Passage: Mark 14:26-31
The Big Idea
The world tells us we need more self-confidence. God says we need God-confidence. On the way to Gethsemane, Jesus told His disciples they would all fall away that night. Peter insisted, “Even if everyone else does, I won’t!” and Jesus told him he’d deny Him three times before the rooster crowed twice. Peter’s problem wasn’t a lack of love or loyalty; it was trust in himself. God, in love, breaks our self-confidence so we’ll find the one thing that can hold us: trust in Jesus, who never abandons those who abandon Him.
Self-Confidence vs. God-Confidence
Self-confidence is often defined as “a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities and judgment.”
The world and the devil both want you to have self-confidence, self-trust. Which tells you it’s bad for you.
God wants you to have God-confidence. God-trust.
These are the two paths anyone can take: trusting God, or trusting something else, usually self.
Ever since Eden, the enemy has tried to convince every person to trust their own judgment over God’s Word. Self vs. God. That’s still the spiritual war raging today.
Search “self-confidence” online and you’ll find a flood of messages telling you that you need more of it. You don’t.
The enemy wants you to believe a lack of self-esteem is your real problem, so the world is full of blogs and classes on building self-confidence. It’s the same lie as in the Garden.
The truth is simple: you’re sinful, and you need God, His mercy and grace.
The lie is that you’re good and don’t need anything from anybody.
If you believe that lie, you’ll never truly believe you need God. You’ll spend your whole life searching inside yourself for something self can’t provide, and miss the life that only comes from God.
And this isn’t only a struggle for unbelievers. It’s a struggle for every one of us. Peter is our prime example.
Peter had a positive self-image. He thought he was pretty good, loyal and faithful. His confidence was misplaced, as we’ll see.
The Prediction (Mark 14:26-28)
When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
The Mount of Olives. They were headed to Gethsemane, which means “oil press,” the place where olives were crushed to make oil for fuel, light and healing. It’s where God would crush many things. Jesus Himself would be crushed. But today our focus is Peter, and what was about to be crushed in him: self-confidence. God would draw it out like poison from a wound.
“You will all fall away.”
- This was a simple statement of fact. But it wasn’t what they wanted to hear.
- It was insulting: “You’re going to fail, tonight, and I already know it.”
- My pride is so offended when someone tells me I’m not good enough, that I’m destined to fail.
- My pride is so confident. I think if I just get the chance, I might succeed. And I hate being told I’m too broken, too selfish, too weak to succeed on my own.
Paul quotes the Psalms: none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one (Romans 3:10-12).
- Jesus said all the disciples would fail.
- And He still loved them.
- It’s true, but it isn’t the end of the story. Jesus was about to make all things new.
- That doesn’t change where we all begin, though: as failures, sinners. God sees that clearly, and He lets us in on the truth.
- Like a doctor, Jesus has to diagnose the disease before He can heal it.
- Our pride and self-confidence keep us from hearing the diagnosis, like a patient running out of the doctor’s office with his hands over his ears.
“Fall away” (or “stumble”).
- This is the first step in crushing our self-confidence: realizing how weak and incapable we really are.
- It’s actually freeing to learn this and accept it. Then we can get help!
- Stumble over what? Probably over the fact that Jesus, the Messiah, didn’t use His divine power to overthrow His enemies, but submitted to them and let Himself be crucified. Paul uses the same word: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23).
Peter and the others needed a hard lesson. Proverbs warns that pride comes right before destruction, and an arrogant spirit right before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).
- Where there’s pride, a fall is coming.
- Remember Nebuchadnezzar, the proudest man in the world. God humbled him until he lived like an animal in the field (Daniel 4).
- Why? Because God loved him enough to give him the medicine he needed. And Nebuchadnezzar came out of it praising the King of heaven (Daniel 4:34-37).
“I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”
This is Zechariah’s prophecy, where the LORD calls the sword to awake against His own Shepherd, the man who stands beside Him: strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will scatter (Zechariah 13:7). It would be fulfilled that very night.
