When the Rooster Crows — Part One

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from the thirteenth chapter of John and reading from verse 31 to the end of the chapter. John chapter 13 and beginning our reading at verse 31:

“[And] when he”—that is, Judas—“had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I[’m] with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, “Where I[’m] going you cannot come.” A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you[’re] my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

“Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’ Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.’”

Amen.

Father, as we turn now to the Bible, we pray that the Holy Spirit will be our guide, that our minds might be fastened on the truth, that our hearts might be stirred by the amazing wonder of your grace, and that our wills might be brought into line with your plans and purposes for those who are your own. And we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I can’t imagine that many of you have been preoccupied with a minor skirmish that has been taking place these last few days in a Devonshire village in the South West of England. It has to do with the bells in the church of Saint John the Baptist, because these bells have been ringing every fifteen minutes for the past one hundred and fifty years—at least, they were ringing every fifteen minutes until somebody moved into the village and complained about the bells, which has led to the characteristic ding-dong battle that you would expect. Most of the villagers are perfectly happy with it, contented with it, but one complainant was actually irritated by it.

And it got me thinking that not only are there places that we will remember all our lives, but we also remember sounds as well as sights. One of the great exports from America to the United Kingdom at the end of the ’50s, the beginning of the ’60s, was a television program featuring a fellow called Casey Jones. I know this because of the tooting of his whistle. It goes,

Casey Jones, a-reeling and a-rolling,
Casey Jones, you never have to guess.
For when you hear the tootin’ of the whistle,
It’s Casey at the throttle of the Cannonball Express.

And so, I would hear that tooting coming from the television, and I would immediately get myself in position to see all that was going to transpire as a result of that. You say, “Well, that’s a rather trivial illustration.” Admittedly. Not sure you like the bell illustration either. That’s fine.

But the title for our study today has to do with a sound. The title of the study today is “When the Rooster Crows.” “When the Rooster Crows.”

It’s not difficult to imagine that routinely throughout the course and the balance of his life, Peter, upon hearing that familiar sound on a daily basis, would be inevitably reminded of that evening that he spent in the courtyard, and then also reminded of the way in which that scene was painted over, if you like—covered over, renewed, transformed—by another scene, the scene that took place when Jesus made breakfast for the disciples on the shore after his resurrection. And I don’t think there is any doubt at all that if Peter was able to join us, to come back and be a part of our services today, he would sing heartily, “Our sins they are many, his mercy is more.”[1]

And in the course of our studies this morning and this evening, we want to focus on this. We know that Judas has betrayed Jesus. Soon he will be overwhelmed with remorse, he will take his own life, and he will be lost. The context for our passage is the phrase “And it was night”[2]—that Judas’s failure was public, and so, too, was Peter’s. If you think about it, it is quite staggering that the way in which both of these characters have gone down in history, more than any other, is because of failure—one who was lost and one who, as we’ll see, was restored.

The departure of Judas has given rise to the Eleven now being under the tutelage of Jesus in a very personal way. And once again, if you see your text in front of you there, in 31 and into 32, Jesus reminds them of what he has already said in one of our previous studies about the wheat that falls: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the [ground] and dies, it remains alone”;[3] but then out of that will come this growth. And we thought then about Jesus being glorified. And so, once again, he gives voice to this. It seems fairly difficult, doesn’t it? “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God,” the Father, “is glorified in him. If God,” the Father, “is glorified in him, God,” the Father, “will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once,” at the very essence of it.

And Jesus is actually giving voice to what is virtually inexplicable to us. He’s referring to the awesome nature of the way in which in the cross—the cross serves, if you like, as a splendid theatre, a dramatic display of the incomparable goodness of God. If we want to know how God loves, if we want to know how good God is, if we want to know about God seeking to save people, then we look directly to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That, incidentally, is why we just sang these words:

Inscribed upon the cross we see
In shining letters “God is love.”
He bears our sins upon the tree;
He brings us mercy from above.[4]

Now, we can’t delay on that, because Jesus immediately goes on, and notice the tenderness of his tone in verse 33: “Little children,” he says. “Little children.” When we are with little children, when we deal with little children, we stoop down to them, don’t we? We should, at least. We don’t want to talk down to them; you go down beside them. And Jesus, as it were, who has already washed their feet, who is moving inexorably towards the cross, who has been betrayed by Judas, now addresses them in this tender fashion: “Little children, yet a little while I[’m] with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now [also] I … say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [And] a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.”

