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God’s Leaders are Restored
July 2006 by Ted Schroeder

Read
Judges 16:23–31; John 21:15–19 and Mark 5:25–34. What similarities do you see?

“Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.’” (Matthew 18:21–22).

Because of our emphasis on forgiveness, Christians have been called the people of the second chance. Jesus takes the thing a bit farther. Not people of the second chance—people of the seventy-seventh chance. Startling? Certainly it was to Peter. But God has always been almost unbelievably ready to restore the fallen and needing ones.

Remember Samson? Judges 16 shows him to be a violent and selfish person. And yet he was given another chance and again became an agent of God’s action. Peter failed. He denied Jesus exactly as he was warned he would do. And yet Jesus gently restores him in love and entrusts him with a ministry to God’s “lambs and sheep.” The woman who touched Jesus’ clothes had suffered for years with her illness and sought every kind of healing. By her faith she received restoration.

We still live in a broken world. The world’s brokenness invades the church. We know that even in the church relationships are broken over what may seem like unimportant things. How often have we heard phrases like: “Unless she apologizes …” or, “I did all I could and no one even …” or even, “I’m never coming back.” Left to our own devices, even in the community of believers, broken relationships certainly bring us into conflict.

But we are the people of the seventy-seventh chance. We are the restored restorers. Charged by Jesus to forgive that absurd number of times, we do not rest until those separated by sin and hurt are brought back together again.

And we begin by remembering that each of us is Peter on the beach with Jesus. Each of us has denied him by word or action. Each of us has stumbled and fallen. Jesus might well have turned away from any of us. And yet he comes to us again and again, seeking to restore us, to heal our spirit, to put our relationship with God back together again.

Jesus said and continues to say, “You did not choose me but I chose you. . . .” (John 15:16). What else can we do but be God’s restorers?

For reflection or discussion
When have you been restored? When have you been a part of restoring someone else? How was God and God’s promise a part of those restorations?

Prayer
Lord, make us those who live by the power of your Spirit, who restore, renew, rebuild, and recreate the relationships you have given us as gifts. In the name of the one who continues to restore us. Amen.

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