Sermon Tone Analysis

Jim’s Introduction,

………This morning we are going to hear a different type of sermon then what you are used to hearing.

It is a sermon done in the first person.

Pastor Ken is going to lead you through a Spiritual Inventory as Peter out of Mark 14. Would you turn with me to Mark 14.

[Jim reads Mark 14]

Ken comes from back

Peter’s Spiritual Inventory

Introduction

In less than twelve hours I went from someone who said, “Jesus I will never deny you” to someone who denied him three times.

Over the course of my life I have looked back and asked myself, “How did that happen?

How could I have done that after seeing and hearing and touching and being with my Lord?”

Only by the grace of God have I been allowed to look back and say, “Ah!

I See.”

This morning I want to break down the steps that I took when I denied my Lord Jesus and how He restored.

I want to make sure that you can learn from what I experienced so that you don’t have to down the path that I took.

You’d be surprised how easy it could happen.

There was a lot going on that night, I remember having been to several of the Passovers with Jesus but this Passover was different.

It was just as crowded as usual when the city of Jerusalem swelled up from about 30,000 to about 300,000.

There were all kinds of rumors going on but there was something about Jesus’ countenance that I just didn’t pick up on.

You see just a few hours before we walked into Jerusalem, Jesus had been describing to all of us, “This is what’s going to be happening to me,” but I wasn’t listening.

I was so caught up with my own position before the Lord, my own position in Heaven.

I was so caught up in who was the greatest among us that I just didn’t catch how sensitive and grieved the Lord’s heart was at the time.

Now I’m a fisherman and the first rule of fishing is to stay afloat in your boat.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I would wake up and walk outside to take a deep breathe and smell the air to catch an understanding of the humidity.

I’d look up at the horizon to see how many clouds there were to try to anticipate what kind of weather I’d be facing as a fisherman that day.

If there was real stormy weather coming, I would command all my helpers and my brothers, that were also fisherman, to pull back some of the floorboards of the boat and put some more rocks down in the under the keel to make sure that below the water line, where no one else would see, that’s where the real weight would be so that when the wind blew against our sailboat it wouldn’t tip over.

Of course, on days when the weather was great, we really didn’t like lugging all those rocks so we’d take some out.

But like any good fisherman, you sensed the weather.

I didn’t sense it spiritually because my heart was really not with the Lord.

Had I really been listening to Jesus, had I really understood what He meant when He said, “I am going to the cross,” I would have pulled back the floorboards of my life and I would have put many, many more rocks below the waterline so when the winds of Satan blew against me with temptations – I would keep righting I would keep coming back up instead of capsizing.

But I didn’t do that.

I was so caught up in my own pride, in my own self that I just didn’t get it.

I have asked myself a thousand times, how can I go in less than 12 hours from “I would never deny you,” to having some little servant girl come up, looks under my hood, and with curses so easily deny Jesus.

You need to know that this didn’t just happen!

I never intended it.

As you know, for those of you who have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, that the death that I personally witnessed has set us all free from the bondage of sin and death that was present under the Law and that all of you, as a result are ministers right where God has placed you.

You ought to have a heart for Jesus and a passion for the lost just like Jesus taught me.

You need to know that if there is one person here that thinks they got it all together and within a 12 hour period of time could not go from loving Christ to denying Christ, think again.

Because I’m here to tell you, that’s exactly what happened in my life and you would be wise to really understand the process that I went through in denying my Lord Jesus Christ.

Some of us in this very room are right now caught up in that same process.

We need to remember that at any moment each of us is only one decision away from denying Jesus Christ, and that’s scary.

I remember that night going up to the upper room with Jesus and all the others and during our Passover meal I remember Jesus taking bread and stating, “This is my body broken for you...” I was shocked.

What could He be saying?

This was a new teaching.

I new He was always the master teacher taking physical elements to show us a spiritual reality.

I didn’t understand what it meant at the time but I should have been listening.

He continued, “This is my body broken for you eat of it.”

Then he took a glass of wine, “This is my blood shed for you drink all of it.”

As I was pondering these statements and what they implied, I remember him leaned over and whispering something to Judas and Judas going out into the night.

At the time, none of us knew exactly what was happening but I should have I didn’t.

What I’d like to do is, I would like you to walk with me through my life and see the process or the steps of denial that I took.

There are six of them.

I also want to walk through the steps of God’s grace restoring me back to use.

As I go through these steps and try to explain what was going on in my heart and mind, I want to ask you to search your heart and mind and take inventory in your life.

Just maybe you are closer to denying Jesus Christ in some areas of your life than you think and if not now when you are on the front lines of ministry both in your family, at work and out in the world, the pressure is going to be so great that if you do not keep yourself aware of these things you will fall like myself.

Six Steps of Spiritual Denial

Mark 14:27-31

The first step was very simple, over confidence in my spiritual position and abilities allowing a very subtle pride that to creep into my life.

As we walked with Jesus we were amazed.

In one part of a talk he was giving to a crowd he would talk about how He was the God of the universe, the Messiah and yet 15 minutes later he would show his unbelievable humility.

We knew that humility had nothing to do with personality.

It had everything to do with character below the waterline.

The weight of character was so heavy in his life He knew exactly where he stood with the Father.

Humility was a Hebrew word meaning the lowering of the Nile River.

Now I know a lot of Egyptians friends that used to come through Galilee and we would talk and they would tell me that the Nile River meant everything to them.

They were totally dependent upon it.

When the Nile River went down so did their quality of life and when it raised the quality of their life rose up.

Jesus was so dependent upon the Father in the Spirit for everything that is where He got His humility.

My first step was being over-confident in myself, forgetting how dependent I was upon my Father.

How many times had I memorized Scripture?

In Proverbs it says, “Guard over your heart with all diligence for from it flows springs of life.”

How many times did I need to hear, “A haughty Spirit precedes falling?”

How many times did I need to hear it as I walked miles and miles every day with Jesus?

But I didn’t hear it.

Is there anyone in here that is starting to put confidence in your abilities, your personalities, your education, your gifts, your relationships, and your position?

Those are the first steps any time that you are dependent on anything else but the Spirit of God you have taken the first steps in denying Christ.

Remember, 12 hours – “I will never deny you!

All these other could.”

(I really was one that built a lot of unity amongst the disciples!)

“All these other could deny you, but not me.”

I remember Jesus saying, “Peter, Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat.”

Now I’m a fisherman I’m not a farmer but I know the nature of sifting wheat where you cut it down and then you crush it and then you throw it up in the air and Satan was asking, “God, let me cut Peter down.”

“Let me just crush him.

Let me just throw him up in the air.

Let’s just let the wind blow him away.”

Jesus never said, “Hey, but I’m going to make sure that he doesn’t.”

No. Jesus said, “but I’m praying for you Peter that you won’t fall to the temptation.”

I should have been listening but I wasn’t.

Mark 14:32-42

The second step was a lack of prayer, which made it easy for me to give in to the flesh.

Jesus taught us over and over again, no prayer – no power.

No prayer – no power.

How many times did I wake up early in the morning just so of before it was even light, just hearing some sort of rustling going on and just sort of turning over and lifting back my cloak and seeing Jesus’ silhouette just disappearing into the darkness.

We knew where he was going.

He was going to be with the Father.

What were we doing?

We kept sleeping.

He was constantly in prayer.

That’s where he gained his power.

He was so connected to the Father.