How To Make A Fresh Start
Isaiah 43:18-19
How many of you here this morning, “ would like to have a fresh start in your Christian
life? ” Many of us here this morning have made many mistakes in our lives as
Christians. We have experienced many setbacks and failures throughout our
lives. Sometimes we allow these mistakes, these setbacks and failures to
enslave us to the point that we never enjoy the full Christian life that God
has given us to enjoy.
In John 10:10 Jesus said, “ I am come that you might have life and have it more
abundantly.” Then he goes on to tell us that there is an adversary, called the
Devil, that seeks to still, kill and destroy that life. The Devil will remind
us of our past in order to keep us from enjoying the life that God gave us to
live. The Devil does not want you to have a fresh start in life.
The good news is, God says, “ I want you to have a fresh start in life, I want you to
have a new beginning, I want to do something new in your life. ” Aren’t you
glad that God wants to do something new in your life? Doesn’t it make you
excited to know that God desire to give you a fresh start, a new beginning in
life. What all of us here need this morning is a Fresh Start, a New Beginning
with God. Last year some of you said, “ I am going to grow in my relationship
with God. I am going to pray more, read my bible more and get more involved in
my church. I’m going to spend more quality time with my family. ” The list
could go on. The fact all of us here made some mistakes or we made some bad
decision that hindered us from doing those things that wanted to do.
Well this morning the good news is according to Isaiah 43:18 “The Lord says, `Forget about what
has happened before. Do not think about the past. Instead, look at the new
things I’m going to do. ” Listen to what God is saying in this verse. Forget
about what’s happened before. He says don’t think about the past. It’s over.
The book’s closed on it.
We need to understand that God is far more interested in our future than He is in our
past. Some people think that God is stuck on their past. That all He wants to
do is remind them of the things that they have done wrong.
God is more interested in your future than He is with your past.
That’s where you’re going to spend the rest of your life. He says, “Forget about your past.
Forget about the former things. Don’t think about it. Look at the new thing I’m
going to do.”
Israel was being punished for their sins and rebellion against God.
God wanted to give hope and encouragement to His people.
He wanted them to know that even though they were being punished they were not being
forsaken.
God wanted His people to understand that the punishment that they were experiencing would
not be the end of them.
The fact is that God want to give them a fresh start in life, a new Beginning in life.
Israel no
doubt was discouraged because they thought this was the end of them.
They had
gone to far, they had sinned and rebelled against God to he point that He would
no longer be their God.
Maybe they
thought God would not deliver us again, it’s over.
That is when
they begin to remember the former things or past deliverances.
Israel could remember past deliverances and
past victories.
They could
remember when they were trapped by the Red Sea and had nowhere to go, how God
made away for them.
They could
remember that when the enemy was about to overtake them how He provided
protection for them.
They could
remember the former things, but they couldn’t see their future.
That is why
God said; “ I am going to do something new.
Maybe that
is where you are this morning!
You feel
that you have made so many mistakes, you have failed God so many times and you
have sinned it all away.
Now God
doesn’t want anything to do with you.
You feel and
believe that you have no future with God.
The good news is, God is saying, “ It’s not
over, I have plans for your life.
I am about
to do something new for you. ”
This morning
I want to share with you, “ How To Make a Fresh Start? ”
I want to
share with you a formula for starting over. S.T.A.R.T.
I hope you’ll
remember this and pass it along to friends when they have failures.
Regardless
of what kind of failure you had in the past.
You may have
had a financial failure, or maybe a relational failure, a failure in your
marriage. You may have had a moral failure.
You may have
really blown it and you may have made some decisions you’re so ashamed of and
hope nobody ever finds out about.
Regardless
of the failure you’ve had in your life, here’s how you start over.
S – Stop making excuses.
If I want a
fresh start in life, I have to stop making excuses for my failures.
I’ve got to
stop blaming other people.
I’ve got to
stop seeing myself as the victim of my circumstances.
Other people
can hurt us, other people can harm us, and other people can scar us.
But the only
person that can ruin your life is you.
Nobody can ruin your life without your
permission.
