The God of Second Chances
After graduating high school, I, like many other teenagers, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I liked computers, and the only computer related degree offered at the community college was Computer Drafting. To my adolescent mind, it seemed like the perfect fit. However, near the end of my two-year degree, I knew God was calling me into the pastorate. As any good church kid would do, at the next opportunity I changed schools and majors to follow God’s plan.
As I journeyed toward God’s plan for my life, I began to worry. I liked computers. However, I had never seen a pastor use a computer for more than word processing. This was not what I wanted for my life; I didn’t want to give up my passion in order to be a pastor. I ended up abandoning that path in order to attain a degree in computer science and become a computer programmer.
I hadn’t turned my back on the church, but I definitely put God in a box. I was so afraid of what he would do in my life that I ignored his plan in favor of my own. That obviously isn’t the end of the story. Being the pastor here at Faith Community Church of the Nazarene, we can see that I eventually accepted God’s plan. Fortunately for me, we serve a God of second chances. God gave me a chance. I began to follow, but my own fears of losing something important to me began to get in my way. I fell off the track and began heading my own direction, but the God of second chances, in a roundabout way, brought me back to where I needed to be. He gave me a second chance.
We see a similar story this week in Acts 13:6-12. We catch up with Barnabas and Paul early on in their first missionary journey. They’re travelling across the island of Cyprus when they meet a sorcerer named Bar-Jesus. We looked at similar encounter with Peter back in Acts 8 which we discussed a few weeks ago. However, Bar-Jesus is a little different. We’re told in the scripture that he is a Jew. With the number of synagogues in the area, it’d be a safe bet to say that he grew up learning about God (Yahweh). Yet somewhere along the way he decided to make his own route. Maybe he was lured by money, maybe God was telling him to do one thing but he didn’t want to listen. Whatever the reason, he grew up learning about Yahweh but somewhere along the line decided to make his own path, and it brought him pretty far. He was the adviser to the proconsul (governor) of Cyprus.
Now, he had a pretty good thing going on here. Deep down he must have known that Yahweh was the true God and that He revealed things to his prophets, not some sorcerer reading the stars in order to make a profit. He knew deep down that what he was doing was fake and wrong, so when the proconsul wanted to hear what Barnabas and Paul were preaching about, Bar-Jesus became worried. The proconsul was a smart man. If he heard what Barnabas and Paul had to say, he’d likely believe them. If he believed them then he’d eventually see that Bar-Jesus was merely a charlatan, so he does everything in his power to stop Barnabas and Paul from reaching the proconsul.
As he tries to stop them, Paul, much like Peter with Simon the Sorcerer, sees what he’s trying to do and calls him out. He lectures Bar-Jesus and strikes him blind. However, just as Peter tells Simon, “repent and pray to the Lord that he might forgive you,” indicating that forgiveness is possible, Paul makes Bar-Jesus blind saying, “You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.” This wasn’t a permanent thing.
As we see with Bar-Jesus and Simon as well as Paul (Acts 9:1-19), and most notably Jonah (Jonah 1:1-3:3), we serve a God of second chances. I am a living testament to that fact. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve strayed. This isn’t to say that you’ve been completely denying God. Maybe you’re like I was and just simply don’t want to go where he’s leading you. Maybe you know there are things in your life that aren’t quite right. If you still have breath in your lungs today, it’s not too late. God is offering you a second chance, but it’s up to you to accept it, to repent and pray to God that he might forgive you, to get on the right page and follow him. You might be afraid that he’ll make you give up something you love or enjoy, but I can promise you, he gave you your desires, and he is more than capable of fulfilling them.