You Can Start Over Again

Is. 43:16; 18-19 “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters...18 ‘Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.’”

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When my teachers wrote on chalkboards when I was a kid, I used to think that the best thing about a chalk board was that you could erase what you put up there and start all over again.

More than once I’ve wished life was like that chalk board where I could erase all my mistakes and just start all over.

But life doesn’t work that way!

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So....What do you do when you’ve made mistakes you can’t erase?

Or you’ve suffered a setback totally out of your control and it can’t be changed?

Or someone has deeply hurt you by betrayal or walking out on you, altering your life to the place you can’t go back to the way things were?

How do you pick up the pieces and begin again?

My message for you today is...No matter what mistakes you've made, or what others or life may have handed you, you can still START OVER AGAIN!

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In our text, Isaiah is speaking to the people of Judah who have suffered in Babylonian captivity for 70 long years due to their own sin...

They are demoralized, discouraged, hopeless, and doubt there can ever be a future for them after all they've done.

It was to these same people that the Prophet Jeremiah wrote one of my favorite verses:

"I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11).

So both of these major prophets brought a word of hope to them and to us all, saying:

"Because you serve a restoring, forgiving God, there is hope for a new beginning!"

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Now, through Isaiah, God gives specific details on what we can do in order to start over with a fresh, new beginning:

They are 1.) Quit looking back 2.) Start looking forward 3.) Seize your season

He says we must first,

Quit looking back

“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old."

The word "REMEMBER" here means "call to mind.”

Stop rehashing the hurts and disappointments of the past, stop hitting the replay button.

He's saying, "Quit racking your brain trying to understand what happened back there that hurt y; quit trying to figure it all out, QUIT LOOKING BACK.”

You have to Let the past go!

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Now, more times that not, what keeps people in the past is a forgiveness issue.

Either you haven’t forgiven those who hurt you, or you haven’t forgiven yourself.

You may have been very successful at forgiving others—even for a terrible offense—yet you can’t seem to forgive yourself for an equal or lesser offense.

So...Let’s talk about that second part—you haven’t forgiven yourself.

We’ve all had those times when we can’t believe we said that certain thing, yielded to that certain sin, or traveled down that forbidden road...

We know we were wrong.

We’ve talked to God about it.

We’ve admitted it, confessed it, and received God’s forgiveness.

And yet something still lingers on in our conscience...

We know we’re forgiven, but we still punish ourselves.

Sometimes people even make a secret vow with themselves to never forgive themselves...

Deep down you believe there is some type of life-long penance you should pay, even though Christ’s blood has washed your sin away.

Now, think with me a moment—When Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ did that also include forgiving ourselves?

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LISTEN: Forgiving yourself is crucial to moving forward.

For instance, what would have become of the Apostle Paul’s ministry if he had not forgiven himself?

We know the terrible things he did because he confesses them in his writings.

He told the Corinthians, “For I am the least worthy of all the apostles, and I shouldn’t even be called an apostle at all after the way I treated the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9).

And then to the Galatians he went further, “I went after the Christians mercilessly, hunting them down and doing my best to get rid of them all” (1:13).

And to King Agrippa he just let it all out: “I used to believe that I ought to do many horrible things to the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 I imprisoned many of the saints in Jerusalem, as authorized by the High Priests; and when they were condemned to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 I used torture to try to make Christians everywhere blaspheme Christ. I was so violently opposed to them that I even hounded them in distant cities in foreign lands” (Acts 26:9-11).

Yet this same Paul the Apostle advised to, “Forget what lies behind...” (Phil 3:13)

And in another place he said, “I judge not my own self” (1 Cor. 4:3).

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And what about Peter? Who denied the Lord 3 times, the 3rd time in Jesus’ hearing?

He probably replayed the tape of those denials over and over in his mind.

His guilt drove Peter to bitter tears, and then to a flimsy attempt to return to his old life of fishing.

It took a personal visit from the resurrected Jesus to bring him to a place of accepting Christ’s love, and of forgiving himself.

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LISTEN: Forgiving yourself will change the direction of your life.

You might need to pray something like this:

Dear Heavenly Father, I confess the secret vows I have made to never forgive myself. Because Jesus died for my sins, I choose to forgive myself—to no longer punish myself and be angry with myself. In Jesus name, amen.

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Once you’ve quit looking behind, you must...

II. Start looking forward

Paul said, “Forgetting what lies behind, and reaching forward to the things ahead...” (Phil 3:13)

The word “reaching” is a word signifying great effort—It pictures an athlete throwing himself into a race with all his energies, straining forward to the max.

God turns our gaze forward through Isaiah with the promise, “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth;” (vs.19)

The original language here actually reads, "It has already begun, don't you see it?"

In other words, “Look ahead, look around you, quit looking back, look forward, I’m moving on your behalf!”

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He describes how God’s new beginnings manifest:

"It shall spring up like the grass springs from the ground; or it shall bud forth like the opening of flower petals."

Gradually, beautifully, and miraculously, God brings new beginnings into our life.

New doors start opening, fresh opportunities begin to appear...

It might be new friendships, or new opportunities, or fresh goals, or exciting new ministry...

Whatever it might be, quit looking back and start looking forward with expectation!

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So, we’re to quit looking back, start looking forward, and the last instruction God gives for new beginnings is...

III. Seize your season

God promises, "I will even make a road in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."

Now, if God makes a road, it's useless unless you walk on it.

If He makes a river in a desert place, it’s useless unless you stoop down and drink from it!

God is encouraging us to courageously seize the season of new things!

We know from history that the majority of Judah DID NOT return to Jerusalem when the door opened for them to leave Babylon.

God gave them a brand new season of freedom and opportunity but they didn’t seize it!

The Bible says, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecc. 3:1).

There is a time given to us by God to seize our season and grow.

Paul said, “Redeeming the time, (making the most of every opportunity) because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).

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Peter seized his season! After his dismal failure of denying Jesus, he accepted Christ's forgiveness, forgave himself, and began again as the great Apostle to the Jews.

Paul did too! He accepted Christ's forgiveness, forgave himself, and stepped into the new road God placed before him as the Great Apostle Paul!