It is our tradition in this church, as well as many others, to share the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper on the first Sunday of the month. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthian Christians is especially appropriate as one begins a new year: “Let a man examine himself.” Being that this is the first Sunday of the new year, I want to weave a message that works the spiritual aspect of Holy Communion with our starting a new year in relation to Jesus Christ.
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
1 Corinthians 11:27-32
A new year is upon us, and some of us wondered if we would even make it through the previous year. But thanks to God’s mercy He has trusted us into a new year, and we should look at that as a blessing because we are allowed to make course corrections in our life, corrections that we may have attempted last year, mainly those related to our relationship with Jesus Christ. Have you ghosted Him? Have you friend zoned Him? Or do you have a loving relationship with Him? So, I am going to start by putting these questions in the perspective of time. Are you spending zero timed with Jesus (ghosted)? Are you coming to Him only when you feel the need (friend zoned)? Or do you try to spend as much time as you can to grow your relationship with Him (loving relationship)? I’m going to give you some numbers for the purpose of reflecting on what time is available for us to grow or ignore a relationship with Jesus.
This year contains 366 days, 8,784 hours, 527,040 minutes, 31, 622,400 seconds. 2,928 of those hours are spent sleeping, assuming you get eight hours of sleep. So, then that is 244 days, 5,856 hours, 351,360 minutes, 21,081,600 seconds that you have being productive, because let’s face it, every moment is important in trying to have a good walk with Jesus. We spend our time as certainly as we spend our money-even to a greater degree. We might save our money, but we cannot save our time.
There is a true story from a prison chaplain who happened upon a prisoner doing something different than the others he saw on his rounds.
Most of the death row inmates at Mississippi’s Parchman Prison were in their bunks, wrapped in blankets and staring blankly at little black-and-white TV screens, killing time. But in one cell a man was sitting on his bunk reading. As I approached, he looked up and showed me his book — an instruction manual on Episcopal liturgy.
John Irving, who had been on death row for more than fifteen years, was studying for the priesthood. Irving told me he was allowed out of his cell for one hour each day. The rest of the time, he studied.
Seeing that Irving had nothing in his cell but a few books, I thought, God has blessed me so much, the least I can do is provide something for this brother. “Would you like a TV if I could arrange it?” I asked.
“Thanks,” Irving said with a smile, “but no thanks. You can waste an awful lot of time with those things.” Irving had determined not to waste the one commodity he had to give to the Lord — his time.
Admittingly this is an extreme case for showing how we should be using our time, but it should cause us to have a new year’s examination of ourselves and see if we are using our time wisely. Don’t get me wrong in thinking that a lot of our time is wasted doing nothing, because God does want us to spend quality time with friends and family, to go to work and make a living, and yes have some downtime, but the question is, are we putting any time for Jesus?
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:8-16
The New Year is a Time for Inventory.
Many business places are in the process of taking inventory as a new year begins. It is a time to know what is on hand. A time to look over the previous year’s sales to see what worked, what sold, and what didn’t so that adjustments can be made to the new year purchases. For financial institutions, the new year is a time of accounting and auditing, to see where spending can be trimmed or areas that need an increase.
Just like those institutions we need to do the same kind of inventory in our lives: physically, mentally, and most definitely spiritually. Let this new year bring on an examination of things we need to decrease so that we can increase on the things of God. John the Baptist said it best when Jesu came on the scene, “I must decrease so that He can increase.” John took inventory while his popularity was at its highest and knew that Jesus needed to take center stage while he moved out of the spotlight.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
As a spiritual inventory is made, accuracy and honesty are important, and something of so great an importance should not be left in the hands of someone who may cut corners…I’m speaking of ourselves in case you were thinking, who would do such a thing? Jesus take the wheel! That’s why the psalmist put that inventory job into the hands of the Lord, and so should you and I, because honestly, we cannot be trusted with such an important matter of our soul salvation.