You have a
choice and that is you can choose how you’re going to respond to those hurts.
The Bible
says that the starting point is to just be honest and accept responsibility for
my part in the problem.
Proverbs
28:13 “A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if
he confess and forsakes them he gets another chance.”
He gets a
fresh start.
He says the
starting point to starting over is to be honest and face up to the problems,
that most of the problems in my life, most of the failures, are my fault.
It is hard
to get people to admit when they are wrong.
People do
not like to admit, “ I made a mistake, and I blew it. ”
God says, “
That if we admit the mistake, if we admit our failures, and if we admit our
sin, then we get another chance in life.
The number
one reason we fail in life is we don’t prepare ourselves for the problems that
we will face in life.
The Bible
say’s (Proverbs 20:7) "A sensible man watches for problems and prepares to
meet them but the fool never looks ahead and suffers the consequences."
Was it
raining when Noah started building the ark? No.
He had to
prepare for the coming flood.
In fact the
rain didn’t come for 120 years.
But that’s
how long it took him to get the thing built.
· Because we
don’t listen to others. We don’t listen to good advise when it’s offered.
The Bible
says in Proverbs 15 “ Plans fail without good advise.”
You need to
get all the advice you can. Get good advise from people you know you can trust.
Why wont
people listen to the advice of other people?
Because they
think they don’t need it. It’s called pride. Ego. Ego stands for "Edging
God Out." When a person thinks they know more than God, they push Him out
of their life, they’re on an ego trip and that trip leads to a dead end.
The Bible
says, "Pride always leads to destruction."
An arrogant
attitude leads to a fall. When I think I know it all and I can figure it all
out myself, I’m setting myself up for failure, if I don’t listen to the advise
of others, if I don’t listen to the advise of my wife/boss/husband/other people
around me, if I think I’ll just do it my way. I’ll never get anywhere if I have
already arrived. The person that gets too big for their britches, will
eventually be exposed in the end. That’s the problem with pride.
We fail to
prepare and we fail to listen to other people and we fail as a result.
· We give up
too soon. These are the three greatest causes for failure. We give up too soon.
Proverbs
24:10 "If you give up when troubles come, it just shows that you are
weak."
Failure is
the path of least resistance. The problem is that often during trying times we
stop trying. We give up.
If at first
you don’t succeed, welcome to the human race. If at first you don’t succeed,
you’re normal. Very few people make it on the first try. Oftentimes, we give up
just when success is around the corner. You’re never a failure until you give
up. Sometimes we give up too soon.
It’s always
too soon to quit. The Bible says we need to stop making excuses, admit when
it’s our fault and get on with life. I’ve discovered that people who are very
good at making excuses are rarely good at anything else. They spend all their
energy thinking up reasons why they can’t do what they’re supposed to do.
So
"S" in START stands for Stop making excuses.
T - Take An Inventory Of My Life
I need to
take an inventory of my life. That means I need to evaluate all my experiences.
I need to look at what I have left after the failure. I need to take an
inventory of my life’s experiences and learn from them.
Galatians
3:4 "You have experienced many things. Were all those experiences wasted?
I hope not."
The Living
Bible say’s, “ You have suffered so much for the gospel. Now are you going to
throw it all over board.” I can hardly believe it.
Learn from
your mistakes. Failure can be your friend or your foe. You determine if failure
will be your friend or foe by the way you react to it. You can choose to learn
from it or choose to repeat it. If you learn from it then it can be your
friend. However, if you don’t learn from it is your foe.
There are
four kinds of experiences that God uses to shape our lives.
· He uses
personal experiences. The family that you grew up in, the people you relate to.
God can use your personal experience with your husband or your wife. He uses
personal experiences to shape you.
· He uses
vocational and educational experiences to shape you.
· He uses
spiritual experiences to shape you, like coming to church, going on a retreat
or reading your Bible, having a quiet time.
· He uses
painful experiences to shape you.
As you take
inventory of your life in starting over, you need to ask yourself three
questions.
