August 31, 2025 - Mark Turman - Refresh, When You Need a Do Over

August 31, 2025 - Mark Turman - Refresh, When You Need a Do Over

Nehemiah 8:8-12

• 00:00 Royal Wedding Excitement
• 01:02 Icons of the Past: Carl Sandberg
• 02:24 Carl Sandberg's Inspirational Quote
• 02:48 Technology Troubles and the Restart Button
• 03:37 Israel's Great Restart: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther
• 12:41 The Importance of Foundations
• 14:31 Mixed Emotions in New Beginnings
• 20:19 Freedom to Celebrate
• 29:59 Recommitting to God's Plan
• 34:25 Final Prayer and Blessings

Chapters

• 0:00 Royal Wedding Excitement
• 0:18 Icons of the Past and Present
• 2:09 Carl Sandberg's Wisdom
• 2:48 Technology Troubles and Restart Button
• 3:37 Israel's Great Restart
• 4:07 The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther
• 9:30 Nehemiah's Burden and Vision
• 11:38 Mixed Emotions in Restarting
• 20:19 Freedom to Celebrate
• 29:59 Recommitting to God's Plan
• 34:25 Final Prayer and Blessing

Transcript

[00:00:00] Royal Wedding Excitement

I'm sure that you're celebrating and overjoyed with the announcement of the most recent royal wedding that is coming. Yes. The royal wedding of Travis Kelsey and some little girl named Taylor, something or another.

We're excited that they're coming. 

[00:00:18] Icons of the Past and Present

You know, every culture, every generation has its icons. Its public, public figures. Those people that just kind of epitomize a particular time and place, and that seems to be football players and pop singers these days. But if you and I had lived just a hundred years ago, it might have been different.

It might've been somebody, a pilot by the name of Charles Lindbergh that caught the headlines, often might've been a great military general by the name of Dwight Eisenhower, who was born in North Texas, up in Denison, Texas. It might've been a news reporter by the name of Walter Cronkite. Some of you remember, but it might also have been a poet.

A poet, an author, a journalist. Who lived a century ago by the name of Carl Sandberg. Carl Sandberg was a biographer, won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography on Abraham Lincoln won two more for other pieces of his work and was known a generation ago by almost everyone. In the culture of that time, when Carl Sandberg died in the mid 1960s, Lyndon Johnson, the president.

Who was from just down the road here, just a little ways. Not necessarily known for his great speeches, but even LBJ said of Carl Sandberg, that he was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. Carl Sandberg was America. That's a pretty good eulogy, especially coming from a president.

[00:02:09] Carl Sandberg's Wisdom

I bring up Carl Sandberg to share with you one of my favorite quotes that is most likely attributed to his pen, and I want it to be the theme, the thought that you Take home with you this morning. Carl Sandberg wrote on one occasion, no one, no one can go back and have a new beginning, but anyone can begin today and have a new ending.

You can never go back, but you can start today and have a brand new ending. 

[00:02:48] Technology Troubles and Restart Button

My wife tells me at least three times a week, technology hates me. It's sometimes her phone, sometimes the TV remote, sometimes it's her computer or one of the other devices that we try to connect to the world. At least three times a week, sometimes seven times a week, technology hates me, and so I just have to remind her that the first rule of technology is that when it's not working for you, there's a little button in the upper left hand corner that you should go familiar yourself, familiarize yourself with.

It's called the restart button. Wouldn't it be great to remember that every single day? 

[00:03:37] Israel's Great Restart

I wanna take you back into the pages of Israel's history for one of their greatest restart moments. It's in a portion of the scripture that I bet none of you have spent much time and you have no memory verses out of this section of the Bible, but it is the great restart in the story of Israel.

It's found in three little letters, three little parts of scripture that could have all really been won. 

[00:04:07] The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther

They are called the letters or the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. I would bet many of you who have been in women's ministry or women's Bible studies, you've come across the name of Esther, queen Esther, great story.

