Worship Around The Cross : Worshipping Through Failure

This is our Sunday teaching from service overseer, Alex Lyne. Recorded live at our Sunday Service in Harris Academy Purley, Croydon on Sunday 7th April, 2025. Below you can find the full talk audio, and a summary article.

Want to lead a connect group session on this teaching? The notes are here

Worship When We Fail: Learning from Peter and Judas

Have you ever set out with good intentions, only to do the opposite? Whether it's reaching for that extra portion at a breakfast buffet (guilty!) or falling short of a commitment you've made, failure is part of being human. But what does worship look like when we’ve messed up? How do we come before God not in our strength, but in our weakness?

This week we explored that very question through the lens of Matthew 26, as part of our series on images of worship in the Gospel of Matthew. As the events of Easter begin to unfold, we find two disciples—Peter and Judas—both failing Jesus in different ways. Peter, who boldly declares he will never desert Jesus, ends up denying him three times. Judas, filled with remorse after betraying Jesus, takes his own life.

Both felt the weight of failure. But the difference wasn’t in the emotion—it was in where they went with it.

Judas turned to people and was met with cold indifference. He didn’t take his remorse to Jesus—the one person who could have met him with grace. He also let his emotions dictate his actions, making them an idol rather than a compass pointing him back to God.

Peter, on the other hand, wept bitterly. He didn’t deny the pain, but he stayed in community. He returned to the disciples. And when he saw the risen Jesus again on the shore, he didn’t hold back—he threw himself into the sea to get to him.

That’s our invitation, too.

When we fail—and we will—we don’t need to sit in shame or let our feelings rule us. We can weep, acknowledging the pain and the fall, but then wade back to Jesus. He is already on the shore, waiting, with plans for our restoration. Just as Peter went on to be a pillar of the early church, our failures don’t define the end of our story—they can become the place where grace meets us most powerfully.

So this week, if you stumble: weep. Wade. Worship. Jesus is waiting.