IT’S A NEW YEAR
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Introduction
Here we are on the first Sunday of 2005. It’s a new year! And that is the title for today’s message: ‘It’s a New Year’. How many of you made New Year’s resolutions for 2005? Every year people make New Year’s resolutions and almost without exception, we fail to fulfill those resolutions. The top ten resolutions that people make are:
1. Lose weight
2. Stop smoking
3. Stick to a budget
4. save or earn more money
5. Find a better job
6. Become more organized
7. exercise more
8. be more patient
9. Eat better
10. Become a better person
Every year we make these same resolutions and yet we often fail to even begin the process of doing these things.
Many of these things are exactly what we ought to be doing and yet we can’t seem to get ourselves together so that we can accomplish those good things. Are we missing something? Are we approaching this wrong? Years ago, I stopped making resolutions. Not because I was perfect, but because I knew I wasn’t going to follow through with those things.
A resolution is a declaration to ourselves or to the world that we are going to change something about ourselves that we feel needs to be changed.
There are some things in our lives that we absolutely need to deal with. Some people are dragging around sinful habits that they know they need to be rid of and they have made resolutions to do that this year. But how are they going to have any more chance of success this year than they did last year?
Some things we need to deal with for our health. At my last check-up, my doctor said that my triglycerides were way too high. I could make a resolution to lower my triglycerides. This is important because it affects my health. How am I going to be any more successful at doing it this year than I was the last time my doctor told me that?
One of my favorite verses is Romans 12:2.
Read Romans 12:2 page 600
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The problem for most people is not the resolutions that they are making, but the reasons why they are making them. For me to have any chance of achieving the results that I desire in my life, it must start by first changing the way that I think.
Philippians tells us that:
Read Philippians 2:5 page 620
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
For us to achieve any kind of success in doing the things in our life that we really want to do, we must start by making a change in our minds. We have got to renew our minds. That means that we have to empty out all of the things that the world puts into our mind and replace it with the mind of Christ.
Turn to Ephesians 2. For us to begin to understand how we can make real changes in our lives we must first understand who we are. Only by understanding who we are do we have any chance of making changes.
Read Ephesians 2:1-3 page 617 Bible
Before Christ we were spiritually dead because of our sins. This entitled us to spend all eternity separated from God. We conducted ourselves just like the rest of the world. By our very nature we deserved to receive the wrath of God. That is who we were before Jesus saved us.
Read Ephesians 2:4-7 page 617 Bible
Because of the grace of God, He poured out His mercy upon us. He didn’t pour out His wrath on us like we deserved, but instead showed His incredible love for us that, as Romans says, He loved us even though we were still sinners, he sent Jesus to die for us.
And that changed our spiritual place from being spiritually dead to being made alive ‘in Christ’. Our new spiritual position is ‘in Christ’. That means that spiritually speaking, we are not going to heaven some day. We are seated in Heaven right now with Jesus Christ.
This is one of the most powerful concepts in the Christian faith. Because of our position in Christ we have at our disposal all of the mighty things of God.
Read Ephesians 1:3 page 617 Bible
Everything that we need is available to us, just for the asking. Well you might ask that if that is true, why my life is missing so much of what I need. Why do I not feel the power of Christ flowing through my life?
Very often our problem has to do with our motives. While we might be looking for the right things, we may be asking for the wrong reasons. And if we don’t get our arms around the motives of our hearts, than we are dooming ourselves to mediocre or defeated lives.
God wants us to live lives that are rich, full and abundant. And we have got to make sure that we aren’t doing anything that is hindering God from pouring out His blessings into our lives.
Read James 4:3 page 638
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
God knows your heart. He knows your most secret thoughts, dreams, and desires. If the thing that you are asking for is going to be used to satisfy your own desires, God is under no obligation to give it to you. If that resolution you make is motivated from wrong motives, God is under no obligation to help you to fulfill it.
The trick to making New Year’s Resolutions is knowing how to do it so that it is alignment with God’s will for your life. So to make good resolutions we need to start by knowing what God’s will is for our lives.
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:3a page 624
For this is the will of God, your sanctification…
God’s will is that we would be sanctified. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Holiness is godliness. God’s desire is that we would be godly. Specifically, He wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ.
We were created to be in fellowship with God, to be like God, to have the character and attitudes of God. God’s will for our lives is that we would be godlier. How much more? God wants us to be godlier today than we were yesterday. And He wants us to be godlier tomorrow than we are today.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 5. One of the things that people like about New Years is that it is a chance to start over. For some reason, we can look at January 1, and separate it from the rest of our lives and try to make a new start. Today, I would like to look at the new start that God has provided for each of us as a launch point for making our New Year’s resolutions.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:17 page 611
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new.
