Greetings, friends. History is full of remarkable people who became proud in their position, overly confident in themselves and presumptuous of their abilities, all of which resulted in a major failure and collapse. David writes a refrain in his 2 Samuel 1, “How the mighty have fallen!” In some cases though, even in the midst of the darkness, there is a silver lining of hope pointing toward healing and transformation. I recently preached a message from Luke 22 at our home church, Littlerock Community Fellowship. We are nearing the end of a long series through the book of Luke, and Pastor Ryan asked me to preach on verses 45-62, focusing on Peter’s denials. The main point of the message was: Proud self-reliance will break us, but humbly trusting in God’s grace will heal.

Here’s the outline as we had to catch the prologue and epilogue in order to understand the full story:

• 1. Prologue (pre-story): Warning.
• 2. The Story: Breaking.
• 3. The Epilogue (post-story): Healing.

Finally, I ended with some takeaways that brought the truths of the passage close to home. I offered a diagram showing two divergent paths following a failure like Peter demonstrated, and the destinations those two paths lead to.

I invite you to watch and listen to the sermon, and hope you find encouragement as you do so.