Remembering the Sermon That Changed Everything: A Personal Reflection on Peter’s Forgotten Sermon by Randall E. Messina

I didnt pick up Peters Forgotten Sermon expecting it to undo me. I thought it would be interesting, maybe challenging in the way theological books sometimes are, sharpening the edges of long-held beliefs or offering new language for familiar truths. But I wasnt prepared for the way it lingered.

It stayed with me like the aftertaste of something slightly too bitter, yet strangely compelling. Not unpleasant. Just honest.

Visit: https://randallmessina.com/

I read the first chapter early one morning, coffee cooling too quickly in a chipped mug, rain tapping against the kitchen window. That kind of morning where everything feels slower, slightly off-tempo. Id only meant to skim. But by the third page, Messina had already pulled me back to Eden, not the sanitized version with fig leaves and soft lighting, but a grim, broken place where blood hits the earth for the first time, and Adams sin isnt a footnote, its a fracture.

Theres something about the way Messina writes. He doesnt talk to you. He walks beside you, quietly pointing to things youve read a hundred times but maybe never truly seen. Scripture becomes terrain again, wild, muddy, and alive with consequence.

And suddenly, you're not reading a theology book.

You're being confronted.

Messina's idea is deceptively simple: the original plan of redemption that Peter preached in Acts 2:38 has been forgotten. Not completely wiped, but softened, put aside, and made comfortable. He says that the plan that was made on the Day of Pentecost wasn't just a one-time altar call; it was the Church's basis. And we've lost our way somewhere between tradition, translation, and time.

I sat with that for a while.

Because if Im honest, I know that version of Christianity too well, the kind that offers inspiration over transformation that leaves you nodding in agreement but never trembling. Ive walked out of services uplifted but unchanged. Ive bowed my head, repeated the words, and still felt a hollowness echoing in the back of my ribs. I never thought to ask whether something essential had been left behind.

Until now.

Messinas focus on Acts 2:38 is unflinching. Repent. Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Its not new. But in his hands, it feels urgent. Alive. As if Peters words werent ancient doctrine but a match struck in the dark.

The thing is, this isnt just about doctrine. Its about an encounter. Thats what caught me off guard. Messina isnt interested in debate for debates sake. Hes after something real. Something Spirit-born. And as he writes about people who have encountered that kind of transformation, men and women undone by the weight and wonder of the Holy Spirit, its hard not to ask yourself: have I?

One story in particular stuck with me. A man, decades in the Church, committed and consistent, finally breaking down as the Spirit filled him, not in performance, but in release. He wept. Not from shame, but relief.

I couldnt shake it. That kind of vulnerability. That kind of encounter. I realized, somewhere between paragraphs, that part of me longed for it. And part of me feared it, too. Because that kind of spiritual encounter isnt polite, it doesnt wait for its turn. It burns through your assumptions and leaves only whats real.

What if Ive settled for belief when what I needed was rebirth?

That question haunted me more than I care to admit.

The book doesnt let you move on easily. Its not harsh, but its insistent. Messina returns again and again to the early Church, not to idolize it, but to remember what it actually was. A movement. Not a brand. A people so transformed that even their enemies noticed. And at the center of that movement was a sermon, bold and clear, preached by a man who only weeks before had denied even knowing Jesus.

That man, Peter, stood up and declared what must be done. Not as a suggestion. As truth. Repent. Be baptized. Receive the Spirit.

And we, somehow, over the centuries, have reduced that call to something optional. Something symbolic. A formality before the potluck.

But Messina doesnt scold. He mourns.

Theres a tenderness to the way he writes about the loss. Like someone whos spent years searching for something and has finally found it, but grieves that so many others havent. And in that grief, he offers an invitation. Not an accusation.

I found myself slowing down as I read, rereading whole paragraphs aloud. I wanted the words to sink deeper, not just into memory, but into conviction.

And maybe thats the miracle of the book. It doesnt just inform. It awakens.

It reminded me of the first time I saw someone speak in tongues. I was seventeen in a dusty little church on the edge of town. A woman, maybe in her 50s, stood up, eyes closed, hands shaking. The room felt too still. Then she spoke, or maybe sang. It wasnt chaotic. It was quiet. Raw. Reverent. I didnt understand a word. But I remember thinking, whatever that is, its real.

Id forgotten about her until this book.

Messina doesnt romanticize that experience. He roots it in Scripture, in history, in a God who still speaks, not in theory, but in presence. He makes space for mystery, but he refuses abstraction. Everything comes back to that sermon. Peters sermon. The one weve trimmed down, dressed up, and often skipped entirely.

And maybe thats why this book matters.

Because sometimes, the most important thing isnt to learn something new.

Its to remember something old.

Something fierce. And holy. And real.

Something worth weeping over.

So here I am, coffee gone cold again, staring out the window and wondering what it would mean to answer Peters sermon, not with agreement, but with surrender.

I dont know yet.

But I think Im ready to find out.