Out of this particular season of Israel's history, many of you guys probably have heard of Nehemiah, or you've been in churches that were going into building campaigns to build a new sanctuary or a new children's building, something like that, and they went and they gained inspiration from the great testimony of Nehemiah.

Almost no one can remember how Ezra fits, fits into this story, but it is a story of all three of them coming together and being used by God to help restart the nation of Israel after a period of 70 years, 70 years in which almost all of the people of Israel had been conquered. And not only had they been defeated in war, they had been taken as captives.

Far away from their land and from their homes and from everything that was familiar taken initially by a pagan king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. It's one of those words that kids back there in the room would love to learn to say Nebuchadnezzar. He came under the Babylonian empire and defeated Israel and took all of the best and brightest, almost everyone, a away to Babylon.

Under the prediction of God through the prophet Jeremiah said they would be away for at least a generation 70 years until their time of discipline and judgment would come to an end and God would send them home. That's announced in Ezra chapter one, and God moves in the heart of a pagan king by the name of Cyrus to allow these captives to go home.

And God Rouses the Spirit Israel one says he rouses the spirit of 43,000 Israelites, the first wave to go back to Israel, back to Jerusalem, back to Judea, and begin the great work of starting over. I don't know where you are today. Don't know what your problems are, what your fears are, what your hopes or dreams might be.

Maybe you do or don't need a restart of any size today, but I'll bet you will need one before long. So whether you need it now or need it then I hope that you'll remember these words and these truths from this great story of restart. You may wonder why sometimes we ask you when we're about to read the Bible, to stand in honor of God and his word.

Part of the basis of that comes from Nehemiah chapter eight, where the people gathered after they had made it back to Jerusalem, they'd kind of gotten the initial settling done and they were restarting the city and the place of worship. So it says in Nehemiah eight that they gathered for a time together and they all stood.

While Ezra read from the Word of God, would you do that in that same spirit this morning, as I read just a few verses out of Nehemiah chapter eight and verse eight, it says this, they read out loud of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so the people could understand what was read.

Nehemiah the governor, Ezra, the priest, and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people, said to all of them this day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep. For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, go and eat what is rich. Drink what is sweet, and send portions to those who have nothing prepared since today is holy to the Lord.

Our to our Lord do not grieve because the joy of Lord is your strength. And the Levites quieted all the people saying, be still since today is holy, don't grieve. Then all the people began to eat and drink and send portions and have a great celebration because they had understood the words that were explained to them.

Let's pray together. Lord, we're thankful to gather in a joyful spirit of grace and mercy, hope and peace, joy, and comfort because of who you are. Lord, I pray that we would gather around your table this morning that we would hear your words of life, that God, they would fill us again with the promise, not only of everlasting life, but of joy, of peace, of hope, even in this moment.

Thank you, God, for who you are and for what you want to teach us today. Help us to have ears that hear and hearts that receive. In Jesus name, we pray and everyone said together. Amen. You may be seated. Wow, two great parties of restarting Ezra chapter three and Nehemiah chapter eight. We'll spend a few minutes with each.

[00:09:30] Nehemiah's Burden and Vision

If you remember Nehemiah, he was this young man, a servant in the king's palace who had a burden that gripped his heart. He had no plans of ever going home again. He had heard stories, surely from his parents and grandparents about what the place of Israel and Jerusalem and Judea was all about. Surely he had heard it by reputation, but apparently he had no passion for going home until some of those early pioneers under Ezra's leadership came back to Babylon to recruit some others.

And while he was serving in the King's palace, God moved in his heart and gripped him with a vision. It became a massive burden on Nehemiah's heart that he would go back and help build the walls around Jerusalem, so it would be a place of safety, a place of confidence, a place of power. Once again, he got brave because of that calling and became bold before the king of his day.

A guy by the name of Artist Xerxes, he had taken over from Cyrus. And Nehemiah went and made a big ask, would you let me go home and help my people rebuild the city? In particularly the walls, Nehemiah had a burden. He had a vision. He had a passion to help the nation of Israel restart by building walls.

