How strong are we really?

“I Will Not Deny You”

(Matthew 26:31-35, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 5, 2008)

Matthew 26:31-35 ³¹ Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' ³² But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." ³³ Peter answered him, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away." ³⁴ Jesus said to him, "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." ³⁵ Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!" And all the disciples said the same.

Introduction – Zeal and pride in little saints

Jesus Christ commanded that we must let the little ones come to Him, and that we should not hinder them. Sometimes we see wonderful examples of the Lord’s grace in very young lives. Their early achievements of faith and obedience are not always matched with commensurate works in later years. I do not mean to suggest that this negates the true expressions of faith that were in evidence when they were young. “All who call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” Yet the pathway of God’s grace in any one life may be too much for us to understand. I remember one great young student of mine who had a special way of saying, “The Lord Jesus Christ is MY Savior!” He certainly impressed me. I think of many little ones like Him that I have seen here and there in years gone by, and I imagine them saying, “Though they all fall away, I will never fall away.” I wonder if saints large and small sometimes overestimate our strength and fail to adequately consider the perfect strength and truth of God.

You will all fall away (31)

The disciples of Jesus Christ have been with Him for about three years now. It has not been easy. They each had to sacrifice time with friends and family. They have given up much in order to go where Jesus went, to listen to Him, and to do what He told them to do. They have seen an increasing hostility toward Christ and His followers from very powerful and important people in Israel. His disciples have been despised and rejected because He was despised and rejected.

Many others were interested in following Jesus in the same way these disciples followed Him, but they could not take it. Most of them left Him at one point in His teaching ministry (See John 6). There were still large crowds, but they were not following Him with the loyalty of the remaining eleven disciples (the twelve minus Judas). If staying with the Lord was just a matter of internal fortitude, the faint of heart would have left long ago. It would have been a much easier thing to be a follower of Jesus from afar, not risking the trouble that could come to those who were too closely associated with this man. Yet these eleven were all still there. Now Jesus announces to them something that seems completely impossible: that within a matter of hours they will all fall away from Him.

Because of me (31)

Why would they all fall away? We suppose that we know the answer to that question. It must be because of the danger of staying with a man that the authorities would soon arrest. Yet here we are told something slightly different that may surprise us. Our translation says, “You will fall away because of me.”

There is something great in these words, something of sovereign power, something of the grace that has kept them through these extraordinary three years of trial, but must seem to let them go for a little while in order for the glory of the moment to shine in the face of the crucified Savior alone. Something must be seen that cannot be obscured by other parties seeming to be the faithful ones. There must be this visible moment of faithlessness so that the Savior’s glorious obedience to the call of His Father will shine forth without any distraction from the people He came to save.

The exact words used here have to do with being caused to stumble over a stone. Jesus says to His beloved disciples that this stumbling will happen to them “in Me.” Every blessing that we have from God comes from being in Christ. Yet if Christ is to be glorified as the true Lamb of God on the cross, then at this moment, according to the plan of God, all who have been with Him for these three years must stumble over Him. They must be allowed to fall away, something they would have done so long ago if they had not been held so closely by the powerful grace of God. Who can understand the movement of faithfulness up and down over the course of our sorry lives? Yet we are kept by God though we fall. We slip for a time, yet we are picked up and held securely for eternity by our Savior.

It is written… (31)

They will all fall away. In this and in other passages we see an amazing array of details concerning the events that lead to the cross and the empty tomb. How is it that the Messiah knows all of these things surrounding His death and resurrection? Part of the answer is that Jesus perfectly understands and perfectly believes the Old Testament Scriptures. That is why He says, “It is written.” In this case the specific thing that He says is written is the statement, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” This particular phrase is almost a direct quote of a verse from the Old Testament book of Zechariah. The phrase is almost a direct quote. It is not precisely the same. Let me read you the relevant portion of Zechariah 13:7.