Paul reminds us in Romans 12:3 to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Like Little Jack Horner who sat in a corner, we are tempted to think, “What a good boy am I.”
The psalmist dared to pray, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults” (Ps 19:12). His reference was probably not to faults kept secret from others, but to faults secret to himself. We easily deceive ourselves...especially when we think what a good boy am I.
Measuring ourselves physically is done with a yardstick, a measuring tape, and scales. We can compare our physical size with last month, last year, or ten years ago.
Measuring ourselves spiritually is not so easy or done so objectively, but it is necessary thing to do. A new year is a good time for taking spiritual inventory of ourselves.
The New Year is a Time for Analysis.
Taking inventory involves more than counting objects. Once an accurate inventory is made, an analysis is required as to its meaning. Past, present, and future needs are considered.
An analysis at the beginning of a new year requires looking realistically at the past, present, and future. Time becomes an important factor, and that’s why I pointed out the days, hours, minutes, and seconds we have in this year, because each measurement allows us to organize our time more granularly.
Let me relate this time concept to something I know most of us can relate to; football, basketball, soccer, and hockey are played for a specific number of minutes. Most sports count the time “down” to zero; that is, the clock starts with the time allowed and always shows the time remaining. Now that I have kicked your minds into sports, some of you may be thinking, hay, there is a sudden death round where I can give it another go. But sadly, in dealing with our eternity you don’t know the score and God is the timekeeper, so you don’t even know how much time is on the clock. With all things considered, we need to bring our “A” game because there is no reincarnation, no praying you out of purgatory, no asking for a do-over. So, let the analysis of the previous years be the game film used to determine how to beat your opponent, which is yourself. Okay, I’m done with the sports analogies, but I pray that you get the point.
Life might be clearer if we knew the time remaining in life rather than the time lived. Certainly, if we knew the time remaining, we would take more seriously the advice of Benjamin Franklin: “Loveth thou life? Then do not squander time, for it is the stuff of which life is made.”
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
James 4:13-15
Life must be lived with the reality that it’s like a vapor and tomorrow cannot be counted on. That’s what I mean by bringing our “A” game, we need to seek Jesus while He can be found. Some may say, let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. But that is the wrong attitude if we plan to have a home in heaven. Having fun is fine but put in a little time for God. Because today is the day of opportunity.
The New Year is a Time for New Beginnings.
A new year seems fresh. It is a time of beginning over again. In that sense the new year is a time of encouragement. in Paul’s plea to the Philippians, we are aided by his own life when he said, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead”.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
That is Paul saying hey, I’ve done some bad things in the past, but I’m not going to allow that to keep me from being better. I’ve analyzed my life and made the course corrections, instead of steering away from Jesus I will make a beeline straight for Him. As I mentioned in last week’s message, New Year’s resolutions are often made lightly and made light of. But the analysis is this: God’s grace and mercy has allowed to wake into a new year, so maybe we should look at this as a time for new beginnings.
The Bible talks about God making all things new (Rev. 21:5); a new song (Ps 33:3); a new name (Isa 62:2); a new spirit (Ezek 11:19); a new heart (Ezek 18:31); a new covenant (Matt 26: 28); a new creation (Gal 6:15); and a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1).
The New Year is a Time for Hope.
Hope expresses assurance about the present as well as about the future. On January 1, 1785, John Wesley said, “Whether this be the last year or no, may it be the best year of my life.”
We can begin the new year remembering the words of Moses to the children in the wilderness as they stood at the beginning of a new time in their history:
but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.
Deuteronomy 11:11-12
The time and details of the future are hidden and unknown to us, but the assurance of Jesus is that we do not need to be anxious for tomorrow, because anxiousness should not be an issue for those who trust in Jesus’ guidance, and we get that guidance when we spend some of those 351,360 minutes talking with Him.
Edward Mote said it best in the hymn “The Solid Rock”: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