Ezra, his predecessor, was a priest, a prophet, and his passion was to go back and to restart the worship of Israel. These two guys, along with Queen Esther came together in this season to experience God's mercy and grace as beginning again, not going back because nobody can, but they started where they were and it led to an incredible new ending for them and for their generation.

When you need to restart. Some part of your life with God's help. Two or three things that I want you to remember. 

[00:11:38] Mixed Emotions in Restarting

The first one is this, be prepared for mixed emotions. I bring that up because I want you to set your expectation. If you need to start again with a relationship, with a friendship, with a spouse, or a child, or a grandparent, or with a boss, or with some other project, if you know that there is something that God wants to put on your heart and in your future and you've started, but then stop for whatever reason, disobedience or distraction, whatever it might be, take a lesson from this season of Israel's history.

From these great inspiring leaders of Nehemiah and Ezra and Esther, that you can start again. God stirred in the heart of the king and led the people to go back. 43,000 of them caught that spirit and they went back and they began to reestablish their nation, to reestablish their city, to reestablish the practice of worship.

We won't turn there, but if you wanna find it, Ezra chapter three records that they'd gotten back to Jerusalem and they'd gotten their homes cleaned out and they had set up basic operations as a small group of people really, and they started building their lives back again as the unique people of God.

But after they had been there for a few months. They felt the need to begin to prepare to worship again. So the first thing they did is they came into the city of Jerusalem and they're on that temple mount that is so familiar to us these days as a place of Muslim worship. They reestablished the altar of God, no building, no covering, no tabernacle, nothing.

They just simply set up the altar of God and they began to worship. It wasn't long after that, just a few months after that initial celebration that they actually began the work under Ezra to reestablish the temple. And it says in Ezra chapter three that they took the stones and they worked diligently and they laid the foundation for a new temple.

And once they got the foundation in place, they decided it was time to celebrate. Because that's a pivotal moment in any construction project. They'd, we taken weeks and months to gather all these stones to put 'em back in place to get the foundation ready for everything that was going to come. And then they had a party, they had songs, and they had celebration.

And it says that when they came together, they were singing words you can read in the book of Psalms. It also says that when they were gathering for this initial celebration of the foundation of the temple, that there were some older people among them. You know, older people are great at throwing rain on any parade, right.

I'm not looking at any one particular person today, but when they gathered for this great celebration of this milestone of restarting, it says that some of the older people who remembered the first temple that had been built by Solomon, that they saw this foundation. And they just began to weep. And you can imagine why they might've been weeping.

They might've been weeping because, well, they've been gone for 70 years and these people were children when they left, and now they're in their latter years and they been weeping because of the nation's past sin that led to them being taken away for an entire generation. And they were grieving that.

Maybe they were grieving the, what we would call opportunity costs. That that because they had been away in exile in Babylon, that they didn't get to have incredible experiences that were meant for them, but because of their parents and their grandparents' disobedience, they missed out on 70 years of that, and they were regretful for that, most likely for sure.

They saw this new foundation and. And they thought, it's just not gonna be as good as it was. It's never gonna be as big, it's never gonna be as beautiful. It's never gonna be as impressive. And they thought, you know what? There's just no. And then, and in Ezra chapter three, there's this beautiful, powerful, weird kind of verse.

It says that all of these people who had put the foundation back in place, they were singing, they were celebrating. It was loud, and all the people who knew what had been, they were weeping. They were grieving, and it, it says in Ezra chapter three, that it all came together and it was just loud. You could hear it far away, but you couldn't distinguish the laughing and the celebrating and the joy from the grieving.

It was all blended together. I pondered that verse for the last two or three weeks because it's really a metaphor of our lives. Is it not? We all have things or we will have things that we regret, that we feel like we missed out on all those things that if we could go back and try again with the knowledge that we now have, we'd probably make different choices.

We all wonder, given the bumps and the bruises that we carry in our lives to this point, what can come next? Judy and I, on Wednesday, we're walking through our other church family in McKinney. First McKinney. First McKinney has just completed. Massive Building Pro project. They built a brand new building for their teenagers and some other community space, and they opened it up on Wednesday night, kind of as a soft opening.

