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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. As we conclude our series, How Can I Know?, we're going to look at not a theological question, but a very practical question. And that is, how can I know how to start over after I've blown it?
And we're going to find the answers in God's Word. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Have you ever made a mistake so devastating that you've wondered if you could ever recover?
Maybe it was a failed marriage or a moral failure that left you sitting in the ashes of a ruined life. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress teaches that while we can't erase our past, our failures don't have to be the final chapter of our story. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. So many people in our generation are living, as Henry David Thoreau put it, in quiet desperation. Secretly bearing a burden of guilt, they've resigned themselves to the private failures of the past. But God provides a much better plan. It's a liberating plan that relieves us of the guilt and shame of our dreadful mistakes. And so today we're tackling a relevant question. My message is titled, How can I know how to start over when I've blown it?
Maybe you've made a few mistakes along life's journey. My goal during the next half hour is to point you down your pathway to victory. We'll be looking at several different passages in the Bible that remind us that God is the God of second chances. It's never too late to receive His grace and forgiveness.
And it's never too late to begin living the life He designed for you. It's titled, How can I know, answers to life's seven most important questions. And when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive a copy. The first chapter of this book is fully devoted to this topic of personal failure and God's plan for restoring you to wholeness.
More about my book and other helpful resources later. But right now it's time to get started with today's message. It's called, How can I know how to start over when I've blown it? God says there are four components that are essential for the new beginning He wants each of us to experience. And it all begins with admitting our mistakes. Admitting our mistake is prerequisite to learning from our mistakes. Secondly, after admitting our mistakes, our new beginning includes experiencing God's forgiveness. We must receive God's forgiveness.
Now this is key to understanding. In the Bible there are two kinds of forgiveness. And a lot of Christians get this confused. First of all, there's God's judicial forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness happens when I trust in Jesus as my savior. The moment you trust in Christ as your savior, God declares you not guilty. Because God has paid for not just some of your sins, but all of your sins. Past, present, and future have been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's what happens when you become a Christian. In Romans 5-1 Paul said, Therefore having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. David wrote about the wonderful qualities of that judicial forgiveness in Psalm 32 verses 1-2. How blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.
That word impute means to charge to one's account. All of us have a spiritual bank account with God. And every day we're making debits against that account. Every wrong action, every wrong attitude, every wrong thought cost us. And our balance is going down, down, down.
Here's the bad news. There's nothing we can do to add to our account. Isaiah 64 says, Our righteousness, the best we can do is like a filthy rag to God. So we're always in a deficit position in our spiritual bank account. And if we die with that debt still owed, we spend eternity in hell trying to work that debt off and we'll never be able to do so. But God makes us a wonderful offer. He says, when we trust in Christ as our savior, God fills our spiritual bank account with genuine righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus.
And there's an over abounding amount of it that we can never spend away in a thousand lifetimes. Every time we sin, that is replenished by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Remember that old song, gospel song we used to sing? He paid a debt he did not owe. I owned a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace. Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay. That's what Christ has done for us. He has forgiven us, separated us. He has covered our sin and he does not take our sin into account any longer. I wrote down this week three things that God's forgiveness means for you and me. God's judicial forgiveness means he will never think of your failure when he thinks of you. Secondly, it means your mistake has been permanently erased from God's record of your life. And third, your sin means God will never call up your sin for further review.
No wonder David was so ecstatic. Oh, how blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven. That's judicial forgiveness, but there's a second kind of forgiveness and that is parental forgiveness, relational forgiveness. Even though we as Christians have been judicially forgiven and never have to fear hell, we still sin, don't we? And that sin wrecks a barrier between us and God in our daily experience. 1 John tells us that if we say we have no sin, we are liars. But 1 John 1 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's not a verse for non-Christians.
John is writing to little children, believers. He said, if we say we don't sin, we're a liar. We still sin after we become a Christian. And while we don't have to worry about hell as a result of that sin, it still makes a barrier between God and us. Isaiah 59 2 says, your sin has become a barrier between you and God.
And there is only one way to remove that barrier that our sin causes with our Heavenly Father, and that is confession. I mean, those of you who are parents, if your child rebels against you, you don't kick them out of your family. You don't disown them.
They're still your child. But until they repent of that rebellion, acknowledge their mistake, there's going to be a barrier between you and your child. And so it is in our relationship with God.
How do we remove that barrier? It's by confession, admitting to God our sin. Alan J. Redpath, the Bible scholar, said, it is a tremendous moment in a Christian's life when he can honestly look up into the face of God and say, yes, Lord, you're right, and I'm wrong. Yes, Lord, I got what I deserved in this situation.
Yes, Lord, you are right, and I'm wrong. This is the thing for which God has been working in your life and in mine from the moment of our salvation. Admitting your mistakes is essential for receiving God's forgiveness. You may ask the question, well, if I've been forgiven by God, why do I still experience the consequences of my sin? Listen, God's forgiveness erases the eternal consequences of your sin.
You never have to fear hell. But God's forgiveness does not always erase the temporary consequences of your sin. Forgiven Christians still go to prison. They still experience divorce. They still have to deal with STDs.
