Welcome back to our Sunday morning teaching series “Stories of Your Life”.

As a church family we are seeking to understand the meaning and the impact of Passion week through the perspectives and stories of key people involved.

As we continue in our teaching series today, we will look at the story of a man who probably experienced many feelings of guilt, shame, and regret following his great failure.

To be a disciple of Jesus doesn’t prevent us from failing-even failing historically- for all the world to see.

As common of an experience as failure can be in our story-It doesn’t have to be final. As we will see in the story of Peter, your failure doesn’t have the power to define your future- Only your savior can do that!

Peter denies the Lord, not just once, but three times. He betrays Jesus completely.
This was a complete and utter failure. There's no other way to describe it. Peter had failed.

The truth is, we all can relate to failure. Failure is a reality in this world.
But this is not a story of failure.
This is a story of how we respond when we fail, and even more important, how our Father responds when we fail.

How would Peter respond to failure?
How would Jesus respond?

There is a clear parallel between Peter's 3 denials and Jesus' 3 questions. For each of the times Peter had denied Jesus, he now affirms His love.

Once we examine what Jesus is commanding Peter to do ('feed my lambs', 'take care of my sheep', 'feed my sheep' ) we see that Jesus is not just forgiving Peter, rather Jesus is commissioning Peter for ministry.

Peter is never the same:
-He's there on the day of Pentecost as the Spirit of God moves in a powerful way.
-He’s there as the church is born and as he immediately begins to preach and 3,000 people were saved and baptized.
-Peter is there, healing and preaching.
-He's thrown in jail and keeps preaching.
-He's persecuted and he keeps proclaiming that Jesus is Lord.

Before when Peter faced opposition, he folded and ran away. But now, in the face of opposition, he is bold, he is obedient. And he becomes one of the most influential leaders the church has ever known.

Peter knew Jesus. Did Peter fail? Yes. But even in the midst of his bitter weeping, it's clear that He knew Jesus.
Peter knew Jesus well enough to know His grace.
He knew enough to know that if he came running after Jesus, he would not be rejected.
Peter knew His grace.

The question is: Do we?

Scriptures for future study/reflection:
-Matthew 18:21-22
-1 John 1:9
-Hebrews 8:12
-Acts 10:43