And so we were walking through, bumped into my pastor friend there, Sam Holm, and he was just beaming walking through this place and having their first Wednesday night gathering of ministry. It made me realize and remember the times that I had the privilege as a pastor, I got to build, uh, two or three building projects with different churches.

And you know what really just frustrated me to no End was the beginning stage when they brought out the tractors and the bulldozers and they dug deep into the ground and they spent what seemed like forever trying to get the foundation in place. And I mean, it just, if those of you who've done construction, you know, it's, it's the longest, slowest, most uninteresting part of the whole project of a house or a building.

That's the way I felt about it. I was like, can't we just get on with the fun stuff? Let's hang some steel, let's do something interesting. Let's get this thing outta the ground. But if you know anything about construction, you know, if you don't get the foundation right, you don't get any of it right. And it may take longer and it may not be as interesting because you can't see much happening under the ground, but you have to get the foundation right, because the foundation.

It's the thing that holds the weight of the future where all of the fun parts happen. But our lives are always this mixture. They're always this mixture of celebration of sometimes looking back and regret, and hopefully a lot of anticipating what the future might be. But we need to set our expectations that when we come to restart.

That we have this spirit of gratitude sometimes and certainly some experience of grief, but we ought to be forward leaning people into what God wants to do next. The best man in my wedding is in heaven now, but one of his favorite songs, in fact, almost the only song. That played continuously in his home in the last year of his life as he died slowly from Lou Gehrig's disease.

A LS was a song sung by a singer named Manisa called Broken Hallelujah. Folks, that may be the only thing we're really good at singing are broken hallelujahs, but we should sing them nonetheless. So if you're in need of a restart. Set your expectations, you'll have mixed emotions. 

[00:20:19] Freedom to Celebrate

The second thing, and maybe the most important thing is what we learn here in Nehemiah eight, and that is you have freedom to celebrate.

I love this passage. I remember learning this passage for the first time, some 40 years ago, that God really wants you to celebrate and to share in all of his unbridled joy. And he is giving permission for that in this passage and all through his word. I don't know exactly what joy is. We have preachers all the time talking about the difference of joy from happiness.

It's a deep sense of shalom, of wellbeing. No matter what happens, the Bible will teach you that joy is a gift, that it is also a longing for what's God is going to do. It is a hope, and it is also a choice. That's why God can command it. That's why you can turn to the letter of Philippians and you can hear the Apostle Paul say, on behalf of the Holy Spirit, rejoice always.

I'll say it again, rejoice. It can be commanded of us because it is God's longing for us. But if you go back and read this passage. From Nehemiah eight. As Ezra stands up and reads the law, when he starts reading it in verse six, and then in verse nine, you notice that their very first response of the people listening to God's truth being shared with them is not one of smiles.

It's not one of joy. It's not one of celebration. Celebration. It is one of tears. Their first reaction is very much what it was for Isaiah. When you read Isaiah. Coming into the temple and it says that he saw a vision of God. And Isaiah's first reaction is, oh, woe is me. I am standing in the presence of perfect, beautiful holiness.

And Isaiah says, woe is me, and woe is my people. I am a man of unclean lips, but that that reveals an unclean heart. And I live among unclean people. I cannot stand to be in God's presence because of my un holiness. That was their reaction. If you go back and read the early part of this chapter, it says that they literally fell on their faces.

They had been standing joyfully, eagerly listening to the words of God, but when they heard them, they were so broken over their own lack of purity and holiness that they literally just fell on their faces in. And it falls to Ezra and to Nehemiah and to the other leaders to say, no, no. That's not what this day is about.

This is a sacred and holy and beautiful and wonderful day. This is a day for celebration and shouting. Stand to your feet. Let's go eat the best of food. Drink the best of wine. Let's share with others. Let's have the greatest celebration. Because God wants us to have his joy. He wants us to be the most.

Overflowing people on the planet. Now, let me ask you a question. No show of hands. No one needs to stand and confess. How many of you would say that the greatest parties you've ever been to were church parties?