· What have
I learned? I know people 40, 50 years old but they don’t have 40 or 50 years of
experience. They’ve had the same year of experience over and over. They’ve
never learned anything. What have you learned from past experiences? If you
don’t set down and think it through, you’ll end up repeating the same mistake
over and over again because you didn’t learn from it the first time.
· What are
my assets? What have I got going for me? Have I got my health? Have I got my
freedom? Am I still mentally sound? Have I got some friends? Have I got the
Lord? Have I got a church family? What do I have that I can get a fresh start
with?
· Who can
help me? When we need a fresh start, we need somebody by our side – a friend,
an accountability partner, a support person, or a support group. Find someone
that can help you. You need other people because you don’t start over by
yourself after a major setback or crisis. You need somebody else to walk along
with you. There is one that we can count on to be there to help us to get a
fresh start in life. The Lord Jesus will be there, He will help us to pull your
lives back together and make sure that we get started on the right foot.
A - Act in faith
This is the
third step in getting a fresh start. Act in faith. You have to launch out into
new territory. The Bible says that the key to changing anything is faith. If
you want to change your circumstance, it takes faith. If you want to change
your personality, it takes faith. If you want to change anything in your life,
you have to have some faith.
Jesus says
this in Matthew 9. “ According to your faith it will be done to you. ” That is
a very simple statement but it’s very powerful. “According to your faith it
will be done to you.” That means we tend to get out of life what we expect.
“According to your faith it will be done to you."
What are you
expecting in life? Are things going to be better or worse? Are they going to be
the same? If you act in faith then you will do something positive to ensure
that you don’t repeat the same mistakes over.
The faith
that I am talking about is not a dead hope so faith. It is an affirmative faith
that takes positive action coupled with the help of God to change your life.
Acts 3:1-5
Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer,
being the ninth hour. 2And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was
carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called
Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3Who seeing Peter
and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. 4And Peter, fastening his
eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. 5And he gave heed unto them,
expecting to receive something of them.
This man
asked for something and expected to get it, but in reality he got more than he
expected. The point that I want to make is this lame man acted in faith and was
greatly rewarded. Many times we ask for something and expect to get nothing and
we get exactly what we expected, nothing.
In order to
start acting in faith that means you’ve got to stop having a pity party. You’ve
got to stop feeling sorry for yourself. “Poor me! I’m such a victim. Life is
unfair.” Of course life is unfair! Whoever said it was fair? God never said
that. This is a world filled with sin and because of that, life is unfair. But
you have to go on with life anyway. You stop having a pity party and stop rehearsing
the past, regretting the past, and you get on with the present and the future.
The more time we spend regretting our past, the more of our future is wasted.
The more time you spend thinking, "I wish that hadn’t happened! I wish I
could change that. If only I could go back, reverse the clock and redo
history," and you’re rehearsing and regretting, you’ll not only make
yourself miserable right now, you’re setting yourself up for more of the same
thing in the future. The way you set yourself up for more failure is by
focusing on past failures. Whatever you focus on you tend to reproduce in your
life. "According to your faith it will be done unto you."
What you
need to do is learn from those failures. Let me give you the real secret of
success. Every successful entrepreneur knows this. Real success is built on
failure. Failure is the way you become a success. You figure out what doesn’t
work. When Edison figured out on the 200th or so time, what would make a light
bulb stay lit, he did that because he knew 199 ways that didn’t work. You never
call it a failure in your life. Call it an education. You learn from past
failures and mistakes and act in faith for the future. Some people will never
act in faith because they have been paralyzed by the fear of past failures and
mistakes.
What we need
to do is learn from the past, act in faith for the future and look to God for
guidance.
How do you
get rid of fear of failure? Faith. That’s why the third step in starting over
is Act in faith. Faith is not so much the absence of fear, as it is moving
ahead in spite of your fear. Sometimes faith is doing the thing you fear the
most.
Stop
worrying about what others say or think. Proverbs 29:25 "Being afraid of
people can get you into trouble
The Living
Bible say’s, “ Fear of man is a dangerous trap, but to trust in God means
safety.
