Jesus is talking about, this is my body. This is my blood. What's going on here? And there's almost this ominous sense that this is not going to end well. But he's committed to the Lord Jesus. He says, wherever you go, I'll follow you. And wherever you go, I'll lay down my life for you. And I believe Peter meant it. I think as we continue to read the Gospel of John, we see that that's the case. I think he meant it. I think Peter, at that time, confused as he was, was still ready to lay down his life for the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter didn't know everything. He didn't know what he was about to face. Look at what Jesus says to him in verse 38. Jesus answered him. He answers him by asking him a question. Will you lay down your life for me? Really, Peter? Will you lay down your life for me? Then he says, truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. prophesize what Peter's gonna do later that night before daylight the next day. You lay down your life for me, you don't know what you're saying, Peter. Before the rooster crows, you're gonna deny me three times. I'm sure when Peter heard that, he thought, there's no way I am willing to lay down my life for him. What I want to do now is to trace Peter through the remainder of John's gospel. We did this a bit with John, when we contrasted John and Judas. John, the beloved disciple, Judas, the betrayer. We traced through and we saw a unique faithfulness in John, in respect to the rest of the disciples. I want to do the same kind of thing here with Peter, because sometimes we can be hard on Peter. And we probably shouldn't be. Peter was often brash. Peter often spoke up first, often spoke up without thinking. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he was wrong. Anybody here can identify with that? Are there any Peters in our midst? I suspect from time to time all of us suffer from what Peters seem to suffer from. His heart was always in the right place, but sometimes his head and his tongue But we can be hard on Peter, especially if we see him denying the Lord. Don't be so hard on Peter. Put yourself in his shoes. We're going to see here Jesus prophesies, you're going to deny me three times. We're going to see that Peter actually does deny him three times. And then we're going to see how Jesus restores him with a threefold restoration as we work through this. So let's move to chapter 18 in John's gospel. Chapter 18, beginning with verse, actually verse 10, before we get to Peter's actual denial, and I think that this helps us understand what's taking place, and the confusion, just the bafflement that Peter has by what happens. You remember before they left for Gethsemane, Peter had his sword. And should we take our swords? And Peter had his, and Jesus says, that'll be sufficient. It was Jesus' intent that nobody use their sword. That becomes quite clear. But in Gethsemane, at the time of the arrest, we see Peter doing precisely what he told the Lord Jesus Christ he was willing to do. I'm willing to lay down my life for you. Look at what we read in verse 10. This is when they came to arrest Jesus, and Jesus said, I am, when they said who it was that they were, he says, who are you seeking? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am, in the Greek, literally. He said, I am. We typically translate it, I am here, I am the one. But the arrest is taking place and Jesus pleads on behalf of his disciples, take me but leave these men be. And of course, those that come to arrest him actually obey his word in this regard. And I think we can understand of something what's going on with them too. Because in verse 10 we read, then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Peter saw his Lord in jeopardy. Peter drew his sword. Peter defended his Lord. He struck the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant, and cut off his ear to defend his Lord. But look at what Jesus does. So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into your sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that was given to me? We know that what Jesus did was he healed the ear of Malchus. Put yourself in the position of those that are coming to arrest him. Think about it for a moment. They're coming to arrest this one they've hurt, maybe even witnessed some of the miracles that he has wrought. They're coming to arrest him. One of his disciples draws his sword to defend him, cuts off the ear in defense of him. Rather than doing battle and resisting arrest, what does Jesus do? He heals the ear of Malchus. Did he pick it up off the ground and put it back on and it was healed? Or did he touch the place where the ear was and suddenly there's an ear there? You can understand. This man just healed this man. We just saw a miracle and we're going to arrest him? But he surrendered himself to them. We've seen this before because the cross is not something that happens to Jesus. He orchestrates it from the very beginning. We see that in this particular case. But look at what he says. It's really extraordinary