The trouble with turning over a new leaf is that once you’ve done it twice, you’re right back where you started.
What was the greatest blessing for you last year? The whole year, January through December, on what one day did you find your greatest blessing? It may have been the day your great-grandchild was born. It may have been the day you were offered a job after interviewing countless times before. It may have been the day when your Doctor told you after your surgery that your body was cancer free. It may have been the day the adoption of your little boy or girl was final. It may have been the day you found out you were pregnant, the day you were married, perhaps a special anniversary or when you celebrated another Birthday. It may have been the day your baby was born. It may have been the day you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or the day you were baptized. It may have been a children’s program, a concert, a vacation to a far-away place or even here at home. It may have been when you bungee-jumped for the first time, dove out of an airplane and parachuted to the ground, surfed the big waves at Wiamea Bay in the North Shore of Oahu, or walked on the moon. It may have been the night you were overwhelmed by the sky filled with stars, or when you danced in the rain. There are lots of possibilities. What one day stands out for you? What was the greatest blessing in your life during this past year?
Many of you received a letter in the mail this past week. The surprising thing was that it came from you. Every year during this time we hand out a half sheet of paper. On it again I will ask you to write down your greatest blessing from the past year. And then I’ll ask you to write down your “expectations” for the upcoming New Year. Notice I didn’t say resolutions. I don’t like the word “resolution.” Everyone makes resolutions for the New Year and everyone breaks them. One slip and the resolution is over. You know the standard ones we make every year: I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to work out and get physically fit. I’m going to get organized. I’m going to stop smoking or stop anything else that may be a vice in my life. I resolve to read the Bible every day, spend more time with family. And the list goes on. The problem with resolutions is that they go in one year and out the other! But expectations are a work in progress. It may be that your expectation for the upcoming year is to lose some weight. Therefore, throughout the course of the year, when I reach December 31st, I expect that I will weigh less than I do now. What are your expectations for this upcoming year?
And once your half sheet of paper is complete, I again will ask you to put it in the envelope that is included, seal the envelope and address it to yourself. What you have written down is between you and God. Please place your self-addressed envelope in the offering plate and sometime during the week between Christmas and New Years, we will send it back to you.
Did you remember what you had written last year? Were your expectations met? Do you still have more work to do? We all do, our lives are a work in progress each and every day, every week, every month and every year. God loves us just the way we are, but He doesn’t want us to stay that way. He wants to push us, to mold us, to transform our lives, to change us so we would take risks to become more like Christ in everything we do. Our first expectation every year should be to become more and more like Jesus Christ.
Let’s see how Jesus addressed what was most important in our lives? What are God’s expectations for us? How should we live our lives to reflect how Jesus lived His?
Reading from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6, verses 25-34. These are the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the plain to the people on the mount. This is Eugene Petersen’s translation known as “The Message.”
"If you decide for God, living a life of worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you put on your body. Look at the birds, free and liberated in the care of God. And you count far more to him than the birds in the air.
Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think He’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do His best for you? So relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He
works. Base your life in God-reality, God-initiative, and God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
Here are three of my expectations for this year that I will share with you:
First, I asked you what the greatest blessing in your life was for last year. It may have been hard to pinpoint. For this upcoming year, I want us to think differently. Every night when you go to bed, as you set aside some time for prayer, I want you to think what the greatest blessing was that day. What blessed you the most? A conversation with a friend, a visit from a family member, a Bible Scripture that spoke to you, someone you helped, a new acquaintance, something that really stood out in your day?
And second, I want you to think about something you learned that day. We are all constantly learning and each day we learn something new if we take time to think about it. So each day, what was your greatest blessing, and what did you learn? It could be positive or negative, learning covers all aspects.
In the morning before your feet hit the floor, pray that God would reveal what He may have in store for you in the upcoming day. That you would seek His guidance and His will, that you would be open to whatever the new day may bring. That we would take nothing for granted, that nothing would go unnoticed, that we would build people up instead of breaking people down. That we would ask God to help us become more like Christ throughout the day. And when the day comes to a close, once again we would thank God for the blessings in our lives, that we would thank God for the greatest blessing that day and that we would go to sleep thinking about what we learned that day.
Perhaps the way we can meet our expectations takes only 30 minutes each day. Only 30 minutes. Take 10 minutes a day to listen to God talking to you. Take 10 minutes each day to talk to God. And take 10 minutes each day to talk to others about God.
And third, as we approach the New Year, it’s a good time to clean out the clutter in our lives. That means throwing out useless papers and unused stuff, but more importantly, throwing away old grudges. The prevalence of grudges in our lives prove that people don’t always remember what you said or did, but they do remember how you made them feel. Grudges are nothing more than hurtful memories of how someone made us feel.
I once read, "To be wronged is nothing unless we continue to remember it." So why do so many of us choose to preserve and constantly think about feelings that take away from our happiness?
Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we can inflict some sort of pain on the person who wronged us. In fact, holding on to a grudge is like holding on to a hot stone. It doesn’t hurt the stone or the person who gave it to us; it only hurts the one holding it. Carrying a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.
It doesn’t matter how justified the bitter feelings are or how right we are. Holding on to a grudge turns pain into suffering. In a peculiar way it empowers the wrongdoer to hurt us again and again.
So start out this New Year by giving yourself a great gift - the good sense and strength to release deep-seated and long-held resentments.
We really should forgive and forget. If we forgive, but can’t forget, then we haven’t forgiven. 70 times 7 remember? But all that’s really necessary is a firm decision to let go of your grudges so you can move forward and free yourself of the chains of resentment. Amen
