A Fresh Start For A New Year Series

Dr. Yoel Abells in his article, Avoiding the failure trap of New Year’s resolutions wrote this: “(A New Year) is an opportunity to reflect on days past and to consider the future”. Typically at this time, we make resolutions or commitments to change something (or multiple things) about ourselves. Unfortunately, just as typically, our resolve tends to last for a few days and then -- once again -- we find that we are linked to patterns we swore we would abandon. Why is it that we tend to abandon these resolutions or commitments so easily? Dr. Abells noted that he suspects the answer lies in the incongruence between our intent and the realities that impose themselves upon us. The new year marks a new beginning, buttressed by new hopes and renewed energy. We feel compelled to make radical changes and probably lose a bit of perspective, forgetting (albeit briefly) the parameters that govern our lives and the demands that compete for our attention. Once reality sets in, we can become easily discouraged. (http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=1130610)

In Galatians 4:21–31 Paul points to the origin of this conflict in the contrast of grace and law, faith and works. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit he employs an Old Testament story as an analogy, which serves not so much as an argument as an illustration. Paul contrasts two sons, two mothers, two covenants and two Jerusalem’s. In terms of our relationship with God, Paul calls us to have a new covenant perspective, and realize the grace of God in our relationship with Him. God calls us to abandon the effort of trying to live our lives confident in our own abilities, burdened with guilt and failure. Understanding and walking in the Grace of God is living a life of divine freedom in Christ.

In order to make “A Fresh Start for the New Year”, therefore, we need to understand and walk in 1) The Desire for Freedom (Galatians 4:21-23) , 2) The Design for Freedom (Galatians 4:24-27), and celebrate 3) The Delight of Freedom (Galatians 4:28-31).

In order to make “A Fresh Start for the New Year”, we need to understand and walk in:

1) The Desire for Freedom (Galatians 4:21-23)

Galatians 4:21-23 [21] Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? [22] For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. [23] But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. (ESV)

Law in this verse is used in two different senses. The first refers to law as a means of attaining holiness, and the second to the books of the law (Genesis through Deuteronomy), here particularly Genesis. Paul is saying, “Tell me, you who desire to obtain favor with God by law-keeping, do you not listen to the message of the book of the law?” To be “under” something is to be in complete subjection to it, and that constitutes slavery. In Scripture, to “listen” means to obey, so Paul is accusing (the Galatians) of subjecting themselves to something they fail to understand and therefore cannot obey. If they truly understood the law, they would know the danger of placing themselves under it.( Osborne, G. R. (2017). Galatians: Verse by Verse (p. 146). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.)

• This is where we start the new year: If we set our endeavoring to do more, try harder or be more cleaver, we are bound to be burdened with guilt and failure. If on the other hand, our Fresh Start for the New Year focuses on God’s promises, God’s resources, and God’s enabling, then through His grace, He promises to provide, strengthen and empower us through His spirit working through us.

Paul reminds his readers in Galatians 4:22 of their forefather Abraham, progenitor of the Hebrew race. It was in their racial descent from him that most Jews of Paul’s day placed their trust for salvation. But as John the Baptist had declared to the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. 3:9), for Jews to say, “we have Abraham for our father,” did not make them right with God, who “is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham”. Paul’s first historical reminder about Abraham was that he had two sons. Paul’s adversaries and their Jewish followers prided themselves in the fact that they were the biological descendants of Abraham as if that biological relationship were of paramount significance for salvation. If physical descent from Abraham is so all-important, then they who are Jews by birth are not any better off than are the Ishmaelites. (William Hendriksen: Galatians New Testament Commentary. Baker Publishing House. 2004. p. 180)

Please turn to Genesis 21