They still have to deal with termination from jobs or bankruptcy. There are temporary consequences. But those consequences are not a sign of God's hatred of you.
They actually are a sign of God's love for you. Think about King David. Even after he was forgiven, he still suffered consequences the rest of his life.
Those consequences included a dead baby that he and Bathsheba experienced, a disloyal son, Absalom, who instilled a rebellion against David, and a divided kingdom. And yet, how did David view those afflictions? He said in Psalm 119, verse 67, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.
He was saying, every time I'm tempted to look out that balcony window to see if there's another young woman bathing on the rooftop, I look away. I remember the pain of my sin, and that discipline keeps me walking with God. That's why God allows us to continue to experience some consequences for our sin, out of his mercy, not out of his hatred.
We admit our mistakes. We have to experience God's forgiveness, and that prepares us for a time of waiting for God's direction. In my book, Second Chance, Second Act, I talk about the concept of intermissions in life. Intermission is that period of time between your failure and your future. It's that period of time between the ending of one relationship and the beginning of a new relationship, or the ending of one job and the beginning of a new career. It's that period of time between bankruptcy and financial solvency. Now, we hate waiting time.
We just want to go immediately from one relationship to the next one, one career to the next one. But God says, no, there's going to be a timeout for your benefit. God uses timeouts, and he uses them in the life of his people. Think of the southern kingdom of Israel. They had rebelled against God. Judah was taken captive by the Babylonians. They spent 70 years in an intermission, renewing their relationship with God, preparing them for their return to their land.
Peter got off easier. His intermission between his failure and future was only seven weeks. It was seven weeks from the time he denied Christ in Caiaphas's courtyard to the time he stood on the southern steps and preached that great message of Pentecost. Moses had a 40-year intermission. That was the time between when he killed that Egyptian soldier, thinking that would lead to the exodus. He spent 40 years in the wilderness until his second act began at age 80.
Acts 7, verses 29 and 30 tell us, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him. Waiting time is difficult, but waiting time doesn't have to be wasted time. There are some benefits of our intermission. It's a time to replenish our physical and emotional energy. Going through a failure can be physically, emotionally draining. Elijah understood that, and God told him to take some time off to eat and sleep. He needed a time of physical and emotional replenishing. Not only that, but secondly, intermissions are times to reflect on your failure and on your future.
I've listed for you some questions that you can ask if you're in that intermission time right now. Have I really failed or just fallen short of some unrealistic goal? Is my failure the result of other people's circumstances, or is it my own wrong choices? Whom do I know that has made a similar mistake and recovered from it?
What can I do differently in the future to prevent a similar failure, and is there anything in my life that's displeasing to God? It's a time not only to recover from your failure, but it's a time to focus on your future. Once your intermission is over, it's time finally for starting over with your new beginning. When you start over with your new beginning, hopefully you'll have a lot of questions answered, but you need what I call a second act script that details what you're going to do in this second act of your life.
While you're in your intermission time is a great time to develop that second act script. A lot of Christians think it's unspiritual, Pastor, to be planning. We ought to just leave it up to God. No, the Bible extols the virtues of planning. In Proverbs 16, 3, Solomon said, commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. Proverbs 2018, prepare plans by consultation. Proverbs 21, 5, the plans of the diligent surely lead to an advantage. Now, obviously, all of our plans are subject to the sovereignty of God, but that doesn't keep us from making plans. Well, Pastor, what do you mean a new beginning script? Well, here are four things your script ought to include.
These are from our friend Bob Beale. Number one, clarification of the problem. What problem are you trying to recover from? See if you can distill it down to one word. It may be bankruptcy. It may be addiction. It might be termination from a job.
It might be divorce. What problem are you trying to recover from? Secondly, visualize the goal.
You need a visualization of the goal. In a sentence, how would you like to recover from this problem? Maybe a career change. I would like to have a job that is fulfilling and safe. Wouldn't everybody like to have a job like that?
Something that's fulfilling and safe. Maybe you've gone through financial difficulty, even a bankruptcy. You would say, I don't want to have as much money as Elon Musk. I wouldn't turn it down, but that's not my goal. I want to be like Solomon who said, don't give me too little, but don't give me too much.
I'd like just enough money not to have to worry about it all the time. Visualize what your recovery from this problem would look like. What are you trying to solve?
Thirdly, identify the barriers, identification of the barriers. Maybe you're thinking about a career move, and you'd say, you know, I'd like to be an accountant. I think I'd really like to be an accountant. The problem is you don't know much about being an accountant. You don't know anybody who's an accountant. And once you understand you don't have the educational qualifications to be an accountant, what are the barriers? And that leads to a specification of action steps. Okay, here's what I'm going to do to solve those barriers. I need to Google some articles about different kinds of accounting. I need to eat lunch with somebody in my church.
I may know who is an accountant. List the steps of action you need to take, and your action steps become your daily to-do list. Now with your second act script in hand, all you need to do is wait on God's ghost signal for your new beginning. How do you know when intermission is finally over and you're ready to start your new beginning? Have you ever seen the movie Mary Poppins? I'm on my 300th viewing of Mary Poppins with the triplets, I think.