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”

If you are particularly observant you may have noticed a very small but significant change in the words that Jesus spoke. The original said, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” It does not precisely say who will strike the shepherd, although I think that we could have figured it out from the context in Zechariah, and by comparing this verse with other passages, especially Isaiah 53. What Jesus adds in His citation is the personal pronoun “I.” Jesus, referring to the Lord Almighty, quotes the sense of Zechariah this way, “I (the Lord) will strike the shepherd.” Jesus knows what will happen not only because He knows the Scriptures, but also because He has an inerrant interpretation of the Scriptures. God’s chosen Messiah, who is able to lay down His life in death, and is then able to pick it up again in resurrection, not only knows the Old Testament. He knows what it all means. Jesus is saying that His loving Father will strike the blow against Him on the cross so that God’s justice will be satisfied. He is also saying that when God does that, there is absolutely no doubt about it; the sheep, His disciples, will be scattered. They will all fall away. The one is able to add “I” to this verse knows what He is talking about.

After I am raised up… (32)

Jesus’ death and the scattering of the disciples will definitely happen. These two things are not the only things that will definitely happen. He speaks of two others in verse 32. First, He will be raised up. Second, He will then go ahead of them to Galilee. Perhaps you have focused more on the first of these statements than on the second. Remember that He had spoken of His resurrection from the dead before, and they did not really understand what He was talking about. Jesus is predicting that His going to Galilee is consistent with His existence as a resurrected man.

This point about going to Galilee is mentioned three times in chapter 28, and is also referred to by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Galilee was to the north of Jerusalem. It was the place where the disciples came from. It was home for them on this earth. After Jesus ascended to heaven and the disciples were speaking in Acts 2, the crowd said, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” Jesus is soon going to be the first immortal resurrection Man. He does not have to stay in Jerusalem or leave the earth. He is going to their home territory as the resurrection Man.

Even if I must die (33-35)

I can’t say that I understand all of the implications of that detail about going back to their home region, rather than just staying in Jerusalem. I have a suspicion that it is a hint about the importance of the whole earth in God’s eternal plans, and the importance of the places that we have all come to call “home,” since it is the Lord’s certain and revealed intention not only to bring about a glorious resurrection, but to have resurrected beings living right here on a renewed earth. I would have liked it if the disciples could have asked Him why He was going to Galilee as a resurrection Man, but they apparently did not have time for that. They were too busy unbelieving Him.

Verses 33-35 tell us that none of the disciples believed Jesus. As if to prove His point even before the cross ever happened, every one of them already scattered from Him in the unbelief of their hearts even before they scattered from Him with their bodies. The Lord quoted the Scriptures and told them they would all fall away. None of them believed Him, and all of them made a point of letting Him know about their unbelief out loud as we see in verse 35. Peter was sure that He would die first rather than abandon or deny Jesus, and they all said the same. In their strange pride, they seemed to completely neglect what He said about His resurrection and about going before them to Galilee, and instead they all insisted that He was wrong about their falling away from Him. Jesus responds with specificity, and Peter proudly boasts that he would never fall away and that the Lord of glory is certainly wrong.

As it turns out the Lord is not wrong about any of us. We would all have fallen away were it not for God’s power in keeping us. We have all disobeyed God in horrible ways. Jesus is right about some other things too. He will take the Father’s wrath for us. He will rise again, and His feet will walk on the ground in the place they called home. We’ll soon see what will happen with Peter, just as we see some of what happens with each other in our weaknesses. The Lord says nothing more about it here. There apparently is no point. They don’t believe Him. The rest of the story is coming soon enough in Matthew and in the other gospels and letters of the New Testament. It is an interesting story about faithlessness, forgiveness, and the glory of God. Despite all our pretended strength, the point is that there is one Man who will not fail in his commitments, the One who was alone when everyone was scattered. He is the great Shepherd of the sheep, and He is the only One who would soon die in order to be true to His Word.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. List the events that Jesus predicts in this passage. How could He be sure that all of these events would happen?

2. On the level of human choices, what does it mean that all the disciples would fall away because of Jesus?

3. What might make a person convinced that he would not fall into serious sin?

4. If God works all things for His glory and our good, how could He allow our foolish boasting and deep failures?