"The God of a Second Chance"- The Apostolic Connection
by Kenneth Carpenter
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Romans 8:35-39, Jeremiah 18:1-8, 2 Samuel 12:18-25

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/kenneth-carpenter--the-god-of-a-second-chance-the-apostolic-connection
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Let us put our hands together We want to welcome you today to the Apostolic Connection The weekly televised service of the First Apostolic Church here in Maryville, TN I’m Pastor Kenneth Carpenter and we welcome you to our Sunday morning worship service Our prayer is that you will feel the wonderful warmth of God’s spirit Just like we are experiencing it here today and we are so thankful To have you with us today in our worship service Turn with me the book of Romans eight, verse thirty-five Choir song said I am forgiven, there is no more condemnation I have been given a second chance, I believe. Is that is what you sang choir? I have been given a second chance I did not confer with Brother and Sister Erickson about what the choir was going to sing But it was probably good because now I know beyond a shadow of any doubt That the Lord spoke to me about what to say Romans chapter eight verse thirty-five. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Should tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness or pearl or sword As it is written, for Thy sake we are killed all the day long We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels Nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come Nor height nor death nor any other creature Shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord You may be seated today. I want to speak for a few moments on the telecast God of a second chance I will tell you today I am deeply humbled and deeply broken When I began to meditate upon the love of God His love is beyond, at least it is beyond my comprehension Because I cannot fathom, I cannot truly grasp how great God’s love is No one has a greater love than God I must tell you that at times, I am moved to tears And at times I am moved to a spirit of unworthiness When I just think about how great God’s love truly is I cannot come to the end of it. I cannot grasp The writer Paul, he said that, he gives a cry Of who would separate us from that love Who could separate us He gives the names of several things that can happen in life Then he says that we have become more than conquerors, in verse thirty-seven That we are more than conquerors through God who loves us In other words the factor of God’s love is the thing that motives me To get up and fight again. The love of God is a tremendous motivator. After I have failed Him, to get up and fight again, get back up, get back in the race Go at it again, fight again, pray again, try again The love of God is a great motivator And then Paul just went off the map when he began to say, I am persuaded And that’s really something that we need to work on Is being persuaded about the love of God Because God doesn’t give up on us, we give up on God But God does not give up on us He said, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels verse thirty-eight, nor angels, principalities Powers, nor things present nor things to come Nor height nor death nor any other creature He just wrote a blank check, he said any other creature Would be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus This love of God, this love of God, church, did not begin when God became a man In Bethlehem’s manger. It did not begin when Jesus began to teach God’s love has always been because God is love Although the Old Testament, and may I add, the New Testament Have events of God’s wrath. He is a God of wrath, He is a God of anger But that is only after God’s love has been totally rejected In Jeremiah chapter eighteen verse number one The Bible said the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying Arise and go down to the potter’s house and I will cause thee to hear my words Then I went down to the potter’s house and behold he wrought a work on the wheel And the vessel that he made of clay was mired in the hand of the potter So he made it again, another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it Then the word of the Lord came to me saying Oh house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, saith the Lord Behold as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in My hand, oh house of Israel At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom To pluck up or to pull down and destroy it if that nation against whom I have pronounced Turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do onto them. So God says, I want Israel who is totally backslidden I want this backslidden Israel to hear what I have to say about her Go down to the potter’s house. He went down and he watched the potter The master potter as he worked a beautiful vessel upon the wheels The stone wheel was turning and the potter’s vessel was forming with each curve The potter was making this beautiful vessel there But right when the vessel was in the potter’s hand The potter picked up something, a rock, a fragment, something inside the clay That would later damage it. So he absolutely would take his fist And would stop. And the same hands that would form would now turn into fists And he would beat the clay back into a lump not identfiable just a lump of clay But that wasn’t the end. He didn’t say discard this lump of clay to the junk He began to turn the wheels again and he made him another vessel as pleased the potter Do you know why God wanted Jeremiah to see that? Because He was going to take Israel, whom he had a Plan A for He had a perfect plan for. He had a calling for. But Israel allowed sin To come into the vessel. And because Israel allowed sin to come in God could not allow Israel to go on in that shape and in that state So He didn’t give up, he didn’t cast away, He simply made it again Another vessel as pleased Him The choir said He’s the God of a second chance The choir said there is now no more condemnation Saints of God, those who are watching today, whomever you may be this morning I’ve got good news, I’ve got great news, I’ve got joyful news I’ve got true news today. And that is although you may have messed up in the potter’s hand He is able to take you again And make you into another vessel as will please Him I cannot fathom this great love of God. I cannot fathom this great love of God Well let’s bring it down to a person Maybe a lump of clay doesn’t quite get you to understand this Let’s bring it down to a man with a tremendous testimony Let’s say that he’s the man that’s said about him, He’s a man after God’s own heart But don’t get too mesmerized after God’s own heart Because you need to recognize the first thing that says, a man, a man This man who had been used to have faith to kill a giant This man whose hand had been used to write songs This man allows himself to get in a spiritual position and condition That leads him to make decisions based on passion and extremely poor judgment He violates God’s commandments. Because somehow passion Deadens his convictions He calls for a woman to be brought to his house who he has watched bathed herself He calls for this women, Bathsheba to come and he had a one-night encounter with her He sent her away, his passions were sufficed and he sent her away Only a few days later to have that same woman send