Summary
Are We a Success Yet? (Matthew 26)
The world measures success by money, achievements, influence, and accolades. By those standards, the central figures of Scripture look like failures. Paul ends his life forgotten in a Roman dungeon, awaiting execution, abandoned by nearly everyone but Luke. Jesus is born among animals, laid in a feeding trough, pours three years into twelve men who repeatedly miss the point, and dies crucified between criminals as His followers scatter. Worldly success is not the category Scripture uses to evaluate God's work.
The Bible, in fact, is remarkably honest about failure. In Matthew 26:31, on the way to Gethsemane, Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7—"I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered." This is a direct messianic prophecy, fulfilled solely in Christ: the just judgment of God for sin falls on the Shepherd Himself, and the apostles are the sheep who scatter. By Matthew 26:56, the fulfillment is plain—"all the disciples deserted him and fled." Yet Jesus also promises in verse 32 that after He is raised, He will go before them into Galilee. The scattered flock will be regathered by the risen Shepherd.
Peter insists he will never desert Jesus, even unto death. Jesus answers that before the rooster crows, Peter will deny Him three times—and the word for "deny" here means a total, complete abandonment. In the courtyard, Peter is not confronted by armed soldiers but by a servant girl, and he collapses immediately. By the third denial he is cursing—calling down God's death upon himself if he is lying—and swearing an oath of truthfulness that he does not know the man. Then the rooster crows, Peter remembers, and he weeps bitterly Matthew 26:69-75.
Scripture is full of such failures: Abraham and Sarah with Hagar, Aaron with the golden calf, Joseph's brothers, Achan, David's adultery and cover-up, the kings of Israel and Judah, Judas's kiss, the failing churches addressed in Revelation. And it is full of us. God gives His perfect standard, and we sin against Him in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have failed, we are failing, and we will fail again. We are all failures.
But God does not give up on the failure Peter, and He does not give up on us. In John 21:15-17, the risen Christ meets Peter on the shore. Twice Jesus asks, "Do you agape me?"—do you love me with self-sacrificial love? Twice Peter, painfully aware of his denials, can only answer with phileo—the love of a friend. The third time, Jesus meets Peter where he is and asks, "Do you even phileo me?" Peter is grieved, but Jesus, having pressed the wound, gives him the threefold commission: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. The denier is restored to ministry, not because of his strength but by sheer grace.
This is the heart of Are We a Success Yet Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75: at the cross, Jesus took every failure upon Himself—what we have done, what we are doing, and what we will do—and paid the price in full. In the waters of Baptism He claims us as His own and commissions sinners as we are, calling us to return daily in repentance, rising to newness of life. The world keeps striving and asking, "Are we there yet? Are we successful yet?" But when God looks at the baptized, He sees them clothed in the righteous garment of Christ, the perfect life of His Son. The verdict is already rendered. In Christ, you have already arrived.
Video citations
- Are We a Success Yet Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75 — You're open your Bible, please, with me to the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Success. Success. There really is a great emphasis upon being a success in life, isn't there? Why we tend to…