A Resolution Worth Keeping

Introductions

Justin Redekopp, Steinbach, CMC

Work with Joseph Froese.

Engaged to Madison Friesen, Daughter to Bob and Gail Friesen

If no one is offended, I will give a devotional

Hesitate to say “sermon” >

“Nice try” story

Opening

Survey (by hand raising)

> How many of you have made NYR’s this year?

> How many of you can confidently say that you have up till this point have kept your NYR?

> How many can say that despite some hiccups, you are still trying to keep your NYR?

> How many have thrown your NYR to the wind already?

> How many think that NYR’s are silly and unobtainable?

Suggestion

NYR’s are extremely hard - if not impossible - to keep

Now half of you are saying “See, I knew it.”

The other half are saying “Really? Well I am going to prove you wrong, mister.”

NYR’s: Cons and Prose

I done a lot of thinking about our typical NYR resolutions.

This means: IT’S NOT HARD RESEARCH

Topic has been on my mind for a week and a half

Narrowed down to 3 main reasons why NYR’s are by large set up for failure

Hear me out and decide for yourselves

Reason One: They often are nothing more than wishful thinking

Clarify:

Wishful = very vague or nebulous

People say things like:

eat healthier

exercise more

be kinder

take more family time

These are good things, but too broad

these are all good things, but too broad.

To effectively accomplish these goals, you need to set one or more small and specific targets.

Specific, Well Organized Commitment

There are little steps involved in performing such a broad goal

Example: “Exercise More”

“exercise more”

First you ask why? Less weight? More strength? Both? Looking good?

If your goal is less weight, you need to know more about

How many calories you need in a day.

How many calories you take in a day.

How many calories you burn in a specific exercise

Which exercise is right for you as an individual

Bad knee? Running probably won’t work

You need to carve out a time for it

What will be some things which could get in the way of me carrying out my resolution

Am I willing give these things up to keep my resolution?

Who can I ask to help me keep my resolutions?

All of this is to show that any type of resolution, to even be remotely well conceived requires considerable amount of forethought.

Of course, you could just say “I’ll just exercise more, using any free time I have.”

Or you can say, “I’ll just remember that I decided to eat healthier and make decisions accordingly in the future”

Perhaps you have the fortitude to remember and hold yourself to a lofty and vague ideal for 2 weeks. If you can do this longer than two weeks, come talk to me afterwards. I’d like to know your secret.

Conclusion:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

You may be able to muster up some sort of adherence to a broad un-mapped commitment of self-betterment for a few weeks. You can say “I’ll just remember that at New Years I decided to eat healthier. Going forward I’ll make my dietary decisions accordingly” But the further time and your mind travels from that date and decision, the more likely the old habits and presets will take precedence.

So unless your resolution is specific, strict, well planned, and micromanaged, AND supported not just by your own will but also by those around you, I doubt it will have any lasting value beyond a month.

Reason 2: Society works against you.

Personal observation

Everyone knows that the Christmas holidays are the time when we over indulge a bit at the table.

Our usual response is to take up a diet into the new year.

Nothing wrong with that. Jesus himself notes this as a human tendency.

English Standard Version Chapter 9

15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew Matthew 9:159:15

I think it is very appropriate to recognize when we need to cut back and discipline ourselves.

For me it is sugar. (Story of the French Vanilla and the Tim Hortons flyer after New Years)

Society is no one’s friend but it’s own

Not interested in fasting

Or h

Not interested in saving

(note how the interest rates are so low)

Do you need more proof?

Walmart product placement

Study on exercise, weight loss, and Coca Cola

The Ridiculous role models

Movie/sports stars

Each are paid big money to fit an ideal of beauty, triumph, and athletics.

Not to mention that their salaries could probably feed small nations

And the places in which we go to admire and learn from them? Movie theaters? Sports stadiums? Selling those things (junk food, alcohol) which should be avoided to be like them personally.

Even close friends

Your friends want to go out, but you have made financial, dietary, or time intensive resolutions

Conclusion: The world broadcasts its own set of resolutions which are confusing at the best, destructive at the worst. In short, the world is not aiming to make us better people.

The Ridiculous role models

Even if you have a good and specific plan, and you have the will to execute it, prepare to face a barrage of assaults from the world.

having likeminded people around does help.

Movie/sports stars

“Am I going to do a good deed? Then, of all times - Father into thy hands: lest the enemy should have me now” - George McDonald

Final Reason: The Bible doesn’t put much stock in human effort

English Standard Version Chapter 53

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Each are paid big money to fit an ideal of beauty, triumph, and athletics.

Weight watchers

English Standard Version Chapter 17

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

English Standard Version Chapter 17

14  Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed;

save me, and I shall be saved,

English Standard Version Chapter 7

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

English Standard Version Chapter 6

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

17  Therefore go out from their midst,

and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

then I will welcome you,

18  and I will be a father to you,

Gym friend

Not to mention that their salaries could probably feed small nations

Perhaps

In reality, the first two reasons why NYR’s are hard...

In groups of likeminded people we are protected from the constant assault from without.

