Second Chances Start In Seventh Grade

The year was 1982, and I was in seventh grade. Some of y'all only know the 80s because of the stories I tell. But I'm gonna tell you, in seventh grade, I was I felt like I was on top of the world and had a big dream. My best friend and I, Doug, we played basketball all through middle, all through elementary school, which really means nothing because everybody gets to play. And then we got to seventh grade to junior high, and so tried out for the team. It was a week of trial. It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The first three days, uh, the coach sent home all the kids that really couldn't play basketball, and then the next two days that the cuts got a little bit harder. And I survived Thursday, and then Friday after the practice, we were all in the locker room, and I'll never forget the coach. He he was handing out jerseys, and so to all the eighth graders that were on the team, he gave them jerseys, and then he looked at the seventh graders that were remaining and started giving jerseys. And Ricky Robinson got a jersey, and then my friend Doug got a jersey, and then he got to me and he just said, Chuck, you're too small. And I and that was all. There was no jersey, it was just this little like dagger in my heart that it was not, I don't know, it wasn't how I played, it was just I was too short. And so I was like, Man, Lord, you're gonna have to help me grow. You're gonna have to stretch these legs out a little bit, Lord. And but we were walking home that day, and I'll never forget Doug. We we lived near each other, and Doug walked into his house and his family was there, and I could hear him say, I was I was walking past the house. We used to cut through each other's yard to get home, and so I was cutting through the yard, and uh I could hear him say, I made it in the eruption of his family in the kitchen, and I thought, man, this is gonna be the worst walk ever. And so I walked in and my mom was there. She says, Well, how'd it go? And I was like, I didn't make the team, and she's like, Okay, stop kidding. I know you made the team, you're joking. And I'm like, No, mom, I did not make the team. She says, I know you're joking, just tell me the truth. I'm like, mom, I did not make the team. And she says, Well, maybe you didn't make the team this year, but there's always next year. You'll always get another chance. And literally, it was at that moment she coached me and encouraged me and consoled me and then compelled me to make a decision that I would never get cut from another team again and span ahead the next year, eighth grade, because of some stuff happening around the community. There was no sports for eighth graders, but then my freshman year in high school, I actually did make the team, and my mom was right there to celebrate and tell me, see, I told you so. There's always a second chance. So why don't you just turn in every and say, Today you get a second chance? And uh and then let the person next to you know, let them know, just hey, you look so good today.

