There may be people that would think you're an absolute idiot if you believe the Bible, embrace Jesus Christ as your personal savior and have hope of living in heaven some day with Jesus Christ. That's so fairy-land-ish. You know? We gave up that kind of thinking when we were wee little tykes. We don't think in those categories any more. We're mature.

Not only that, but Peter was a courageous defender of Jesus Christ. You know, we look at Peter pulling his sword out in the garden when Jesus was being arrested and say, "Come on, what an idiot! What a fool's mission!"

But what were the rest of those disciples doing? Why weren't they jumping to the defense of Jesus? What was motivating Peter to draw his sword and attack the guy closest to him? Well, it was ignorance. Okay. It wasn't.... I mean, he was rebuked by Jesus for it. All right! But what does it tell you? Peter is willing to risk his life for his Savior at that point. There was more to his words than just pure rhetoric when he said, "I will die with you."

In John 13, Jesus says, "I'm going away and where I'm going, you can't come now."

Peter says, "Why can't we come Lord? I'll die with you."

And we say, "Yeah, right!" When we read John 13, we get to that text and we say, "Yeah, right, Peter! You'll die with him? We know what you're gonna do in just a few hours."

But wait a minute. When Jesus was arrested, Peter, alone, took on a whole army with a dagger. Okay, it was stupid. Yeah. Right. But I think there's a connection there between his ill-founded, braggadocio claims and his gut-level response, the passion of his soul, which was burning hot for Jesus Christ, that caused him to take that dagger out and attack the guy next to him.

I'm not suggesting that Peter did the absolute right thing, that that was an orthodox response. But it does say something about the depth of his love for Jesus Christ at that point.

Is there a passion in your soul that rises to defend the honor of Jesus Christ when it's under assault?

You dare not say -- we dare not say in our politically correct culture anything against Alla or Mohammad, but if you want to take aim at Jesus Christ, you can insult Him all day long, if you please, and nobody will squeak. Even the Christians in the work place.

Are we one of those? Or would we stand up and say, "Now wait a minute. You're talking about my Savior. You're talking about the one who left heaven, who left infinite majesty and took on humanity in order to die for your sins and was buried and rose again the third day. Have you ever heard of anybody else doing that? Why don't you curse in somebody else's name? Somebody not quite so worthy? Use my name if you please, but don't use His."

Not only that, but Peter believe in Jesus. I'm kind of impressed with Peter. I don't know if you're getting this, but I think Peter's a pretty cool guy. That doesn't sound very theologically perceived. It's not the top, but Peter was one guy that I would love to hang out with. Even before Pentecost.

If I was walking through the dark streets of Jerusalem all by myself, I would think, you know, if Peter kind of stepped out of a door and started walking with me, I'd say, "Wow! This is... You know, it's a good night in Jerusalem. I'm glad to be out here with you, Peter."

And if anybody jumped out and tried to assault me, I'd step back and say, "Peter! Have at it! You're the man. You're called to this. I'm not."

Peter believed in Jesus Christ. He alone confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. When Jesus asked the question, Matthew chapter 16, who spoke up, but Peter?

When Jesus in John chapter 6 said to His disciples, "Are you also gonna go away?" Who spoke up then and said, "To whom shall we go? You're the one that has the words of eternal life. You're the Christ."

Peter believed in Jesus Christ. You know, comparisons are seldom healthy, but indulge me for just a moment here.

Of the Twelve... of the twelve disciples -- and I realize John stands very, very high among the twelve -- but, of the Twelve, who would you have given the highest marks as a disciple of Jesus Christ? A loyal, loving, committed, dedicated, wholely sold-out disciple of Jesus Christ, even prior to this moment and through this time and into Pentecost and beyond, who would you mark the highest?

There's a lot we don't know about some of these other disciples, and they might have been absolutely pristine in their dedication and all those kinds of things, but I'll tell you, what we do know, Peter scores very well in my analysis.

Yet think about it. The strongest, most loyal, most courageous disciple falls hard and fast, provoked by the question of a little girl keeping the door of a courtyard. A young girl, who's assigned to monitor traffic at the door of the high priest's courtyard.

Verse 17: The servant girl at the door said to Peter, You're not one of this man's disciples, are you?

Now, we don't have inflections in the Bible. We don't have the benefit of knowing if there was a bit of a sneer in her conversation or if it was just pure question or if it was an accusation. We don't know any of that. You've got to use your imagination. That's where your interpretation becomes a little different than my interpretation. I frankly.... It's a multiple choice question here, and I'm not sure how to go with it.

But Peter seems to be intimidated by the question, maybe apart from the way it was framed, maybe because of the way it was framed. It doesn't matter. It was a servant girl at the door who said, "Peter, you're not one of this guys disciples, are you?"

And he said, "Absolutely not! No way!"

And this courage, this massive veneer of courage just crumbles. It turns to dust in an instant. So, if we examine Peter's discipleship, he emerges as a courageous follower of Jesus Christ and that in his courage, he would even be regarded as a model disciple of Jesus Christ. And yet, under the slightest provocation, under the slightest pressure, his courage buckles and shatters. Why is that?