Come on now, Judy and I have spent our lives going to church parties, and some of them were pretty, pretty darn good. Pretty amazing. But most of us would probably not admit that because we've bought into one of the devil's biggest lies, and that is that our God who created everything you can see around here, everything you see when you're riding around on the lake and you see those amazing cliffs, everything you see in the beautiful, incredible sun.

Sunset that made my grandchildren and I watched yesterday. All of that beauty comes from some kind of a stoic, mean joyless, grumpy killjoy. If you've ever subscribed to that idea, you're buying into the devil's lie.

My very first college roommate. Ironically was Judy's former boyfriend. Now there's a whole story around that, but our friend Paul, who lives in Austin today, is a big music lover. The reason he lives in Austin is because that gets him as close as he can possibly get to South by Southwest. He loves all kinds of music, and even when he and I were roommates in Brownwood long, long time ago, he was always playing all kinds of different music.

He loved this line from a guy named Larry Norman. Why should the devil have all the good music? You see, we buy into this lie all the time. It shows up in our church gatherings. It shows up in the way we sing or don't sing on church. It shows up when we go to a church party and we think, oh, I'd rather be at the party down the street with those other people.

Our God is a God of raucous joy. If we could borrow from our teenage years, we might even say he is the ultimate party animal. The Bible says that when we get to heaven, it's gonna be like the greatest party, the greatest banquet with the greatest food and the greatest people you have ever been around.

That's why the Biblical scholar Warren Weby said this, it is wrong. It is wrong to mourn when God has forgiven us. It is as wrong to mourn when he has forgiven us as it is to rejoice when sin has conquered us. You hear that it is as wrong to mourn when God has forgiven you as it would be to rejoice when sin has conquered you our God.

Wants us to enter into his joy. Do the math from this verse. God's joy can be your strength. And what is the thing that gives God joy? Creation, all the things that he does with the works of his hands. Creating you, creating everybody you know, seeing you walk. Faith and in hope and in joy obediently to him watching you be humble and committed to him watching you come to him for forgiveness and mercy and grace.

What does God get joy from? It's from living life with you and pouring his best into you. And don't miss this other part either. It says that God said to them on this particular day, this is a special day. This is a sacred day. Don't you wish every Sunday could be like what's described here? This is a special day.

Eat the best of the food, drink the best available drink. And oh, by the way, be generous to share with the people around you. And as part of the chapel family at PK, I just wanna say thank you for doing that. Many of you, maybe all of you, we could say, know the spirit of generosity in sharing of joyful, overflowing to other people.

And I get to represent you sometimes in doing that in some special ways. You know that we have a pastor retreat ministry where the heart of the chapel is just to invite pastors who don't get a lot of rest and recreation to come out and spend two or three days here on our tab. To stay at the villa and to enjoy the lake and to go hiking and fishing and just hang out in the pool that you guys are making that happen.

And guess what? I get to Joy. Sheila gets the joy of calling these people and say, Hey, why don't you come out and spend some time on us? I got to do that this week. Friend of mine named Chris, he's the pastor of the First Baptist Church out in West Texas in a little town called Crane. Anybody here ever been to Crane?

Yeah, about six of us have been to Crane, and that's about all that really want to go to Crane. By the way,

Chris is a really faithful, joyful pastor out far West Texas, and I got to call him this week and say, Hey, we do this thing at PK called a pastor retreat. Would you like to come and hang out with you and your kids for a few days? And we're gonna help him do that in the coming months. And. Sheila and I get to sit these up.

We get to hear from these families. We get to talk to them about how much it meant to them to just come and have a breather and to get to be in a beautiful place like this. And you're the people that are making that happen. Do you realize that's a joyful, overflowing expression of exactly what Nehemiah was talking about and what God was doing through Ezra in this particular moment of restarting?

They were celebrating and shouting, God's invitation come and celebrate. Sometimes we get so stuck in the past, so mired in our regrets, so convinced that it can never be good again in our lives, that we miss God's invitation. One last thing to remember, when you need a restart. 

[00:29:59] Recommitting to God's Plan

And that is that you need to recommit to God's pace and parameter.

You see, I would do you an injustice if I didn't tell you the rest of the story here for a few minutes, because it says that on this day when they were opening the word of God and they were listening to all of God's plan and God's joy of forgiving them and restarting them and helping them to have a brand new future that they kept on reading.

It wasn't just a one time or a one day thing. If you read on it says, after they had this great day of celebration, they kept on reading the Bible. They kept going back to the stories of their forefathers and to what God had done in their midst in the past. And guess what they discovered? They discovered they needed to have a camp out.

All right, parents, listen up. Grandparents, time for a camp out. They found out that there was this ancient story that after God raised up Moses and led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and took them through the Red Sea and sustained them in the wilderness for 40 years, that all of the generations after that would take a week of their lives every fall about this time of year, in fact, and they would walk out of their houses.

Maybe to their backyard, maybe to somewhere a little bit further away. And they'd go and they'd look at all the trees and they'd cut off some of the branches and they'd bring them back and they, they would build what we would call lean tos, basically to shelter them from the wind because they would spend a week having a camp out reminding themselves and telling themselves the story.

How God had taken care of them through Moses and through the wandering years in the wilderness and through all of those early days of establishing the Promised land. And they would build lean tos and they'd leave the roof open because they wanted to be able to see the stars at night because that's the way they were membered, that God was watching over them when they were sleeping.

And so in Nehemiah's day of restarting. They decided to restart that celebration. They started having a camp out and they had the camp out for a week and once a day during all seven days of the camp out, they would gather for worship and they would read more of the law and they'd learn more of what God had done in their past and they would remember, they would remember.

How their parents, their grandparents, their great-great grandparents, their great-great, great, great great grandparents were just like them. People whose lives and faith were characterized by fits and starts. People who would hear the word of God, and sometimes they would receive it, sometimes they would believe it, sometimes they would obey it with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strengths, and sometimes they wouldn't.

They'd get lazy. They'd get distracted. They'd buy into one of the devil's lives, and they'd go into a season of rebellion. And their lives were J just very much like our lives of starting, failing, restarting, failing, and over and over again, they would learn. And if you read all the Way to the end of Nehemiah, you'll find out that they came and they not only celebrated like they did on this first day.

They committed themselves. Chapter nine. The very last verse says that they actually signed their names to a rededication covenant between themselves and God. They went public. They were committed to starting their lives, starting their faith, and reigniting their joy in the best, most committed ways possible.

So let's go back for a moment to the degree that we can to where we started. No one can go back and have a new beginning, but anyone and everyone can begin today and have a new ending. 

[00:34:25] Final Prayer and Blessing

Would you enter into a time of prayer with me and just let me wrap this up with you. I don't know, but God knows where it is today or someday in the future, that you need the opportunity of restarting of a do-over, if you will, today or somewhere in the near future.

It could be something small, it might be something large. It could be something jumbo. But if you're looking for a do-over, you've come to the right place. 'cause that's what our God is all about. That's what Jesus and the cross are all about.

If you need to restart, yeah, there's probably gonna be a mixture of gladness and grief, but don't let those mixed emotions keep you away. Don't let them block you from starting again with Christ what you hear again today. His invitation that his joy would become your power. It would become your strength.

And would you receive that gift in this moment and let it also propel you to make a fresh commitment for the days to come?

Lord, you have said that you are not far from any of us. Just one word of humble faith. Just one single step of humble trust. Lord, you said that if we will seek you with all of our heart, that we will find you. You said, Lord, that if we confess our sins, you are faithful. And just to forgive us of our sin, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and help us start again.

You said that if we love you, it will show up in joyful obedience. Lord, this morning, wherever we are, whatever we walked in carrying, Lord, I pray that we would come and start again with you and that we would stay faithful for all of our days. Thank you that you've made it possible in Jesus. Thank you that he is here through His spirit with us right now.

Thank you, father, for the hope and the joy that you share with us that can be the strength of our lives. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. God bless you. Hope you have a great weekend. See you soon.