Peter's Denial

In this passage we are going to consider a believer, Peter, one of us, not just one of us but someone great, the best of us and certainly the most privileged among us. He was called by Christ. He spent three years walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a leader of the apostles. When it comes to ministry, he was at the top. He loved Christ. He was taught by Christ. He was given the keys to the kingdom. He was granted miraculous powers to go out, heal the sick and cast out demons. He was a confessional believer. He said, "To whom shall we go, Lord? You and you alone have the words of eternal life. You are Christ, the Christ, the Son of the living God." Yet it is Peter who lands himself into the arena of sin. He has gone through the gate of temptation and he's standing in the arena of sin. He's denying the very Lord he confessed. When we consider Peter and when we consider him throughout the Gospels, we see that he was a very self-confident man. This was something he believed was a virtue but it was his downfall, and if we should summarize and define self-confidence, we would say it's a feeling of trust in one's own ability, qualities and judgment. We could say that self-confidence according to Scripture is a way of thinking of yourself with abilities and qualities that should be maintained; it is judging the world around you in a specific way so that you would come to the conclusion that you can certainly overcome without God's help; you interpret and you conclude circumstances and you come to the conclusion, "I can follow Christ without Christ's help."