Summary: This promise was made to the Jewish nation when they were reeling from judgment and the consequences of their own actions. Have you ever had to face the consequences of your own actions? Wouldn't it be nice if, at that time, you got handed a mulligan?

God Gives a Mulligans

PPT 1 Title

First I want to discuss when we give a mulligan.

For those who don't know let me explain mulligans. Mulligans are do-overs for bad shots in golf. I am not a very good golfer so I have become a connoisseur of mulligans out of necessity. The guys I play with have 3 kinds of mulligans:

1. First hole first shot You are just starting out and need to get warmed up. Since this is the first Sunday of the New Year we could call that the New Year's mulligan. In other words if you make some sort of resolution, and slip, give yourself a mulligan and start over. It's nice to allow yourself a mulligan.

2. During the round if you mess up a drive. We will call that the whoopsie mulligan

3. Pastor privilege mulligan. Since I am usually the worst golfer when I play with the men of the church, they give me a couple extra mulligans during the round, if I need them. We will call that the we don't want you to quit mulligan. (Or preach an mean angry sermon on Sunday!) But even to some of the better players if they are having a really bad day we may tell them not to count a shot. It's better to give a mulligan that to have someone quit in frustration. God would rather give you a mulligan than for you to quit the race, and throw in the towel.

So we give mulligans because we know we will mess up, because it takes some of the pressure off, and if we don't make allowances friends may quit. Now let's talk about when God gives mulligans. We are going to look at two short passages of scripture, here is the first:

PPT 2 - 4 Text

Isa 43:15 "I am the LORD, your Holy One, The Creator of Israel, your King."

Isa 43:16 Thus says the LORD, Who makes a way through the sea And a path through the mighty waters,

Isa 43:17 Who brings forth the chariot and the horse, The army and the mighty man (They will lie down together [and] not rise again; They have been quenched [and] extinguished like a wick):

Isa 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past.

Isa 43:19 "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.

This promise was made to the Jewish nation when they were reeling from judgment and the consequences of their own actions. Have you ever had to face the consequences of your own actions? Wouldn't it be nice if, at that time, you got handed a mulligan? That is exactly what God is doing to the Jewish nation. Turn to your neighbor and say, "God gives mulligans." Now add, "and so should you!"

That is a good sermon right there.

1st thing I want you to know about when God gives a mulligan, is that it is a clean break with the past.

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Isaiah 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past.

It is of no benefit to live your life in the broken pieces of yesterday. God says let it go. Don't bring it up again. You can't go forward looking backwards. (Illustrate by trying to walk forwards while looking backwards.) Some people want to live in the mistakes of yesterday. (Either yours or theirs.) God on the other hand prefers to leave the past on the cross. (Yours and theirs!)

Here is an interesting passage that I think fits nice with this point.

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Exodus 12:1 Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,

Exodus 12:2 "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.

In this passage God is saying I don't care about the calendar you have, I don't care about the history you have, I want you from this point forward to make a clean brake with the past God was saying that He was making:

1. A Line In the Sand, a demarcation of time. A rewriting of the calendar!

A now and a then. The past and the future which never are to meet.

An exact point of reference. "THIS MONTH shall be the beginning of months for you." Not next month, not next year, this month. This is a word for someone today. A fresh start, a mulligan, a new beginning.

It is personal in its application. This month shall be the beginning of months for YOU.

It speaks of wonderful opportunity ahead. Do you remember where this word beginning is found in the bible?

Beginnings = bereshith In the bereshith God created the heavens and the earth. The word beginnings takes us back to the first chapter of the book where God began creating all things. It is as if God is saying I am rewriting your future, and even as I created all the wonderful things in the universe, this month shall be the beginning of new creations in your life and your nations journey.

It demanded a shift in thinking. This is how you are to view things, with an expectation of better, wonderful times ahead.

Now we are going to return to our first passage, because it focus's on what God will do.

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Isa 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past.

Isa 43:19 "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.

Again in this text we see God calling for a shift in thinking. Do not call to mind...

Then He begins talking about what He will do, but He also makes it very clear that His actions will be so profound there will be no doubt about whether it is happening or not.

