My New Years Resolutions 2021

It’s almost the new years

It’s that time of year when we often make New YEar’s resolutions

What are you thinking about as we start 2021?

Are you just glad that 2020 is over? Man, what a year! I’m glad that’s done!

As you are looking ahead, maybe it looks like more of the same, and you are thinking, “Lord, get me through this”

Or, are you looking ahead and saying, “Lord, this is a new year and it is a new beginning for me.”

Please turn to Colossians 3 . Another passage talking about how we think.

You probably are thinking, “Man, he talks an awful lot about this”. yes, i do, and without apology. It’s something that God has been working in my heart and I want you to join me on this.

I’ve shared this with you before and I want to share it again:

What is in the mind captures the heart

What captures the heart results in worship

What results in worship results in mission.

I want us to be a church on a mission. I want our hearts to be captured with the right things and ultimately have it result in mission.

Colossians 3:1–17 (ESV)

Put On the New Self

3 If then (since, then. Because you have!) you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

2021 New Year’s Resolutions

Seek

Seek the things that are above.

If you have lost something, you seek for it. It occupies your conciousness.

If you desire something, you seek for it. It occupies and controls how you live

What is it that you seek? We all have things that are part

Do you seek comfort?

Do you seek to satisfy cravings, addictions?

Do you seek the American Dream?

What do you seek? You are seeking for something!

Scripture talks a lot about the things that we seek

Paul describes this seeking like this: Set your mind on things above

That is, set your mind on Christ (Hebrews 12 —Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith

Set your mind on the character of Christ and being imitators of Him.

Some people say “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good

I suspect that it tends for it to be the other way around for us. We tend to be so earthly minded that we aren’t much heavenly good

Put off—in order to put on the heavenly things, we have to first put off the earthly things— What to put off?

The things in verse 5: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness

Lust toward each other

Lust toward things

This is the same as idolatry, not “hey, I can’t help it. I want what I want.”

This is a deep desire for what I cannot and/or should not have. It’s the same desire that drove Adam and Eve to pick and eat the fruit that was forbidden.

In God’s eyes, this is the same as idolatry. Because in our lust and desire, we no longer seek God. He is shuffled to the back burner

verse 8:anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

When you think of your brothers and sisters or your neighbors, what is it that comes to your mind

When you talk to each other and about each other, what is it that comes out of your mouth?

Do not Lie to each other

oo, this is a hard one. I think it’s hard. You come to church after a simply horrible week. “How are you?” someone says. What do you say? “Fine”

Paul was writing to Believers here. He knew that this transformation toward holiness wasn’t just an automatic thing.

He knew that it is our tendency to hang on to our old selves and our old way of acting

This putting off and then putting on is impossible for us to do. I’m not talking about “self-help” here. But I am talking about asking and then letting the Holy Spirit do some deep surgery on us.

Story of Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Eustace was not a pleasant character to be around. He was selfish and mean.

on one island the ship came to, Eustace found a dragon’s lair with many golden treasures in it.

in the course of events, Eustace found a golden bracelet which he put on his arm and lay down to sleep. When he awoke, he found that he himself had turned into a dragon and that this golden bracelet which had been loose on his arm was now squeezing him and hurting him horribly.

And besides this, he found himself separated from his friends and lonely. A picture of what sin does to you

One night he meets, the Great Lion, Aslan who leads him to a pool of water and invites him to bathe so that he might be healed.

But he has to undress first.

Repeatedly, Eustace tries to remove his dragon skin. He tears away a layer, starts to go into the water, and then realizes that his dragon skin is still there.

When he has given up all hope, The Lion says, “You are going to ahve to let me undress you.”

And Aslan tears into him with His claws. The pain is indescribable. But Aslan peals that ugly skin off and reveals Eustace to be a boy again.

And Aslan bathes him and clothes him and sends him back to his friends, a changed boy.

How many of us have had God do that kind of surgery on our hearts? Have you ever experienced that kind of tearing away of your old self? It is excruciatingly painful

How many of us have tried to tear off our lust problem, our lying problem, our gossip problem and yet, there it still is

How many of us have cried out and said, God, take this off of me

And God says, “Ok, but it’s going to hurt.

But what follows is well worth it. To have Him tear away the ugliness and clothe you with His clothes is so worth it

And BTW, says Paul, remember that this type of clothing breaks down the racial and cultural divides that we put around ourselves.

But only after He does that can you truly....

Put on

Now that the Lion has torn all of that off of you, you can put on something so much better.

What we are putting on is the character of Jesus

Compassionate hearts: (KJV, “bowels of mercy”) The very same word that Paul uses in Romans 12 : “The Mercies of God”

Let yourself be defined by compassion. Compassion will be worked out in a desire to walk a mile in someone’s shoes.

To not throw people into categories and make assumptions about them because of color of skin or political persuasion or cultural status

The church they attend

Or because of their position

Compassion will be worked out in a willingness to walk along side a brother or sister

How many times have we talked about a brother or sister, or we have approached a brother or sister with an agenda

Because of something that they have done which we find offensive or irritating.

And we have not done the tough work of caring for their hearts and figuring out what is going on inside of there

Maybe there is a reason that they are doing what they are doing. And it’s not to irritate you. It’s because of the pain that they are dealing with.

Maybe it’s because of loneliness. They just need someone to talk to. To be their friend. And they don’t know if anyone really cares about them.

Compassion outside the church will be worked out in a willingness to treat others as your neighbor. Doing the tough work to help them and bring healing

Like the good Samaritan. He didn’t just throw money and medicine at the wounded man and walk off. He instead did the tough leg work and made it his responsibility to bring him to wholeness

This is Holy Spirit work, folks!

Put on Kindness and humility

Treating each other with the knowledge and awareness that we all struggle with the same things. Humility

Put on Meekness: living my life with total dependence upon God to work in me and through me

Realizing that my life is not about me. It’s about God and His glory

Patience, bearing with each other

Forgiving each other

Is there anyone in your life who has hurt you? Do you feel justified in hanging on to that hurt and anger?

Don’t just try to take off that hurt or forget about it!

You need something to replace it with

instead put on forgiveness!

Put on LOVE! That binds everything together in perfection

Paul brings it all together with this one word. Love.

What we have been talking about here is the very definition of love

This is what we are desiring. But it’s a learning process

Why are there so many empty benches?

Some people have left us and we say, “Yeah, but they have been on their way out for a long time.” Maybe so, but why? I still think that when someone leaves our gathering it should make us do a serious gut check

if love really binds everything together in perfection, what has happened to us?

And GIVE THANKS!! Give thanks in everything. Have a thankful heart. He says it 3 times so he must really mean this one! Man, what a grouch and a downer I can be. I need this reminder!

Be thankful for the surgery, no matter how painful, that He does on our hearts

Be thankful for His mercy, that he gives us chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity, to take off the old and put on the new

Be thankful for the things that He allows into our lives because they are part of this process of taking off and putting on

Be thankful for this season because we are talking about what Christ came to do

Folks, again, what we are talking about this morning is a work of the Holy Spirit. It’s a result of Him taking out the old and putting in the new.

To live like this comes as a result of us being serious with the Lord and really wanting whatever He has for us.

I wonder who would like to join me on this year in a time of prayer and fasting.

1st Monday of every month

Fasting from food, or if there is something else that has taken hold on your life and you want to commit that to the Lord, take a fast from that.

Prayer at 9:00, 12:00, 3:00

If you can’t stop what you are doing, then just breathe out a prayer

Pray

For His work to be done in our hearts. To help us take off the old and put on the new

For Revival in our church and in our community