Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

This sermon was preached on 26/6/2011 Peter has contrasted the state of God’s people with that of those who reject the message of the gospel and stumble over Jesus, the cornerstone of the great building project in which God is engaged. The apostle had informed his recipients that they had been given great honour by God and now he proceeds to describe several key aspects of that high privilege. He mentions four details, which we will consider after we have noted two important connections to that honour, which are the dark background from which his readers had been rescued and the heart attitude of God towards them. The darkness of sin (v. 10) The people to whom Peter was writing at one time were not converted. Peter says in verse 9 that they were then in darkness. What he has in mind is spiritual darkness. The imagery of darkness perhaps does not come with force to those of us who have never been in complete darkness because of electric lights or even moonlight. But imagine being in a...

This sermon was preached on 19/6/2011 This incident is the seventh of the recorded appearances of Jesus after his resurrection and the third to his apostles (the previous two occurred in Jerusalem, one on the resurrection day and the other a week later when Thomas confessed his faith in Jesus). As far as Peter is concerned, this is the fourth time that he has met the risen Christ because he had a personal meeting in addition to those he had shared with the other apostles. On that personal occasion, he had received forgiveness from Jesus and restoration (otherwise he would not have rejoined the apostolic group). John here lists seven disciples, but his list is unusual in that he mentions the two worst failures before the others. Peter had denied Jesus, and Thomas had refused to believe in his resurrection. It would have been possible for John not to have named them because he include a couple of nameless disciples. Surely his example here is a challenge to how we honour restored disci...

This sermon was preached on 19/6/2011 The New Testament has several ways of expressing the union that exists between Jesus and his people. Jesus, for example, used the illustrations of a vine and its branches and a shepherd and his sheep. Paul described the relationship as similar to that of a bridegroom and his bride and of a head and its body. Peter here uses the picture of a building composed of a cornerstone and stones, with Jesus being the cornerstone and his people being the other stones in the building. It is tempting to see here an allusion to the promise that Jesus made to Peter after his confession of Jesus as the Son of God concerning the certainty of his building his church. The first detail that we can notice is that the role of Jesus as the cornerstone was prophesied long before he lived in this world. Peter cites from the prophesy of Isaiah (28:16) and says that the prophet’s words concerned the future place that the Messiah would have in the outworking of God’s kingdo...