Second Chances
The Unfairness of Grace
12/03/03
I. Introduction
In Medieval Persia, Earth’s mightiest and most mysterious kingdom, a king and his son defeat the powerful Maharajah, looting his palace of priceless treasure, including an extravagant hourglass and a mysterious dagger. What the Prince does not realize is that these two objects can turn their possessor into an immortal god, and give him control over time itself. Tricked by a dying Vizier bent on harnessing this terrible magic for himself, the Prince releases the Sands of Time, destroying a kingdom and turning its people into ferocious demons. Now, it is up to the youth Prince of Persia to call upon every resource and ounce of courage he possesses to save his kingdom and redeem his fatal mistake.
Such is the story of Critical Acclaim’s video game, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In this video game, the Sands of Time are a strange and mystical force that allows players to seamlessly bend the fabrics of time, granting them a number of astounding powers, one of which is called The Power of Revival. The prince can face danger with the ability to journey back in time, meaning that if the prince is fatally injured by a slew of zombies, he can use the Sands of Time, to go back to the point before he even met the zombies and get a second chance at life.
How would you like to have something like the Sands of Time allowing you to go back and get a second chance? What would it be like to get a second chance to make that blubbering first impression with the new girl at school? Instead of tripping over your shoelaces and sending your lunch tray soaring through the air spilling your chocolate milk all over her, you simply use the Sands of Time to rewind your fate, so that you ever so smoothly walk up to her and lay on the charm scoring you the digits and a possible date for next weekend.
Or what about getting a second chance to pass that mid-term that you totally forgot to study for? How about a second chance to turn down that cigarette that almost gave you pneumonia because you practically coughed up a lung? Well, tonight we’re talking about Second Chances: The Unfairness of Grace. You see, God has given us all the power of second chances, the power that comes from this thing called grace.
II. Grace: What It Is
We’ve all heard songs like “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” or “grace flows down and covers me,” but what is this grace that’s so amazing and how does it cover me?
Grace:
1) grace
a) that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
2) good will, loving-kindness, favour
a) of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues
3) what is due to grace
a) the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of divine grace
b) the token or proof of grace, benefit
1) a gift of grace
2) benefit, bounty
4) thanks, (for benefits, services, favours), recompense, reward
Charles Swindoll said about this gift called grace that came from Jesus: “To show grace is to extend favor or kindness to one who doesn’t deserve it and can never earn it. Receiving God’s acceptance by grace always stands in sharp contrast to earning it on the basis of works. Every time the thought of grace appears, there is the idea of its being undeserved. In no way is the recipient getting what he or she deserves. Favor is being extended simply out of the goodness of the heart of the giver.”
The word grace has various uses, but tonight we’re talking about God’s grace in regard to his giving to us freely this gift of a second chance.
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV “8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Grace has often been used as an acronym that says: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense, meaning that because of Christ’s sacrificial death, we can have God’s best. Although we deserved hell, and were on a one-way street toward death, God turned our fate around and gave us life.
He gave us a second chance, not a second chance to prove how good we are or that we can do whatever it takes, because those are works, but he freely gave us the chance to live without trying to prove ourselves, the chance to just be ourselves and accept his gift of starting over.
Grace has nothing to do with us or who we are, rather it’s all about God and who He is. Grace is about God giving us what we don’t deserve.
The world’s cliché’s are such as:
“You get what you deserve.”
“God helps those who help themselves.”
“We get our money the old-fashioned way, we earned it.”
“You haven’t paid the price.”
“So and so got this and that, it’s just not fair.”
Those rules don’t apply in God’s kingdom. Grace isn’t fair. The word “earn” appears 0 times in the New Testament. Because it’s not about us earning our way to heaven. It’s not about us earning a second chance. Grace is about God giving it to us freely.
III. Grace: How It Works
Parable of the Gracious Father-
Luke 15: 11-20 MSG “11Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. 12The younger said to his father, "Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’
"So the father divided the property between them. 13It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. 14After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. 15He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. 16He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17"That brought him to his senses. He said, "All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. 18I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; 19I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ 20He got right up and went home to his father.”
If there was ever someone who wanted a second chance, it was this guy. He just all out made the wrong decision. He took his inheritance and wasted all his money, and finally he has a “What Was I Thinking” moment. You know the moment when everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and you realize, “Hey, I messed up. What have I gotten myself into? What was I thinking?”
