Turnaround...Starting Over

August 5, 2007 message by Pastor Rich Doebler

You can't rewrite history, but you can start over.

Whitney Cerak was a freshman at Taylor University, a Christian college in Indiana, riding with others eight other students and school staff when a semi-truck crossed the median of Interstate 69 and slammed into their college van. Whitney was one of five pronounced dead at the scene. Four others were critically injured.

The Cerak family lovingly and painfully held a memorial service for their daughter at the Evangelical Free Church in Gaylord, Michigan. They mourned her loss. They remembered Whitney's love for the Lord; they recalled her dreams; they grieved over her young life cut short. After the funeral they tried to return to their lives but, of course, nothing would ever be the same.

A month later they were still deep in grieving when they received shocking news: the girl they had buried was not their daughter. Rather, it was Laura VanRyn, a fellow student killed in the accident who looked a lot like their daughter. Whitney, their daughter, was still alive and in a rehab center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, under the care of the VanRyn family who assumed she was their daughter. Now, Whitney was coming out of a coma.

Massive head trauma and broken facial bones had left Whitney's face discolored and swollen—virtually unrecognizable. When she began to awake, she responded slowly. First it was, "Hi." Then, "Good morning." But then she began to say and do things that raised questions. People began to wonder. When the staff at the rehab center asked if she could tell them her name, she wrote on a piece of paper: "Whitney Cerak."

Can you imagine what it was like for her family to hear that their daughter was alive? They'd coped with devastating news. They'd held a heart-wrenching funeral. They'd gone through excruciating grief. Now they hear she's alive! It was like a resurrection. She was dead...but she came back from the dead! http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-31-indiana-mistaken-identity_x.htm

It's hard to imagine such an extraordinary turnaround! Words can't describe it. Yet the Good News—the gospel of Jesus Christ—promises a turnaround just as incomprehensible and dramatic. The gospel brings hope where there is no hope.

Paul's words to the Gentile believers in Ephesus describe this miraculous turnaround that God gives to us. He wrote: "¹² In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from God's people, Israel, and you did not know the promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. ¹³ But now you belong to Christ Jesus. Though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought near to him because of the blood of Christ" (Eph 2:12-13. NLT).

Peter wrote to first-century believers: "[God] has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3, NIV).

Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of 2 Cor 5:17 says: "what we see is that anyone united with [Christ] gets a fresh start, is created new..." (MSG).

The gospel turns things around! It gives us a fresh start. The power of the gospel makes the dead live again. The gospel transforms sinners into saints. It takes losers and turns them into winners. It takes those who have messed up their lives and gives them new hope. When our sin and shame leave us empty and hopeless, the gospel gives us a new chance at life.

Today we begin a new series of messages that I'm calling "Turnaround." Over the next few weeks we're going to talk about God's power to give us a fresh start, a new chance. No matter how bad we've messed up. No matter how low we've crashed. No matter how impossible our situation, God can give us another chance. God can turn around our lives, turn around our situation, turn around our opportunities.

Today's Turnaround Story comes from the life of David, the second king of ancient Israel.

Like us, David made a lot of mistakes. His life was marked with peaks and valleys, successes and failures, moments of triumph and depths of despair. The Bathsheba affair was one of David's worst. It shows David at perhaps one of his lowest points.

2 Sam 11 David's army was away fighting...he was at home in Jerusalem...strolling on roof of palace he sees "a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath"...learns she is the wife of Uriah, but knowing she is somebody else's wife doesn't stop him...sends for her (she rationalizes she has no choice)...they fool around and she gets pregnant...David tries to conceal his sin by bringing Uriah back from the war ...Uriah won't spend the night with his wife...is sent back to front with letter for his CO that leads to his death...Bathsheba mourns (probably a week) for her husband... "When the period of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to the palace, and she became one of his wives. Then she gave birth to a son. But the LORD was very displeased with what David had done" (v 27, NLT).

1. Sin leads to consequences—it always does. Sin ruins lives, destroys plans, undermines the future. Even if you hide your sin from everyone else, God knows. You can pretend everything is okay, but deep down inside you know—and it affects you. Sin is rottenness in our soul. It rots away our integrity and our devotion to God. Sin causes spiritual death. And there are external consequences as well.

2 Sam 12 The prophet, Nathan, gave David the news...though God had blessed him, David despised God's good gifts...murdered Uriah, stolen his wife... "¹⁰ From this time on, the sword will be a constant threat to your family, because you have despised me by taking Uriah's wife to be your own. ¹¹ Because of what you have done, I, the LORD, will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man, and he will go to bed with them in public view. ¹² You did it secretly, but I will do this to you openly in the sight of all Israel" (2 Sam 12:10-12, NLT).

And there was more! Nathan told him, "‘¹⁴ ...you have given the enemies of the LORD great opportunity to despise and blaspheme him, so your child will die.' ¹⁵ After Nathan returned to his home, the LORD made Bathsheba's baby deathly ill. ¹⁶ David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground... ¹⁸ Then on the seventh day the baby died"(2 Sam 12:14-18, NLT).

We've all faced consequences for our actions. When we sin, we pay a terrible price. When we sin, other people suffer as well. Uriah was killed, but so were a number of innocent men who were caught in the middle of David's scheme to get rid of Bathsheba's husband. Many homes in Israel were filled with grief because their husbands or their sons were killed by David's plan. Collateral damage of David's scheme? Don't worry about it, David told the messenger. These things happen in war. It can't be helped. But it could have been helped—if only David hadn't lusted after Bathsheba.

Another innocent person also paid a terrible price. The newborn baby—who had nothing to do with the sin of his parents—suffered with sickness for seven days and then died. Your sin can cause consequences for your family, for your children, for those around you. They also pay a price.

