Make a Fresh Start Series
Are You at a Dead End?
Remember when you were a kid and you’d play some game and something would happen while you were playing that messed you up and you’d cry out “do-over”. Well, in life sometimes we’d like a “do-over”. We’d like to make a fresh start.
Do you remember the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”? You remember – George Bailey – the dis-hearted and disillusioned businessman that thought his whole life was a waste and that it would have been better that he’d never been born. In the end of the movie, after seeing what life would have been like had he not been around, George gets a do-over. We all like that movie because deep down, we could relate to George Bailey. We’d like to get a do-over. (Ladies quit looking at your husbands that way).
There have been numerous occasions in my life that I believe God gave me a chance to make a fresh start. The latest of course is sending me here to be your pastor.
One very significant fresh start was when Joyce and I moved from Colorado to Ohio. I wasn’t much in favor of the move, but I was willing to turn it over to God and follow His leading. Little did I realize at the time that God had brought me to what appeared to be a dead end road only to provide me with a fresh perspective of His will for my life.
As we start this series on making a fresh start, I want to encourage you to think back on a time that you felt stuck, or that you were on a dead end road. Then realize how God pulled you through that time and set your feet on a new path that was a blessing to you and ultimately gave Him glory. All of us need a fresh start now and then. My prayer is that at the end of these next 4 weeks that we will have freshness in our faith, find restoration where there is brokenness, look positively to God’s plan for our life and make the most of the opportunities God gives us. Thankfully, we serve a God who specializes in fresh starts.
Tonight the question is, “are you at a dead end?”
My brother and I were bringing a bunch of teens back from Ichthus one year and we took what appeared to be short cut through a parking lot so that my brother didn’t have to make a sharp turn pulling a 24’ camper. His trailer handling skills left much to be desired.
Eventually, he rounded a building at the end of the parking lot only to find that it was a dead end.
Sometimes that happens with our life. We take what appears to be a short cut then lo and behold – we’ve turned down a dead end road.
It could have been a career choice. Maybe it was a relationship choice. Maybe it was a financial decision. But there we are. Stuck! At a dead end with no easy way to get out of it.
Tonight we’re going to begin with a story of Biblical proportions – literally. Turn to Exodus 14.
Exodus ch. 11 – plagues
Exodus ch. 12 – the Passover
Exodus ch. 13 – the exodus. God leads them the long way through the desert to the Red Sea.
Exodus 14:10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ’Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"
The people were at a dead end. (sounds like a bunch of backseat drivers – “I told you it was the wrong way. You should have asked for directions…)
Exodus 14: 13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."
15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."
19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. 25 He made the wheels of their chariots come off [b] so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt."
26 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward [c] it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. 31 And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.
Here’s what my inquiring mind is asking. If they had taken the shorter route instead of the long one, I wonder if they would have been able to eventually enter the promised land?
Had they not come to a place where the Red Sea stood in front of them and Pharaoh’s army behind them, I wonder if they would have come to appreciate God’s deliverance from Egypt?
If you feel like your life is at a dead end, how do you get back on the right road? Are you at a place where the Red Sea is in front and Pharaoh is behind – stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place? If that’s how you feel, then I want to spend a little time tonight to encourage you and help you find your way back to the road God wants you on.
1. How’d I get here?
If you’re at a dead end, you first need to ask yourself, “How’d I get here?” What turns did you take in life that led you down this path? What choices did you make?
a. If sin led you to this dead end, then turn around – that’s called repentance. It’s one thing to get to the end of the road and say, “I’m really sorry I came this way.” It’s another thing altogether to turn around and go the other way. Many of us are sorry when we sin, but we don’t always repent of it.
b. While you’re at your dead end, it may be a good time to take inventory of yourself.
Galatians 3:2-4 - Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! – The Message
What Paul is saying is that we should take inventory of what we’ve been doing. The Galatians were having problems because they forgot the basic principle of what it meant to walk in the newness of life in Christ. They were trying to add to it and in the process made a mess of it. Maybe God’s plan for your life isn’t nearly as complicated as you’re trying to make it. In trying to “take a shortcut” you ended up on a dead end road.
c. Stop making excuses about how you got in this predicament and take responsibility - 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.”
2. Admit that you can’t do it alone
Once you’ve taken the time to figure out how you came to be at a dead end, then you’ll probably come to realize that you can’t get out of this situation on your own. Just as with Israel at the Red Sea, it will take Divine intervention to get you back on track. Sometimes it’s only when we are at a complete loss as to how we help ourselves that we begin to rely on Jesus.
a. Ask yourself this question, “What is God telling me right now?” Sometimes the dead end road can be God telling you to move forward. Look at what it says in verse 15 & 16:
15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.
Mankind came to a dead end when Noah was told to build the ark. Abraham and Sarah’s life had come to a dead end when they had no children, then God promised them that their descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky. Joseph was at a dead end when his brothers sold him into slavery, but he became a great deliverer for the nation of Israel.
In each of those instances God took them forward through the apparent dead end.
You may have to wait for God to show the way, but He won’t leave you without a way of escape from your dead end if you’re trusting in Him. (v. 13 & 14).
3. Refocus your energies on God
After we’ve accepted that we cannot go it alone, then we are in a position to refocus our energy on God and His plan for our life.
Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Let your mind be transformed and renewed as you focus again on God’s plan for your life. Turn it over to Him and commit the situation to Him.
4. Trust God
After we have taken the time to figure out how we reached our dead end in the first place, and have accepted our inability to make it on our own, and have refocused our life on God, the one thing remains. Trust God! Zechariah 4:6 says this, “ You will not succeed by your own strength or power but by My Spirit, says the Lord. ”
The Israelites were doomed. With the Red Sea in front and Pharaoh’s army behind, there was no human way they would escape. They had to trust God. So do you.
When I felt like my life was at a dead end, I was fortunate that someone loved me enough to tell me how to get on the right track. He told me I needed Jesus. You see, life without God is a dead end street. It wasn’t until I reached the end of my dead end road that I saw my need for Jesus. I had nowhere to turn and nowhere to go but Hell. Then Jesus said, “Follow me.”
The Bible says in Prov. 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Jesus said He was the way, the truth and the life.
We are all on the dead end street because life ends in death. But if we know Christ, then His resurrection brings us eternal life. There are two roads you can go down – One of them definitely has a dead end!