what he says. So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given to me? One thing that's interesting when you compare the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, is the different material that they tell us, even about this night. You read through John's gospel, you never see the prayer in Gethsemane. It's not here. But you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you don't see the high priestly prayer of John 17. The Synoptic Gospels record for us Jesus' prayer in agony in Gethsemane. Now, you need to recognize this about what was happening in Gethsemane. This is not Jesus wrestling with whether or not to obey the Father. It's a foregone conclusion. This is the God-man. He is going to be faithful. He is going to obey the Father. That's never in question. It's never in doubt. But the weight of what that obedience will be is what comes down upon the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the cup that he must drink. It's not the cross so much. It's not the nails in the cross so much. It's not the crown of thorns so much, though that's fearful as well for anybody because of the pain that you go through. But it was to drink the cup the father had for him to drink, which was the cup of the father's wrath in your stand. And that's what he said in his prayer in Gethsemane that John doesn't record, but John heard it. Because remember in Gethsemane, it took Peter, James, and John, and he takes them a bit further. Then he goes a stone's throw further to be alone to pray, but they're able to overhear his prayer. He prayed and he sweat like grape, drops of blood in agony over the weight of what he was about to experience to redeem us. And he said, Lord, is there any way to remove this cup from me? That is to drink the cup of your wrath. Remember, the Father and the Son have enjoyed sweet love and communion and fellowship from all of eternity as the two persons of the Godhead. And now suddenly, the wrath of the Father is going to be poured out upon the Son made flesh. The weight is overwhelming. We can't imagine it. There's no way we can understand that. But you see here, Jesus is determined to drink the cup that the Father has for him. Shall I not drink the cup that's prepared for me? See, it's almost like you say to Peter, if I'm going to redeem you, I have to drink this cup. Put your sword away. It's really profound when you see it. But you can also see how this can shake Peter. I'm willing to die for you. Peter, you don't know what you're talking about. Before daylight, you're going to deny me three times. You can almost see Peter with his sword saying, no, I'll never deny you. When they come after Jesus, he draws his sword. He defends his sword. He cuts off the servant's ear. Jesus heals the ear. You see? And then Jesus rebukes him. Put your sword away. I must drink this cup. You don't understand Peter. And he didn't understand. And that's all taking place in Peter as he approaches what happens after Jesus' arrest. Peter followed. We read that as we continue in this particular chapter. Look down at verse 15. Actually, let's start at verse 12 to see the whole context of what's happening. So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. And first they led him to Annas, but he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. And then it tells us a little bit about Caiaphas. They first took him to Annas' house. Now, who was Annas? Caiaphas' father-in-law. He's also Caiaphas' predecessor as the high priest. He still has a lot of weight and authority. The whole bazaar that was set up in the outer court when Jesus cleansed the temple because they turned the house of his father into a den of robbers, he said, was called Annas Bazaar. He's the one that orchestrated the setting up of that bazaar of animal, sacrificial animals, and money-changing tables within the court of the Gentiles, or the court of the nations that Jesus just went interfering over. And he saw it twice. The beginning of his ministry is recorded in John's gospel, but then in the synoptic gospels here at the end. And he cleansed the temple on both of those occasions. our Lord Jesus Christ when that occurred. Caiaphas was the high priest, Annas was his father-in-law, and the previous high priest, they took him to Annas' house. And Simon Peter and another disciple who's unnamed, who do you think that might be? We've already encountered this. Remember I told you in John's Gospel, the only time you find the name John is when it's talking about John the Baptist? When he's talking about himself, it's either the other disciple or the disciple whom Jesus loved. And here you have Peter and John, they follow. Remember we talked about how John was there not only in the courtyard, John was also there at the foot of the cross uniquely, tending Jesus' mother as Jesus was crucified. Well, Peter is with John, and so we come to verse 15. Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple that we presume to be John. