RESTORING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS

Text- Luke 22:54-62

Introduction

Recently, Brother and Sister VanHorn became great grandparents.  Their granddaughter Tina and her husband brought the baby to church several weeks ago and during the entire time Brother VanHorn proudly showed her off.

I wonder by a show of hands, how many of you would say that you are not ashamed of your grandchildren, your children, your husband, your wife?

There was a time in my life when I was ashamed of even being seen with my grandmother.

When I was a boy my grandmother lived with our family. One day it was discovered that she had been stealing from my parents. From that point on she was never allowed to step foot into our house and as a child I was never allowed to visit or talk with her even though we lived in the same town. Many years later my wife (girlfriend at that time) and I were coming out of a store and walking towards the car when I looked across the parking lot and there on the next row over stood my grandmother. Immediately, almost instinctively, I ducked behind the car so I couldn't be seen by her. Even to this day the memory of what I did haunts me. I'm glad to say though that I eventually renewed my relationship with her, witnessed to her and preached at her funeral.

This morning the title of my message is, "Restoring Your Relationship With Jesus" and our text is found in Luke 22:54-62.  In this passage we are told about Peter’s denial of Jesus.

I wonder how many can say this morning that you are not ashamed of Christ?  Paul tell us...

2 Timothy 1:8a So you must never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.  (NLT)

As we examine this passage of scripture I would like us to look at Peter's denial of Jesus Christ.  As we do this I would like us to focus our attention on four aspects of Peter’s relationship with Jesus.  Let's look now at our text and see what we can learn about our own relationship with Jesus from Peter's experience.