New Beginnings
Grant van Boeschoten
January 20, 2007
There are a lot of golfers out there who have convinced themselves that it is OK to cheat, they even came up with a name for it so that it didn’t sound so bad. It’s called a Mulligan, a do over, a second chance.
Here is how it goes. You step up to the tee box to hit the ball and you’ve been having a pretty good day so far. 14 holes are done and your only 12 over par, which is by far the best score that you can remember achieving. So you get into your stance, you take a few practice swings and then it’s time to tee off.
But just as you are going through the swing something goes wrong. You can’t really put your finger on it but for some reason the little white ball is slicing heavily to the left, hooking towards the man made pond as visions of your best game ever are quickly dissipating in your mind.
What do you do? You cheat. You call for a mulligan; something outside of the rules. You want a do over, a second chance.
In Golf its called a mulligan, bending the rules, but in life it’s called salvation.
Salvation is a gift that comes to us from God, it is a gift that should not be available to us solely based on the fact that we don’t deserve to be saved. We are sinners and we don’t deserve life. We don’t deserve a second chance.
But God’s love reaches right through what we deserve and he shows us mercy and he shows us grace. And Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.”
And that’s the truth. If you believe in Jesus and accept him as the Lord of your Life then he forgives your sins and gives you the gift of salvation.
That means that the old has gone and the new has come. That means that your sins won’t be held against you in heaven’s court on judgment day. It is a New Beginning for Life.
Salvation is wonderful reality, but there are some people who are still living in discouragement. They have been saved from there sins, they have been given the gift of eternal life, but they remain discouraged.
This is not good.
• Discouragement robs people of the future that God created them for.
• Discouragement forces people to live in yesterday, constantly worrying about tomorrow.
• The Discouraged person finds it difficult to accept encouragement
The encouraged person wakes up in the morning and says, “Good Morning God.” The discouraged person wakes up and says, “Good God, Morning.”
The Israelites were a people living in discouragement. They were living in captivity in the land of Babylon, taken from the Promised Land because of their many sins against God.
They were at the lowest point that a nation could go. It felt as if the control had been taken from them, another King gave them their orders, another culture was forced on them.
And the Israelites were living in discouragement.
God spoke to his people through the prophet Isaiah. He said:
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NRSV)
18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Prayer – God help us to hear from you, speak & we will listen.
Do you remember back a few years when the Todd Bertuzi incident took place? Todd Bertuzi was a hockey player for the Vancouver Canucks. He was trying to pick a fight with Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche, who had injured one of Bertuzi’s teammates earlier in the season.
When Steve Moore refused to fight, Todd Bertuzi punched him from behind, causing Steve Moore to fall to the ice awkwardly. Mayhem ensued as two players from the Avalanche and two players from the Canucks dogpiled on top of Bertuzi who was on top of Moore.
What nobody knew at the time was that Steve Moore had been knocked unconscious and that there piling on along with the actions of Todd Bertuzi had caused serious injury to Steve Moore. Fans watched horrified as lay motionless on the ice for 10 minutes before being taken off by medical staff.
Well, this shook the Hockey World. Every News Station and every sports highlight show replayed, and analyzed the incident. It seemed like you could find it on any channel that you looked.
Replay after Replay of Todd Bertuzi taking down Steve Moore filled the TV sets all across Canada and much of the United States. Instant Replay technology is great, but this was overkill.
The same type of thing happens in our minds when we do something stupid. We have the ability to remember it moment by agonizing moment. And we have the ability to recall it as many times as we like.
And that is where some people find themselves living. Remembering and Reliving past mistakes over and over, but this is not good. It is not what God created us for.
It is why he said to the children of Israel, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” They were stuck in there past, reliving there mistakes, reminding themselves of the misery that they went through, and they were so busy reliving yesterday, that they missed out on the life that God offers today.
Here is the truth for you today, God is still saying, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.”
He is saying, Don’t let your past stunt your future.
This is what salvation is about, it’s new life, it’s new hope, and it’s a new beginning. We can’t keep replaying yesterday’s disappointments; we’ve got to open our eyes to what God wants to do today.
Ask yourself the question, what is more important, my past or my future? And you will find the answer in what you are living for today. You can look at how you act daily, at the thought processes that go through your mind, and you will know if you are living for your past or your future.
The Israelites were living for their past. They were so busy recalling the good old days that today got filled up with memories of yesterday.
We can be guilty of this same thing in many different areas of our own life.
In the area of finances Warren Buffet says, “The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.”
In the area of accomplishments and fulfillment Mikhail Gorbachev says, “If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.”
And with the perspective of Eternity, God says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” -Isaiah 43:18-19 (NRSV)
And God said that to the Israelites and he is saying it to you because we all need to understand that Yesterday’s Victories wont save you Today.
You see, Israel had an amazing history of God’s victories. There was the time that he brought the 10 plagues against Egypt and the Israelites were saved from Slavery.
As the Egyptian army went to recapture the Israelites God opened up the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross through on dry land. When the Egyptians gave chase God closed the sea on them and the Israelites were free.
There was the battle against the Amalakites led by Joshua. When Moses held his hands up to God they won and when Moses put his hands down they lost. So two men held Moses hands up for him and the Isrealite army had another victory.
There was the defeat of Jericho. God told the Israelites to march around it for 7 days, and then God caused the walls to crumble and the conquest of the Promised Land began.
Israel had many victories to recall, and relive, but none of those victories were going to help them today.
