Restored

It seems like Peter is often the topic of the pastor's sermon on the week after Easter. Poor Peter! He was so enthusiastic about how he would never EVER deny Jesus... as in "I will never do that, Lord, even if all of those other guys do!" And then what does he do? Denies knowing Jesus 3 times, just like Jesus told him he would.


So the topic of the pastor's sermon last weekend was restoration. These are the passages of scripture he used:

John 18:15-27
John 21:1-19
Psalm 51
Psalm 32


His 3 bullet points were:


*Brokenness can be a platform for usefulness.
--God wants restoration after you sin, not retribution -- He takes no delight in sin or the effects of sin. He doesn't want to make our lives miserable, He wants to make our character beautiful. Pastor Mike also pointed out that God doesn't want us to walk in comparison to other people, he wants us to walk focused on Christ.


*Love is the motivation for enduring faithfulness.
--Peter's brothers (the other disciples) were there with him on the boat (they all chose to go fishing with him and not leave him to fight his inner battle by himself). They loved him, and this made it easier for Peter to be faithful to the Lord. Jesus asked Peter "Do you love ME?" Not "Do you love the church?" or "Do you love serving?"... just "Do you love ME?" He then said...well, if you love me, "Feed my lambs...take care of my sheep." Not because of some sense of obligation, but just because he loved Jesus.


*People are our most significant investment.
--We need to "share the love" with other broken people. People can be "broken" for many reasons. Sometimes it is because of their own sin, and sometimes it is because of the effects of this sin-filled world that has affected their life in some way (cancer).

I don't know if any of this made sense to anyone reading it, but I know I was affected by this sermon and wanted to remember it, so I thought I'd type up my notes here so I would have them to look back on later. Read the passages of scripture. That might help! :-)