Second Chances

Transcript

so uh brothers and sisters I thought that uh this evening we could talk about the subject of Second Chances and in particular I'd like to take a look at the life of Peter who has um you know had a lot of his falling shorts you know these times where he missed the Mark

um we see a lot of examples in Peter's life where he has fallen short where he's Miss the mark and where the gospel writers um show sometimes in painful detail you know the the mistakes that he

made and the Bible is a lot like that throughout both the Old and New Testament we find many examples of the Kings of Israel falling short David you know um sinning against uh UAH and basheba and ultimately against God and I think it's one of the things that's unique about the Bible

um

unlike many ancient books that tried to

deify their uh their you

know you know that they looked up to um the Bible doesn't always do that the Bible shows the their character warts and all and I think it's done for a reason and it's to give us hope and it's to help us remember that when we fall short we have this amazing blessing of forgiveness I remember listening to a talk by Brother Harry tenant many many years ago where Harry spoke about using forgiveness as a springboard towards renewed faith and I think that's what I hope to try and have us focus on this evening this idea that our lives in faith our our lives in

Christ are not

always you know a smooth ramp up where our faith is ever

increasing I think if you're like me brothers and sisters you when you exist examine yourselves will and look back over the course of your life we'll find that there are times when you're feeling very spiritually strong and there are likely other times when you're failing when you're feeling spiritually weak and that is I think a normal course in the life of a disciple what sometimes especially difficult though is when we look out at that our friends our Brothers and Sisters in Christ who fall away from

Faith who find themselves in a point where they are no longer faithful and when they leave the faith and this can be a real devastating blow not only to

them but to us because you know until then we've been sort of walking together and sometimes when we see these things it can really be you know it can be damaging um to our psyche uh to our morale and I just thought that it would be helpful for us to realize that all is not lost and that there is always opportunity for

forgiveness and that uh while we are to endure to the end you know we don't know when that that end might be and people who have left the faith whether it be friends or family have an opportunity still to be forgiven and to come back into the fold and as a community of Believers it's our responsibility to make our community a welcoming place for all especially those who have fallen away we need to make this an attractive place for people to

return and when we look at the life of Peter we're going to see there are times where it seems to me that he almost gave up but didn't um and we're going to start by looking at the at the time when Jesus was

introduced by John to um to Jesus so John the Baptist introduces uh Jesus introduces is Peter to to Jesus and we're going to start there and we're going to work our way through God willing in the course of our class tonight you know different events in G in Peter's Life we'll see where he's strong where he's confident where things are all you know going really well and we'll see also those times where he failed so that's my hope and I'd like to begin by having you turn with me to uh Luke why don't we start in John chapter 1 um and we'll just you know briefly touch on this because this of course is where Jesus is uh and Peter meet at the introduction of John