In the Bible, God encourages his people to have faith for each day. In the famous “Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus tells us to pray for Daily Bread. That reminds me of the Israelites when they were fully relying on God for their food as they traveled through the desert to the Promised Land.
He would send them food called Mana each morning from Heaven. God’s instruction was to only take what they needed for the day. Any mana that was left over at night would go moldy.
The truth is that they still had to get out there and take each day, they couldn’t rely on yesterday’s faith, they had to act in faith every day.
ILLUSTRATION
“Over 2,000 years ago a young Greek artist named Timanthes studied under a respected tutor. After several years the teacher’s efforts seemed to have paid off when Timanthes painted an exquisite work of art. Unfortunately, he became so enraptured with the painting that he spent days gazing at it. One morning when he arrived to admire his work, he was shocked to find it blotted out with paint. Angry, Timanthes ran to his teacher, who admitted he had destroyed the painting. ‘I did it for your own good. That painting was retarding your progress. Start again and see if you can do better.’ Timanthes took his teacher’s advice and produced Sacrifice of Iphigenia, which is regarded as one of the finest paintings of antiquity.”
Every day is a gift from God, and we are only deceiving ourselves if we think that we can live off the success of yesterday. We live looking forward, not looking back.
This is the way that the Apostle Paul lived his life, looking forward and not looking back. And it is a good thing to because Paul had a pretty nasty history to look back on, he had made some horrible mistakes.
He stood there and held the coats of the men who were stoning Stephen to death. He was persecutor of the Church, so much so that Christians scattered all over the area to get away from Paul.
But one day on the Road to Damascus Paul had an experience with God. The blinding light came down from heaven and Paul fell to the ground. God spoke to him and Paul repented of his sins. And in that moment he received the gift of salvation, in that moment all of his sins were removed from the sight of God.
Paul used to be a Christian killer, but now because of the gift of Salvation God called him righteous. God said, “I forgive you,” and Paul was a new man.
God does this miracle in Paul’s life and Paul goes on to become a missionary and a theologian. His letters to churches he founded and his letters those he mentored are included in the New Testament of the Bible.
But do you think that Paul could have done all of that if he was focused on the terrible things that he had done before he was saved? Do you think that he could have accomplished that if he had even focused on mistakes that he had made after he was saved?
I don’t think that Paul would have been a successful Christian if he was always looking back at yesterday.
Philippians 3:12-14 (NLT)
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.
13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
Paul understood that there was more to being a Christian than being forgiven of your sins. Is it important to realize that God has taken away all of your iniquities, Absolutely.
But we are also running a race. And no runner wins a race by looking back all of the time.
No, the runner who wins the prize is the runner whose eyes are focused on the goal.
J. Vernon McGee who was a popular Christian Radio Personality had this thought on the race that we run.
“Now let’s be clear on one thing: we don’t run for salvation. Salvation is not the prize. Either we have Christ or we don’t have Him. We either trust Him or we don’t trust Him. The only way we can have salvation is through faith in Christ. It is a gift. A gift is different from a prize.”
What is the prize that we are running after then. It is the prize of hearing God say to you “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” You see, when all is said and done, when your life is over, you will stand before God and give him an account of your life. Your going to have to explain yourself.
And wouldn’t it be great if you could stand before God and say, “I was obedient. I loved you and served you with all of my heart, with all of my mind and with all of my strength.”
Wouldn’t it be great if your actions stood up before God as righteous and honorable?
That is the prize that Paul is running after, because being a Christian is more than having your sins forgiven, it is living your life for the glory of God.
It’s sad when you meet an apathetic Christian, a Christian who is living as if they are entitled to the grace and mercy of God.
It is as if they are saying to God with their actions, “Of course you love me, of course you sent your son to die for my sins, of course you forgive me.”
And this sense of entitlement results in a life that is self serving instead of a life that is lived in gratitude to God.
Sometimes we get tired though, and we start to believe that we don’t have the energy to serve God with all our heart, all our mind and all our strength.
We think, I’m getting old, I’ll just take it back a few notches.
But think of how a race is run. When the end of the race is coming near, the athletes don’t back off, the try to get their second wind, they kick it into gear. And when they are almost at the finish line they stretch out as far as they can reach, because how you start is not nearly as important as how you finish.
I think that this morning some of us have got to put the past behind us. Forget about yesterday’s failures.
Are there some people today who need to have there mind renewed. I mean, you are just expecting for things to go wrong, you are so used to things that you no longer have hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Well then ask God to renew your mind, and follow God’s instructions for how to have your mind renewed, he says in Romans 12:2 (NLT), “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
In fact, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2 that we can have the mind of Christ. Who endured shame and the cross and endured every temptation that this world has to offer, but his eyes were on the prize. And he over came every evil thing and his life shows us what victory looks like.
And as Christians we can have the mind of Christ. We can think like Jesus thinks, but we have to give up control to God. We have to stop reliving yesterdays disappointments. We have believe God when he says…
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NRSV)
18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The Devil wants you to believe that its over, that you are stuck in a desert and that you will never succeed. He wants for you to constantly be watching replays of your mistakes and failures. He wants for you to focus on yesterday and he wants to convince you that today is hopeless.
But the devil is a liar, he’s the father lies, he is the prince of darkness and we serve somebody who is much greater than the devil.
Our God not only tells us the truth, Our God is the way the truth and he is life. He says that yesterday is over and that a new thing is happening today.
And I believe that God wants to see you encouraged. He wants to see you full of life, full of hope and full of promise. You were not created to failure, you were created by God to worship and to succeed, and don’t you dare believe anything else.
