2.106 I Know Him

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends, great to have you with me.

Today let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. We are in the middle of our Holy Week study. We've been alternating a little bit between our Book of Mormon readings and some thoughts on the Holy Week and Jesus Christ himself.

You're going to be reading this week Jeremiah, Omni, Words of Mormon, and Mosiah chapters 1 and 2, as well as whatever Easter study you choose to do. I'm going to be reading, I'm going to be doing a little bit from the Come Follow Me, a little bit from the suggestions the Church has given us, and also a little bit of my own study. And that's what today's going to be just a little bit.

I wanted to bring up inside of this Holy Week experience, something struck me when I was visiting with my—so my brother-in-law was part of a musical presentation called "The Lamb of God" by Rob Gardner. He was singing in it. He played the role of Thomas in it.

And inside of it, as I was listening to it this week, or I guess the end of last week, you know, technically, when I was listening to it, Peter's story struck me in a way that I don't know if it struck me before. And so I wanted to look into Peter a little bit, even though this is the Holy Week with Christ preparing to do all that he does in the Garden of Gethsemane and ultimately to lead to his resurrection. I think Peter's experience is interesting, and the verse for today is going to come from Matthew 26.

And then let's talk about Peter just a little bit through this lens. And then I have some things I want to share with you about it. In Matthew 26, we have all that Christ is going through in terms of his trial.

Well, Peter is part of that, or at least seems to be on the fringe witnessing that. And this is also the time where he's been informed by Christ that he's going to deny Christ three times. Even though everything Peter stands for, he's such an emotional being.

He is all in. And we have so many amazing stories from him. I'm getting ahead of myself with the thoughts.

So let's get the verse and then let's come back around because I feel so strongly about this one today. Our verse for today comes in Matthew chapter 26, and this is verse 74, and it says, "Then began he" (this is Peter), "then began he to curse and to swear, saying, 'I know not the man,' and immediately the cock crew." Now this is obviously the tail end of the experience where Peter in three different instances denies knowing Jesus Christ, and he gets a lot of criticism for. He gets a lot of criticism for starting to sink when he's walking on water with Christ.

And there's a lot of different criticism from Peter. And yet I think all of us have Peter moments in our lives. And that's what I wanted to share a little bit.

Because there are times in my life where I'm just like, 'Yeah, I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ! Let's go!' And I'm like all in, and it's all me. And then there are other times where I don't necessarily have this same Peter experience of denying the Christ, but in certain ways I do deny my testimony of Christ through my behaviors or my actions or the words that I say to someone or the way that I treat a given circumstance in my life.

And so I love Peter's experience not to see him fail, but to see him continue to trust in Jesus Christ despite his failures. Remember, while Peter sinks in the water, he also took steps on the water. And to any scriptural recollection that I have, the only other person to do that was Jesus Christ himself.

And so Peter had this incredible faith. And instead of seeing these moments of his failures as failures, right? I see them as moments where Peter just has weakness like you and I.

And yet in those moments of weakness, he continually turns to the Lord Jesus Christ and seeks him out. And then Peter ultimately becomes, right, the president of the Church, right, of Jesus Christ as things go forward. And he becomes an incredible anchor and rock (literal rock) to the early Church.

In "The Lamb of God" by Rob Gardner, and this is the experience I was experiencing, as I mentioned, with my brother-in-law singing there. Good job, Steve, right? Shout out to Steve.

There's a moment in this musical production, play, whatever it is, where Peter experiences the denials, the three times. And then he sings a song immediately afterward, and it's called "I Cannot Watch Them." And I'm going to put a link inside of this. It's just a link that's going to go over to YouTube to play Rob Gardner's song.

The front end of it, he's kind of explaining things. It takes about a minute to get into like the part of "I Cannot Watch Them," but I would absolutely suggest you take time, even out of context of what's happening in the musical play of "The Lamb of God." Just listen to the words that he put in play here of Peter going from "I know not the man" to "I know him" because I resonate with that. And in my moments when my behaviors or my actions or my words or my deeds don't live up to the standards that I've put for myself or the standards that Christ has put for me, I can turn and say, 'I know him,' and I know that he can forgive me, and I know that I can repent, and I know that I can be better.

And that is a beautiful Easter message for me. That's all for today, my friends. I hope you spend some time hearing the song "I Cannot Watch Them." Lift up your hearts and rejoice.

Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. Filmed and horsebacked at Ruesch Seminary Studio. We'll see you next week.