I know every word of that movie. But you might remember, if it's been a while, at the beginning there's a weather vane that switches direction. And that indicates that Mary Poppins is about to appear.
And so she stays with the children, does all these things. And then at the end of the movie, the weather vane switches in another direction, signaling it's time for Mary Poppins to leave until she returns in the sequel. And so there's a weather vane. I often thought, wouldn't it be nice if we had internal weather vanes that told us, signaled, when a change was coming?
Well, actually, the Bible does give us some weather vanes we can look at to see if we're ready for our new beginning. Look for changes, first of all, in your attitude about your failure. Have you quit blaming other people and accepted responsibility yourself? That's a prerequisite for a new beginning. Maybe there's a change in your emotions. Are you starting to feel refreshed again and no longer physically and emotionally drained?
And then finally, look for a change in your circumstances. Many times God will signal that a change is coming by a dramatic change in your circumstances. That's what he did with Moses. The children of Israel had been 400 years in slavery in Egypt. And God said to Moses, go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the people go. And Pharaoh said nine times, I will not let them go. I will not let them go.
And after that tenth plague, remember what happened? He said, please go. Please go. Get out of here. Scram.
I'm tired of this. Now what did Moses do? He had a second act script ready to go.
He doesn't have to say, gee, I wonder where I'd like to be living 10 years from now. He knew where he was supposed to go. To the Promised Land. And he had the map for how to get to the Promised Land and take the children of Israel there. But there was one remaining barrier between his painful past in Egypt and his promised future in the Promised Land.
You know what that barrier was? The Red Sea. The Red Sea. As soon as they started heading out of Egypt, they ran into the Red Sea. And Pharaoh had a change of heart and sent his soldiers charging after the Israelites. And the Israelites had a choice. They could do a U-turn and be slaughtered by the Egyptian soldiers.
Or they could go forward and drown. What a choice. And then God did something miraculous. You know the rest of the story. God miraculously parted the Red Sea. And he took a strip of land and made it dry for the Israelites to pass from one side to the other side. You know, I've often thought about that story about the biggest hero in that entire story.
The greatest model of faith. It wasn't Moses. Remember, Moses stood on the side with his arms up in his best Charlton Heston pose.
That's all he did. No, to me, the bravest person in that entire group was that first unnamed Israelite in line who took the first step on that land. Knowing that as he walked through those pillars of water, they could come crashing down on him at any moment. What gave him the faith to go forward? When God said go forward, yeah, he noticed the obstacle.
But he believed that the same God who had miraculously delivered him from Pharaoh's oppressive grip, that same God would see him safely to the other side. And ladies and gentlemen, he'll do the same for you. Have you acknowledged your mistake and taken responsibility for it? Have you experienced God's forgiveness in your life?
Have you had time to focus on the cause of your mistake and what God's future for you might look like? If you've done those things, don't be surprised at some changes. Dramatic changes that come into your life may be a dinner invitation from somebody you're interested in having a relationship with.
It may be a call from a headhunter. But don't be surprised when those winds begin to blow in a different direction. It's God signaling that your new beginning is about to begin. And remember, you can go forward in that plan, knowing that the same God who has miraculously preserved you and delivered you to this point will see you safely to the other side. Are you ready to take your first steps? Like the first Israelite who stepped into the Red Sea, are you ready to trust God with your life? He will hold back the water and take you to the other side if you'll only place your faith in Him. I'm so glad you joined us for today's edition of Pathway to Victory. And I'm praying that God will use my words and these biblical principles to relieve you from the guilt and regret that often overwhelms you. I've written a book on this topic.
Like this broadcast series, it's also titled How Can I Know? Answers to Life's 7 Most Important Questions. One of the chapters addresses the subject we tackle today, How Can I Know How to Start Over When I've Blown It? And when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive a copy of the entire book. It's my way of saying thanks for your support of this nonprofit ministry. In these challenging days of uncertainty, you can be sure that Pathway to Victory is here to walk by your side each step of the way.
But we do need your financial help. As God prompts you to give, I can assure you that your gift will encourage hundreds of thousands of other listeners who desperately need encouragement today. So thank you for supporting Pathway to Victory with your generous gifts. Your gifts allow us to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word.
David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory, or when you become a Pathway Partner, we'll say thanks by sending you Dr. Jeffress' best-selling book, How Can I Know? To request the book or become a Pathway Partner, call us toll-free. That's 866-999-2965, or visit ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more, we'll also send you the newly revised edition of the How Can I Know?
teaching series on both audio and video discs. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd like to send your donation by mail, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us again next time to hear a special Q&A session with Dr. Jeffress. Get helpful answers to your pressing questions when you listen Friday to Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Embark on the spiritual journey of a lifetime on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise, May 5 through 16, 2025. Enjoy 11 days of fellowship, relaxation, and spiritual refreshment while sailing aboard a luxury cruise ship. You'll visit sought-after island destinations like Santorini, Mykonos, and Crete.
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