(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Bolton Methodist Church and led by Rev Keith Hunt one of our Circuit Supernumerary Ministers
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Call to worship
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer.
Song – StF 51 – Great is thy faithfulness
Opening prayer
O God, our loving Heavenly Father,
we come before you to worship
and respect your great person and character.
We heartily thank you for your great creation,
even though there are aspects of nature we do not understand,
nevertheless we see the stamp and wonder of the created order.
However, most of all we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Saviour and our friend, who came to our earth,
lived our life and died on the cross that we might be forgiven.
He rose again and now he lives in our hearts by faith.
So we pray that in this service,
we might experience the gracious presence of Christ’s Spirit
as we gather in his name. Amen.
Song – StF 57 – Let all the world in every corner sing
Readings
Song – StF 136 – Morning has broken
Sermon
Today I would like to share with you the character of Peter. The title of this message is, “Peter, the ordinary person, who became a person of God”.
Peter was sometimes called Simon and the Apostle Paul usually called him Cephas. We think Peter helped Mark to write his Gospel. Peter was a fisherman along with James and John. He was the leader of the 12 disciples and the leader of the early church. Our Catholic friends believe Peter was the first Pope. Peter was the spokesperson of the group, he asked the meaning of things, eg. How often should I forgive someone. What would the disciple’s reward would be. Why had the Fig tree withered and what would be the events of the end of the world.
What sort of person was Peter. He was a person with a great charisma, an action person and a conversationalist. He was also impulsive, impetuous and impelling. Peter, jumping in where angels fear to tread. To be impulsive can be positive and sometimes negative. So in a positive way, it was Peter who wanted to walk on the water in order to meet Christ. He is also the one who made the great confession to our Lord’s question, who do you disciples say I am. Peter replies, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. However, sometimes Peter’s impulsive nature got him into trouble. When Jesus informs the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer and die, Peter says, no Lord this can never be true of you, consequently he is told off by Christ.
As a result of his personality and fear, Peter denied Christ. Jesus said to the disciples, all of you will run away from me this night. Peter said, the other disciples may run away, but I will not. Jesus said, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. Peter said, I would rather die than deny you. Yet as we know, Peter did deny Christ as Jesus had predicted and he went out and wept bitterly. Do we ever deny Christ?, maybe not like Peter, but by the way we say or do things. After Jesus was arrested, the Bible says, Peter followed him, but kept his distance. Are we sometimes like this as Christians, we follow Jesus, but not too close. My encouragement is that we affirm Jesus in our lives. We can achieve this with positive, loving and spiritual talk and by the way we are with other people. So, lets spread love around wherever we are and whatever we do.
Even though he denied Jesus, he was stilled filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, along with the others who were gathered together in the upper room. So Peter was asleep in the garden, denied Jesus and ran away when Christ was arrested and yet he was revitalised by the Spirit. As a result Peter was bold to speak to the assembled crowd and spoke with authority. What a transformation, both he and the other disciples (not Judas), were changed from frightened individuals to fearless people. Indeed, one of the great evidences for the Resurrection of Christ, was the positive change in the disciples, who were now Apostles.
In the end Peter’s character was controlled by the power and love of Christ, so it can be with us. The more our personalities are set free from being self centred to being full of love, the more effective we will be for Christ and His church, namely the body of believers, Amen.
Song – StF 432 – O the bitter shame and sorrow
Prayers of intercession
O God our loving Heavenly Father,
we want to thank you for our many
and various characters and for our own.
We ask that Christ may fashion our
personalities and make us more like him,
may Jesus take away the negative
and develop the positive .
Forgive us if we have denied Jesus
by our words or by our deeds.
Please give us a desire to be full
of the Holy Spirit and so equip us
for our Christian work and worship.
We pray about our world and
the many areas which are
experiencing war and conflict,
we ask that our political leaders
will seek for peace and reconciliation
instead of strife and division.
Friends lets bring before the Lord,
those people who are laid on our hearts,
lets pray for them now. —–.
We bring all our prayers to you this day
and we pray in Christ’s name. Amen
Lord’s Prayer
Song – StF 341 – All for Jesus all for Jesus
Benediction.
