New Beginnings MBC 1-1-23

MBC 1-1-2023

“New Beginnings”

Ephesians 4

A friend asked me recently, how much free time I have in a week? My reply was “not much,” and it got me thinking about what “free” time really is? For my retired friends, it has an entirely different meaning than it does to my working friends. So, I took a couple minutes to do the math, literally on the back of an envelope!

Hang in there with me while I toss some numbers at you.

The average life span in the United States is 72 ½ years, which is 614,952 hours. If you work a 40-hour week for 40 years; and sleep 8 hours per night; and take 2 hours per day for meals, you will have a grand total of 267,127 hours of “free” time. That sounds like a lot until you reduce it to years and then you find that you have only 30 ½ years of your 72 ½ as “free” time. That’s only 11,133 days.

I don’t know about you, but the last 11,133 days of my life have flown by. I’m 12 ½ years away from the national average life expectancy and I don’t know how it got so close!!

Time is funny thing, isn’t it? When I was a kid, the summers lasted a lifetime. I can remember summers as a never-ending time of joy, riding my bike, going to White Stone beach or the pool at Windmill Point Marina. Dad took us fishing two or three afternoons a week. On Saturdays, the neighborhood kids would ride our bicycles into Kilmarnock and go to the Ben Franklin for snow cones and Western Auto to stare at new bicycles and to buy baseballs and gloves. It was a real-life Mayberry here. Then, one day, out of the blue….I graduated high school and the speed of time accelerated. Throw in a real job, a spouse and children and suddenly you are hanging on to the time machine for dear life!

Well, it’s New Year’s day, 2023.

For some, 2022 was just another year, and for others it was a sea change year. For all of us, it was 8,760 hours to live, sleep, eat, study, worship, work…..and whatever else makes up your days.

On the campus of Harvard is a sundial that was placed there in the 1800’s to honor the founders of the university. On it is inscribed, “On this moment hangs eternity.” “On this moment hangs eternity.” That is a very sobering thought, isn’t it. We humans are required to make millions of decisions in a lifetime, and any one of those decisions can affect our eternity. The importance of time cannot be overstated, yet, we waste so much time in meaningless activities. I watch people of all ages with their heads bent, staring at a phone in mesmerized bliss, and I wonder when they are old and at the end of their lives….if they will look back and wish they had watched one more hour of YouTube videos, or played one more game? Or will they wish they had looked up a little more and soaked in the amazing world that God has given us? Time is one commodity that we cannot mass produce; there is no vending machine where we drop a dollar and get an hour of time, and most troubling is that we can’t get it back once it has passed.

So, on January 1, 2023, all around the world, a fresh batch of resolutions have been made. Last January, the most popular resolutions were:

Exercise more; eat better; lose weight; spend more time with family and friends; save money; less time on social media; reduce job stress; quit smoking. Unfortunately, go to church wasn’t on the list!

The resolutions will probably be the same for this year.

As for me, I resolve for less screen time and more heads up time so I can appreciate the beauty of the world around me. In 2023 I have chosen to accept the reality that life is short, and so, I will regularly reflect on the words of James 4, where he asks us, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Tough words….but true.

Before my mother became ill for the last time, we had a conversation about her family and life here on the Northern Neck. She rattled off the family and friends that had passed on before her, and there were many! She said that day, and so many times before….”where did the time go?” How many times have you and I asked that same question, and yet we continue to waste hour upon hour in tedious, mundane nothingness.

Time is our greatest asset when we choose to live in God’s will. James continued in Chapter 4 with an admonition for those of us who plan for tomorrow or next month, or next year; James wrote, “You say we will go to this city or that and earn a living. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live…… and do this or that.” Rather than using our time to plan for tomorrow, we must be aware that tomorrow isn’t promised, and we should, this very day, submit to God’s will and live for Him.

We all know the beautiful verses in Ecclesiastes 3: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” This passage goes on to provide the very essence of life and the seasons that come and go as we live our time on earth. A time to be born and to die, a time to plant and a time to sow, a time to kill and a time to heal. In God’s will for us, there is a time for everything; the seasons of joy and sorrow, the seasons of work and reclining, the seasons of peace and war; and seasons of building and of tearing down. Life is the accumulation of meaningful moments and there are no greater or more meaningful moments than those we spend in communion with God.

So, I propose something different on this new year’s day. Forget making resolutions, we all know that resolutions are easily forgotten. Rather, let’s make New Year’s covenants. Just like God made a covenant with us through the blood of Christ, we can create a covenant with each other to begin anew our personal covenant with Christ Jesus. Let’s covenant to support and love each other as we journey into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with Christ. The Christian journey never ends and like any journey, we need help and support from God and from the other travelers on this, amazing sojourn. We must be a Christian family, dedicated to the success of every Christian, not only within these walls or within the Baptist denomination….but every Christian. We must move beyond the labels of the world and seek total victory for the Christian Church….the Church of Jesus Christ.

Jesus made it clear that the journey would be difficult. “Take up your cross and follow me,” He said. “The yoke is heavy, but the burden is light,” Christ promised. Matthew recorded Jesus saying, “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

These are real challenges and to live in Christ requires renewal of heart and soul, and to accomplish this renewal, we need the love and support of our fellow Christians. Living in Christ isn’t a competition, and it isn’t a race, it is a journey that requires the very best use of our time. It is a journey that will challenge us and tempt us, it is a journey that will be covered in stumbling blocks and pitfalls. It is a journey that will take us to the lowest lows and the highest highs, and the companionship and help of our fellow travelers is crucial. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4: 1-3, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This is worthy of more than a new year’s resolution!!

Let’s make this our covenant between us, the family of Christ, that we will tend to each other with humility and gentleness, that we will be patient with one another and that love will be our guide. What a wonderful world we would have if only this was the covenant of all people.

John Wesley, the great founder of the Methodists, offered a Covenant Renewal service with each new year. I gratefully borrow these words of our Methodist friends:

In the old covenant, God chose Israel to be a special people and to obey the law.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, has made a new covenant with all who trust in him.

We stand within this covenant, and we bear his name. On the one side, God promises in this covenant to give us new life in Christ.

On the other side, we are pledged to live not for ourselves but for God.

Today, therefore, we meet to renew the covenant which binds us to God.

Friends, let us claim the covenant God has made with his people, and accept the yoke of Christ.

Wesley continued, To accept the yoke of Christ means that we allow Christ to guide all that we do and are, and that Christ himself is our only reward.

Christ has many services to be done; some are easy, others are difficult;

some make others applaud us, others bring only reproach; some we desire to do because of our own interests; others seem unnatural.

Sometimes we please Christ and meet our own needs, at other times we cannot please Christ unless we deny ourselves.

On this dawn of the year of our Lord, 2023, I ask you to enter into covenant with each other, the covenant of love that God signed with the blood of Christ. Commit yourselves to the work of Christ in this community and around the world. Let us begin the revival of Christ’s Church right here in rural America. Let the love of Christ shine from you so brightly that even your friends and family will see the change.

I believe this is a very wise use of our time.

In your bulletin there is the covenant prayer that Wesley wrote. Let’s pray this prayer in unison as we contemplate the vastness of God’s love for us and the great, untapped potential that you and I have, to change this broken world.

John Wesley’s New Year’s Day Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen!