[SUB12] COMEÇANDO DE NOVO - Luciano Subirá

Guys, I'm here in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, passing by to bring one more message that will touch your heart. Our talk today, I want you to follow me in the next few minutes, it's about starting over. We have no problem to recognize that the christian life is full of new beginnings.

The bible says: "if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here. " Romans 8:1 says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We have no problem to apply that to the life of someone who has just been converted, but the question to be made is: how do we handle it when it comes to someone who has already started over, someone who has already been converted, start over, again? In Exodus 32, we read about the time when Moses comes down from the Mount Sinai after 40 days and nights in God's presence and receives the ten commandments and the stones, that were called the tablets of the covenant law. There is a talk before he comes down, when God tells Moses that the people has already sinned.

Moses begins to lecture God on how to be God and how God could not give up on the people. But the truth is when Moses comes down and realizes what it was happening and sees the intensity of how the people was truly sinning, when he sees the whole picture, Moses, in that moment gets angry, annoyed, he almost gives up on the mission God gave him and the scriptures say he throws the tablets on the ground and breaks them. With that, I believe Moses was saying to God: "that's it, I'm out, I'm done, I give up, don't wanna do what You asked me anymore.

" He, who had lectured God to not give up on the people, in that moment he gives up. And in that attitude of Moses we see two symbolical things we can learn from. First of all, the act of breaking the tablets itself already shows us something because the biblical definition of sin is precisely the breaking of the law and we can see that as the image of someone who has sinned and broken God 's law.

But that is a second element, that is Moses aborting a given mission. However, despite having made that mistake and when you and I come to think of it, to reason about it, Moses' mistake was something very strong. If you look only through the natural optics, try to imagine how much it would be worth the finding of an archaeological artifact today like the original ten commandments version, even for those who do not attach any spiritual value to it, just as an archaeological artifact, can you measure it?

The bible says that the tablets were made by God Himself, written by God's finger and Moses literally broke them. But when we come to think that he broke what it was the covenant symbol, it becomes even more serious. However God gave Moses an opportunity to start over.

Exodus 34 is the history of that restart. Exodus 34 shows us God allowing him to climb back up the mount, he coming down again with the tablets and that now he can carry through the mission he had aborted before. I think, me in God's place maybe wouldn't give Moses that opportunity, not when he broke the tablets nor when he killed the egyptian for the first time.

But thank God I am not God. God is a god of new beginnings, new opportunities. Maybe if I were God, Aaron would never be made my house's high priest, of my tabernacle, speaking in God's place, after he built that golden calf but God, unlike me, is a God of new opportunities, is a merciful God, is a God of new beginnings.

If I were God, maybe David, after the Bathsheba affair and the death of Uriah, would be eliminated for good. Maybe, if I were in the Lord's place, Peter, after denying Jesus three times would not be made Jerusalem's church leader. But it is a fact, looking at the scriptures, that God is a god of new beginnings and new opportunities not only for those who just converted, but even for those who were already walking with the Lord, stumbled, broke the commandment, God's law or even aborted the mission, gave up on the ministry.

God offers a opportunity to start over. And I want to bring an encouragement message, of faith to your heart, if that's your case, if you need to start over or maybe ask you to join me in mobilizing this message proclamation so that others may be reached by it. Because if that is not your case, you definitely know someone who needs to start over.

But the church has been wrong in two ways: whether we don't recognize the opportunity of new beginnings or we try to make it in an irresponsible way, breaking other principles God had established already. I believe although we need to know this merciful heart, God' s disposition to invest in me and you, of allowing us to star over, He also established principles. And to Moses, in Exodus 34, a few things get very clear in the lesson God is sending and I believe God did not want to clarify that to Moses only.

The bible says that when everything was written, it was for our teaching. The bible says that those episodes of Israel's history were written to warn us that the end of time has come. The first lesson we learned in Moses's fresh start, is that in Exodus 34, God tells him: "you will climb back up the mount, will bring new tablets in the place of the first ones you broke.

" When God is saying "You broke", God is holding Moses accountable, saying "It was you who made the mistake, you who sinned against me, you need to fix it. " Indeed, the premise of every restoration in God starts with the recognition of our mistakes. Jesus says: "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick do.

" By saying that in the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 2, verse 17, Jesus wasn't saying there are healthy people. Because when we study the analogy, He talks about Himself as the doctor who is our savior, so He is talking about the sick as being the sinner, the question is: is there someone healthy? No.

The bible says there is no one righteous, not even one. Jesus wasn't saying that the person was in fact healthy, but because they thought they were, because they didn't recognize their sin, He, as a doctor, couldn't do absolutely anything for this person. That's why the message of the gospel, before preaching the faith in Jesus, talks about repentance.

Jesus comes declaring: "Repent", and then, comes in second place, after, "believe in the gospel. " Because repentance precedes faith, if we don't recognize our mistakes, God can't do anything for us. What do we learn from Isaiah?

It is precisely after he recognizes that he was a man of unclean lips, God can touch with a coal from the altar on his lips and sanctify him. Because the covenant from God only comes after the recognition of our failure. Since the beginning, we learn with the first couple in Eden, man has an enormous difficulty to take responsibility for what he's done.

He has the tendency of blaming others, of transferring responsibility. But if we want to start over again we need to go from this premise, we need to recognize our responsibility, our own mistake. Secondly, God says to Moses that he has to deal with the consequences of the mistake.

For instance, he would have to go up Mount Sinai again, be there for 40 days again, 40 nights without eating or drinking, hearing again the same words É sometimes in my head it would be much easier to try and pick up the broken stones from the ground, glue them back together, find a way to fix that, but God says: "no, we will start over again . " And If you have been disapproved, you go back there, at the beginning of the cycle you broke. So you will start over again including that stage where you are, you go back to the beginning.

There are a lot of people wanting to start over again, however they don't want to deal with the consequences of their own mistakes. If you want to experiment grace, the mercy God offers, I want to encourage you to do that but understand that that doesn't mean that you are exempted from the consequences that will come ahead. When David sinned, Nathan confronts him and says: "look, your sin has been forgiven, but.

. . " And this "but" reveals what?

Consequences would come. He says: "the sword of the ammonites that you used against Uriah will never depart from your house but what you did with the guy's wife in the hidden, people will do with yours in broad daylight. But the child who was generated from this relationship will die.

" What was Good saying? The fact that his sin might have been forgiven, that I let you start over again it doesn't mean that there won't be consequences. And who will start over again has to be willing to face consequences, to deal with this, to overcome the difficulty that is going through that so that they, in fact, start over.

In third place, we see God talking to Moses about restitution. When God says to Moses: "Take other tablets in the place of the first ones that you broke", God was saying "the first tablet I did, in the first one I wrote, now the second one, you will put another in the place of mine that you broke. " This is a principle of restitution.

God is saying: "I gave you the tablet, and you broke them? Now you give me others. " The principle of restitution is not only stuck to the law of Moses, this episode of restitution God is saying even before the law had been established, but he continues later.

What caused astonishment in Jesus, left Him in awe with Zacchaeus' attitude, is that Zacchaeus not only says: "I will give half my wealth to the poor", but he says "if I have cheated anyone on anything I will pay them back four times more. " When he talks about restitution, Jesus looks at him and says: "today salvation has come to this house. " Because restitution is maybe one of the highest languages that express true repentance that is seeking the covenant of God for me but reparation of what I did to others.

Restitution is not only to give back what I cheated on others financially, materially speaking, maybe it's the request for forgiveness, it's the covenant and the emotional rebuild, Who's going to start over again needs this. But in fourth and last place, the lesson that we learn is that the mission that was given needs to be fulfilled. Now Moses comes down from the Mount and he teaches the word, he obeys what was given to him.

Many times, we make people believe that restoration, the new beginning is only for spiritual life, and that they are not useful for service anymore and that is not the truth. The lesson that I learn with Samson is that he asks God one last opportunity. By the way, one opportunity that cost his life but in this opportunity, bible says that he did more than during his entire life, because he was born with the purpose of freeing Israel from the hands of the philistines.

And on the day of his death he did that with a much greater intensity than he had ever done. What you and I need to learn with Samson is that, starting again, is not only repentance and the covenant of relationship with God. It's seeking in God an opportunity of fulfilling the mission that we had aborted, of being useful.

God has called you to be part of an army. May you be able to start over again not only reconciling with God, but being willing to fulfill the mission that one day was trusted in you. In Jesus' name.