The Life of Peter 3
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- Written by: Rev John Altmann
The Failure of Peter audio (6MB)
Intro:
Have you ever had a cooking phase where you became obsessed about making the perfect something …. ? A while ago I had a lemon tart phase. Eventually I was very proud of myself, I perfected the technique after a few goes using this great recipe from Stephanie Alexander's book. 'The cook's companion'. Then one day I made the most glorious looking lemon tart yet, but it tasted revolting - I'd succeeded in making it with salt instead of sugar! It was very tart. It's no good is it? It's ruined.
When we spoil something that we're making it's often very hard, if not impossible, to make it come good.
Compare this with God's handiwork in our lives.
When he sets out to build a people for himself and to create followers of Jesus, He is able to build even our failures into his work to shape us to be followers and servants of Jesus Christ.
Do you remember the last episode in the Life of Peter? …..
Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him. Not only that, he says to Simon Peter that God will allow this and build it into his purposes for Peter's life. Jesus says to Peter: "Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, 32but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."
Series: Theme: Peter the Rock
- Details
- Written by: Chris Appleby
Peter the Rock
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The calling of Peter |
Luke 5:1-11 |
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The sifting of Peter |
Luke 22:24-43 |
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The failure of Peter |
Luke 22:54-62 |
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The reinstatement of Peter |
1Jn 1:1-2:2 |
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The reshaping of Peter |
Acts 4:1-22 |
The Life of Peter 2
- Details
- Written by: Rev John Altmann
The sifting of Peter audio (4.5MB)
Have you ever had one of those conversations with another Christian that you just met where they tell you all about their church and how good it is and how many people there are in their congregation and how its grown from 300 to 1000 in the last 3 years? and what a great model of ministry they've got and if you just started doing this program they developed then you'd be bound to have people coming to your church just like them. How do you feel? I used to have conversations like that often with other ministers when I was the vicar of a small struggling Anglican church. I didn't feel really encouraged! They were really saying look at me, look at me, aren't we great, there must be something wrong with you if your church has only got [insert whatever small number of people you like, as long as its significantly less than the church of the person you're talking to]! The problem actually is one of superficial judgment/engagement with exactly where I'm at or the context my church is in.
One of the reasons that we are looking at the life of Peter over these few weeks at church is that Jesus taught him what he really had to offer other people. Jesus taught him how to be a disciple and how to strengthen others to follow Christ. He taught him how not to despair and give up but how to continue to be a disciple. He took Peter beyond superficial judgments and down to the true foundations for following Christ. Through Peter he's going to get us to the bedrock of what it means to be the church.
The Life of Peter 1
- Details
- Written by: Rev John Altmann
Luke 5:1-11 The Calling of Peter audio (6MB)
When I was 12 my father brought a model of a Phantom 2 vintage Rolls Royce back from overseas. Now this was no ordinary model car. This was a completely perfect 1:10 scale model where all the moving parts actually moved. And in order to try and please my father I began to build this model. I am not the most practical of people and I've got little aptitude for making things. In fact I've got the mechanical aptitude of a gnat, but I am pretty stubborn and determined. So all summer holidays in my spare time I slogged away at this complicated model - I got it set up on an old table tennis table we used to have in the garage, and by the end of summer I'd succeeded in building the engine, the brake system and some of the chassis of this car, and I'd also succeeded in losing some of the crucial parts for what I needed to do next. This was the kind of model that had a 25 page instruction book full of drawings of parts numbered from 1 - about 5000! And at the end of the summer it all got bundled up into a very big box and put away at the back of the garage.
Discipleship 5 - The Inner Life
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- Written by: Garrett Edwards
Psalm 1 audio (3MB)
Luke 11:1-13
Introduce series/Ask people for what stood out to them...
Well today we come to the theme of Discipleship and the ‘Inner Life.’ What do we think that that means? Can anyone give me their thoughts on what the ‘Inner life’ could mean when we look at a topic like discipleship, keeping in mind the passages that were just read out to us?
Over the last few weeks we have looked at discipleship in
Walking with Jesus
Being Students of Christ,
being a People on a Mission, our responsibility of building the Kingdom
and now we come to the Inner life
On reflecting on prayer and the ‘inner life’ an unknown author wrote this quote
Discipleship 4 - Building the Kingdom
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Speak the Gospel, Teach the Bible and Build Community that reflects God’s love. I hope those three phrases are familiar to you by now. Yes, that’s our Church Mission Statement. If you think about it, the first two have been the subject of our sermons for the last two weeks. Speaking the gospel - or being on a mission; and teaching the Bible - growing as students of Christ. And just by coincidence, today we’re talking about the 3rd statement - building community that reflects God’s love.
When Jesus called his disciples what do you think he had in mind? Was he just calling a group of men so he could teach them some useful doctrine? Was he choosing those 12 because he thought they deserved to be saved? No, he was choosing them so he could begin the work of finishing God’s eternal plan. What was that plan? If you’d been part of the confirmation preparation over the last few years you’d know the answer very well, I hope. God’s plan was to create a people for himself, who’d show the rest of the world how good it is to live under his rule and who’d therefore become a magnet to attract others into God’s kingdom.
Discipleship 3 - People on a Mission
- Details
- Written by: Bill Stewart
Acts 1:1-11 audio (5MB)
Luke 10:1-24
Can I begin by asking you to cast your mind back? For some of us it will only be a short time for others it may be somewhat longer. Cast your mind back to the first time your Christian faith really came alive for you. When was it? Why was it?
When I was in primary school my parents sold the property we were living on and we moved to another town, to another school, and to another church. St Barnabas' Anglican Church was little wooden building like many in the country with a congregation of just five ladies, all of them over seventy years of age. When my mother and my younger sister and brother went we swelled the attendance by eighty percent. There was just one service a fortnight at 7.30 a.m.! The service was very formal and ritualistic. (I should say that those five ladies were women of great faith and I want to say a little more about them in a moment). But I am telling you this because there was no youth group, no CLAY, no STOMP, no beach missions, no Summer under the Son. As a child I didn't know such things existed. But miraculously when I enrolled at university I just "happened" to meet a couple of members of the Christian Fellowship group on campus. I didn't expect to become part of such a group because it never occurred to me that such groups existed. I had expected to go to the local church now once in a while but not to be part of a group of young Christians living out their faith on the university campus. And what first made my faith come alive was the way that group prayed for each other and for the fellow students and the way they talked to their friends about Jesus. And at our university in that part of Queensland many young people were living a long, long way from home for the first time, and the Christian Fellowship supported many who found that experience difficult. And they looked after the drunks! As with most universities alcohol abuse was a serious problem - probably worse there than most. And often it was the Christians who were there - sometimes at 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to help frequently ungrateful drunks safely home. It completely changed my understanding of my Christian faith. When did your Christian faith first come alive for you? Why?
