A Second Chance in Life: God’s Beautiful Masterpiece

Hey, everybody. You're listening to A New Beginning, which is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners. If this program has impacted you, I'd love to hear from you. So just send an email to me at gregatharvest.org. Again, it's gregatharvest.org.

You can learn more about becoming a Harvest Partner by going to harvest.org. Pastor Greg Laurie brings an example from Scripture. We don't see the potential in our lives that God sees. We see a lump of clay. God sees a beautiful base.

We see a piece of coal. God sees a refined diamond. We see problems. God sees solutions. We see an end. God sees a new beginning. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Again, you hear all the angels are singing. This is the day, the day where life begins.

The flubs, the fumbles, the gaffes, and the goofs up close. But today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out God sees beyond the blooper to the future. Today, a good example of how God can rewrite our story. This is the day, the day where life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins. This is the day, the day when life begins.

This is the day, the day when life begins. hardships to befall his servant, but in the end, God blessed Job in a wonderful and powerful way. My point is there is protection in our life and there's always a way out of every temptation. And when the Lord lets us go through times of trial and allows us to be tempted, it's for a purpose.

He's trying to make us stronger. But remember, Jesus is praying for you. Every now and then, people will come up to me and say, you know, we pray for you, Greg, and your family every day. And if you're one of those people from the bottom of my heart, let me say, thank you so very much. There's no greater gift that you could offer to me than to say you pray for me or pray for our family or pray for our church.

Thank you so much for that. But I have to be honest with you, knowing Christ is interceding for me even means more. There's an old commentator from days gone by.

His name is Robert Murray McShane. And he made this statement, and I quote, if I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies, yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me, end quote.

I mean, think about that. Christ himself praying for you. I remember once talking with Billy Graham and I said, Billy, would you pray for me? And he prayed for me right there.

And I thought, oh man, this prayer's gonna be heard in heaven. This is Billy Graham praying it. Hey, I'm talking about Jesus himself praying for you. Because over in Romans 8, 34, we read these words. Who is he that condemns?

Christ Jesus who died, more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God. Listen, he's interceding for us. So who will separate us from the love of Christ?

So trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Yes, he was praying for Peter and he's interceding for you as well. And Jesus is saying, you'll be back, Peter.

In Luke 22, 32, Jesus says that your faith should not fail and when you have returned to me, you'll strengthen your brothers. And Peter understood that and actually wrote about it in his own epistle. First Peter 5, 10, he said, after you've suffered a little while, God will restore you and strengthen you and place you on a firm foundation. So Peter could speak from experience.

He had suffered, he had fallen and he had experienced restoration. Why was the devil targeting Peter in particular? Well, I think it's because the devil also saw Peter's potential. He could see that he was first among the apostles and when Peter said he was gonna do something, they would all usually follow. After Christ died and the cross and they hadn't seen the risen Lord yet, Peter said, I'm going fishing.

They all said, we'll go with you. He was sort of the leader. The devil often targets leaders. That's why you need to pray for those who are in leadership. Maybe you feel like you've been being tempted a lot and attacked a lot by the devil.

Maybe that's because he sees your potential as well so wear it as a badge of honor. Now there are five steps that led Peter down to his denial of Christ. Here's step number one if you're taking notes. His first step down was self-confidence.

Self-confidence. Go back to Mark 14, verse 29. Peter said to Jesus, even if everyone else desert you, I never will. And this is after the Lord revealed that Judas would betray him. So Peter's effectively saying, hey, even if Judas betrays you, I'll never let you down. And he's almost boasting at the expense of others, even if these others fall short. I, remember you gave me that new name, Rock?

I, Rocky, will never let you down. You know, it's never a good thing to boast of your commitment to Christ, especially at the expense of someone else. It's never even a good idea to boast about how much you love Jesus. Rather boast about how much he loves you. Our love is fickle.

It's often changing. God's love for us is consistent. I love how the apostle John described himself as the apostle whom Jesus loved.

Now that may almost sound arrogant. What do you mean the apostle that Jesus loved? He's just stating the facts. He loved me. I feel loved by Jesus. And we can call ourself a disciple that Jesus loves as well.

So his first step down again was self-confidence. In saying these words that I'll never deny you after Christ said he would, was actually placing unfounded confidence in himself. And it was also directly contradicting what Jesus said. Listen, Jesus said to Peter, you will deny me. When Jesus says something will happen, you can take it to the bank.

If the Bible tells us something is gonna happen in the future, trust me, it's gonna happen in the future. But in Peter's mind, even if everyone else abandoned the Lord, he never would. Look at verse 31 of Mark 14.