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, and we don't know how that relationship existed prior, but it did. He entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. The other disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, you also are not one of the man's disciples, are you? He said, I am not. I'm sure what Jesus said earlier is long lost in his mind. I'm not. How could he do that? How could he deny the Lord? The man was devastated and confused. He tried to defend his Lord. The Lord healed the enemy's ear. And the Lord rebuked him. He denied the Lord. As you continue to read, it goes to within the house and what was taking place there with Jesus before the priest. But then as you come down to 25, you see what's happening outside in the courtyard again. Now, Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. which takes up the previous paragraph of the paragraph before. So they said to him, you also are not one of his disciples, are you? He denied it and said, I am not. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, did I not see you in the garden with him? You see, here's a real threat. the one who is a relative of the one of Malchus whose ear was cut off. Peter again denied it, and at once the rooster crowed. Can you imagine what that was like for Peter? Third time, he denies the Lord. The very Lord, he said, I will die for you. He even demonstrated that when he drew the sword in the garden. But Jesus rebuked him and told him to put his sword up. And now, under this intense pressure and confusion, he denies the Lord, not once, not twice, but three times. And then the rooster crows. And he remembers what Jesus said. Don't be so hard on Peter. Every time you sin, you deny the Lord. Every time you're silent when you should speak up, you deny the Lord. All of us do. Peter was weak. We are weak. That's why we need the grace of God in Christ Jesus. And the Lord does grant strength in the moment of need. Then there are times when he doesn't to remind us how much we need him. That his grace is sufficient. So Peter denied the Lord three times. Jesus prophesied he would deny the Lord three times. Let's move forward in the gospel. I'm not going to stop at the empty tomb, because you know that when they received word that the stone had been rolled away, two of the disciples, one Peter and the other disciple again, who is unnamed, who is John, who evidently is more fleet of foot than Peter. and gets there first, but it's Peter who goes in and sees the tomb is empty. Is it beginning to dawn on them? Might he actually be raised from the dead? We also know there are things that we don't find within our narrative, that sometime that day, Jesus appeared to Peter. We just have a statement that that's the case. We don't have any description of it. And of course, he appeared to the 11 disciples, actually the 10, because Thomas wasn't there. As we move to chapter 21, we're moving through those 40 days between the resurrection, Jesus' first appearances, and before the ascension to heaven. That's where we're coming as we work our way through chapter 21. And here's what happened, and it's hard for us to understand. We don't have a lot of details. Where was Jesus when he was not appearing to his disciples? We don't know. And there might be days or weeks between appearances. And what are they supposed to do? And they're in Galilee. And remember, that these men, Peter and Andrew and James and John, were called from their fishing nets and their fishing boats to follow Jesus to become fishers of men at the beginning of his ministry. And they forsook those boats and those nets to follow Jesus for three years. But now, what is Jesus doing? He's here and then he's gone? And then a few days later, there he is? and he tells us something and then he's gone? And we don't even have full descriptions of what it means he's here and he was gone. Did he just appear in their midst and then disappear? Or did he come through the door and then walk out the door? We're not told specifically. We know that he has a resurrection body. We know it's the self-same body that was crucified. How do you know that? Well, two ways we know that. Yes, it's the scars. He's known by those scars. When those see him, I actually believe the two on the road to Emmaus that did not recognize him, and they hear and they marvel at everything he does as he opens up the scriptures to them and he shows them that the Old Testament scriptures are speaking of Christ. I think, even though the text doesn't tell us, it's a bit speculative, when did they recognize him? It's when he broke bread. And I think that brought attention to his hands. And then he's gone. Same body, but resurrected and different. We don't know how. Our bodies will be the same in the resurrection at the last day. We'll be like his body. But here he is. He's here today. He's gone tomorrow. He's here today. He's gone today. He's not here tomorrow. It may be days, it may be weeks there in Galilee. What do they do? Well, Peter said, I'm going fishing. I can identify with that. I love fish. I used to preach a sermon called Gone Fishing. I