Strength For Service Not Status

It's Mother's Day, and uh what a powerful weekend we've had. Uh we started Friday, actually. Friday was our next level luncheon, and we met with leaders and a lot of leaders from the church and and and business, entrepreneurs, um, managers, CEOs. A powerful day, and we heard from Noel Massey and Laura Cook and then Pastor Robbie, which I know some of you are saying, hey, wasn't Pastor Robbie supposed to be here? And he was. He was in town for the luncheon, he was supposed to preach today, and uh, but he also, because of some circumstances happening back in Ann Arbor, uh, his family wasn't able to travel. And so when we were sitting down to dinner Friday night, uh Pastor Erst just looked at Robbie and said, Hey, you need to go be with your family. And she said, We'll let this old guy preach. And so I was like, hey, when she speaks, we listen and we just say, Yes, ma'am. So here I am, you get me, he'll come back later and uh and and and recover whatever I've messed up. And so uh, anyways, so we were at the next level luncheon, and those those speakers they did such an incredible job. And actually, we didn't throw out this theme to them, but it's like the Holy Spirit directed all of their talks in encouraging business principles and being a Christian inside of the business and in the in the workforce. Uh, they they had this one theme that all three of them picked up, and it was servant-hearted leadership. And there was a passage of scripture that we shared at the very end during the Q ⁇ A, and as we shared it, I just kind of circled it, and I thought, you know what, that that is something that that actually is the perfect Mother's Day verse, and I'm gonna share it with you now. It's in Romans chapter 15, and I'm reading from the message version, it's Eugene Peterson's translation, and um I just like how it says it. It says this verse one those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter. See, there's always a second chance, and not just do what is most convenient for us. And then verse two is powerful. For strength is for service, not status. Come on, let's all say that together. Strength is for service, not status. Back to the verse. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, how can I help? And as I read this passage of scripture again on Friday after the luncheon, I began to think about how this verse encompasses motherhood. And we just know, like, dads are like, do this. Dads are like, get this done. Um I I I joke with the boys sometimes. My dad used to say, How'd you like to mow the lawn for 20 bucks? And I was like, Yeah, I'm good, dad. And he'd be like, Well, then you're doing it for free. So dads are like, just get it done. And but mom is more like, how can I help? There's stuff to be done, how can I help? And um, and that's just the heart of a mom. There's nothing like mom's love for us. I mean, a mother's love is strong. Um, and I know this to be true because it is only a mom who can have a look that will cross the room and catch you, and you know you're seconds from being in a lot of trouble. Or she can snap her finger. That's strong love. So a mom's love is strong, but it's still gentle, it still has the capacity to like nurture you back into the idea of like, hey, your dreams are shattered because you were cut from this team, but guess what? There's always next year. So long, strong, strong love, but also gentle. And then a mom's love is patient. I tell her, Shauna, like, I don't know how you put up with these boys sometimes. Like, the clock's running out. Like, come on, they need to get, they should be out. They're gone. But she's like, just take your time, baby. You're gonna find your way. I'm like, these boys are about to make me lose my mind up in here, up in here, and she's like, they're such good boys. And then a mom, so a mom's love is patient, it it puts up with a lot, but it's but it then always seems to show up like right on time, like right when we need it. And then the last thing about mom's love, I think, is mom's love is resilient. And um there just seems to be no way that you can run out on mom's love. It just keeps showing up time and time and time again, and um and and offering those second chances. It's a kind of love that never gives up and encourages us to never give up. I read this quote recently. A mother's love is one of the closest reflections on earth of the heart of God. I mean, I think it's pretty fitting. I think it's true. That's we that's how we see a mom's love, and and a mom's love kind of fits this verse in Romans 15 that strength is for service, not status. And how many times a mom puts her out herself, like puts everybody else in the family first? You know, buys everybody else the best Christmas presents, but gets a robe. Come on, takes care of everybody else on Mother's Day and has to figure out where we're all going to eat still. Come on, guys, I hope we did better than that this year. We can we can up our game. Well, a mom's love is incredible.