The cross of the Lord Jesus defines as well as displays the nature of the love of God.

Now, when we come to this phrase “a new commandment,” what are we to make of it? And I want to pause on this, because I don’t want us to go wrong. The “new commandment” to which he refers is not intrinsically different from what has already been for us in the Old Testament. Because in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 19, the word of God is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”;[5] in Deuteronomy and chapter 6, which we will read in the later service, when we share in the dedication of a young family and their baby: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart … with all your soul … with all your might.”[6] So, what, then, is new about this commandment?

Well, it is a “new commandment” in the sense that it is the commandment that goes along with the new covenant. On Friday evening, when we come together for the sharing of the Lord’s Supper on what we refer to as Good Friday, we will be reminded again of the words of Jesus: “This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is given for the remission of sins.”[7] And accompanying that new covenant is the reality of a new life—the new life that Jeremiah the prophet spoke of, where a heart of stone would be removed, and a soft and a pliable heart would be there, and the Spirit of God would come now and invade that heart.[8] It’s new in that sense.

It’s new also insofar as the depth of it and the demand of it is inescapable. Listen: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” How? “Just as I have loved you, you … are to love one another.” How has Jesus loved? Perfectly, ceaselessly, sacrificially. That’s what he’s going to display on the cross—that the cross of the Lord Jesus defines as well as displays the nature of the love of God.

Are we to take this seriously? “A new commandment I give to you,” the followers of Jesus, “that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you [are] also … to love one another.” How is this even possible? You see, the Christian life is not just difficult. The Christian life is impossible. The Christian life is impossible.

Again, I want to pause on this for a moment. Because there may be some here this morning, and you have never really factored in the whole idea of what it means to become a Christian. Some people are trying to be a Christian without ever having become a Christian. And so, what does it really mean? What’s involved?

I think I’ve used this before, but if you were to show me a painting by one of the greats—let’s say Van Gogh, “Van Goff,” whatever—and you said to me, “Alistair, paint a painting like that,” I couldn’t do it. If you were to present on the screen some of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and you were to say to me, “And Alistair, I want you to go and write a sonnet just like that,” I couldn’t do it. And if you were to display for me the love of Jesus, a ceaseless, sacrificial love, and ask me to live a life like Jesus, I couldn’t do it. Unless, of course, the genius of Van Gogh could come and live in me; I could paint like that. If the genius of Shakespeare could indwell me, I could write like that. If the reality and the power of Christ would come and take up residence in my life, then, and only then, could I live a life like that.

You remember what we discovered way back in chapter 3, in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. He’s a religious man. He’s convinced of the idea that knowing God, loving God, following God is all about things you do for God or the things that you don’t do because you want to please God. And how taken aback he must have been when Jesus says to him, “I want to tell you something, Nicodemus: truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God. You must,” he says, “be born again”[9]—in other words, making it very, very clear that Christianity is not something that we take up.

And people talk about, “I’ve taken up…” “I’ve taken up golf,” “I’ve taken up business,” or, “What have you taken up?” We understand it. We don’t “take up” Christianity. By definition, Christianity takes us up. So let me ask you this morning: Are you on the side of those who said, “Yeah, I’ve taken it up”? Or do you find yourself saying, “No, it has taken me up, mysteriously”? Again, Jesus to Nicodemus: “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”[10] And the new life that is born in our hearts is the resurrection life of Jesus, so that becoming a Christian is a result of God’s amazing grace towards us: mysteriously, wonderfully pursuing us, showing us our need, showing us our Savior, closing for us the reality of these things. And then the living out of the Christian life is the living out, then, of the life of Christ that has been granted to us, so that our identification with Christ is not by way of affiliation; it is by way of regeneration.

That’s what being born again means: being regenerated. That is not something that we could do for ourselves. That is only something that God does. And that is the source. That’s the difference, you see, between people who just go to church, or they just attend things, or “I’m an affiliate,” or whatever it might be. Well, that doesn’t sound like a member of a family, does it? “I’m affiliated with the Begg family.” No, “I’m a member”! “I’m a member”! Membership in the family of God is the issue, predates membership in any local family.