looked at this text as John's great commission. John tells us in the gospel, a whopper of a fishtail. Now anybody who knows about fishing knows that we cannot lie unless it's about fishing. I can't believe it was this long, you know. Well, you're not really lying because it was this long. Yeah, I think sometimes fishing is a work of the flesh. in that regard because we can be so proud and arrogant or humiliated if we don't catch anything. But this is what they did and seven of them went fishing. It's what they knew. It's what they knew how to do. It's what they loved and they were good at it. But on this night, they fished all night long and didn't catch a single fish. All night long, not a single fish. I've had days like that before too. And suddenly they hear somebody from the bank saying, little children. They should have known right then when he called them little children. Little children, have you caught any fish? You can see it. No, we haven't caught any. Cast your nets on the right side of the boat and you'll catch some. Is that the Lord? We better do what he says. They put their nets on the right side of the boat. They're so filled with fish, they are afraid the nets are going to break. When I say this as a whopper of a fishtail, they caught 153 fish and they were all big ones. They're afraid they were going to break, and they're trying to get the nets and get back to shore. And Peter, realizing it's the Lord, puts on his garment that he had taken off while he was working to fish, and he jumps into the water and swims to be with his Lord. Now, here's a man who realizes he's experienced God's grace. But evidently, they had not had a real discussion about what Peter did. I'll die for you. You know what you're saying, Peter? Before daylight, you're going to deny me three times. He hears the rooster crow. He realizes, I'm just denied my Lord three times. But Jesus comes specifically to Peter and he commissions him. And we see that in this text. Look at verse 15. When they had finished, this is in chapter 21, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? And that's ambiguous in the Greek and ambiguous in the English. These what? Do you love me more than these, your boats and your nets? Well, he left them three years before to follow Jesus. Do you love me more than these, more than you love these, your brothers? Do you love me more than these brothers love me? It's hard to know. It's a bit ambiguous. He says, do you love me more than these? And Peter responds to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, and here's the commission, if you love me, then feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Peter denied the Lord three times. Jesus prophesied he would deny him three times. threefold restoration of Peter with the question each time, do you love me? And when Peter affirms his love, the commission, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, feed my sheep. I've called you to be a shepherd, Peter. I know you've heard sermons from this text. And then you've probably heard preachers that have made much ado about the Greek words that are used here. because there are two synonyms that mean love that are used throughout the text. One is agape in the verb form. The other is phileo. these two Greek words that are synonyms that mean love. And so you've heard people say, Jesus says to Peter, do you love me? Agape, do you love me? I mean, do you love me with everything that's within you? But Peter can only say, Lord, you know I love you like a brother, phileo. You know, I love you very much. Jesus comes back, do you love me? Peter says, Lord, you know I love you, Phileo. Third time, Jesus says, do you love me, Phileo? Peter says, grieved, he asked him the third time. You know I love you. And I know you've heard sermons that put a lot of emphasis there and say, Jesus is asking for more than Peter can give. I don't think that's true. The only thing more dangerous than a minister who doesn't know Greek and Hebrew is a minister who knows a little bit of Greek and Hebrew. And I'm being truthful here. Ministers who know a little bit of Greek and Hebrew oftentimes spend all their times in the etymology of words. in word studies and how words are used in other passages, all that is helpful. Don't get me wrong, that's part of exegesis, properly so. But you need to remember the meaning of the word that's most important is what does this word mean in this context we have right here? And if you put so much emphasis upon the etymology or the nuanced differences between synonyms, it can lead you astray. And let me tell you why I believe that here John is using these words to keep from being redundant rather than emphasizing the nuance difference between the two words. It's because this conversation did not take place in Greek at all. This conversation took place in Aramaic. That's the language. Peter and Jesus communicated with. John wrote for a broader audience. He wrote in Koine Greek. This was like English is in much of the world today. This is the language of commerce. And