Simple Resolution
I Corinthians 11:3 Galatians 2:2-3 Romans 8:6
CHCC: December 26, 2010
INTRODUCTION:
Has anyone decided what your New Year’s Resolutions will be for 2011? Before you do it, let’s take a look at how Resolutions tend to work out… Here are some examples:
2007: I will read at least 10 books this year
2008: I will try to finish the book I started last year.
2009: I will read most of my email this year
2010: I will sometimes read the comic section of the Sunday paper
Or for those of us who are constantly worrying about weight:
2007: I will work out 5 days a week and eat 500 calories a day until I lose 20 pounds
2008: I will work out 3 days a week and try to lose the 5 pounds I gained last year
2009: I will walk my dog and throw out that box of Twinkies next week.
Or for those of you with money issues:
2007: By next year I will be completely out of debt
2008: By next year I will pay the interest on my credit card
2009: By next year I will transfer my debt to a new credit card.
2010: By next year I will be out of the country
It reminds me of the man who said, At the end of my life, I hope many people will say of me: “Boy, that guy sure did owe me a lot of money.”
How many of you have ever made a list of New Year’s Resolutions about weight or health or money? Most of our resolutions are about getting rid of bad habits or starting up good habits. When I was younger, I used to make really ambitious resolutions, but I’ve learned the hard way that I’m better off to keep things SIMPLE!
A few years ago, our church leaders all read a book called Simple Church. I loved that book, but decided to take it a step further and came up with the idea of the simpleton church. I wrote about it in a blog which you can read on my blog site (www.skiddingintohome.blogspot.com)
In like manner, recently, I started a Simple Diet… Actually, I call it the Simpleton Diet (also available to read about on my blog). What I do is eat one item per meal. You may be wondering how large that one item is, but the point is that I used to eat three or four items per meal, and I have whittled it down to only one item. In the last two months I have managed to lose about 20 lbs. doing the Simpleton diet. It seems to be working for me just fine.
Now that Christmas is behind us and New Years is coming … I thought we’d talk about making ONE Simple New Years Resolution (or maybe I should call it a Simpleton Resolution.) Unfortunately, we tend to make things a lot more complicated that they need to be. Paul warned about this in II Corinthians 11:3 where he said, "I fear, lest by any means … your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."
Too often, we make our lives complicated and frustrating … when God never meant it to be that way. We complicate our lives when we make ourselves a long list of rules --- and then we try to keep them. We try to whip ourselves into shape … and some of us are pretty good at it. But even for the most disciplined people, as soon as we get one area of our life in line, we start messing up big time in some other way.
You stop drinking, but start chain smoking. You exercise every morning, but when you get home you eat twice as much food for breakfast. You start losing weight but you also lose your sense of humor … or maybe your will to live. You get up early, but you keep going to bed late. You hold your temper at work, but you lose it when you get home. You get your family to church on time, but you yell at them all the way home.
Trying to whip your self into shape is a frustrating, hit-and-miss operation at best!
So, in the spirit of the simplicity that is in Christ. , I’m going to suggest a Simple New Year’s Resolution … based on Galatians 2:20 where the Apostle Paul said: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
1. Live by faith:
Live by faith …that’s the New Year’s Resolution every Christian can make every year … and to the extent that we do it, all other Resolutions will fall into place.
Paul wrote this statement to a bunch of Christians who believed that the only way to be a good Christian was to obey all of the Jewish Laws. The Galatian Christians had turned away from the SIMPLICITY that is in Christ. Instead they were creating a complicated system of rule-keeping.
Paul saw this as a BIG problem. He wrote, " I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all." Galatians 1:6-7
In other words, these Christians had accepted Salvation by Grace. But now they were leaving grace behind and trying to earn Salvation by following the Jewish Law. You won’t find many 21st century American Christians who are trying to keep all the Jewish Laws. But you DO find a lot of Christians who make their own set of “homemade” laws to follow … and then they insist that all Christians must follow those rules.
All Religions tend to produce people who follow a certain set of rules. The people who follow Judaism behave in a certain way. The same is true of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Protestantism, Catholicism … any ism you can think of. People who follow an “ism” always try to follow the rules of their “ism.”