"Will you not be aware of it?"

This is what God says He is going to do:

1. Make a roadway in the wilderness.

What God is saying to His people is that the path is about to get a lot easier. Can anybody hear use an easier path? Less hilly, easier to follow, easier to navigate. Most roads are constructed in such a way that they take the easiest path through the landscape. The steepest locations are avoided, or explosives are used to make a path through the mountains. So when God says He is going to make a roadway, He is in fact saying the path your life is taking is about to take an easier route.

If I were to spiritualize this text, I would say that God is telling His people that they will have an easier time following His will, a roadway sets the direction to go in, versus a wilderness with no markings and very little idea of which way to go. If you have a road someone has already laid out the easiest path for you. In the wilderness you are always straining for clues on which way to go. Instead of a still small voice they would now have an easier time of understanding God's will for their lives. It would no longer be a time of struggling to hear God whisper, but His voice would be clearly heard and understood. Sometimes as believers we struggle with the question, "God what should I do, which choice should I make, which direction should I go in?" This promise of a roadway was especially beneficial because even though they would have a roadway, it was still a roadway through the wilderness.

I believe that God is saying, is that in the difficult time of life, you will be hearing a clear word, a sure word, and have much assurance about the direction in which to move. The scriptures speak of a time where the heavens are as brass, but this passage is speaking of a time with a sense on an open heaven.

Next God promised:

2. Rivers in the desert.

The landscape of life is about to take a wonderful change for the better.

Not a watering hole that dries up and you are continually running for and looking for the next, but rivers in the desert. A season of refreshing. A abundant supply, while in a desert type situation. Usually in the desert, water is in short supply, this passage tells of time where the search for water will not be an issue. Water in the bible is a euphemism for both the scriptures, and the Holy Spirit. Spiritually the text speaks of a time of personal revival, while in the midst of a difficult journey. (Rivers IN the DESERT)

This reminds me of a passage and a promise in the book of Isaiah and I close with it:

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Isa 33:16 He will dwell on the heights; His refuge will be the impregnable rock; His bread will be given His water will be sure.

That is a good word. Bread given, water sure, your needs are covered.

As we close today, I have a basket full of golf balls. I want to encourage you to take one, and write on it, like I did on the one I am holding, "God gives mulligans." You will need it sometime in the year ahead, or perhaps you can give it to someone who is struggling, or being crushed under the weight of condemnation because of a personal failure.

Let's pray...

Note to pastors: Something pretty cool happened shortly after the service. I had been given a small drone for Christmas. I have a son who was home for the holidays, and he is not serving the Lord. We had taken the drone to church to fly it in the parking lot after service. He got carried away and shot it several hundred feet in the air where the wind got hold of it and he lost control. It came down hard but was still ok. He did it a second time, and this time it really got away. We lost sight of it, and I was convinced it landed on the roof of a large strip mall that abuts our property. My son drove his car to the back of the mall and was searching for the drone but couldn't see it. At the same time in the church, my wife knowing what transpired breathed a prayer for my son to find it. On a whim he decided to try the controller to see if anything would happen. He heard it above and behind him, the drone roared back to life and flew off the roof and he retrieved it. (He had to fly it in a direction he couldn't see because he didn't know which direction it was facing!) Several times that day, I mentioned to him, "God gave you a mulligan." The battery on the drone had to be near empty, the odds of it landing ride side up after a fall of several hundred feet were minute, as were the odds it would be found in one piece. But God gave my son a mulligan. Most of us have in our lives landmarks, and land mines. Landmarks are things of significance and blessings, land mines are things that hurt. The bible calls land mines stumbling blocks, and warns adults not to cause children to have any. If I were a perfect parent all my children would have are landmarks. Unfortunately, that is not true. Throughout their lives I have prayed God would give them landmarks that would help point the way home, I believe this little incident will be one of those for my son. He was worried he had lost his dads Christmas gift, and he knows God gave him a mulligan. My prayer is that it will be added to all the other landmarks he has in his life, and will point the way home for him when he realizes that he personally needs a mulligan.