Good afternoon, I hope you all had a wonderful day on Friday and that you had a nice time celebrating the birth of our Saviour with your family. Another Christmas has passed and another year is coming to an end. And normally at this time of the year people tend to sit back and reflect upon the year just gone, evaluate it and see if it measured up to their expectations this time the year before. We check our 'lists' to see if we accomplished all the goals we set ourselves and look at our lives to see if we've changed, if we've developed, to see if we've progressed as people.
Not only is it a time to reflect but a time to project, a time to plan for the future. Now is the time to set goals and make lists, to set the bar as it were. It's an exciting time! Next week isn't just a new week; it's the start of a whole new year, a new beginning! If we want to change something in our lives, this is the starting point!! Throughout the year we say 'I'll go on a diet...tomorrow'; 'I'll start drinking less coffee...tomorrow'; 'I'll do everything...tomorrow' but tomorrow never comes!! But next week is more than just another tomorrow, it's another year!! Everything changes then!! People even write lists! 'Things to do in 2010- stop smoking; go to the gym 4 times a week, every week; cut out caffeine; work harder; play about less; learn to play a musical instrument; learn a new language; visit my parents more often; visit at least 1 foreign country; do something I've never done before; help those who are worse off than myself; give more to charity; be nicer to people etc.
But this year's a little different. Not only is it the end of another year but it's the end of a decade, the end of 10 years. Come Friday and we'll be starting a new one! And now when people reflect it not just for 1 year but for the last 10. And while we reflect for the last 10 years we also look ahead to the next 10 years and dream about where we'll be and what we would have accomplished by then.
I don't know how your year began nor do I know how it finished. I don't know if you met all your targets or if you failed miserably. I don't know if the year turned out the way you expected or if it all went a bit pear shaped. I don't know if you're looking forward to a New Year and a new decade or if you're dreading what is going to happen. I don't know what targets and goals, if any, you are going to set yourself or what you are expecting- but whether you year ended on a high or on a low, if you're setting high goals or none at all, if you expect good things or bad, as we leave this year and start a new one, in everything expect God!
Before we go any further I just want to make clear that I'm talking to the people who have set their eyes on Christ. I'm talking to the people who have purposed in their hearts to seek God and all His glory. I'm talking to the people who have started or are on the verge of beginning their journey down the road to maturity in Christ. Because it is you people who are led by the Spirit and not by the flesh. It is you people the Bible says are '...children of God'. It is you who are the just, the righteous and the Word of God tells us that '...the just shall live by faith' and living by faith means expecting God!
Abraham was just an ordinary man. There was nothing more special about him than any of the other men around him. There was nothing more special about Abraham than you and me. He had a father and he had brothers. He had a wife and sister-in-laws. We are told he was born into an idolatrous family (Joshua 24:2) so I don't know how much he knew of God or His faithfulness and power if he had any knowledge at all, he certainly wasn't a man of faith.
But a day came when God called out to him and said '"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." ' and Abraham did! And he went expecting God! He didn't know where he was going, how he was going to get there, why he was going there or what he was going to do, but he packed up his things, gathered his family together and off he went, not knowing but expecting God!
Moses, we are told '...refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.' Why? Because he expected God! Whether in the palace of the Pharaoh or the wilderness of Midian, in everything and for everything Moses expected God!
Noah, if the face of tremendous ridicule spent his life doing the strangest thing a man had ever done up to that point, building a huge boat miles from any sea and warning about a great flood. And he did it; he endured the ridicule and hardship for all those years because he expected God!
Joshua and Caleb were sent with 10 other spies to go in and spy out the Promised Land. And they, along with the other 10 saw all the problems there. They saw all the difficulties there. They saw the fortified cities and the giants who lived in the land, but while the others came back reporting it was an impossible task, these 2 expected God! 'Let's go immediately and take possession of the land... don't be afraid, God is with us!'
Rahab, in Jericho, helped the spies of Israel escape from the city on the condition that when that great city fell she and her family would be spared, and she because she expected God!
Job, in all his distress didn't turn away from the Lord because he expected God!
Elijah, in the midst of a great famine, left the security of his home to go to a brooke to be fed by animals. He stood upon Mt Carmel and challenged the prophets of Baal and the entire nation because he expected God!
Daniel, when the decree went out NOT to pray for 30 days continued to pray and went down into the lion's den with peace in his heart because he expected God! His 3 friends wouldn't worship the golden image commanded by the king and went down into the fiery furnace gladly, why? Because they expected God!
Paul travelled around the world preaching the Gospel, suffering shipwrecks, beatings, stoning and imprisonment, why? Because he expected God!
Jonah, when called to go to Nineveh to preach repentance and warn of a coming judgement ran away from his call, why? Because he expected God!
Then you have people like Hudson Taylor, William Carey, C.T Studd and other more recent missionaries who gave their lives to the service of Christ, men who could say things like "I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light"; "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply"; "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell."; "Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.". These were all men who gave up everything, medical doctors, business men, they turned their backs of such security in the west and ventured into the unknown expecting God!
And there are so many other examples both in the Scriptures and through the history of the Church that we can look at and see men and women who have lived their lives doing nothing but expecting God! And none of them, not one has been failed by God! Whether they were facing new beginnings, whether they were facing unknown territory or peoples, whether they were facing death, each of them stood and lived and move expecting God and God didn't fail!
When we sit down this week and contemplate the start of a new year, a new decade, when we sit with our husbands or wives, with our family or even just on our own and begin to plan, we begin to make lists and set goals, do it prayerfully. Do it with your eyes set firmly on Christ. As you plan, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Don't worry about the impossible, don't worry about the opposition, don't worry about anything! Let us all enter this New Year expecting God!