- Jesus is the Shepherd; we’re the sheep.
- Jesus would be struck according to the will of God: beaten, broken and abandoned to die.
- And all the sheep would feel that hope was lost.
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). He’s the Hero. He knew what had to be done. He’d read the prophecies He Himself inspired. He trusted His Father. And this was the night.
“But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
- Jesus told them plainly what would happen, and He gave them hope.
- They had no idea what He meant. But they would. Oh, they would.
- He promised them His presence and a future. He promised He’d be alive, and that He wouldn’t forget or abandon them, even though they would abandon Him that very night.
- “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5) has never sounded more precious.
- Jesus is nothing but faithful and true, gentle and full of compassion. Why would anyone keep running from Him?
What does the future hold for us? God told His people through Jeremiah that He knows the plans He has for them, plans for their good and not for harm, to give them a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). We don’t know everything, but we know we’ll be with Him, in fellowship with Him and completely satisfied in Him. He’ll give us peace and hope. He’s trustworthy. That’s our future. Can you believe it?
“Not Me!” (Mark 14:29-31)
Peter said to Him, “Even if they all fall away, I will not.”
- Peter figured the other ten might be capable of such a thing, but he assumed he was too strong spiritually.
- Peter had forgotten how he started with Jesus.
- Remember the miraculous catch of fish? Peter fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8).
- That’s how Peter began: not self-confident, but aware of his weakness and sin.
Are you there? Do you remember when God first revealed your shame and weakness? Or are you still trying to prove to everyone that you’re good, strong and dedicated?
Peter had been reinfected with the virus of self-confidence.
Humility has to be cultivated like a plant, because the default setting of our hearts is pride. If we’re not careful, we’ll drift into a proud, self-sufficient, self-confident state that leads to a fall and the Lord’s loving discipline.
Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.”
- Self-confidence is foolish, because God knows who we really are and already knows how we’ll fail.
- He usually tells us, and we usually ignore Him.
- We’re so foolish. And yet He has compassion on us, like a shepherd who still loves his wandering sheep.
- Jesus told Peter exactly how and when he’d fail that night.
But Peter said emphatically, “If I must die with You, I will not deny You.” And they all said the same.
- I kind of like Peter. He’s loyal. He’s willing to argue with Jesus.
- Those weren’t his real problems. His problem was self-sufficiency.
- He thought he had arrived. He couldn’t imagine failing, because he loved Jesus so much.
- He was so confident that he didn’t think he needed to pray, as we’ll see in Gethsemane.
- And he wasn’t alone. They all felt sure of their own abilities.
Proud, self-confident teaching is popular: “You can do it! Try harder! I believe in you. Believe in yourself!” But none of those messages lead us to pray: to confess our need and brokenness to God and come to Him for help and grace.
Peter was essentially calling Jesus a liar. He refused to believe he couldn’t trust himself.
- We have to be broken of self-confidence.
- We don’t like it.
- But we can’t get anywhere by trusting ourselves.
- If God has made you His child, you’ll learn through many trials that you can’t ever trust in yourself.
- There’s one narrow path. It isn’t doing good works; it’s trusting Jesus. It isn’t going to church; it’s trusting Jesus. It isn’t a trail you hack out with your own machete or a map you drew yourself; it’s trusting Jesus.
Through Jeremiah God called the heavens to be shocked, because His people had done two evil things: they had abandoned Him, the spring of living water, and dug their own cisterns, cracked ones that can’t hold water (Jeremiah 2:12-13).
Self-confidence is a broken cistern. Jesus is the fountain.
Grace Takeaway
Peter was sure he’d never fail, and that very night he denied Jesus three times. But Jesus already knew, already loved him, and had already promised, “After I am raised, I will go before you.” God lovingly breaks our self-confidence, not to crush us, but to turn us to the only confidence that holds: trust in the Shepherd who was struck for scattered sheep. Stop drawing from your own broken cistern. Come to the fountain.
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