Sermon / Who Is The Real You? / Luke 22:31-34, 54-62

Last week we begin a new short series on prayer and spiritual formation. We looked at the story in Mark 9 where the disciples fail to drive out the demon that was tormenting a boy.

After their failure they ask Jesus why. And he tells them: This kind can come out by nothing but prayer.

Today, we will turn our attention Peter’s betrayal of Jesus in Luke 22:31-34, 54-62. 

The key questions we will wrestle with are: Who is the real you? 

Is the real you, you when you are confident, successful, and victorious? Or is the real you, the frustrated and failing you? 

And how do you deal with the gap? The gap between who you want to be and who you often are? 

In this passage Satan seeks to “sift” Peter. He wants to shake him so his faith will fail, and the primary way he does that is to force him into a situation where he doesn’t live up to his own expectations about himself. 

This past year Satan has done the same thing to us all. He has sought to sift us…wanting our faith to fail, our families to fail, our society to fail, and our churches to fail. 

And one of the most important things you can do is learn to deal with the “sifting.”