Resolving for a Better New Year
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· 3 viewsA sermon about how to apporach the new year
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Why New Years Resolutions are Good
Why New Years Resolutions are Good
New Years resolutions used to be a very popular practice. I think they are getting less popular. Did anyone make any new years resolutions this year?
OK, how many of you who made a resolution have been able to keep it thus far? I think they are going out of fashion as people realize how hard it is to keep some dramatic resolution for an entire year.
I used to make fun of new years resolutions, since everyone always breaks them. They seems a bit counterproductive, and it also seems that it could harm someones will to try if they just fail.
Now I am going to be a little hypocritical here. I want to defend New Years resolutions for a little bit, but I didn’t make any this year. People normally make new years resolutions to address some part are of their life that needs improvement. Around New Years we sit down and take stock of the past year and look at how we want us to be better this year. I used to like to make fun of new years resolutions because of peoples inability to keep them, however this seems like a really good practice. A time to sit down, reflect on what we have been, take a look at who we wish to be, and define some concrete steps to getting there. With proper perspective, even failure at this exercise should result in improvement. Just like simply documenting everything you eat has been proven to cause weight loss with no other practices adding in, just thinking about who you are and who you wish to be will help you toward that goal.
One of the heroes of early American History had a practice somewhat like this. Benjamin Franklin as a relatively young man took stock of who he was, his various flaws and failings and decided to get rid of all them. Of course he found this to be impossible so he developed a plan. He divided his character into 13 virtues and spent nearly a month on each one each year. While he focused on one, he ignored the others and thus he was able to rebuild his habits and become a better person. Now of course he found perfection of this kind to be a fruitless pursuit, but found that the improvements to his character to be of great value. The exercise of striving to be perfect was very valuable even with failure since the result was still marked improvement. A motivation but unscientific phrase coined by Les Brown goes something like “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” and illustrates how aiming for a high target and missing still leads to improvement. So I think maybe it is time for us to turn the page and start encouraging new years resolutions again.
Turning To God
Turning To God
But I don’t want to waste our time talking about the phsycology of new years resolutions. On Sunday I encouraged you to press on in growth in Christlikeness until you reach Heavens shore. I summed up the message with this thought. Last years victories won’t get you to heaven and last years failures won’t keep you out. The idea of New Years resolutions is to try to make this year a better year than last year. What determines that, how do we know and how do we ensure that this year is better?
The first step is to take a step back, take some time and reflect on yourself. Look at your life, and ask God. What would you have me change. Lamentations 3:40 says “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.” So as we begin another year and we wish it to be better lets start by searching out our ways. If there is a way that we have, a thing that we are doing, a practice that we have that is displeasing to God He will be faithful to help us to see it and to help us turn from it. God will lead us and strengthen us as we follow Him in faithful obedience.
Spend Time with God
Spend Time with God
The next step in improving this year is to spend time with God. This goes hand in hand with the self reflection we have already done. We must also ask God to search us and to shew us. Then to hear his voice we need spend time with Him and in His word. Joshua 1:8 says “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
People like to act like its hard to tell what’s right and wrong, to know what God wants them to do is certain situations. It is not always easy, but it is a whole lot easier if we are spending time each day, if we are meditating day and night on the law of God. If we are engrossing ourselves in studying God’s desires for us, each situation becomes much more clear. 2 Timothy 2:15 says “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” It is the Christians duty to know what the Bible says. This is not some nice thing that if we have spare time we ought to do if we feel like, this is a priority that is vital and essential to living in love to God. How does God want us to shew love to Him, what does he want us to do, How does He want us to live? All the answers to all our questions are found by mediating on God’s word, Studying His word and allowing His Spirit to speak to us through the living word of God!
To study something goes beyond just a daily skimming of chapter or two, or twenty! It is not defined by amount of time or by amount covered. I believe it is defined, or should be, by learning. How do we learn what the Bible has to say to us. Well primarily through reading it and through prayer. James 1:5 says“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” God is the author of His word and the best teacher we can have. The study of scripture must be bathed in prayer.
Another part of study is done corporately. Self study is good. Group study is better. Sunday School is as I have said before one of the most valuable things that we do as a church. There is little we can do together as a church that is more valuable than to carefully study God’s word together with an educated and prepared teacher guiding and informing our study! Sunday School is not just for the kids. Its not just for the teens. It is just as important for the adults! We have an opportunity each week to learn together. To spend 45 minutes to an hour focused on what God has said in a passage of Scripture. To dig deeply into that Scripture and to grow in our knowledge of it. Yet we rarely prioritize it. Do you want to draw closer to God this year? Do you want to Love Him better this year? Come to Sunday School!
Spend time with Each Other
Spend time with Each Other
This leads into another aspect of making this year better than last year, of improving ourselves and loving God better. Hebrews 10:25 says “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
So many things try to keep us from church. So many things try to isolate us from other believers. It is a tool of Satan to try to isolate us. It is not only human generals that discovered the idea of divide and conquer. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says “And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” This applies across all of our lives. Satan wants to divide us from each other, to separate us, to make us feel alone, to make us feel powerless, helpless and weak. Yet when we stay together we become stronger. Yes, us plus Jesus is enough to conquer any foe, but it is helpful to be together with other Christians to strengthen and hold us up. I know in my life that I would never survive if it were not for others in my life holding me up! I experienced consistent failure in my Spiritual life until I allowed and perhaps forced others into my life to help hold me up. Together with Jesus as my helper and other Christians as supports and strength I have found new victories that I had at one point despaired of! Church is not the only time or place we can spend with each other, yet it is a time that we can make a habit of to draw closer to each other.
But coming to church is not just a time to spend with each other, in fact that is not its focus but a side benefit. We do come to church to spend time in the presence of God. We come together on Sundays because it is God’s day. However I think we come together on Wednesdays to be with each other and to take a moment out of our stressful week and focus on God and to hear how God has been helping our brothers and sisters throughout the week. We put a prayer and praise service in the middle of the week for a reason. Not because we wanted to justify having a building or because we wanted to take another offering, but because we as people need it. The week can be long, and we can lose focus on God and feel alone and isolated. Coming together in the middle of the week can refocus our attention on God, and revitalize us by hearing the testimonies of fellow believers. It helps to remind us that we are not alone, and that together we can be strong. Together with each other and together with God.
So this year lets do our best to make it a better year than last year. Lets not focus on the failures of last year, or rest on the victories of last year but rather let us spend time taking stock of who we are and who God wants us to be. Lets turn to God if we have not yet or if we have turned away from Him. Lets keep our eyes fixed on Him if they are already. Let’s resolve to spend time with God, spend time in His word studying alone and together and lets bathe all of that study in prayer. And lets commit to ourselves and to God to honor His day by worshiping together with each other on the Lords day and lets also resolve to come together with other believers to share in our needs and our victories in the middle of the week. To refocus ourselves on God and realize that we are not alone! Lets Resolve this year to Love God better than we did last year, because that really what makes a year better or worse than another one.