um let me just flip over

here so what we find here is that um we're we're going to pick it up say in John chapter 1 we'll look at the 29th verse and um it says that the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and he said look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world this is the one I meant when I say a man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me I myself did not know him but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to is Israel and so it's at this point that John begins to introduce his disciples to Jesus and he introduces the him of course as the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world in the very next section of passages here in John chapter 1 we s we we see we see the continuation of the story verse 38 the next day John was there again with two of his disciples and when he saw Jesus passing by he said look the Lamb of God and when the two disciples heard him say this they followed Jesus turning around Jesus saw them following and asked what do you want and they said Rabbi which means teacher where are you staying come he replied and you will see so they went and saw where he was staying and they spent the day with him and it was about the 10th hour Andrew Simon Peter's brother was one of the two who heard what Jesus had said and who had followed Jesus and the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him we have found the Messiah I think this is fascinating because it tells me two things the first thing it tells me is that they were looking for the Messiah they were expecting the Messiah to come John's father Pro you know prophesied of this after Jesus would was born we saw Anna the prophetess speaking about this so there were a group of people that were looking for the Messiah and many of them thought it was John and John developed these large crowds that came and these disciples that followed him but he was quick to say it's not me there's someone greater than me and here he introduces Jesus to his disciples John's disciples and when this happen happens two of them know what John has said they take the opportunity to spend the day with Jesus they are convicted in their heart that it really is the Messiah who they're with and what we find is this beautiful expression where his where Andrew you know is thinking all day long probably about his brother I gotta tell Simon Peter I got to tell Simon about this and he looks he he seeks him out and he says we have found the Messiah that's in verse 41 of chapter 21 of chapter 1 in John and uh you know I just wonder I mean I don't know I don't have a brother but uh I know Jim Boo has some brothers and I imagine Jim if you were uh sitting on the shore of a of a lake and you had been fishing all day without the help of your brothers you'd probably be wondering where your brothers were and when they showed up after you had done all the work of you know throwing out the Nets and fishing all day and cleaning the Nets and then they show up you might not have been so happy to see them you didn't of course know and and Peter didn't know the news that Andrew would bring but in my mind my imagination brings brings me to a point where where Simon is probably not real happy with his brothers and it's and and what we see here and this is sort of an as side but it says uh in verse 42 he brought him to Jesus and Jesus looked at him and said your Simon son of John you'll be called sephus which one translated is Peter or as we know you know it's the the old expression Rock and in my mind you know and I have no idea whe whether this is true but I picture you know Rocky the boxer right you know it's as though Peter's so upset with his brothers and and we get this sense that okay now we're starting to see his character here so he calls him he calls him uh sephus and uh the next day Jesus decided to leave for G for Galilee and and we have the story continue so that just sort of gives us a little bit of background now turn over or turn back to Luke and we're going to come to Luke Chapter 5 and this will develop a little bit more uh insight for us into the calling of the the first disciples one of whom of course was

Peter um again context John at this point John the Baptist is no longer on the scene up until this point he had been you know preaching he had been preaching this baptism of repentance and two of the people that were in his sights were

herodias and Phillip who were having an illicit Affair and and John the Baptist was telling these leaders in Israel that they themselves also had to repent and of course this was a a challenging uh uh a challenging thing for them to hear and because of that it's at that point that John the Baptist was taken off the scene he was thrown into prison so where are John's disciples at this point in time this is the question I want you to think about because John's disciples have no one to follow John has been you know taken off to this deep dark

prison and his disciples what do they do what does Peter do he's sort of spiritually unemployed and he goes back to fishing he's no longer following John the Baptist around he's back on the Sea of Galilee he's fishing so John chapter Luke chapter 5 verse one says one day as Jesus was standing by the lake of janeret or the Sea of Galilee with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God he saw at the water's edge two boats he left uh two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their Nets he got into one of the boats the one belonging to Simon now here's a point that I think's important for us to remember this was not as we've just read this this was not the first time Jesus and Simon had met when Jesus stepped on Simon's boat here in Luke Chapter 5 they were already acquainted with one another it wasn't a chance encounter that that Jesus chose Peter's boat they knew each other at this point uh they had probably two previous meetings at least the first is the one that we just read about in John chapter 1 where John testified that Jesus was the son of God and when Andrew Peter's brother brought Jesus tomb and and said you know look we're just convinced this is the Messiah um but the second time was in Luke chapter 4 where we sort of see this uh healing that took place where and and I get the sense that this took place before when Peter's mother-in-law was uh was healed this was probably before he had become a disciple so this is the point he he gets into the boat we're in Luke

5:3 he got into one of the boats the one belonging to Simon and he asked him to put out a little from the shore and then he sat down and taught the people from the boat when he had finished speaking he said to Simon put into deep water and let down the nets for a catch and Simon answered Master we've worked all night and we haven't caught anything but because you say so I'll let down the

Nets right Peter wouldn't have done this for anybody else but he was doing this because Jesus said so and he was doing this because

John the the one that Peter was a disciple of John is now basing his decision about Jesus on I mean Peter is basing his decision on Jesus about John's testimony of him and the previous encounters he had so Peter allowed Jesus to use his boat and even put down his newly washed Nets back into the water because as he says because you say so so it gives us a little bit of uh insight into uh John's character so

um verse

eight verse six rather when they had done so right and this is that beautiful uh catch that they have when they had done so they caught such a large number of fish that their Nets began to break so they signaled their Partners in the other boat to come and help

them so full that they began to sink and when Simon Peter saw this he fell at jesus' knees and said

go away from me Lord I'm a sinful man so I guess one of the things that I'll bring up here brothers and sisters is that Peter's reaction wasn't a desire for Jesus to go away you know that's what it says in the NIV but it really wasn't a desire for for for Jesus to leave but it was I think an expression of Peter's feeling of

unworthiness in the face of such Godly Glory

you know he realized he recognized that this was a miraculous event that just took place and based on that he was expressing really nothing different than what we saw Moses say on Mount Si uh when he did exceedingly fear and Quake I don't know if you remember that expression you know in Isaiah uh Isaiah said woe to me I am a sinful man or or woe to me I am ruined I think he said so these are sort of Expressions that I think are common in the face of Glory Daniel said something how you know said something similar he said you know how can I stand and how can I talk with you my strength is

gone I think that's what was happening here when when Peter uh experienced this so they pulled up their boats on Shore it concludes this section includes in verse 11 of Luke 5 so they pulled their boats up on shore left

everything and followed him so I wanted to try to pull that out a little bit because when we think of the calling of the first disciples what we see is not some Blind

Faith where Peter is just following any guy that just just came and said follow me he is following Jesus based on reason and based on

evidence for us as Disciples of Jesus we have faith which is the evidence of things not

seen what we see in Peter's life was evidence of things that he did see and he did hear he heard John the Baptist Proclaim who Jesus was he saw Jesus perform the Miracles he spent time with Jesus and based on that he was able to then give up

everything and follow our

Lord so I wanted to start there to sort of build Peter up in our minds to see this this growth of uh of faith in the man and we're going to see this Faith continue so as we see the faith continue now think about

um the crowds that begin to follow Jesus Peter is among the first of his disciples but when we come to John chapter 6 we see the the crowds following Jesus and Jesus is at the peak of his um popularity if you will and it's at this point in time time that Jesus begins to teach hard lessons do you remember that so let's turn over to John chapter 6 and we're going to uh dip into this point where Jesus is looking at the

crowds who are demanding of him proof of his

authority so they don't want to just follow him they want Jesus to prove to him to them who he is and why they should follow him so John chapter 6 verse 25 as an example um When the Crowds found him on the other side of the lake they asked him Rabbi when did you get here and Jesus says I tell you the

truth you speaking to the crowds are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate Loaves and had your fill so the crowds were you know following Jesus not because of his teaching but because of what they ate they followed him for loaves not for love

right so Jesus now is going to in essence test the crowd and he teaches a a hard lesson in verse 35 John

6:35 then Jesus said I'm the bread of life he who comes to me will never go hungry he who believes in me will never be

thirsty um we come all the way down to verse 41 it says and the Jews began to Grumble about him because he said I'm the Bread of

Heaven they said is this not Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know how can he now say I've come down from heaven and then Jesus goes on and sort of doubles down and gives an even harder teaching for them to accept in verse 53 I tell you the truth unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you know he's talking to um you know Jews who follow strict dietary rules and regulations and he's saying you've got to eat the blood of the of me you know you've got to drink my blood and eat my flesh I mean it just was too difficult for them to comprehend and understand and it's it because of these things in verse 66 of this chapter we see from that time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him and Jesus says to the Core group of Disciples of one of whom is

Peter you don't want to leave me too do you Jesus asked the 12 Simon Peter answered himl to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life so again we're seeing you know Peter built up here Peter at a at a strong point in faith while all the Crowds Are Falling Away Jesus recogniz uh Peter recognizes that Jesus still he's still realizes and still believes that Jesus is the Messiah and in uh chapter if you turn over to Matthew chapter