Church small group accountability

Church small groups

And the places in which we go to admire and learn from them? Selling

too impulsive, shortsighted, lazy

As social creatures we are influenced by crowds

Conclusion: The world has a confusing and destructive set of

that culture is aligned against individual effort

are just simple ways to verify the Biblical reality.

We are individually and corporately broken by our sins.

And I think the world knows it

save me, and I shall be saved,

Doesn’t mean we like to admit it

Like children who got hurt doing something they shouldn’t have

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), ..

Transition

So what is the good news?

Hopefully telling you that lack of planning, the world and the Bible are going to ruin your NYR’s hasn’t got anyone down.

(Story of how I survived intense movies as a Child)

Open your Bibles to

Prior to passage

Begins as a prayer (25-26)

Progresses to a theological statement (27)

Ends as invitation (28-30)

Backstory

v. 25

Dependent on your translation, v. 25 begins a couple of different ways.

“At that time Jesus answered, and said.” NKJV

“At that time Jesus declared” ESV

“At that time Jesus said” NIV

NKJV give the impression of an unspoken question.

NIV and ESV clarify this as a specific event taking place during a larger plot

Summary: This prayer/teaching/invitation is connected to the verses, and even the chapters before it.

Review

: Jesus’s ministry begins (Baptism and Temptation)

: Popularity begins (John is imprisoned, Jesus moves to Capernaum, begins preaching, calls his disciples, becomes a famous healer)

: begins to teach

: Typifying those who come to Jesus: (Unclean leper; Roman soldier; Women

This will not make Jesus popular with religious elite

He also turns people down from following him in these chapters

: Conflicts with Religious leaders (Forgives sins, eats with sinners, doesn’t fast, touches unclean women, casts out devils by “Beelzebub”)

Ends with him commanding people not to tell others

They do and Jesus is swamped with requests to heal everywhere

: Delegates authority to disciples and sends them out

He wants to teach, but his compassion multitudes

Sends them to Israel

Warns of persecution

:

After disciples leave, he teaches and preaches

But John begins to doubt (v.2-3)

Affirms that he is who John thought he was

Heard what Jesus was doing

Affirms John’s ministry of being the Messiah’s forerunner

His doubt is expected (fire and brimstone preacher vs. Jesus the healer)

He chi

John was expecting judgement

Perhaps salvation from his prison

Instead...

5  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6  then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert;

And Jesus goes on to teach the crowds about John’s purpose

But I want to focus on this section because chapter 11 can seem confusing if we don’t understand what has gone on up till this point

But John was not alone in doubt

4-7 document Christ’s growing popularity,

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

8-9 show that Jesus was not what the religious establishment expected either.

So in Matthew, 4-10 show a growing resistance to Christ’s ministry

Jesus addresses this opposition directly in 11:16-24

In 16-17 he calls them like little children (explain)

He calls them pouting children in

And why do they reject John and Jesus?

He does not fit their agenda

They all had their own particular agenda

Sadducees

Pharisees

Zealots

Common people

But Jesus did not fit. He healed the outcasts and spent time among cultural sinners.

They asked Jesus for signs

He was fulfilling signs already

But they were just not the signs the elite, wise, and powerful wanted.

And Jesus points this out in chapter 11

Vv. 25-30

v.25

In your Christian life, times will come - should come, in fact - where it seems like everyone knows what God is up to except you.

It seems like everyone is following through on a God given task but you

This verse makes it seem like God alone is in control of who hears him and who doesn’t

But let me ask you: how wise are you - in your own eyes?

v.26

If this happens to you (refer to the above in v.25 exposition), the biggest mistake you can make is to blame others (God, other people)

Jesus says it was God’s good pleasure to hide himself from the wise and show himself to the humble. God has engineered it so. That God’s word should be hidden to the self-sufficient is part of his plan.

When God seems silent, when nothing is going according to plan you can be sure of this - God has engineered the circumstances

If this happens to you (refer to the above in v.25 exposition), the biggest mistake you can make is to blame others (God, other people)

v.27 (Jesus shifts from prayer to a profound statement)

Jesus straight up tells us he is God’s Son.

He has the answer to the question “What does God want?”

That is what everyone is trying to figure out, isn’t it?

What will bring us God’s shaloam!?

What will bring us peace!?

Jewish sub-groups

Psychologists, environmentalists, economists

That’s what environmentalists are trying to figure out

You, and me.

And what Jesus says is “I know.” I know what God wants.

v.28

When the weight of

guilt

loss

confusion

falls on you

When however you assumed it should go doesn’t go

When your carefully laid plans for this day, this year, this life are crushed - and they will be. Of all things life is, it is not predictable or easy.

Will you blame others

Will you blame God

Will you ask God “What do you want with me?”

Or will you come to Jesus?

will you learn more about him

Through others?

Through bible reading?

Through prayer?

You see, coming to Jesus isn’t a release from responsibility

You are accepting a yoke

But his yoke is simple

Just follow him

As you go throughout this new year, will you resolve to follow Jesus