But Christianity is different. The Gospel of Christ is NOT just a list of rules to keep. Christianity is not a moral code or a rigid lifestyle. The Gospel message is not to learn how to ACT like a new person. Jesus came to give you an entirely NEW LIFE. As Christians we depend completely on Jesus Christ … for our salvation … and also for our ability to live this NEW LIFE day-by-day.
In other words, just like we are saved by faith, so we also live by faith.
Here’s how Paul said it: "I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh." Galatians 3:2-3
Most Christians understand that we have been saved by faith in Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior. We know we can’t ever be good enough on our own efforts to meet the Holy standards of God. So we put our trust in Jesus and in His Saving Grace. Why would we begin with salvation by faith, then try to LIVE as a Christian by human will power? After beginning by means of the Spirit, why would we try to finish by means of the flesh?
Just as we were saved by faith, so we are to live by faith. This is the Gospel Message … and it’s completely different from any other religion. Jesus changes us from the inside out. Once we are saved from the inside out, why would we try to live our lives from the outside in?
A lot of the New Testament is dedicated to explaining what it means to live by faith in our daily lives. One good verse is found in Romans 8:6 which says, The mind on the flesh means certain death; but the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. To live by faith is to keep our thoughts centered on God. It’s that simple.
2. Keep your mind on the Spirit
So this year, instead of making a list of resolutions about your outward ACTIONS, why not make one resolution about your inward THOUGHTS. Resolve to keep your mind on the spirit. In doing this, you will discover that your outward actions will be transformed … not by your own power but by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
This does require RESOLUTION on your part. Any time the mind is off the Spirit you can bet the flesh is ready to jump back into action. The “default” position is always the mind on the flesh.
Galatians 5 gives a list of the kind of bad habits that come from a mind set on the flesh … and a list of good habits that come from the Spirit: "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (now we get to the good part) "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians." Gal.5:19-23
Notice what Paul doesn’t say. He never says, “I want you to clean up your own act! Fight off all your nasty habits! Whip yourselves into shape and start acting gentle and joyful!”
Here’s what Paul DOES say in the next verses: "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Galatians 5:24-25
3. Keep in step with the Spirit
When you first put your faith in Jesus as your savior, you were crucified with Christ – the old self with its passions and desires was put to death, and the NEW YOU was made alive by the Holy Spirit who came to live in you. This is spiritual reality from that moment on. You can EXPERIENCE that reality day-by-day … in the same way that you first received it. You experience it any time you choose to believe it.
In other words, your experience of this reality in your day-to-day life depends on whether or not you chose to live by faith … to keep your mind on the Spirit … to keep in step with the Spirit.
Best of all … as you learn how to keep in step with the Spirit you’ll find that all those nasty acts of the flesh that Paul listed will start disappearing from your life. And all those fruits of the Spirit will just naturally begin to grow. The Holy Spirit has the power you lack … the power to overcome sin.
But here’s the catch - - - the Holy Spirit may have different priorities than yours. You might want to focus on losing weight and the Spirit might want to focus on not losing your temper. You might decide it’s time to take on a new challenge and the Spirit may decide to trim off a little pride and add some humility first.
Living by faith this year means you let Jesus set your priorities. Trust Him to have your best interests in mind. If you live by faith in 2011, by the end of the year you will see that Jesus has transformed you beyond anything you could have put on your own resolution list.
CONCLUSION:
We have a lot of folks here at CHCC who have been living by faith for many years. They are full of so much love, joy, peace, patience, and so on, that it’s hard to believe they ever lived any other kind of life. But many of them did!
We have people sitting here in church this morning whose lives used to look like that list of acts of the flesh that we read. And now their lives look like the fruit of the Spirit. If you ask them, they would tell you, the change didn’t come because they cleaned up their own lives. The transformation was supernatural … it came from the inside out.
So let’s keep in SIMPLE in 2011. Most of those things on your long list of New Years Resolutions will come NATURALLY if you simply resolve that this year you will live by faith.