16 uh we'll look at the 13th through the 19th

verses when Jesus came to the region of ciceria Philippi he asked disciples who do you think the son of man is and some replied that you're John the Baptist and others Elijah but who do you say I am and Simon Peter answered you're the Messiah

the son of the Living God so while all the crowds were falling away Peter's Faith was strong Peter's Faith was strong and sure and that confession in the in the face of uh the disillusionment of so many was the confession in which Jesus Built his Ecclesia right that you are the Messiah so again what we're trying to do is show like these periods in Peter's life where he exhibited great faithfulness and then we're also going to see the flip side of the coin so

um let's let's think about that for a moment now so when we think of Peter's calling we see that Peter is sort of spiritually unemployed after John the Baptist has been impr prisoned he's got nobody to follow he's gone back to fishing

we see that uh he you know he's prac practicing his trade and when he's practicing practicing his trade at one point he's asked by Jesus to throw out his newly cleaned Nets into the water and because you said so I will do it this is what Peter

replies now I want you to think brothers and sisters to that time in Peter's life where he wasn't at that Zenith of Faith we're going to now fast forward through this period of time where Jesus begins to

teach about his impending death by

crucifixion and we're going to see how Peter begins with great

confidence but soon falters in faith and of course I think you know where we're going here

um let's let's look at um let me get my notes

here um let's start by flipping over to Mark chapter 8 so at the end of Mark it's where we first see Jesus begin to describe or begin to teach that he's going to

die we'll look at the 31st

verse

says he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders Chief priests and teachers of the law and must be killed and after three days rise again and he spoke plainly about this and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him but when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples he rebuked Peter get behind me Satan he said you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men can imagine that you know Peter's intentions were good here in his in his thought process he's intending to protect his Lord so much so that he's even going to lay down his life for Jesus so that he can protect him Peter didn't fully understand that Jesus had to suffer before he could become king and so what happens next as we see this episode of the

Transfiguration where Peter catches a glimpse of the future Glory that is to be revealed to Jesus upon his

resurrection it says um in chapter nine of Mark Mark 9 verse one where uh Jesus turns to them and he says I tell you the truth some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come in its power and the very next passage in verse two shows us that coming power of the kingdom of God in Vision six days after Jesus promised that some would see the kingdom before death Peter James and John witnessed the Victory and witnessed the glory that awaited Jesus after his death they witnessed the glory of the coming king um Peter speaks of about that in one of his letters I think it's second Peter chapter 1 where he talks about that so what happens is um they were transfigured they were transformed before him his clothes became dazzling white whiter than anyone in the world could bleach and there appeared before them Elijah and Moses who were talking with Jesus and Peter said to Jesus Rabbi it's good for us to be here let's put up three shelters you know Jesus purpose was to fulfill the law on the prophets so it was fitting for Moses and Elijah to be there but Peter he wanted to erect sort of tents I think to replicate the tent of meeting where God's glory was manifest Peter doesn't know what to do but you know the purpose of of Us coming here is to show the the Heights and the depths to which Peter goes so his promise to Jesus you know look when Jesus explains that he's going to have to die die and Peter sort of takes him aside and says you know let it not be so that sort of continues on even after the

Transfiguration um let's look at Matthew now we'll go to Matthew chapter

26 uh verse

33 Peter replied even if all fall away on account of you I never will I tell you the truth Jesus answer answered this very night before the rooster crows you will disown me three times but Peter declared even if I have to die with you I'll never disown you and this was sort of the faith that he had I mean he was prepared to die for

Jesus um the violence then that that occurred in the garden next um you know shows us that Peter was you know prepared to to put to action his his claim that he would die for Jesus you know it was Peter that pulled out his sword and struck the the ear of of this man because he was prepared to die for Jesus it was Peter who had the courage when all the other disciples fled it was Peter who had the courage to enter the garden you know where Jesus was being tried before Caiaphas and before

Annis um and it was at this point in time that of course we read about the denials of Peter uh the first Denial in John chapter 18 where you know the little girl sort of encourages him you weren't one of them were you oh no I wasn't and you know one thing leads to another

um so what happens next I mean we we don't need to necessarily go through all of these details because they're so familiar to us probably but I

think the exhortation for us brothers and sisters is that we need to know our spiritual

limitations and we know and we should avoid hanging around places of danger and Temptation maybe um you know you think of the feeding of the 5000 you know when the crowds were there they wanted to make Jesus uh you know King even if they had to do so by force right and what does Jesus do he takes his disciples and he puts them in a boat and he sends them off so that they would avoid that Temptation I think Peter needed to make sure that he didn't fall into temptation so after his earlier denials and he's now confronted by this relative of uh the man he tried to kill