Peter’s Denial And God’s Pursuit

And today, as we close out this series, God looks, I just want to let you know that God looks past our failures. Not only is God looking for us, but he looks past our failures. And I want to share this story in John chapter 18. And I promise I'm gonna preach quickly today. We're gonna get through this. It's been a special day. You have brunch plans, and so do I. So I'm the ones. So I'm standing between us and brunch. So here we go. John 18, verse 15. I'm talking about Simon Peter, he's one of the disciples, and he had ups and downs. And we're gonna find out how God looks past failure. Look at this Simon Peter and another disciple. By the way, John refuses to name himself in scripture, he always talks about himself in terms of like third person, like the beloved disciple. This one's another disciple. The when the stone is rolled away, he's the one that outruns everybody, like he's the fastest disciple, but he refuses to name himself. Um, that's another whole message. So Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus because this disciple was known to the high priest. So again, he's letting you know, by the way, this disciple has some contact and some connections, and he's high up. And because he was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest's courtyard. And this is when Jesus was being on was on trial. Um, and uh but Peter had to wait outside the door, and the other disciple, still not refusing, still refusing to name himself, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there, and brought Peter in. Verse 17. Uh, you aren't one of this man's disciples, too, are you? She asked Peter, and he replied, I am not. That's not me. It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire. Circle that, we'll come back to that later. They had made to keep warm, and Peter also was standing there warming himself. And meanwhile, Simon Peter were still standing there warming himself, so they asked him, You aren't one of the disciples, too, are you? And he denied it, saying, I am not, in verse 25. And then one of the high priest's servants, watch this, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off. Remember when Judas was betraying Jesus, and Peter was like, No, you're not taking him, and he grabs a sword from the soldier and lops off the guy's ear. Well, this relative was there and witnessed it all, and he says, Listen, didn't I see you with him in the garden? Tag, didn't you cut off my cousin's ear? And again, Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow. That was the prophecy Jesus says, that you will deny me three times before the rooster crows in the morning. And Simon says, Never, Lord. So this is where we find Simon Peter in the midst of failure. He is not preaching boldly like he has and will do. He is not walking on water, he's not having this powerful revelation of who Jesus is. He's not boldly declaring how he will be so loyal even unto death. All it's none of that. He is literally falling apart. He's denied Jesus, he's embarrassed, he's discouraged, and he fears that his failure will be final. And I will let you know when your identity is shaken, we tend to retreat to what is comfortable. And so Simon went back to what was comfortable in John 21 and 3, it says he went back to go fishing. And if you look at that last phrase of the scripture, it says that they caught nothing. And I will tell you that if you decide to retreat to what's comfortable, it will not be profitable for you. You've come too far to turn around, you've taken too many steps away to really enjoy or be enhanced by that old life. It's you're not the same person anymore. And what was comfortable for you then, I pray, will never be comfortable for you again. So the guys are fishing, they catch nothing. Jesus shows up on the shoreline, and and he just simply asks, Are you catching anything? He knew they hadn't, and they say no, and so he instructs them to fish on the other side of the boat, to cast their nets on the other side. But it occurred to me that here is Simon Peter, and before he could ever say to Jesus, I'm sorry, Jesus is already setting up restoration. In fact, Jesus did it from the beginning. Remember, he said, Simon, I'm praying for you because the enemy wishes to sift you as wheat, but I've prayed for you that even after you fail, you'll give back up and find me. Listen, there's nothing you can do that will make God love you any less. And the reality is, if you fall and if you stumble, we serve a God of second and third and tenth and 1,000 chances who says, listen, get back up. In fact, what I love about when we fall is that when we run away, God's grace keeps chasing us down. He chases us down. And listen, when grace runs, grace will run to you before you can ever run to grace. And so that's where we find this situation is Jesus finds Peter. Grace runs to Peter and offers, offers this second chance. And I would tell you, God still uses broken things, God still redeems broken moments. And what we find in John 21 and 9 is that in John 21 and 9, Jesus has prepared a fire to prepare some breakfast for the guys as they're coming in from fishing. And as I started to read it, I recognized in the study of the actual breakdown of the Greek in the New Testament that it's the similar fire. The fire, uh there's two times that this particular fire, which is charcoal, is mentioned in scripture. It's first in John 18 that I just read to you, where Peter was warming himself, and then here in John 29, where Jesus is fixing uh the food for his disciples as he breaks bread with them again. It's the same exact fire. And it occurred to me this is the this is what you need to get out of this story. Is the very same fire that highlighted Peter's failure would be the same fire that Jesus would use to ignite his calling. What I'm telling you is your darkest moments and broken moments can point to you another purpose for your life. That just because you have fallen and stepped off the wrong, uh taken a wrong step on the path, and just because you feel like you're disqualified and your failure may be final, Jesus is saying, it is not. In fact, I'll take the very thing that highlighted your sin and I will ignite your calling in it. Why? Why is why is failure not final? Because of what Jesus did on the cross. The Bible says he literally took our sin. In fact, it says it simply like this He who knew no sin became sin. So he took our failures and our faults, and when he was nailed to the tree, that was nailed to the tree with him, so that since that, since he got the power over that, failure has no power over you. We all fail. We all fall short of God's glory. But you know what? We don't have to stay down. So failure is not final. It's what Jesus did on the cross. His some of his last words on the cross, he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And when Jesus says this, he he is actually quoting Psalm 22 and verse 1. It's it's the Psalm, it's a what's called a messianic prophecy. It is a prophecy from the Old Testament that is lived out in the life of Jesus. And in Psalm 22 and 1, David says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And why are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my groaning, and that is the exact phrase Jesus used on the cross, my God, why have you forsaken me? It was because our sin, our faults and failures were so detestable to God that God had to turn himself away. And the Bible says the entire world went black. And listen, God turned away from Jesus in that moment, but he will never turn away from you. What Jesus did, the price that he paid by hanging on that cross, was a price good enough so that when God looks at you, he doesn't see your failure, he sees your future.