I want to stay with this, and I want to ask you this morning: Are you in Christ? Are you a Christian? If you are a Christian, then you know at least this—number one: that “Jesus has done something for me. He has done something for me. He has done something for me that I desperately required. He has done something for me that I couldn’t do for myself. He has done that which is the most important issue in the entire world, and he’s done it for me. I’ve been made aware of the fact that I was created by God. I’ve been made aware of the fact that I am accountable to God. And I’ve been made aware of the fact that I am going to face God.”

You see, people don’t believe that. They don’t believe that. They don’t believe that they were created by him. They don’t believe they’re accountable to him. They don’t believe that they’re going to meet him—the idea that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give an answer for the deeds done in our body. “Oh, no,” they say, “that doesn’t fit with my reality. That is not my reality. That is not my truth. That is not my idea. I can just dispense with it all.”

And then, in the watches of the night, when their conscience confronts them, when they’re aware of the condition, then the story is vastly different. To whom are you going to go? To whom will you turn? The only person to whom you can go is Jesus. “Inscribed upon the cross I see in shining letters ‘God is love’”— that he would love me, although I live my life rejecting him, denying him? It’s a mystery, isn’t it?

That’s the first thing.

Secondly, that if you are a Christian, if you’re in Christ, then you know that “Jesus has done something in me.” “In me.” That’s the story of the new birth. It wasn’t that Nicodemus decided to change his religion. It wasn’t that he changes his ideas about God. It was that Nicodemus became a child of God—the Christian, you see. “If anyone is in Christ, they’re a new creature.”[11]

So: “I know that God in Jesus has done something for me, and I know that he has done something in me. And as a result of that, I know that he plans to do something through me.” “Through me.”

I came across a Spurgeon quote this week that I want to use before moving on. And I’m still on this thought of becoming a Christian, not being a Christian. You can’t be a Christian until you become a Christian. How, then, will this take place? This is Spurgeon preaching to his congregation at the end of the nineteenth century. It’s a little archaic, but I think the point is well made. Spurgeon’s preaching now, and he says,

I am told that on a certain highland road there was a disputed right of way. The owner [of the property] wished to preserve his supremacy, and at the same time he did not wish to inconvenience the public: hence an arrangement [was made] which occasioned the following incident. Seeing a sweet country girl standing at the gate, a tourist went up to her, and offered her a shilling to permit him to enter. “No, no,” said the child, “I must not take anything from you; but you are to say, ‘Please allow me to [enter],’ and then you may come through and welcome.” The permission was to be asked for; but it could be had for the asking. Just so, eternal life is free; and it can be had, [yes], [and] it shall be at once had, by trusting in the word of him who cannot lie.

Would you become a Christian?

Trust Christ, and by that trust you grasp salvation and eternal life. Do not philosophize. Do not sit down, and bother your poor brain. Just believe Jesus as you would believe your father. Trust him as you trust your money with a banker, or your health with a doctor.[12]

Because Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me I will never cast [them] out.”[13]

Are you a Christian? Have you ever knelt down, either physically or metaphorically, and said, “Lord Jesus Christ, I’ve been trying to be a Christian for twenty-seven years, and it hasn’t worked. I just suddenly realized this morning, I’ve got the cart before the horse. I’m trying to be what I’m not, and I can’t make myself something that I am not, and now I get it.” That’s why Jesus… What amazing love!

You say, “Well, are we ever getting to the ‘Truly, truly’?” I don’t know.

Something done for me. Something done in me. Something done through me.

Now, this is what he’s addressing here, before we even get to the reaction of Peter. “I want you,” he says, “in recognition of how I have loved you, to love one another.” In other words, one of the features—a distinguishing feature, maybe even the distinguishing feature—of a Christian community is love for one another. Love for one another: that when the Spirit of God takes hold of a life and of lives, then what becomes unmistakable is the fact that we’re now enabled to love people for whom we have no natural sense of affection. Do you get that? In other words, we often say, “You know, the church is made up of a ton of people that you wouldn’t want to go on vacation with, and yet you have to sit next to them every Sunday, and I have to look at them every Sunday, and you poor souls look at me and my colleagues every Sunday.”

What is Jesus saying here? “By this”—verse 35—“will all the people know that you’re my disciples.” What is that? By what? By all the things we’re saying? By all the things we don’t do? By all the things we do? No, no. No, no: “By this will all the people know that you’re my disciples, if…” “If…” That is a very small hinge on which hangs a very large door: “If…” “If you have love [one] for … another”—in other words, Jesus says, that our love for one another within the body of Christ is the visible manifestation of the gospel. It is, if you like, the authentication of the gospel. You see, if we love those who love us, what reward is there in that?[14] That’s what Jesus says elsewhere. You can get that down the pub. That doesn’t matter. You can get that at the exercise club. Because all of things fit together in that way. But what kind of love is this?

