Resolving the New Year's Resolution Issue
Notes
Transcript
Is there a difference between December 31 and January 1? Nothing cosmic happens at midnight on December 31 as if we turn into different person when the clock strikes midnight. Time keeps on ticking, the air we breath is the same, and it’s still the same Sun that will rise the next day. But we view the turn of the year as turning a new page in life. The key is the word “NEW.” What is something new that we should do for the New Year, what is your New Year’s resolutions?
History of Making Resolutions
History of Making Resolutions
THE ANCIENT BABYLONIANS
The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March when the crops were planted. During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be.
THE ROMANS
A similar practice occurred in ancient Rome after the reform-minded emperor Julius Caesar tinkered with the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. Named for Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches, January had special significance for the Romans. Believing that Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future, the Romans offered sacrifices to the deity and made promises of good conduct for the coming year.
THE CHRISTIANS
For early Christians, the first day of the new year became the traditional occasion for thinking about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future. In 1740, the English clergyman John Wesley, founder of Methodism, created the Covenant Renewal Service, most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Also known as watch night services, they included:
Readings from Scriptures
Hymn singing
They served as a spiritual alternative to the raucous celebrations normally held to celebrate the coming of the new year. Now popular within evangelical Protestant churches, especially African-American denominations and congregations, watch night services held on New Year’s Eve are often spent praying and making resolutions for the coming year.
THE SECULAR WORLD
Despite the tradition’s religious roots, New Year’s resolutions today are a mostly secular practice. Instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions only to themselves and focus purely on self-improvement (which may explain why such resolutions seem so hard to follow through on). According to recent research, while as many as 45% of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals. But that dismal record probably won’t stop people from making resolutions anytime soon—after all, we’ve had about 4,000 years of practice.
What kinds of resolutions are being made every year? What does it pertain to?
What kinds of resolutions are being made every year? What does it pertain to?
Health
Wealth
Behavior/relational
Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolution
Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolution
more than a couple of the top 10 most common resolutions will look familiar to you:
Lose weight
Exercise more
Get organized
Learn a new skill or hobby
Live life to the fullest
Save more money / spend less money
Quit vices (Smoking, drinking, drugs, etc.)
Spend more time with family and friends
Travel more
Read more
All this is good! But notice something about them? All are geared towards what is temporary. All these resolutions have earthbound benefits only. But what about eternity. Shouldn’t we invest in what will soon be permanent-----ETERNITY?,
The Bible instructs us to have a different perspective on this matter. Read .
8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
From God’s perspective there are two areas in our life that we need to address while we are still in this side of eternity.
BODILY DISCIPLINE and SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE
It is not going to be a matter of what is important over the other because they are both important. You have to have a healthy body in order to live out the commands of the Bible. But there is one thing common about these two categories. If our new year’s resolution were to be about our physical and spiritual, these resolutions can fail even within days you make them.
What is the key to formulating long lasting resolutions?
What is the key to formulating long lasting resolutions?
The key to the longevity of your resolution is not on the resolution itself but the urgency behind it. For instance, a lot of people will not prioritize life after death unless they are sick or their age brings them closer to reality.
If we are to go by the top 10 resolutions:
Lose weight
Exercise more
Get organized
Learn a new skill or hobby
Live life to the fullest
Save more money / spend less money
Quit vices (Smoking, drinking, drugs, etc.)
Spend more time with family and friends
Travel more
Read more
Why do you want to lose weight? There is a higher chance for you to loose weight if it were a desperate measure, Ex. diabetes, or cancer.
Why do want to live life to the fullest? Maybe because you were diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Why do you need to learn a new skill? A must issue in changing careers.
WHY DO YOU NEED TO READ THE BIBLE MORE?
If you make God and especially seriously wanting to know Him more as the center of your New Year’s resolution then there is a chance for it to become resolve instead of being, dissolved! Read
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
John
13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
Based on the verse above who is important?
- if you are not connected (by faith) with God, you cannot do anything, nothing that you do comes to something important or useful.
- it is Christ whom you credit as the sole supplier of your strength.
If a resolution is not God-honoring and/or is not in agreement with God’s Word, we will not receive God’s help in fulfilling the resolution.
What kind of resolution should you be making this year?
What kind of resolution should you be making this year?
Something useful here on Earth and its benefit will go on to eternity.
Notice that each recommendation is made with a prayerful approach!
1. Desire more wisdom - the kind that is from the Word, not the World!
1. Desire more wisdom - the kind that is from the Word, not the World!
Why is biblical wisdom important to you as a believer?
It has something to do with doing something for God. Being connected to God through faith establishing a relationship with Him we need more knowledge about Him resulting in WISDOM!
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Who can better provide wisdom than the source Himself?s
He gives wisdom generously.
He gives without finding fault.
He will give!
You need wisdom in running you business, your finances, your family, your relationships, your health, etc.
Notice, there are a lot of things in life that needs a
spiritual perspective.
Pray for wisdom regarding what resolutions that God would want you to make.
2. Pray for wisdom to know God’s will in your life.
2. Pray for wisdom to know God’s will in your life.
Why is God’s will important with you?
Do you know what is your God ordained general and specific purpose in this life.
In company every employee contributes to one goal - PROFITABILITY!
But each employee has a specific position in the organization. Each position is designed and executed properly to maintain the company’s profitability.
All believers are to preach the Gospel and promote God but how do you go about it.
If you were part of the company, what office do you hold? What office or position are you called to have for God to be glorified?
3. Pray for steadfast faith.
3. Pray for steadfast faith.
Why is faith in God important?
Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
You are saved by grace through faith.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
24 “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight—
4. Pray for humility.
4. Pray for humility.
Why is being humble important?
What is pride, the subtle yet powerful influence that most commentators believe is the father of all other sins? Hebrew, Greek, and English share the sense of the word's basic meaning: to be lifted up; to have an undue sense of one's importance or superiority.
Pride motivates us to exaggerate the value of our thoughts. It causes us to elevate our opinions and raises the importance of the fulfillment of what we perceive as our needs even above God's and, of course, decidedly higher than our fellowman's.
It causes one to fail!
18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
Pride gets in the way of “GENUINELY” exalting God!
See the very world attributed to Lucifer before his fall from Heaven:
13 “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north.
14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
What does the bible say about haughtiness?
6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
17 Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. 18 Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin.
Some fight that takes place within families is brought about from ones pride and haughtiness.
Pride gets in the way to reconciliation and forgiveness.
5. Pray for a change in behavior.
5. Pray for a change in behavior.
Why is behavior important to a believer?
5 Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.
Your behavior is the result of the heart.
Show me your behavior and I will know what your heart is.
Behavior is a natural manifestation of the heart in as much as the beating of the hearth is a manifestation that one is alive.
18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
I have an idea of who you are by from a distance because of what I see.
James 2:
I have an idea of what your interest are from the other side of the world but what you post on FB.
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Make resolutions that has eternal benefits.
Make resolutions that will glorify God.
Urgent reasons make for year lasting resolutions.
Make resolutions that will glorify God.
Urgent reasons make for year lasting resolutions.