2. Sin leads to regrets. Everyone in this room has regrets—things we wish we hadn't done; things we wish would could have done differently; things we wish hadn't happened; things we wish we hadn't said.

Everyone in this room has made mistakes—we forgot an appointment, dropped the ball, spilled the milk, miscalculated, broke a promise, let somebody down.

Everyone in this room has failed—we are all sinners by nature; we are born with defects (talk about birth defects!); we are human (descendants of Adam) so we are genetically wired with flaws.

We have failed in numerous ways. The Bible says our best efforts are like dirty, filthy rags. We have failed God. We've fallen short of God's glory. We have fallen short of our own hopes and dreams. We let others down. We have failed each other. We have failed in relationships. We have failed ourselves.

These are indisputable facts. God's Word confirms these truths. And yet we make the situation even worse when we pretend everything is okay.

3. Cover-ups make things worse. When we pretend things are okay; when we try to cover up our problems—acting as though nothing is wrong; when we want others to think that we're okay; when we put on a façade of normalcy; when we're afraid to admit or reveal our humanness, our brokenness, our failures; when we try to maintain an image...we make things worse.

When I was in second grade our class took a field trip to Channel 11 in Minneapolis—back in the day when television was still a recent innovation. One of the great local children's programs at the times was the Casey Jones Show. Kids would visit the show hosted by Casey and his sidekick, Roundhouse Rodney. Every day the show started with footage of a powerful locomotive, puffing into the station. Then Casey Jones would lean out of the window, wave at the camera, and welcome us: "All Aboard!"

But on that fateful day at Channel 11, I saw Casey Jones's locomotive—up close and personal. It was made out of cardboard and leaning against a wall inside the studio. My little 2^nd grade heart was crushed. I was disillusioned. I learned that day that not everything is as it appears. The image looked pretty good on screen, but it wasn't the real thing. There was no substance. There was no powerful locomotive. It was merely a caricature of a real locomotive.

How often are we caricatures—hiding behind cardboard props, pretending to have it all put together, but behind the scenes we struggle—powerless? If we're honest with ourselves, we know (but we don't want others to know) that we aren't living up to expectations.

It's not just others we try to fool, however. We're also trying to convince ourselves we are okay. Years ago William Backman and Marie Chapian wrote a book called Telling Yourself the Truth. They wrote the book because a lot of people have trouble telling themselves the truth. They can't face the truth. They can't admit the truth. They can't deal with the truth. The truth is just too painful, too scary, too overwhelming. And so they become self-deceived, telling themselves whatever they must in order to dodge the truth for one more day.

Right about now you may be thinking of someone you believe is self-deceived. Maybe they are. But I want you to stop thinking about that person and instead, think about yourself. Have you been making yourself out to be better than you are?

Self-deception is often a symptom of good people. We long for approval; we want to impress others; we want to do things right. When we can convince people we're good, we feed our own pride and self-righteousness.

On the other end of the spectrum are people who don't care. Some boast about their risky behavior. Maybe they become spiritually apathetic. Some become morally bankrupt. Others beat themselves up emotionally and lose hope. They give up.

It's a funny thing. Often it's those who hit bottom who are more capable of being honest with themselves. They've lost their self-esteem and pride. They have no hope of change. They have nothing more to lose.

They reach the point that AA tells is the starting point back to a new chance: Step One: We admitted we were powerless...that our lives had become unmanageable.

4. Confession opens the door to grace. Admitting the problem is the first step to solving the problem! Confessing sin is the first step to conquering sin. Jesus died on the cross for the whole world, but only those who confess, who repent, who ask for forgiveness can receive salvation through Jesus Christ.

Self-righteous people are afraid to admit problems. They want to look good. Looking good is more important than being honest with themselves. They don't like to admit flaws, failures, struggles or difficulties. This was true for Pharisees in Jesus' day. And there are still "Pharisees" in today's society, attending church, acting a part, hiding the truth of their own brokenness.

God's Word tells us there is a problem when we cannot tell ourselves the truth, when we cannot confess our sins, when we cannot face our shortcomings or deal with our spiritual defects.

"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy" (Prov 28:13, NIV).

"³ When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. ⁴ For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah ⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD'—and you forgave the guilt of my sin." (Psalms 32:3-5, NIV).

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16, NIV).

David's confession was the turnaround in our story...

"¹³ Then David confessed to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.' Nathan replied, ‘Yes, but the LORD has forgiven you, and you won't die for this sin. ¹⁴ But...'" (2 Sam 12:13-14, NLT).

There were consequences, but because David confess and repented, God could give him a fresh start. There were consequences, but there was also grace.

"²⁴ Then David comforted Bathsheba, his wife, and slept with her. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved the child ²⁵ and sent word through Nathan the prophet that his name should be Jedidiah—‘beloved of the LORD'—because the LORD loved him. (2 Sam 12:24-25, NLT).

Here's the distinction between consequence and grace. Consequence brings pain and grief and turmoil. Grace brings blessings and peace we don't deserve.

• Consequence caused one son to die; grace made the next son became king.
• Consequence left one son nameless—an unknown footnote in history; grace gave the next son two names (Solomon [peaceful or quiet—root: Shalom] and Jedidiah [beloved of the Lord].
• Consequence cut one son off; grace put the next son into the lineage of the coming Messiah, God's grace for the whole world! Matthew 1 lists the earthly genealogy of Jesus Christ: "...Jesse [was] the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife" (Matt 1:6, NIV).

Are you still dealing with consequences? Or have you experienced grace? Are you still dealing with the turmoil and problems that come from your actions? Or have you begun to see God's blessings and peace? You may wish you could rewrite history, but God wants to give you a new future! Receive his grace today.