"A Fresh Start: Tomorrow begins a new day."
2 Cor. 5:17; Phil 3:13b-14; Jeremiah 29:11; I John 1:9
Great Bend, Kansas
December 31, 2006
INTRODUCTION:
New Year’s Eve has always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, forward to the coming year. It’s a time to reflect on the changes we want (or need) to make and resolve to follow through on those changes. Did your New Year resolutions make our top ten list?
1) Spend More Time with Family & Friends
Recent polls conducted by General Nutrition Centers, Quicken, and others shows that more than 50% of Americans vow to appreciate loved ones and spend more time with family and friends this year.
2) Fit in Fitness
Regular exercise has been associated with more health benefits than anything else known to man. Studies show that it reduces the risk of some cancers, increases longevity, helps achieve and maintain weight loss, enhances mood, lowers blood pressure, and even improves arthritis. In short, exercise keeps you healthy and makes you look and feel better.
3) Tame the Bulge
Over 66 percent of adult Americans are considered overweight or obese by recent studies, so it is not surprising to find that weight loss is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions.
4) Quit Smoking
On average, smokers try about four times before they quit for good. Start enjoying the rest of your smoke-free life!
5) Enjoy Life More
Given the hectic, stressful lifestyles of millions of Americans, it is no wonder that "enjoying life more" has become a popular resolution in recent years. It’s an important step to a happier and healthier you!
6) Quit Drinking
While many people use the New Year as an incentive to finally stop drinking, most are not equipped to make such a drastic lifestyle change all at once.
7) Get Out of Debt
Was money a big source of stress in your life last year? Join the millions of Americans who have resolved to spend this year getting a handle on their finances. It’s a promise that will repay itself many times over in the year ahead.
8) Learn Something New
Have you vowed to make this year the year to learn something new?
9) Help Others
A popular, non-selfish New Year’s resolution, volunteerism can take many forms. Whether you choose to spend time helping out at your local library, mentoring a child, or building a house, there are many nonprofit volunteer organizations that could really use your help.
10) Get Organized
On just about every New Year resolution top ten list, organization can be a very reasonable goal. Whether you want your home organized, or your office organized enough that you can find the stapler when you need it.
POINT ONE: Housekeeping: It’s time to take an inventory of your spiritual life.
Is it not time for you to examine yourself? Is it not time to consider in how many important ways your life falls far short of what it ought to be, and what it very much could be, for the Lord’s sake and your own sake and for the sake of your family and the world around you? Is it not time to face the fact that nothing stands between you and far greater and more fruitful faithfulness to God than simply the exercise of your will and the commitment of your heart and the sacrifice of your time and effort? Surely God will bless those who hunger and thirst for more righteousness!
Try this on for size. These are twelve questions for the purpose of self-examination proposed by the famous Methodist missionary John Fletcher of Madeley. He called them "Self-examination Questions for Spiritual People." And he meant that we should ask ourselves these questions each and every day!
1. Did I awake spiritual, and was I watchful in keeping my mind from wandering this morning when I was rising?
2. Have I this day got nearer to God in times of prayer, or have I given way to a lazy, idle spirit?
3. Has my faith been weakened by unwatchfulness, or quickened by diligence this day?
4. Have I this day walked by faith and eyed God in all things?
5. Have I denied myself in all unkind words and thoughts? Have I delighted in seeing others preferred before me?
6. Have I made the most of my precious time, as far as I had light, strength, and opportunity?
7. Have I kept the issues of my heart in the means of grace, so as to profit by them?
8. What have I done this day for the souls and bodies of God’s dear saints?
9. Have I laid out anything to please myself when I might have saved the money for the cause of God?
10. Have I governed well my tongue this day, remembering that in a multitude of words there wanteth not sin?
11. In how many instances have I denied myself?
12. Do my life and conversation adorn the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
[Cited in Lloyd-Jones, Expository Sermons on 2 Peter.]
POINT TWO: Make plans: It’s time to get your life underway with an organized plan.
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
QUOTE: "The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results."
Albert Einstein
Another such step would be the setting of goals for ourselves.
The fact is many of us do not go as far as we should because we never actually set out to get anywhere in particular. The Apostle Paul had goals. He had goals for his ministry - one of them was to get to Rome and then to get still further, to Spain. And he had goals for himself, his own soul, such as he says in Philippians 3. It was for the sake of these goals, he says, that he beat his body and made it his slave, that he fasted as well as prayed, that he took vows. He knew where he needed to go and he set out to go there! And every wise Christian has followed his example.
Think of the goals that you might set for yourself in the coming year, that you might write down, that you might pray over, and take steps to fulfill.
1. To lead someone to faith in Jesus Christ and, so, to cultivate friendships to that end.
2. To reorganize your financial affairs before the Lord.
3. To establish on a firmer footing the disciplines of secret worship: prayer or meditation in the Word.
4. To restore romance or respect or affection in your marriage. To be more often in serious, spiritual conversation with your children.
5. To join regularly in the church’s prayer. If you want to be more faithful in prayer, there is no simpler way than to come regularly on Wednesday nights. It adds an hour of other-centered-prayer to your week just like that!
6. To practice or to practice more regularly the giving of hospitality.
These goals can only happen if you:
1. Write down your goals and objective for the year. (Don’t be afraid to aim big either). Use positive affirmation in a sentence, eg. "I will increase my share my faith with 10 people" or "I will make pay off my credit cards by March."
2. Write down HOW you will achieve these goals (the real guts of the plan) and give yourself a realistic time limit.
3. Display the list in a prominent place so you can see it.
If you follow these simple steps, you will find that they work much more effectively than by voicing a resolution at New Years. In fact, it can work ANY time of the year.
POINT THREE: A Fresh Start:Tomorrow Begins a New Day!
But before any thing can change tomorrow, our hearts must be changed today.
A fresh start begins when your heart is cleansed and purified from sin and given to righteousness.
1. We are to be reconciled to God through Christ Jesus.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
2. We must confess our sin and seek forgiveness.
I John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
3. We are to forget the past and strive for the Goal of Jesus Christ.
Phil 3:13b-14
13b Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Tomorrow begins a new day. January first marks the beginning of a new year, and can mark the beginning of a new life of forgiveness, and righteousness.
WATCH VIDEO HERE. "January" at www.sermonspice.com
Would you like a fresh start? God is making all things new. God wants to restore your life to its original state of holiness. God is giving you the gift of a new start. So what’s your next move?
Alter and prayer
Dismiss