He says, even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you. You know, it's an interesting thing when you look in the Bible, you'll find that often men and women of God fell in the very area that they normally were strung in. And so as an example, we have Elijah. What do we think of when we think of Elijah? We think of fire, called fire down from heaven. We think of boldness, bravery, standing up there on Mount Carmel representing God.

But what happened after the fire fell on Mount Carmel? There was a contract put out on the prophet's life by Queen Jezebel and Elijah ran and hid in a cave. So he was cowardly and afraid when he was normally known for his boldness, Abraham. Well, he's the father of faith. When we think of faith, we think of Abraham. Yet he had a serious lapse of faith when he lied about Sarah being his wife, saying she was his sister because he was afraid of what would happen. How about Samson, known for his superhuman strength?

He was overthrown in his moral weakness. This is why you must never lower your guard in any area of your life. See it with self-confidence. Some important perspective from Pastor Greg Laurie from our studies in Mark 14. Today on A New Beginning, a study called A Second Chance in Life. And there's more to come in this message, including a final thought from Pastor Greg before we go today. Now, to hear anything you missed over the past half hour, just go to harvest.org and look for that message title, A Second Chance in Life. Well, Pastor Greg, we're talking about your new book, Billy Graham, The Man I Knew.

Yes. Now, Billy died just shy of his 100th birthday. And I was marveling at how many decades his ministry spanned.

It started around World War II and grew up through the time of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the turbulent 60s, the 70s with the Jesus movement, really all the way up past the dawn of the new millennium. True. And I know you have some surprises you're revealing to us drawn from your new book, including the fact that he was really good at seeing where cultural trends were headed. He really did. You know, there's an amazing video out there, you can Google it, where Billy spoke in Silicon Valley to many of the top technology people. And he took that opportunity to speak to them. And because he was so well respected, they all gathered to hear what he had to say. And as always, he shared the gospel with them. But Billy was always an early adopter of new technologies.

I've mentioned the fact that he was on television and radio and making films that had the gospel in them long before anybody else was doing it. And Billy also understood that the internet was a powerful tool, and he used that as well. Way back in 1971, Billy made this statement, and I quote, there will be worldwide lawlessness, there'll be an overemphasis on sex, and there'll be an acceleration of technology, end quote.

That sounds like a description of what's happening right now. And he understood these things were coming, and he always looked for opportunities to use these platforms to reach more people with the gospel. So this is just one of the many things I bring out in my new book called Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. The reason I wrote this book was to introduce Billy to a younger generation, you know, a generation of people that have heard his name, but they have no real point of reference.

He doesn't seem like a real flesh and blood person. But I think after reading this book, you'll feel like you met Billy Graham and even spent some time with him, and I think you'll appreciate and understand why God used him in such a singular way. So I'll send you a copy of this book, Billy Graham, The Man I Knew, for your gift of any size to our ministry. Whatever you send, it will be used to reach more people with the teaching of God's word and the proclamation of the gospel. You know that here at A New Beginning, we're one of the few ministries that actually throw the net, as I like to say, which means we invite people to come to Christ, and many do, thanks to your prayers and thanks to your financial support. So whatever you can do to help us, it's appreciated, and we'll send you your copy of Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. Yeah, it's a unique look, an evangelist's look, at the life of history's greatest evangelists.

It's a celebration of a remarkable life. Again, the title is Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. Can we send a copy your way? As Pastor Greg said, we're making it available to thank you for your donation of any size. And please know, there are no churches or large organizations covering all the expenses. No, it's only through the investments of listeners that these insights can come your way each day.

So thanks for being a partner with us. And with your donation today, be sure to ask for Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. You can write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California, 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. Call any time, that's a 24-hour phone number, 1-800-821-3300.

Or just go online to harvest.org. Well, next time, as we look further at Peter's denial of Christ, we'll see he found forgiveness and hope. Pastor Greg points out the Lord turned his mess into a message.

More next time. But before we go, Pastor Greg closes this way. I heard a story about two ducks and a frog. They like to hang out together in a pond in Farmer Brown's Field. And one summer, the little pond dried up. So the frog went to the ducks, this is a true story, and said, guys, you gotta help me out here.

I'm stuck here. But if each of you would take a stick and each of your beaks, I could hold onto the stick with my mouth and you could fly me out of here. So the ducks said, okay, we'll do it. And so they each grabbed hold of that stick with their beaks and the little frog jumped up and grabbed it with his mouth. And as they're flying out of Farmer Brown's Field, Farmer Brown's down there and he looks up and he sees this amazing sight of two ducks holding a stick in their beaks with a frog holding on by his mouth. And he said, that is an amazing thing. Who thought of that? And the frog said, I did. So he let go.

He had to take credit, right? The Bible says, pride goes before the fall. This is the day, the day when life begins. Thanks for listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for daily devotions and learn how to become a Harvest Partner at harvest.org.