Two weeks ago I wrote in my journal “Why are we having an argument instead of a conversation?” I was referring to everything that is going on around us and everything that our current circumstances want to cause within us. Arguments are the language of division. They are not the difference of opinions, different experiences or different ways of seeing things, they are heels dug in, fists clenched, teeth gritted decisions to express the rightness of my opinion for the purpose of exposing how wrong yours is. As I see it, arguments don’t cause divisions, they reveal that we have chosen to be and stay divided. Benjamin Matthes wrote “Division is a choice.” If division is a choice, then arguments are how we announce that we have chosen to be divided. Arguments have participants that become either winners or losers, they are verbal competitions but conversations have partners, people expressing differing opinions and experiences for the purpose of gaining a brother rather than winning a battle. Peter was an arguer. He argued with Jesus when he found out the Messiah was supposed to suffer, die and rise from the dead. He argued with other apostles about which one of them was the greatest currently and which one of them would be the greatest when Jesus came into His kingdom. If you ask me, it was probably Peter that argued with the parents that were bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed and might have even been him who argued with a blind man named Bartimaeus when he cried out to get Jesus’ attention. In our text today we see that Peter argued with Jesus when Jesus told the apostles that they would all “stumble” that night. There were things that Peter was so sure of that he refused to listen, even to Jesus, when those things were questioned. This morning my prayer is that we can demolish some of our arguments, that we can let the Holy Spirit expose some of the dark places in our hearts and that we can learn what surrender looks like. I talk about surrender pretty often because I believe that surrender is the only true path to redemption. I don’t believe that salvation is asking Jesus to come into our hearts, I believe that salvation is when we give our hearts, our minds, our identity and our lives to Jesus. It’s simply not when Jesus comes to live in us it is when we submit ourselves to belong to Jesus. Salvation is when we become His possession and His belonging, it is when we are found in Him so that He can then be seen through us. Before it is a celebration salvation is a surrender, we come to Jesus with our hands raised, our hearts open, our fists unclenched and our arguments quieted so that our ears can finally be prepared to not just hear but to actually listen. This morning I want to take a very familiar story from Scripture, Peter’s denial of Jesus, and I want us to ask the question “What does surrender look like?” And I want us to deal with the arguments that get in the way of our surrender so that we can let the Holy Spirit expose the dark places that are hiding in our hearts, not so because He is offended by us but because He loves us and He only exposes what He is ready and willing to heal.