09/05/2026
Highlight from Last Week's Sermon
No doubt Peter made a good confession by the Lord's grace: Thou at the Christ, the son of the living God. Today's Gospel tells how Peter tried to rebuke the Lord when he foretold that he would be arrested and crucified. Peter made a good confession but clearly he did not really understand the true meaning of who this messiah is and what his mission was. It is easy today for both those inside the church and those outside to do the same. Many assume that Christianity consists of a set of moral precepts, perhaps among the world's best and most abiding. Others think that Christianity consists of a set of doctrinal propositions to which you must give your intellectual assent. When we think of Christianity is these simplistic ways, we are like Peter making a great confession, but not really understanding the true meaning and mission of the messiah. Christianity consists at root in a call to complete spiritual transformation through trust and surrender. It is a call to come and die. This is an uncomfortable message for the settled, and that is why in the history of the church, its preachers and teachers and ministers have often lapsed into preaching morality or self-help or social issues. The real message is perfectly summed up in the famous words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Have you received this call? Have you decided to hand your life over to God in surrender and trust? It is difficult and scary to hand over control of our lives to God, but ask yourself the simple question, without God where has your life gone while you were in control? For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
