Happy New Year! Some have heard me say before that this is my favorite time of year. It is … it feels sorta like we can start over … doesn’t it? In some ways we feel like we are starting fresh and because of this everything is possible. We haven’t done anything or failed to do anything that has made something impossible. At least that is how we like to think of it. That’s why we get so excited about this “New Beginning” that comes about every January 1.
I’m not really sure why it feels this way, nothing is really new. We are the same today as we were on December 31, although we have probably made promises to ourselves to be different. There is nothing real special about Jan 1st, nothing to make it any different from December 31, except how we measure progress.
The cycle of the seasons seems like a good cycle to measure our progress and we set goals to accomplish prior to the end of the year and then make resolutions for how we are going to be different next year. As each year comes to a close it just seems like a time to be retrospective and evaluate or reevaluate some of our life choices and vow to make changes. We like to call these resolutions. Resolutions are our commitment to ourselves to make all those changes that we have failed to make tomorrow or next week or next month.
Have you made new year’s resolutions this year? I won’t ask for examples of what they are but I imagine the would include things like getting in shape, eating healthier food, stop procrastinating (that’s one I plan to do tomorrow!), or improve concentration and focus. How about being more active or becoming more confident. Maybe saving more money or reducing stress … Do any of these sound familiar?
We resolve to be different people every year come December and by February or earlier we realize that we are the same … nothing has changed … really … I mean really … changed. And I think that is because we are looking at the wrong things! We are trying to change the wrong things. We are trying to change our circumstances and not ourselves. How do we change who we are on the inside? Because that’s how we change our circumstances!
Now, you might say that we shouldn’t change who we are, but some of us are longing to do just that. We have an emptiness or a longing or just an uneasy feeling that won’t go away. Anxious or nervous or uncomfortable, even if things are going well, but especially when they aren’t. We hope, perhaps, that with the coming of the new year, with this new beginning, with our resolutions to change, we will find a little more of those things that have seemed to elude us. Be a little happier or more fulfilled or more comfortable … more peaceful.
The problem with searching for change in our normal ways is that we tend to return quickly to what we’re used to. We’ve become comfortable being uncomfortable. We return to our NATURAL STATE and when we do we realize that familiar anxiety … that uneasiness. Paul says it this way in Romans 7 - “… I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” He didn’t keep his new year’s resolution! He doesn’t do what he wants to do, what he has resolved to do, but that which he vowed not to do, that he does! He’s not keeping his New Year’s Resolutions!
Mankind has experienced this at every new beginning since the beginning. No matter how hard we’ve tried, no matter how good our intentions, we have continually proved unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin not understanding what it is that we do!
Adam and Eve were created “so that they may rule over the [creation].” That is what is says in Genesis 1:26. The Lord God had finished all creation and yet nothing had yet sprung up for there was no one to work the ground. It says in Ch 2 verse 5 - “5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,” So God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into his nostrils and man become a living being.
How is that for a new beginning? And so it was through man that God began to work so that life would spring up from His creation! Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 - “10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We were created so that God could work through us to do His will.
And yet man, before long, was full of trouble and rebellion. Before long, man no longer followed God. Before long man had broken his New Year’s resolutions. Before long and man had discovered that he didn’t understand what he did but did, instead, that which he didn’t want to do. And before long God decided for another new beginning.
Noah was saved through the flood because he was a righteous man and yet failed God when his son Ham sinned. Abram was called out to be the father of a new people … a new people who didn’t understand what they did. What they wanted to do, they did not, but that which they hated, they did… Idolatry and rebellion and apostasy and unfaithfulness.
These new beginnings are like our New Year’s Resolutions. Man failed in each case because of an earthly perspective. They had an earthly perspective. What was missing, what they are missing, was the eternal perspective. Perspective is important! Perspective yields purpose. Jeremiah 29:11 says - “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Now this was written to those the Lord had carried into exile, it was written to the Nation Israel, but knowing that the Lord had plans for them gave their plight purpose.
And Paul says in Romans 8 -“28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” He has a purpose for each of us and it is an eternal perspective that gives our plight purpose!
The things we normally grab at to fulfill that longing within us are temporary, that are not spiritual, not eternal. Money and power and security and fun … these things are not peace and joy and happiness and even if we obtain the thing we are after, even if we are able to put our hands on it, we realize it is not what we wanted after all. It is not fulfilling, not permanent, and we are off after the next thing we think will make us complete!
The new beginning that we need, the resolution we are looking for is faith in Christ. Adam and Ham and Israel … and you and me, everyone one of us, cannot be the source of fulfillment, the source of joy, the source of salvation, but God has provided the source. God has provided a lamb, and the Holy Spirit as a deposit for the promised things to come and when we recognize Him in our lives, we become fulfilled and at peace. How do we change us on the inside? With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
A man come up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” 17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.”
When His disciples heard how difficult it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God they asked, “Who then can be saved?” and Jesus answered, “With man THIS is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
You see perfection (or completeness, fulfillment, peace) comes from following Jesus the Christ and anything else is useless pursuit. C.S. Lewis said, “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”
We don’t need to make resolutions about changing our habits and our behaviors or even our thoughts and deeds. What we need is a new perspective, an eternal perspective instead of one that resets every year at mid-night on Dec 31.
How do we change who we are on the inside? How to we change our lives for the better? How can we change the world we live in?
Paul says in verse 17 - “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 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 people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
I love new beginnings, but thinking of January 1 as a new beginning is an earthly perspective, one without an eternal point of view. Jesus is the last new beginning we will ever need…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, behold all has become new. This is final, this is eternal and spiritual and heavenly.
Begin the last “new beginning” you’ll ever need by calling on the name of Christ, by accepting Him as your Lord and Savior. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, not counting our sins against us. Paul says in verse 20 - “20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. God has done this before. God started out by creating Adam to spring up new life through working the ground of creation. God saved Noah because he was a righteous man so he could repopulate the earth. God called Abram to be the father of a nation who would serve God.
Man has failed God every step of the way by looking elsewhere for fulfillment, by doing what is right in his own eyes. God is making His appeal through us, I implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God! Be Christ’s ambassador! Return, if you’ve fallen away, to your first love. Call on His name if you have yet to do so.
This year … instead of the your normal New Year’s Resolution, which will fall by the wayside as early as February 1, make a commitment to serve Him as His ambassador. Make a commitment to know Christ as your savior, to talk with Him through prayer, to keep an eternal perspective, to let others see Him in you, and to answer His call.
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come! And this is how we change who we are on the inside. This is how change becomes permanent. This is how we experience peace and fulfillment. Are you so resolved?