Crimson Worm And The Gospel

And then verse 6 is interesting to me as I read this chapter through a few times the other day. Says this, but I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men, despised by the people. Man, that that component is compelling to me. David's like, I'm a worm. And I started to do a little word study on this, Nick, and it's it's so incredible. Typically, when um in the Hebrew, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, typically, in the Hebrew, when the word worm is used, the Hebrew word for that that we would translate from, typically you would find that word to be rhymed. But in this occasion, and it's the only occasion in scripture where this happens, it's a different word. It is the Greek word teloath or tola, and that Greek word means crimson worm. Crimson worm. And that's a unique, it's a unique worm because not only is the worm a red worm, but it also is a mother worm. And the crimson worm, when she is uh expecting offspring, at the end of term, she will crawl up a tree and fasten herself to this tree, and then she will have a red kind of covering, a shell over her, and then she will give birth to her offspring. It's the last thing that she does. She goes up the tree to give birth to her offspring, it's the last thing that she does, and then listen, for the next three days, for three days, her offspring they feed off the remains of their mother, and then while this is happening, there's this red substance, it's not blood, but this red substance that's excreted and it leaves a mark forever on her offspring and on that tree. And when everything's gone, the little ones have are on their way to go live their life. They there's a red stain on the tree, and those little ones are red stained themselves. Is that not the gospel? That this mother, this crimson worm, climbs up that tree to die so that her little ones will live. And that's exactly what Jesus did for us. He went to that tree to die so that you and I could live. And this is how we know what love is that Jesus Christ laid his life down for us. But it should never stop there. So we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. And on this Mother's Day, first of all, I'm just saying, I commend you, moms, because we know you have sacrificed more than anybody else. And I would also say, if this is a difficult day for you, maybe through circumstance or loss, this is a tough day for you because, like Urshana, you don't have a mom. Her mom passed when she was 13. And you don't ever get over that. There's not one day that we don't think about it or discuss it or have conversation about it. And so, if it's a tough day for you, listen, let me just tell you this. We're here with you, we stand with you. But listen, God's presence is here to fill that void in your life, to heal that brokenness in your life. God still uses broken things and broken people. And I just came to tell you today, moms, we honor you for the sacrifice you made. But the sacrifice Jesus made for our lives paid a price that we would never pay and gives us a gift we could never earn. And that crimson stain on our life is what washes us clean, is what sets us aside as sons and daughters of the most high God. You see, God brings us into an earthly family so He can make us. a part of a heavenly family. And when we come into this house and stand before him and confess our belief in him, we become his children. As

Connect Card Prayer And Invitation

we close, I want to encourage everybody to get your phone out real quick and we're going to attend to this week's connect card. And if you just tap that label on the back seats around you with your phone really quick and just let us know you're here. It's just something we've been doing. We did this through the whole month of April and really had a record response of salvations in the month of April. Not just hands raised but like literal we know you took a step. And we're we want to disciple you in those steps. So tap that label real quick and it's simple. It's going to ask for your email and get your first name and your phone number. Everybody does it. The whole church is doing this. It's not just for guests it's our entire church family. And then just let us know about your experience at free church. Is it your first time or is this your home? You attend a lot you want to help get connected we want to do that. And then let us know what decision are you making today? Maybe it's the first time you're going to make a decision to follow Jesus or maybe you're recommitting your life to Jesus. I want to do it all over again or maybe you're a devoted follower or maybe you need to be water baptized a public expression of the decision you make in your heart today. And then the last one is my favorite one it's how can we pray for you this week? What can we pray for? And and man every week we get these prayer requests and we share them with our prayer team and we pray over them again and again and again because God's faithful and God's offering second chances and he uses our brokenness. So as you fill that out I want to pray for you. Father I thank you for every person in this room every family for the families that dedicated children today for the families that are here celebrating mothers today. Lord I thank you for this powerful day in your presence you're so good to us you've blessed us. We're so rich as we sit in your presence. And I just thank you God you'll help us to realize failure is not final in our life. And I thank you for that promise that we have in you. And for anyone in this room that's never made a decision to follow Jesus this next part of this prayer I'm going to ask you to join with us and pray. And if if this is you praying for the first time or first time and last time in a long time I want to just encourage you to help let us know so we can help you take steps. It'll be the greatest decision you'll make. I'm not saying your life will be easy but you'll never be alone again. Are you ready? Let's pray let's pray together church dear Jesus thank you for loving me and dying on a cross for my sins I thank you for the free gift of salvation. I receive this gift become my Lord and Savior I turn from my own ways to follow after yours and thank you that I'll never be the same ever ever ever in Jesus' name amen. Come on church family stand and celebrate come on let's celebrate together as we stand. It's gonna be a great day we'll see you in the lobby and on the patio