R - Refocus
I need to
refocus my thoughts if I want to change my life. If I want to get going again,
if I want a fresh start, I need to rethink the way that I think. I need to
change my mind about a number of issues.
Proverbs
4:23 "Be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your
thoughts."
The way you
think, determines the way you feel. And the way you feel determines the way you
act. If you want to change your actions, just change the way you think and it
will inevitably change the way you act. If you are depressed, discouraged and
distressed it may be because you’re thinking depressed, discouraged and
distressing thoughts. That’s your choice. You don’t have to think those thoughts.
If you’re acting in fearful, worried ways it’s because you’re thinking fearful,
worried thoughts.
Romans 12:2
“ Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. ”
If I have to
refocus my thoughts to start over to get a fresh start, that means I have to
stop thinking some old patterns. Which memories are you still rehearsing that
keep you from having a fresh start in life? The Bible says let go. Let go of
those things. The more you hold on to that memory, the more you rehearse it, it
continues to hurt you today.
It cannot
hurt you without your permission. You have to change your mind and let go and
get rid of those painful, hurtful memories of shame and guilt and other things.
How do you
do that?
· First,
confession. You say, "I’ve confessed to God but I still feel guilty. How
do I get rid of a painful memory?" Not by resisting it but by replacing
it. Not saying, "I’m not going to think about it! I’m not going to think
about it!" What are you doing the whole time? Thinking about it. Stop
focusing on what you don’t want and start focusing on what you do want. Get
your attention onto something else. Refocus. Replace those memories by, every
time they come up, start thinking about something else. Focus on something
else.
· What’s the
best thing to focus on? God’s word.
Psalm 1
“Happy are those who are always meditating on God’s word. They’re like trees
along a river that do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do. ”
Those are
the two things that everybody wants in life. We all want to be happy and we all
want to succeed. The antidote, the answer, the way we get those is the phrase
right in the middle “ meditating on God’s word. ” That’s the answer to the other
two. The more you meditate on God’s word, the happier and more successful
you’ll be in Your Christian life. It’s a promise from God.
Meditating
on God’s word simply means rehearsing God’s word in our minds.
It’s
interesting that the Bible does not say, "If you read this book, you’ll be
happy and successful." It does not say, "If you listen to this book,
like through a sermon, you’ll be happy and successful." It says, "If
you meditate on it you’ll be happy and successful." In meditating it means
I think on it over and over and what it means in my life. I consider it and
consider its implications for my life. As we fill our mind with God’s word, it
begins to change our mind. We stop seeing ourselves as other people see us or
as we have seen ourselves and we begin to see ourselves as God does. That’s
where the change takes place. That’s the power to start over.
T – Trust
Trust God to
help us succeed. Depend on Him. We don’t need depend on ourselves.
We’ve
already proven that we can’t do it on our own.
That’s why
we’ve failed. Some people just don’t get it.
They stumble
and fall and then they get up and say, “I’ll just try harder!” It’s like you go
up to a wall and bang your head against it and the wall doesn’t fall down.
You try it
again and Bang! Again.
You keep
doing it thinking, “Maybe it will fall over this time.” That’s the definition
of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting
different results. If we keep doing the same thing then we will keep getting
the same result. We can’t change who we are, only God can do that. I am not
speaking about the outward man but the inner man. The real person is the hidden
person of the heart. Success in the Christian life is not trying harder, but
living smarter. Giving God control of my life.
Zechariah
4:6 “ You will not succeed by your own strength or power but by My Spirit, says
the Lord. ”
“When
someone becomes a Christian, They become a brand new person inside. He is not
the same anymore. A new life has begun!” God specializes in new beginnings.
Jesus Christ has the power to do that. It’s called being born again, the chance
to start over. We can have fresh start with a new life as we begin this New
Year. God says, “I don’t want you to turn over a new leaf. I’m going to give you
a whole new life.”
Conclusion:
Will you have a fresh start in life? Will you have a new beginning? It’s your
choice. How can I have a fresh start? I can have a fresh start by:
· Stop
making excuse
· Take an
inventory of my life
· Act in
faith
· Refocus my
thoughts
· Trust God