um let's we can we can go there that's uh John chapter 18 verse

26 as Simon Peter stood warming himself he was asked uh you're not one of his disciples are you and he denied it saying I'm not and one of the high priest's servants a relative of the man whose ear he had cut off challenged him didn't I see you with him in the Olive Grove and again Peter denied it

and at that moment a rooster began to Crow

um it was at this moment brothers and

sisters that Jesus was probably being transferred from annus to Caiaphas he's leaving Annis he's leaving you know going between these two men who are trying him and this is where Peter denies him that third time and Jesus looks and sees the whole thing transpire before him he witnessed the entire event we see that in Luke chapter 22 I'll just read it for you it's in verse

60 Peter replied man I don't know what talking about and just as he was speaking the rooster crowed and the Lord

turned and looked straight at

Peter then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him before the rooster crows today you'll disown me three times and he went outside and wept

bitterly what we're going to see next brothers and sisters is the personality of Jesus

Jesus there are times in all of our lives where we fail our

Lord and how we respond to those failures is sort of the key to the lesson tonight and what we're going to see is that we have a lord we have a master who loves us and wants us to come back to him no matter our failings

and I think this is going to be evident when we see how

Jesus interacts with Peter our Lord was

concerned about the impact on Peter's life when Peter disowned

Jesus he saw Peter weeping and going outside in you know just

sheer shame

and what we find is that after Jesus

resurrection the angel in the Tomb sent the

women

where they sent the women

specifically and especially to Peter and to me this gives us a real sense of of how much our Lord loved Peter and wanted to make sure that this failure in his life did not become

permanent when I sent my email out today about class I quoted Winston Churchill and and Winston Churchill said failure is not

permanent he said that it was you know the desire to continue that was most important and what Jesus wanted to do is see Peter not

fail forever but bounce back so when he's raised the Angels go and especially tell Peter we see that in Mark chapter

16 um I know we're turning our our Bibles quite a bit tonight but I think that can be a good exercise every once in a while so Mark chapter 16 and I'll read verses six and seven

um don't be alarmed he saidou looking for Jesus the Nazareth the Nazarene who was crucified he's risen he's not here see the place where they laid him but go tell his

disciples and

Peter what an odd thing to

say tell his disciples and Peter it was as though in Peter's mind he no longer considered himself a disciple it was as though in Peter's mind he had failed his Lord so much that he couldn't even fathom the idea that he was a disciple of Jesus was it that he had given up was it that he had fallen away fully and so the Angels go to tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus is

risen and when Jesus made his appearance again after the

resurrection he showed himself first to

Peter turn to uh First Corinthians and here Paul uh under inspiration talks about that 1 Corinthians chapter 15 this of course is the resurrection chapter and we'll look at uh the beginning at verse three Paul says for what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to

Peter and then to the 12 so the first thing that Jesus does is it's as though he seeks out Peter with the intention of saving him from his

failures look at Luke Luke chapter

24 similar

thing we see Jesus wanting to reassure Peter of his love Luke

24:33 they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem there they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying it's true the Lord has risen and is appeared to

Simon then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them so we're reading of course of this account of the disciples on the road to emus and how Jesus you know had appeared to them alive so again Jesus wants to reassure Peter of his love he wants to make it easy for Peter who has failed so you know so

spectacularly to not view himself as a former disciple but as one who can and should and would be welcomed back into the fold and brothers and sisters I think that's such a wonderful lesson for us so now I'd like you to turn with me to John chapter 21 and it's here in this chapter where we see Jesus being

reinstated

um this this welcoming back was not unconditional you know Peter had to choose to come back and Jesus wanted to make it easy for Peter to make that choice but he still needed to choose so we're in John chapter 21 we'll look at verse

15 when they had finished eating Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon son of John do you truly love me more than these yes Lord he said you know that I love

you and Jesus said feed my lambs and again you know these three questions you know do you love me do you love me and each time Jesus is responding in the affirmative in the affirmative and it's just showing us that yes he had to

um he had to choose and if he did he'd be welcomed back now at this point brothers and sisters I want to pause and I want you to think back to the beginning of the class where

