2020 Vision for 2020
Notes
Transcript
2019 is almost over, the year 2020 is now upon us.
How are you celebrating?
Image of the ball dropping in New York
IMage of Father time and baby new year
Image of Father time and baby new year
image of the ball dropping in TImes Square New York.
The ball dropping is a celebration that began in 1907, so it’s been a tradition for 112 years.
Historically the start of the New Year went back and forth between Winter on January 1st and Spring on March 25 until the Gregorian calendar was adopted in the 1500’s.
Actually the celebration of the New Year dates back to ancient times and has come from pagan practices.
How are Christians to celebrate the New Year?
There are religious groups that take it to the extreme, that Christians should not celebrate New Year at all.
January 1st, the stroke of midnight: Phil and Julia party like there is no tomorrow, on a ballroom dance floor crowded with men in tuxedoes and women in evening gowns.
Ralph, feeling happy and warm, weaves through traffic, while drunk behind the wheel of a potential killing machine, oblivious to the danger he presents to himself and to others. Todd and Mara, strangers who have just met, exchange kisses while dancing to 120 beats per minute in a dark nightclub. Fred runs outside his house, points his pistol into the air, and fires off a few rounds. Marta sits on a bench in a cold cathedral and whispers the same prayer over and over again. Susan sits at home watching television and envies the masses that crowd together at Times Square and wishes she was there, anywhere, instead of home alone on New Year’s.
And yet there are a few others scattered around the world who will not be out on New Year’s Eve. They will not be partying on a ballroom dance floor, or drinking and driving, or exchanging illicit kisses with strangers, or firing pistols into the air, or sitting beside other professing Christians, praying by rote. And they will not be sitting at home alone, wishing they were out and about with the rest of the world, ringing in the new year. Instead, they will treat New Year’s like just another ordinary day.
Is this true? That the Christian should shy away from the celebration of New Year because it symbolically represents the world system?
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Jesus said in His high priestly prayer that we are NOT OF THIS WORLD.
The Apostle John warned us: “Do not love the world.”
How are we to face the New Year then?
The answer to how we are to welcome the new year is in Ephesians 5:
15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
Ephesians 5:
In observing the New Year, the follower of Jesus, everyday should make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.
Notice that the apostle said: “The days are evil”.
The truth is that it is gonna get worse before things get better.
The truth is that it is gonna get worse before things get better.
Paul in 2 Timothy said in the last days perilous times will come..
Jesus talked about darkness which
4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.
The apostle Paul in said we are already in that night or darkness.
In he said that :
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:
So we are already in what the Bible says present darkness:
15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,
Ephesians 5:15
How do we walk carefully or in other translations, circumspectly?
In order to walk carefully, we have to have good eyesight or vision. The kind of vision that will pierce this present darkness.
We should have 2020 Vision in 2020.
By vision I mean we need to have the right perspective, we need to develop a worldview..
People say there are two basic worldviews: 1) The Worldly and the 2) Biblical worldview.
I submit to you today that there are actually three.
And which category among this three your worldview falls will influence your vision for 2020 and the way you live:
Three Worldviews:
The Secular Worldview.
The Western Christian Worldview.
The Early Christian Worldview.
Western Christian worldview = Neo-Gnostic Worldview
New Testament scholar and theologian N.T. Wright wrote:
Western Christianity has allowed itself to embrace that dualism whereby the ultimate destiny of God’s people is heaven, seen as a place detached from earth, so that the aim of Christianity as a whole, and of conversion, justification, sanctification, and salvation, is seen in terms of leaving earth behind and going home to a place called heaven. (N.T. Wright)
This means that this kind of “vision” for the world treats everything in the world as inherently evil. That Christians have been saved and being sanctified only to get to heaven. In their worldview being part of the world means being corrupted by the world.
Christians who hold this western Christian view has a problem. They still are in this world. Some example of this are monks who just stay in the monasteries.
The Early Christian worldview = The Biblical Worldview
What is the Biblical Worldview?
17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Biblical Vision 1: We may live in present darkness but we are the light of the world.
17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Ephesians 5:8
We are to shine the light of Jesus in this world.
We are not to be influenced by the world, we are to influence the world for Christ.
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Biblical Vision 2: We may live in this present darkness but day is almost here.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:11
Live our lives like there is no tomorrow, as if Jesus is returning today.
37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
Biblical Vision 3: Hasten the day of the Lord.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
2 Peter
We can hasten the Lord’s coming by two ways, by prayer:
Jesus said Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
The psalmist said in : Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. - Prince of peace.
Secondly, we can hasten the Lord’s coming through evangelism and missions.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
:!4
Talk of FO..
Redemption both of time and the world.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
2019 is almost over, 2020 is upon us.