Starting Over

Bulletin

Dan Peters
04/14/24 - New Birth

Starting Over

God seems to start over several times in his willingness to save people. When evil became so rampant in the days of Noah (Gen. 6), God chose to start over with Noah. But after the flood, there was again, nakedness, sin, and another curse (Gen.9). God started over with Abraham and his family (Ben. 12). But when the family, the nation of Israel, became so evil in the days of Moses, God almost started over again. God said to. Moses, “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:10).
What caused God to become so angry? They made a golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai and were worshiping this idol. But
Moses did not want God to start over again by destroying the nation, and raising up a nation from Moses himself. So what does Moses do? He destroyed the golden calf, and then “I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke Him to anger” (Deut. 9:18), and Moses said, “But now, if You will, forgive their sin — and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” (Exodus 32:32). Moses was an incredible man who nearly fasted to death, and was willing to be “blotted out” of God’s book of life.

Fast forward now to the New Testament. God has started over again with building a new nation under Jesus, as Peter quotes a prophecy about Jesus, “He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12).
God now starts over building a nation, a nation of people who are going to follow Jesus. You can’t be saved outside of Jesus, says Peter. Historically, the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed and the temple tore down (Luke 21) as it happened in 66-70 AD. But those in Christ would be saved. A new nation under Christ had already begun (1Peter 2). Is it time for you also to start over with God? He wants to save you (1Timothy 2:4). But you must start over, that is, be born again of the water (baptism) and the Spirit. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Mat. 28:19-20). Christians have great joy in starting over with a new life in Christ (Rom. 6:1-4). Dan Peters