so the Bible, the New Testament is written in Greek for a much wider audience. But these Galileans spoke Aramaic in their everyday conversation. And here it is, the Lord Jesus Christ speaking with Peter. I'm confident the conversation was in Aramaic. And John translates it into the Greek. And you have to keep that in mind. This is dialogue. This is not simply a narrative. I think We shouldn't put so much emphasis upon the nuanced differences on some occasions between agape and phileo. I think Peter is grieved not because Jesus dropped to the lesser verb from agapeo to phileo, but that he asked him three times. Lord, I've already told you twice. You're asking me again? I wonder when it dawned on him. How many times did I deny him? This is Jesus' full restoration and commissioning of Peter to be a shepherd to his sheep. Peter's not the only shepherd. We need to recognize that. We don't fall prey to what the Roman church does with Peter here and in other places. He is not going to be the vicar of Christ. He's going to be a shepherd of God's flock. And we see the remarkable change that happens in Peter. Look at how the gospel comes to an end. It's really pretty extraordinary. Immediately after he says the third time, feed my sheep, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress and carry you where you do not want to go. Then there's a parenthetical expression. that John inserts into the dialogue here, where he says this, he said, to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And then after this, he said to him, to Peter, follow me. Three years earlier, he said, follow me. Drop your nets and follow me, Peter did. Now, after the threefold restoration and the commissioning to shepherd my sheep, Jesus says again, follow me. And Peter followed him. The one who boldly says, I'll die for you, and before the night is over, denied him three times, ultimately did die for him. And we're not told in scripture other than this cryptic description that doesn't really help that much to understand the manner of death of Peter. But tradition tells us about Peter's martyrdom. It's really quite extraordinary. Peter was forced to watch his wife be crucified. And then when it came time for Peter to be crucified, he said, I'm not worthy to be crucified in the manner of my Lord. He was crucified upside down. And this parenthetical is extraordinary. Look at what it says. This he said to show by what kind of death he was due to listen. Glorify God. You see that? How would we think of death as a way to glorify the Father? Of course, we saw in our text last time that this is how the Lord Jesus Christ would glorify the Father through His death. That's your redemption. That's your redemption. Through His death on your behalf, He drank the cup. and thereby glorified the Father and glorifies himself or the Father glorifies him in his death. This is what we saw last time. But here now, it's a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. His death has no significance whatsoever. So that's only the Lord Jesus Christ. But especially the martyrs glorify God in their deaths. Most of us probably will not die a violent martyr's death. We don't know. Maybe some will. Ever think about how your death is going to glorify God? So has Christ in resurrection undone the curse of death? What was the curse is now the gateway into the presence of God himself. The grave has no more victory or sin. Not because of the resurrection. It has no victory or sin. It's still a reality. And it's life. And we'll all face it, all of us, unless Jesus comes back real soon. Do you think and contemplate your death? I don't mean in a morbid way, all the time. But from time to time. I had an extraordinary experience with my parents. And they were in their early 80s, which seemed old to me then. It doesn't seem near as old to me anymore. And it was just the three of us. And they were having aches and pains. And my mother, in particular, early signs of dementia. Later, she got full-blown Alzheimer's. But we sat down together to contemplate their deaths. We were working through 2 Corinthians, just the three of us. I think I need to prepare you for your deaths, even though I may go before you. We don't know. The great interest we thought about this life, how to glorify God in this life, and in suffering this life, also to glorify God in our deaths. I got a phone call from my dad a few weeks after that. He was so excited. He said, Lacey, I found our burial pots. I said, you did. He was so excited. I didn't want to be buried in that cemetery where everybody else is buried. He said, I tried Grange Hall, which is the cemetery near where he grew up and the church that he grew up in. They were full up. Then I learned about this cemetery. It's on Highway, I think it's 59. It overlooks a pond in Georgia. I used to fish in that pond. George was his best friend when I was growing up, who the Lord took home many years ago. They're not that expensive, he said. I couldn't believe how excited he was about his barrel plots. I said, Dad, you're not