Now, why is Jesus speaking in this way? Because this is the great opportunity. He’s going to leave his disciples. “My little children,” he says, “I’m only going to be here for a wee while longer.” In chapter 14 he’s going to say, “I’m going to prepare a place for you,”[15] and so on. “I’ll come back for you. But in the meantime, you’re on your own. Now, when I get out of here”—and we’ve just had Judas walk out the door, and he knows that Peter is just about to actually deny him—he says, “I want you to love each other with this kind of love.”

The invisible God is made visible when his children love not in word and in talk but in deed and in truth.

Here is the great opportunity for the church in every generation, and not least in our own: in a broken world with broken families and broken bits and pieces of everything, the church of Jesus Christ has the great opportunity. Schaeffer referred to the love within the body of Christ as “the final apologetic,”[16] the great answer, the great illustration of why someone would want to become a Christian. Because, as I say to you, the church is unlike other associations. Most associations here in greater Cleveland are based on status, wealth, background, intellect, sporting achievements, whatever it might be. The church isn’t marked by any of that stuff. The church is to be marked by an inclusiveness which demonstrates the universal appeal of Jesus, so that people come amongst those who love Jesus, and they discover that the reason they actually love each other is because Jesus has first loved them.

Bruce Milne says, “It is designated”—that is, the church—“as a community which welcomes all people, irrespective of background, age, gender, coluor, moral history, social status, influence, intelligence, religious background or the lack of it. To love like Jesus is to love inclusively, indiscriminately and universally.”[17]

That’s why when John writes his first letter, picking up on what Jesus has taught him, he writes this: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”[18] In other words, what he’s saying is this: that the invisible God is made visible when his children love not in word and in talk but in deed and in truth. That’s the great challenge. That’s the great challenge.

It’s a challenge, is it not? ’Cause we’re selfish. Our whole culture mitigates against the idea, is in a militancy against it. It’s about “me.” It’s about “my.” It’s about what? It’s about… Do you live your life like that, and you come into a community like this and say… That’s why in the early church—who was it? Probably a Roman general or somebody. He says, “You’ve got to see how these Christians love each other.”

Now, let me ask you: Do you think—do you honestly think—that twentieth-century America, when it thinks about love, when it thinks about friendships, when it thinks about the engagement of unlikely people with other unlikely people, do you think they’re hurrying towards church buildings? They’re certainly not. Why? Well, because we changed it into a political agenda, or we changed it into “We’re the people, and we feel sorry for you that you’re not one of the people,” as opposed to “We’re a mess. Jesus is a wonderful Savior. This is a messy church, ’cause it’s full of messy people whose messed-up lives are in the process of being continually cleaned up by Jesus.” What a phenomenal opportunity is given to us!

Now, in light of that, we’ll start the rest of it. In light of all of that… And the reason I spent time on that is because I want us first of all to understand as best we can the challenge that is there—the examination of our hearts, of our church life—but then to see against that the response of Simon Peter. Because we ought immediately to be taken aback by Peter’s reaction. Because it would appear from what follows that despite the dramatic nature of what Jesus has said—“I have a new commandment for you” and so on—that somehow or another, Peter’s ears are not attuned to that himself. He doesn’t seem to have any time for that. He seems to have little time for this call to selfless love.

His focus is elsewhere: “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’” It’s fantastic, isn’t it? I mean, I always say I’m encouraged by the people who used to do that in school, who would ask that kind of question, because it’s usually the question that I wanted to ask, but I didn’t have the guts to ask it. I want to believe that I’m going, “Oh, no, this is wonderful, helpful, about the love.” No: “Where are you going?” Peter is more interested in satisfying his curiosity than in paying attention to what Jesus has said.

He doesn’t have any questions here about brotherly love. He doesn’t say, “Can you explain exactly what you mean by that, Jesus? Like, how we could love the way you love?” He’s got no questions about that at all. No, no, no. No, instead, he wants to know the answer to the one thing that Christ has purposely chosen not to disclose.