Have you ever been there? I’ve been to that place too and I don’t want to remember how it felt.
But from that moment, the prodigal son wishes he could rewind every decision that he had made to get him to that point. He wished he could go back in time to the place where he never asked for his inheritance, to the place where he could start all over with his dad. And so he decided to take a chance for second chance and go see what would happen.
Luke 15: 20-24 MSG “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. 21The son started his speech: "
Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
22"But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, "Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! 24My son is here--given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.”
This story shouldn’t necessarily be labeled the prodigal son, because it’s more about the loving father. And this father doesn’t care about what the son has done, he’s more than willing to give him a second chance, in fact, the son doesn’t even have to ask because the father runs out to meet him, the father runs out to shower the son with grace, to shower him with all the chances he needs.
You see, when we screw up, when we struggle, when we are disobedient, and unfaithful. God is always there to welcome us back with open arms. It doesn’t matter how far we’ve gone past the line. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done or how far we’ve fallen, we always fall into the grip of His grace. A grace for second chances.
On New Year’s Day, 1929, Georgia Tech played UCLA in the Rose Bowl. In that game a UCLA player named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble, but somehow got confused and started running in the wrong direction down the field. He ran sixty-five yards before one of his teammates, Benny Lom, tackled him just in front of the goal line—otherwise Riegels could have scored a safety for the opposing team. UCLA was unable to move the ball from that point in the game. Georgia Tech blocked the punt and scored a safety on the play.
Since that strange play happened in the first half, everyone watching the game was asking the same question: “What will coach Nibbs Price do with Roy Riegels in the second half?” The players filed off the field, went into the dressing room, and sat down on the benches and the floor—all except Riegels. He put his blanket around his shoulders, sat down in a corner, put his face in his hands, and cried like a baby.
A coach usually has a great deal to say to his team during halftime, but that day, Coach Price was quiet. No doubt he was trying to decide what to do with Riegels. Then the timekeeper came in and announced that there were only three minutes till play time. Price looked at the team and said simply, “Men, the same team that played the first half will start the second.”
The players got up and started out—all but Riegels. He didn’t budge. The coach looked back and called to him again; still he didn’t move. Coach Price went over to where Riegels sat and said, “Roy, didn’t you hear me? The same team that played the first half will start the second.” Then Roy Riegels looked up and Price saw that his cheeks were wet with a strong man’s tears.
“Coach,” he said, “I can’t do it to save my life. I’ve ruined you. I’ve ruined the University of California. I’ve ruined myself. I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium to save my life.”
Then Coach Price put his hand on Riegels’ shoulder and said, “Roy, get up and go on back. The game is only half over.” And Roy Riegels went back, and those Georgia Tech players will tell you they have never seen a man play football as Roy Riegels did in that second half.
(From “A Little Phrase for Losers” by Haddon Robinson in Christianity Today, Oct. 26, 1992.)
The grace of God is like Roy’s coach. At times we feel as if we’ve messed up so badly that we want to give up and throw in the towel. God doesn’t give up on us, though. He says, “Get up and get on out there. The game isn’t over yet.” The Gospel of the grace of God is the Gospel of the second chance, and the third chance, and the hundredth chance. We fumble the ball continually, but God never tosses us out of the game. He just keeps cheering us on.
How many chances do we get?
As many as we need.
To whom did Jesus offer grace?
The woman at the well? She’d had five husbands and the man she was living with at the time she met Jesus wasn’t her husband. She was a woman that needed a second chance, and she found it in Christ.
Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He was also a tax collector that cheated a lot of people. He needed a second chance and he climbed a tree to find one. And he found it in Jesus.
What about Peter? Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends, yet when Jesus was being crucified, he denied ever knowing him, not once, not twice, but three times. He needed a second chance. He messed up. He told Jesus, “I’ll never deny you. Everybody else might, but not me, Lord.” Yet he did, and so he needed grace. And he found it when he saw Jesus again, and that second chance encouraged him to fulfill his destiny.
What about one of the thieves on the cross beside Jesus? He had robbed and stolen all of his life. He needed a second chance. And he found it just before he died because he found it in Jesus who told him, “Surely, today you’ll be with me in Paradise.”
What about you? Do you need a second chance? Rely on God’s amazing grace, the grace for second chances. Let’s pray.