Look at the other side of Peter's courage. There's all those things that I've already said about Peter's courage that make him a real man and a model disciple and maybe one who scores high in the discipleship category. But if you go around behind and look at his discipleship or his courage from the other perspective, what do we see?

There are three things at least that compromise the integrity of Peter's otherwise courageous discipleship and this is the point of my message this morning. It's not just in identifying the points of weakness. If we just identify the points of weakness and walk away, that's a downer. Okay? That's very depressing.

But if we identify the points of weakness, hold those points of weakness up in front of our faces and say, "Is any of that present in Craig Muri?" And then realize that the solution, the cure for all of those points of weakness is exactly the same in every category. It's the grace of God, the forgiving, restoring, transforming grace of God that turned Peter from these things that we see here to what we see in Pentecost and beyond.

So let's look for ourselves. We've already tried to see ourselves on the hard surface of Peter's courage. We're now behind, coming from the other direction at the other side of Peter's courage and we're looking at it from another perspective.

Three things I see here.

One: There are dangerous levels of self confidence in Peter's courage.

He had said, "I will lay down my life for you" (John 13:37). He said, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away" (Matthew 26:33). He had said, "I will never deny you" (Matthew 26:35).

Like concrete with way too much sand in the mix, it buckled when there was some pressure put to it. You could make... you could pour concrete into a form and make a very nice pier for a bridge. But if you put too much sand in the mix and not enough concrete, you know what's gonna happen when the first truck drive over the bridge? Or, maybe you can relate to this, if you make the gusset plates too thin... if the steel in the gusset plates is only a half inch thick instead of an inch thick, then what's gonna happen over time when truck after truck after truck for a couple of decades drives over that bridge and the gusset plates begin to bend ever so slightly over that continual wear and finally they just snap in half and the whole bridge goes down and people die?

Too much sand in the concrete. Gusset plates too thin. Not enough steel in the gusset plates. Too much water in the coffee? Maybe that's the one you identify with.

But whatever it is, if you dilute strength, even though it has the appearance of strength, it doesn't hold up at the end of the day. It doesn't serve. It doesn't perform. And that's where Peter failed because there was too much -- there were dangerous levels of self confidence in his courage.

Peter had the prototypical personaltiy of a disciple. I mean, if you're gonna choose a disciple....

I had years ago, when I was -- in a previous lifetime as a junior high youth pastor, along with Barbara Davis, serving in the junior high youth ministry at Fourth Baptist Church. She's up there [in the balcony]. We had a guy that was a leader with us. Remember Terry Platt[?]. Terry was a member of our church for a while. But Terry was this big, strapping bruiser of a guy. He had confidence just flowing out of him. He could talk. He could sell. He was scared of nobody. And he was.... He had hands like hamhocks and his whole body was just big and strong.

And you know, I used to think, "You know, if I was gonna go door-to-door calling, it would be fund to be a Terry Platt instead of a Craig Muri." You know, I could just [grunt], "You want to get saved? Why not?" You know? And I could save people left and right if I was this kind of guy. But because I'm this kind of guy, you know, it just doesn't work as well. (Oh, be quiet.)

There's the prototypical personality or character profile of a disciple, but you know what? Peter had all of those qualities. He was bombastic. He was tenaciously loyal. He had teddy-bear-ish love about him. But all of those things proved inadequate when he was put to the test.

There is nothing genetic, there is nothing in our DNA that is gonna make us be quality disciples of Jesus Christ. As we are born, we're discipleship failures. Just given our personality profiles, we're discipleship failures. Whatever courage we have, just by virtue of who we are, what our intellect is, what our character is, what our personalities are, what our physical structure may look like, whatever courage we bring with us to this thing called Christianity, if we depend on that, we're toast.

Peter found that out rather quickly. When Peter speaks of enduring faith to his readers in 1 Peter chapter 1, he uses terms that indicate he got the lesson eventually. He uses terms like [end of track 7, 5:00] guarded through faith by the power of God. With the effect that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's all to His glory. It's all about Him. And we're guarded, we're strengthened, we're kept through these trials, through these testing moments by God, not by our own ability.

"I'll never deny you if everybody else is. I'll die with you. I'll follow you to the end of the road. I'll walk through the sea with you."

And the little servant girl says, "Hey! Aren't you one of His disciples?"

"No way!"

[Crash] The big man fell.

Have you honestly owned the inherent weakness of your unaided character? Have you come face to face with the inadequacy of your genetics? Of your DNA? Of who you are by birth as a human being? Have you come face to face with it and said, "Okay, what I am is just simply not enough. I need God's help"?

One thing Peter was missing -- one of the weaknesses of his character -- was that there were dangerous levels of self confidence. Added to that, a casual attitude toward prayer.

And these two often go together. The dangerous levels of self confidence frequently undermine the value of prayer in our own thinking because, I'm this big strapping guy with hamhocks on the end of my arms and I can talk in a booming, confident voice and I can bowl over the opposition and I can sell anything, I don't need you God. I'm not saying that's what Terry Platt was. Okay? So just dismiss... separate that whole personality from what I'm saying now.

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Is there a passion in your soul that rises to defend the honor of Jesus Christ when it's under assault?

We're guarded, we're strengthened, we're kept through these trials, through these testing moments by God, not by our own ability.