Peter had fallen you know had sort of fallen into spiritual

unemployment John the Baptist was imprisoned Peter had stopped following John and had gone back to his career as a

fisherman he was spiritually unemployed and he went back to his trade of fishing and Jesus came and told him to put out his Nets and he

did next what we see is uh this conclusion where Peter has been reinstated by Jesus and this takes place in a very similar way Peter views himself as spiritually unemployed he has denied Jesus at the most critical point when he was prepared to lay down his life for Jesus he failed him not once but three times and he views himself as such a failure that in his mind I think he can't even consider himself to be a disciple anymore he's spiritually unemployed and what does he do chapter 21 of John gives us an idea says in verse one after Jesus appeared again to the disciples by the Sea of tiberias it happened this way Simon Peter Thomas called dimus Nathaniel from Canaan in Galilee the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples were together verse three here's the point I want to highlight Peter says I'm going out to fish he's like I give up I failed I I'm not worthy I'm going back to my old way of life the situation is almost identical to what we saw early on in Jesus ministry where in where where Peter has gone out to fish after John the Baptist has been prisoned um he's gone back to his trade this time Jesus puts uh Peter puts out his Nets again and at this point Jesus says do you love me more than these right do you remember that and I guess the question is uh so that's uh John 21:15 do you truly love me more than these and what's

these I think it's his his trade do you love me more than the than the the Nets do you love me more than your old way of

life and Peter says yeah I do feed my sheep and to me that's the lesson brothers and sisters that's the

lesson we need to be able to bounce

back we're going to see one more occasion where Peter bounces back so the first sort of comparison was this comparison where Peter has almost identical circumstances one early on in his life one at the end of uh Jesus min Ministry after the resurrection you know so the same circumstance Peter comes back to the Lord um second example is what we see in

um in the actual failure of Peter when he disowns Jesus those three

times Peter has again he's one of the only of the disciples only two of them followed to the to this trial the others never even appeared Peter had the courage to do so but he was afraid at the sort of the power of Annis and Caiaphas that they could snap their fingers and Peter could lose his life and later on in life Peter finds himself before Annis and Caiaphas again so turn with me to Acts chapter 4 and here in Acts chapter 4 we'll see

the second chance where Peter is in front of these two men once again but this time he's no longer afraid this time he's no longer going to disown Jesus to the contrary Peter is going to stand up and Proclaim loudly his belief in the Risen Lord Jesus so we'll look at uh acts 4 verse

1 the the context here here is uh Peter and John are before the high you know the high court the Sanhedrin in Israel and uh they're there because they've been preaching that Jesus was the Messiah that while he had been crucified by the leaders in Israel and by the Roman authorities he was alive again and so it says in chapter 4 verse one that the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people and they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the Dead And They seized Peter and John because it was evening they put them in jail until the next day this was the very thing that Peter was so afraid of when he was in The Garden that night when Jesus was on trial he was afraid that he was going to be seized and put in jail

himself and now he finds himself in the same

situation but many who heard the message verse four believed and the number of men grew to about 5,000 and the next day the rulers elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem look what it says in verse six Annis the high priest was there and so was Caiaphas it's like Peter has a doover Peter is given a second chance before the very many was most afraid of before John Alexander and the other men of the high priest family and says verse 7 they had Peter and John brought before them and they began to question them by what power and what name do you do this and Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them rulers and Elders of the people if we're being called to account today for act of kindness showed to a

and are asked how he was heal he then know this you and all the people of Israel it's by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead that this man stands before you healed and that's the second chance brothers and sisters that's Peter bouncing back you know giving a doover and I think in all of our Lives we will find ourselves failing at one point or another and the the thing I want to emphasize is the importance of not giving up not feeling as though you are spiritually unemployed but to recognize the power of forgiveness as brother Harry tenant said forgiveness offers us a springboard towards renewed Faith so let us renew our faith in spite of the challenges that we face in spite of the the disappointments that we experience in spite of our failures let us know that we have a lord who loves us we have a God who is merciful and that it is his desire that we endure in faith to the end so that we can share with all the saints of old in the glories of the Kingdom