When we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord, something changed within us. Part of that change is that the old sinful man was crucified with Christ. That old man has passed away. We also share in Christ’s resurrection and so we are a new creation.
Now this new creation is in fellowship and communion with God. This new creation wants to please God and wants to become more holy. This new creature wants to become sanctified.
Unfortunately, the old man is still around. Even though he has been crucified and is dead, we still carry his rotting corpse around with us. He shows up when we do things that we know are not what God wants us to do. Paul, one of the greatest Christians that ever walked this earth said:
Read Romans 7:19 page 597
For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
Paul says that even though he knows the thing that he is supposed to do, he doesn’t always do it. And some of those things that he knows that he is not supposed to do, he does those things. A statement like this from such a great man of God comforts me. I know that the things that I struggle with are not so unusual.
A few verses later in Romans Paul finishes his thought on this matter.
Read Romans 7:24 page 597
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
This is why Jesus told His disciples that they would need to deny themselves and pick up the cross. We must often crucify that old man. He has a bad habit of coming back into our lives on a regular basis.
As we are making our New Year’s resolutions, we have got to determine who is making the resolution; the new creation in Christ, or the old body of death. Too often it is the old man that is driving our thoughts about what we need to change or why we need to change.
As Christians, we are in Christ. This means that we are now alive and seated in the heavenly places with Christ. We have at our disposal the riches of Christ in every spiritual blessing. God’s will for our lives is that we would be sanctified. Hindering our progress is the old man, while being passed away, influences us.
As you look through the resolutions that you made this year, try to see where they fit within that brief description.
Many of our resolutions are focused on our circumstances. I want a better job. I want a better spouse. I want a new car or house. At the beginning of this message I read to you the ten most common New Year’s resolutions. Almost all of them relate to our circumstances and not to our character. Only two out of the ten dealt with a change in character. And they were numbers 8 & 10.
God is far more concerned with your character than anything else. God looks at the inner person and not the outer.
Read 2 Corinthians 4:16 page 611
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
For us to be successful in actually accomplishing our New Year’s resolutions, we must get our actions into alignment with God’s will. And if God is more concerned about our character, I must concentrate my energies on changing certain behaviors. But what we tend to want to do is change behaviors that affect our circumstances.
Turn to Matthew 6. The Bible teaches that God takes care of those that are faithful to Him and that trust in Him. Many of our resolutions show a distinct lack of faith in God.
Read Matthew 6:25-33 page 512 Bible
God wants us to trust Him with every aspect of our lives. We are not to worry about any of those things. Our focus should be on seeking His kingdom and His righteousness. If we will do that, God will give us all of the rest of it.
Some of our resolutions can presume to know the plan of God in your life. Number five on our list was: To find a better job.
Read James 4:13-15 page 638
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."
James 4:13-15 NASB
Be very careful that your resolutions don’t try to make God do something. Remember, He is God, not you.
Another thing that we need to watch out for when we are making our resolutions is contentment. Often our resolutions and in general our desires in life are based on a general discontentment in our situation. Earlier I said that we need to renew, or change, the way that we think. For many this is one of the key areas that change need to take place. The Apostle Paul said from a Roman prison:
Read Philippians 4:11b-12 page 621
… for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.
Philippians 4:11-12 NASB
Paul goes on to say that it is this state of contentment that has allowed him to be able to handle all of the things that have happened is his life. The very next verse is often quoted to speak about the power of God operating in our lives.
Read Philippians 4:13 page 621
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
We need to understand that this verse in context is speaking from a viewpoint of contentment. To be content to is to be happy with who you are, where you are, and what you have. A reality of human nature is that there will never be enough to make you happy. You will never be thin enough. You will never have enough money. You will never have the right job.
A study of the book of Ecclesiastes will confirm that to you. You will never be happy with what you get until you are happy with what you have. I am convinced that we often are the ones that are hindering God from giving us exactly what we want because we are not content with what we have.
God has proven this truth to me on several occasions. As soon as I have gotten to the point in my heart where I am happy in my circumstance and I can honestly say to God that it would be OK if the situation never changed, that is when He has acted. I am convinced that was what He was waiting for.
Do you want God to give you everything on your resolution list? Then stop chasing after them and be happy with your circumstances and situations! Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
Now this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have resolution lists. God wants us to make changes in our lives. We need to ‘work out our salvation’ and ‘exercise ourselves toward godliness’. So how can we have a list of New Year’s resolutions and have any success of achieving them?