going to care whether there's a pond there that you used to fish in. He said, I know that, but still. My mom had Alzheimer's for five years. It was devastating. This is one of the most godly women I've ever known. A brilliant woman in the scriptures. She couldn't remember our names. She never forgot Jesus. She never forgot Jesus. And my dad would ask her to pray before the meals because she was most ojous when praying. She would tell me about how the Lord took care of her in things that never even happened. How the Lord envisioned for her in things that were in her imagination. She never forgot about Jesus. She died 10 years ago in the mid-80s and was standing lonely in church. I preached her funeral. It was a time of rejoicing and resurrection. Dad died December the 30th of this past year. and 98 years old. I was telling you about some of this last night, wasn't I? He did a testimony a few years earlier when the elders in his church videoed it. I can almost quote it verbatim. He said, Ron wants me to tell you about how I came to know Jesus. It doesn't matter how I came to know Jesus. What matters is I'm a Christian that saved my grace. He said, I couldn't read like most people. He had dyslexia. He said, but God gave me great ears to hear and a mind to remember the things that I heard read and the things that I heard taught. And he said, God's taken away my eyesight. I can't hardly see. He's taken away my ears, but he's not taken away my prayers. And at that time, every day, My dad prayed by name for a hundred and sixty from me. Every day. You got one sentence, but every single day. He told you he was going to pray for you. Your name went on his list that wasn't even written down. And the Tuesday night before his death, my family got together for a Christmas celebration that they do every year. I rarely get to go because of ministry. I live so far away from Texas. My brother told my dad when he picked him up at the assisted living place, you're not going to have to speak. And my dad says, well, I don't know what to say. And my brother said, you always know what to say. If you knew my dad, you'd know what I'm talking about. And he videoed what he had to say and sent it to me. And he thanked the Lord for how the Lord had blessed our family. And he said, the boys, which are my brothers that are ones in his 60s and ones in his 50s now, have said they're going to continue this tradition that my mother started after I'm gone. He said, I'm going to hold them to it. Two days later, I get a phone call from my brother saying, Daddy's weaker and this is different. And on Saturday morning, I was getting up to go duck hunting. My alarm went off on my phone. I pick it up. I look. It rings. It's my brother to tell me that they just checked him. There's no pulse. My grandson was on leave. He's in the military. He was going with me. He came down the stairs. I told him about his great-grandfather. My son came to pick us up. I told him about his granddaddy. We looked at each other and said, he would be very upset if we let this keep us from going behind him. That's what we did. 98 years old. Before he died, he told the people that cared for him, if I don't wake up in the morning, don't you worry about me. I'll be with the Lord. That is glorifying God in your deaths. My priestess said, I know a whole lot more Bible and a whole lot more theology than my dad. I don't know Jesus like my dad. It's good sometimes to contemplate. Our time here, our sojourn here is short. There's an eternity with our Redeemer, with our God, because of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we live now in light of the power of the age to come. So think about your deaths. Children, I know that's real tough for you because you think you're going to live forever. You're going to blink your eyes, you're going to be as old as me. That's what it seems like. Ask anybody that's older that's in this room. Young fellas, you got to go by fast. Glorify him in life and glorify him in death. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the narrative and the dialogue that when we see Peter and we see him with all of his sin and weaknesses and we look and it's like we're looking in a mirror when we see our brother and father in the Lord. We see your grace and we see your mercy and we see your redemption and we see our forgiveness and we see how you commission us and how you use us and the callings to which you call us. We pray that we would honor and glorify you in our lives and in our deaths. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. It's turned to number 429, come thou fount of every blessing. 429. Let me say one thing about this hymn or a couple of things. One is the man who wrote it is probably not in heaven. You may not know that. He was a mighty preacher in the Great Awakening, Reformed Baptist preacher. at the end of his life seems to have given into universalism and Unitarianism. You can almost sense a proneness to stray and a pleading to keep me. My mom had a unique testimony about this song, this hymn. She says,