Now, that ought to ring a bell again—not necessarily one of the bells from the Devonshire village but a bell in your head. Because if we are honest, the tendency in our hearts is very similar to Peter’s. Because we’re prone to seek answers. I know this, from forty-eight years in pastoral ministry. Most of the questions that people come to their pastors about are questions about things that are contained in the secret counsel of God that he has chosen not to reveal. So they want to come and find out, “Could you please tell me why it is that God this, why he did that, where was this, and what’s the next thing?” They’re not asking questions about “How could I love the person next door to me, who’s a pain in the neck?” They’re not asking questions like that. No, they’re asking these kind of questions. I don’t say it in any spirit of judgment; I’m tempted to do the same! The one thing that he has chosen not to make known, Peter wants the answer to that question.

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God”—Deuteronomy 29:29—“but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of [the] law.” In other words, God keeps nothing back from us that we need. He loves as a Father. He’s not withholding information from us that is necessary for the living of the Christian life or commending the gospel to the world. None of that is held back. And all that he has made known is not only for us, but it’s for the children’s ministry. It’s for the youth ministry. It’s for the whole world! “This is it,” he says—which we might paraphrase as “The main things are the plain things. The plain things are the main things.”

Parenthetically: look out for the soothsayers. Look out! They’re already on the rampage. April 8! Stay away from them—that’s my advice. Stay away from them. Anytime you get a solar eclipse or anything close to it, anything about the sky, you will find them. They will fill up the social media. They’ll be able to explain everything to you. No. The universe was made by God. The universe is providentially sustained by God. The universe is utterly dependent upon him.

God keeps nothing back from us that we need. He loves as a Father.

“Your impact on the watching world is tied to your love for one another,” says Jesus. And Peter says, “Where are you going?” And Jesus’ answer, you will notice, is not explicit. He’s going to a place where Peter cannot follow now, but he will follow afterward. That will take us, actually, to our final “Truly, truly” in John’s Gospel, in chapter 21, where Jesus will say of Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you[’re] old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” And John explains, “This he said to show by what kind of death [Peter] was to glorify God.”[19] “You will not follow me now, but you will follow me afterward.” One of my friends says upon that “afterward” hangs the weight of Christian hope. “You will all fall away, but afterward, when I’m raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”[20]

So, Peter: instead of allowing all that Jesus has now said to sink in, his characteristic assertive personality prevails, and he moves on from “Where?” to “Why?”

“Where are you going?”

“Where I’m going you can’t come now. You’ll come afterwards.”

“Why can’t I come now?”

It’s great, isn’t it? I think it’s great. This is Peter talking to God. This is Peter challenging the Deity. “I answered your first question. You’re back with another one?” Yeah. Don’t we see ourselves?

“Where are you going?”

“Love each other.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Love each other.”

“Why can’t I…”

“Love each other.”

Well, we’ll pick it up this evening.

Let us pray:

Father, thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, that you came. Holy Spirit, won’t you tell us more about his lovely name? The name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.[21] Lord, some of us, if we ask each other the question, “Are you a Christian?” and the answer comes, “Well, I’m trying to be,” make it clear out of our own mouths that we don’t understand the wonder of it all: that this is not something we take up, but this is something by which we are taken up. Come to our hearts, Lord, we pray. Make us new. And then, in that newness, enable us to live the new life of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. And in Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

[1] Matt Papa and Matt Boswell, “His Mercy Is More” (2016).

[2] John 13:30 (ESV).

[3] John 12:24 (ESV).

[4] Thomas Kelly, “We Sing the Praise of Him Who Died” (1815).

[5] Leviticus 19:18 (ESV).

[6] Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV).

[7] Matthew 26:28 (paraphrased).

[8] See Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 31:33.

[9] John 3:3, 7 (paraphrased).

[10] John 3:8 (paraphrased).

[11] 2 Corinthians 5:17 (paraphrased).

[12] C. H. Spurgeon, Around the Wicket Gate; or, A Friendly Talk with Seekers Concerning Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (New York: A. C. Armstrong, 1890), 45–46.

[13] John 6:37 (ESV).

[14] See Matthew 5:46.

[15] John 14:3 (paraphrased).

[16] Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There: Speaking Historic Christianity into the Twentieth Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 152.

[17] Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here Is Your King!, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1993), 207.

[18] 1 John 4:12 (ESV).

[19] John 21:18–19 (ESV).

[20] Matthew 26:31–32 (paraphrased).

[21] See Philippians 2:9–10.