The very first thing that you should do is pray and ask God to reveal to you what you need to be changing and then write them all down. Write down everything that you think of. Then you need to sort them into two categories. The first are those that will help you to become more godly. These are the ones that you can be pretty sure that God is going to help you with. The second category is those things that deal with your situation or circumstances.
For example, a resolution could be to read the Bible every day. Is that the godliness category or the circumstance category? Godliness! How about losing weight? Circumstance!
The things on our list shouldn’t be things that we are already doing. For example I wouldn’t put reading the Bible every day on my list, that has been a habit of mine for years. The resolutions should be something that needs to change. I recently felt God calling me to go deeper in my devotional time with Him and so I have recently begun writing a devotional on something I have read in my daily reading. For me that would make a good resolution.
After we have sorted out our resolutions, we need to go back to God and ask Him to clarify which of those things need to be on our lists. And if you sense that He is telling you to take something off of the list, you need to do it because He is telling you that he is not going to help.
Losing weight is a great example of this. This is the number one resolution on people’s list. And many of those people do not need to lose weight. Some do but they have more important things that they need to work on. My doctor told me that I needed to lose about ten pounds to get my triglycerides down. He also told me to watch what I eat and to get exercise regularly. So for me, losing weight really isn’t a priority, but eating right and exercising are. And I will be faithful to do that, then my weight will take care of itself.
We next need to ask God to help us to prioritize our resolutions. If you could only accomplish one, which would be the first one that God would want you to do? Which is the second? And so on.
And this next step is the one that most people fail to do and it is the reason why they are not successful in keeping their resolutions. You must develop a plan for how you are going to accomplish this resolution.
For example, to write the daily devotional, I need to set aside an extra thirty minutes each day, first thing in the morning. I also have to pray and ask God to speak to me during my reading time about what scripture He wants me to write on. And then I write it right after I finish reading. That is my plan. It has been said: ‘If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail’.
You must establish a plan for how you will accomplish your resolution. Often it is during this process of planning that God will speak to our hearts and ask us where our motivation and contentment are with these things. Listen!
And here is a huge one for you. Don’t try to do too much too fast. If you have ten items on your list, it is very unlikely that you are going to be able to make those many changes in your life without some sort of failure taking place. It makes much more sense to concentrate on one or two at a time. You need to allow your life to adapt to the new behaviors before adding more. Once those become habits, then add another to your plan.
As you go through your day, if you have a conflict between tow of your resolutions, always go with the one that has the highest priority. For example, if I don’t have time to work on my devotional and to go to the gym, I am going to work on my devotional. That one is working on my character and that is more important to God.
Turn back to 2 Corinthians 5:17. This may be one of the most important things that I can say to you today, because it may be the most difficult. You must give yourself permission to fail. There is a chance, for some of us a very high chance that we are going to fail at fulfilling our resolution. We need to be OK with that.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:17 page 611 Bible
God has put within us this new man or woman. He then gave us the Holy Spirit to help us. God wants us to be successful at working out our salvation and exercising ourselves toward godliness. But there are forces at work around us that are going to fight this process. Our flesh, that old man that I carry around, this nature that wants things its own way will fight against us. It’s hard getting up thirty minutes earlier so that I can write that devotional.
The world is also designed to distract and derail us from the path that God would put us on. Once you start working on your plan to change, you will be amazed by the things that will come up to try to take you away from your goal.
And then there is the enemy of our souls, the Devil. His tools include discouragement and deception. If you miss a day or two, you are going to start feeling guilty and like you have failed. And you will want to give up. Don’t do it!
God is a god of new beginnings. Confess to Him that you have been unfaithful, which He already knows, and then start over again. I am encouraging everyone to go through the One-Year Bible with us. One of the things that I want you to know, is that if you get behind, and it is not likely that you can catch up, don’t try. Just jump ahead to where we are. It would be better to miss a little of it, then to miss most of it.
And this is true of any of our resolutions. If you miss a few days at the gym, start again. If you eat some things that you didn’t want to, let it go and start eating right today.
The Apostle Paul said something that we all need to really take to heart, not just for this topic but for life in general.
Read Philippians 3:13-14 page 621
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14 NASB
We have got to keep our eyes on Jesus. It is ‘in Christ’ that we have the power and ability to accomplish the resolutions that God gives us for our lives. It is “in Christ’ that everything we need is found. We are a new creation and in Christ we can be made new day by day.
Please stand!
If God’s will for my life is godliness, what must I do so that
Let’s pray.
