A Second Look

A Second Look

II Corinthians 5: 14-17

January 22, 2023

Intro:

I was really touched and moved as I watched the World Trade Center movie yesterday and this pushed me and inspired me to work this message It is not what someone thinks that this movie is a political or giving us the “hint” of what is the truth behind the event of 911. It is a drama. The agony and triumph of some of the heroes of that event. It is seeing the best opportunity on their lives in the midst of uncertainty and pushing their limits to get that “second chance”

Illus: One spring, sometime the civil war, a boy in search of work came to

Worthy Taylor’s prosperous Ohio farm. The farmer knew nothing much about

the boy except that his name was Jim, but he gave him a job. Jim spent the summer cutting woods, bringing in the cows and making himself generally useful.

He ate in the kitchen and slept in the haymow. Before the summer is over, Jim had fallen in love with Taylor’s daughter. When the farmer refused to let him marry her, telling him that he had no money, no name, and very poor prospects; Jim put his belongings in his old carpet bag and disappeared. Thirty five years passed,

Taylor one day pulled down his barn to make way for a new one. ON one of the rafters above the haymow, he discovered that Jim had carved his full name-

James A. Garfield. He was then President of the United States.

All of us have made mistaken judgments about another person. We think this person will never make contribution or he will never productive. But the years pass, the person matures, he is trained and applying his skills and becomes success. He found the second better chance.

Focus: Example-Truths that everybody deserves a Second-Better Chance.

I. Peter –From His denial of Christ to the bold proclaimer of the Word

Every great man or woman of God can point to a time of breaking in his or her life where a time of conflict, a time of pressure, or a time of decision transformed them from an ordinary piece of coal into a precious diamond, and Peter is one of those individuals who were broken.

Peter was a man who was full of zeal for the Lord. When Jesus was on the mountain and was transfigured with Moses and Elijah it was Peter who wanted to stay and build shelters for all three of them. When Jesus told Peter he was going to be killed it was Peter who said he would die with him. It was Peter who assured Jesus that even if everyone else denied him he wouldn’t. It was Peter who drew his sword and cut off Malchus’ ear as the soldiers came to arrest Jesus. It was Peter who ran to see the empty tomb. It was Peter who left the boat and came to the resurrected Lord.

On the most important night of his life, on the most important night in history, Peter, "the rock," sat alone in a dark corner weeping. This wasn’t common place for him. He was a strong self-reliant fisherman. He was bold! He was courageous! And now, he was completely undone. The rock had been shattered.

People can fault Peter for some of his overzealous actions, but overall, Peter had a heart for Jesus and is an example to us all of the excitement we should have in following Jesus. At the day of Pentecost, he was standing up and preaching to a crowd of people boldly and the Spirit touched people’s hearts and 3,000 people came to know Christ.

APPLICATION

You have got to get to Jesus with your failure today. Failure is your greatest friend when it causes you to love Jesus more. The most important thing that you can do is to love Jesus Christ more than your failure.

Perhaps, some of you have experienced some great failure in your life and you would like to be restored to fellowship with God today. Wherever He finds a believer who is willing to yield to His will, listen to His Word, and follow His way, He begins to transform that believer and accomplish remarkable things in that life. Failure is not final. Failure leads us to reassess our actions and to redirect our steps. It’s an opportunity to begin again; only this time, more intelligently. Our church maybe is filled with people who have failed or are failing. Be a ministry to them.

II. Paul – From persecuting Christians to his devotion to the ministry.

The beginning of Paul’s story is not a flattering one. Paul summarized it like this: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man” (I Timothy 1:13). The first time the Bible mentions Paul he’s described as standing guard over the clothes of those who were stoning Stephen. Paul quickly went from supporting the persecution of Christians to leading it as he went from house to house to drag Christians off to prison. On my side as I watched the movie World Trade Center - Paul wasn’t any different from the terrorists of September 11; he too thought that he was fighting a holy war and doing God’s will.