word to his house that she was pregnant She would definitely lose her life when found out she committed adultery David would have a scandal upon his kingdom. David would be brought in. So this same man schemes. I don’t have time on this telecast today That he went to scheming to try to cover up his sin Can I tell you, nothing will cover up your sin but the blood of Jesus Your sin needs to be covered but nothing will cover them but the blood of Jesus David ends up with the same hand that took the slingshot and killed Goliath The same hand that strummed a harp as he sang songs The same hand that wrote psalms Looks at Bathsheba’s husband and says, wait a minute soldier, before you go back to battle I need you to take a letter back to your commander in chief Obviously Uriah knew not what David was writing But this is what he was writing Joab, when Uriah comes back to the battle Put him in the front of the hottest battle you are fighting Tell the men around Uriah not to tell him this But tell the men around Uriah to retire back from him That he definitely be smitten and die For whatever reason, Uriah didn’t know why, but he was shoved to the front of the line And he found himself fighting all by himself Uriah dies on the battlefield at the hand of the enemy News comes back to the palace that Uriah the soldier has died And David, still covering up, makes a political move to take the fallen soldier’s wife Oh how honorable this made David look He would feel sorry for Uriah and take his wife into his concubine And there he would raise Uriah’s supposedly unborn son Well we know that Uriah dies, Bathsheba marries David, the baby is born David sits on the throne of his kingdom sighs a sigh of relief I dodged a bullet that time, I dogged that one But yet his preacher shows up and his preacher tells him He says, David I’ve got a little something that’s happened in the kingdom David was mighty fond of sheep. David loved sheep. He was very fond of sheep If you ever find an animal lover, you will find someone very open if they Ever see an animal mistreated I am one, I am a true animal lover My kids claim that I only call home, when I’m away from home, to check on the dogs And there may be some truth to that They can eat on their own but the dogs can’t you know But David loved sheep, he was a little shepherd boy The preacher says, David I’ve got a little story something’s gone on in the kingdom That I think I need to bring to your attention He says there was a very wealthy man who had many sheep Had a traveler come to him in the middle of the night, the traveler was hungry And that wealthy man, instead of going out to his fold and getting one of thousands That he could have killed and made a meal, he went in the darkness of the night Across the road, down the field and went into a lot where there was a poor man A very poor man who had one little sheep. He said that one little sheep was so dear to that man That that one little ewe slept with that man. He said as a matter of fact That one little ewe sheep and that man were so close That they both drank out of the same cup and ate out of the same bowl. He said, that’s how close they were. He said, that man went into that house and stole that one little ewe lamb and butchered it David had heard all he could hear. His veins protruded in his neck, his face turned red He bounced off his thrown with his fist doubled up and he pronounced judgment Bless God he pronounced it quick. He said the man that has done this shall surely die He will pay four times over for what he’s done. Only to hear the sobering stab Of his preacher say, You’re the man, You’re the man David. You’re the man, David. You’ve got hundreds of concubines, you’ve got hundreds of women out here That you could have shared a night of passion with but you took Uriah’s wife from him David said I have sinned. And the man of God said yes, and God has put away your sin But yet the baby is going to die. You’re going to pay, you’re going to pay for this David The Bible said in second Samuel twelve and eighteen, it came to pass On the seventh day that the child died. The servants of David feared to tell him That the child was dead for they said, behold while the child was yet alive We spake onto him and he would not harken onto our voice How will he then vex himself if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David saw that his servants whispered David perceived that the child was dead Therefore David said onto his servants, is the child dead And they said he is dead Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself And changed his apparel and came into the house of God, worshipped Then he came to his own house and when he required They set breed before him and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou has done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive But when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread And he said, While the child was yet alive I fasted and wept For I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him but he shall not return to me David knew something. He knew something of God’s love He fasted and prayed because he said there just might be a chance God will be gracious to me. But when it came and they said the baby was dead David had to know this, that the baby was never coming back The situation will never be able to be right I will never be able to correct my past my mistakes I’ll never be able to go back but I shall go forward, I shall go to He changed his garment, he went into the house of God and he worshipped the Lord Verse twenty four, and David comforted Bathsheba his wife And went in unto her and lay with her and she bare a son And he called his name Solomon and the Lord loved him And he sent by the hand of Nathan, this is the same prophet that preached to him And he called his name Jedediah because of the Lord Can I tell you that I see the love of God displayed beautifully in David’s sin Because David had done wrong and David would pay for it You know the four-fold, you see nobody, when we sin, nobody gets away with sin We pay for that sin. That four-fold that David talked about, that David paid four sons were murdered. As a matter of fact, one son killed the other son due to passion And so David paid for it with four sons. But David did not live his life In the room of regret and punishment. He is a God of a second chance. David got up said, I can’t fix what I’ve done wrong. We need to just understand As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, in closing today Several years ago I preached a sermon and I simply entitled it Bury Uriah, Marry Bathsheba and Let Solomon Be Born Your Uriah mistakes you’ve made today, sir, ma’am your Uriah mistakes you’ve made All your tears, all your pill popping all your psychics and your counselors Will never help you resurrect your Uriah He’s gone, he’s dead, it happened, and you did it But you need to bury it. You need to put it down Listen somebody told me the other day about a person And they said they have skeletons in their closets I said number one what are you doing in their closet You don’t need to be in their closets Friend I’m going to tell you skeletons don’t belong in closets Skeletons belong in graveyards, that’s where skeletons belong Is in a graveyard?  And aren’t you thankful that the great love of Jesus Christ Has a graveyard of mercy and grace that I can bring my Uriah Oh hallelujah, that I can bring my Uriah mistakes to?