Message from Scripture.... Resolutions

Proverbs 3: 1-12

Colossians 3:1-10

John 1:1-14

Resolutions

The late Erma Brombeck made some memorable resolutions over the years:

1. I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died.
2. I'm going to follow my husband's suggestion to put a little excitement into my life by living within our budget.
3. I'm going to apply for a hardship scholarship to Weight Watchers.
4. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.

Joke writer Ed McManus has some words of comfort for those of us who are setting resolutions: "Don't worry about those News Year's resolutions," he says. "You only have to deal with them until the end of February and then you can give them up for Lent." It sounds like he has been spying on some of us.

New Year Resolutions. We all make them -- or at least feel that we should make them -- and like Christmas toys, they are soon broken. Have you ever stopped to ponder what is really behind our New Year resolutions? Did I hear someone say, "Yeah, twenty pounds." No, seriously. If we  really stop and think about this resolution thing we find our best New Year resolutions are based on spiritual realizations. The Gospel reading this morning speaks of new beginnings, God coming to earth to live among us to give us new birth. 

 First, there is The Desire To Be A Better Person. Resolutions mean that deep down we want to be a better person than we are. Nearly everyone sincerely wants to be more decent, more generous, more spiritual, more fulfilled than we are.

Second, there is The Realization That We Fall Short. Since we want to be a better person, that means we realize that we fall short of being the kind of person we ought to be and should be and want to be. Even though all of us have private areas of our life known only to us and God, we know we fall short even if others don't know. And with this knowledge comes a sense of guilt. Many social scientists are saying that our society has lost its sense of guilt.

Back in the '50s and '60s the TV ads worked on your guilt -- remember the ads that heaped shame on you for having the "ring around the collar?" Or the ads that said surely your family deserved a floor that shines more than the neighbor's floor? Now the ads tell you to lay off that housework, prop up your feet and have a break. "You deserve it," "Treat yourself!" is the theme. You are worth it; you are the greatest! No longer is the appeal to guilt and shame, but to ego. All kinds of polls and articles talk about how the majority of people are searching for God. What they want—maybe what all of us want, is a non-threatening, non-authoritarian God. That very spiritual search is accompanied by a sense of moral failure, by a sense of guilt -- no matter how much we deny it or how well we camouflage it. We all know that we ought to be better people than we are, but we are human, and we fail sometimes in our best intentions.

The biggest stumbling block in our New Year’s resolutions is, We Haven't The Power To Change. We want to be better than we are, but if we are truthful to ourselves, past experience teaches us that we haven't the power to change ourselves. Oh, we may, through this resolution or that, push the battle lines back here and there in our life. Above the wrecks of countless resolutions there stands the bitter truth that for the vast majority of us there is not the power to become the person we ought to be and want to be.

So, how can you and I become better people in 2011? By that I mean how can we become the fulfilled, moral, spiritual people we desire to be? Are there some plain steps to take that bring more power to the struggle than mere resolutions? The first step in making lasting changes in our life style, is a guiding vision. In Paul's own life, there was the vision of Christ on the Damascus Road. As Paul traveled the known world preaching Jesus and standing before kings, he said, "I was not disobedient to that heavenly vision ..."  In Colossians we just read, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

I know that a popular teaching used by many athletes is to practice "visioning", and it has become popular in self help books. Envision what you want, what kind of person you want to be. But envisioning yourself rich or famous or happy can only draw on the power within your own flawed life. If the vision you put in your mind and heart is the vision of Christ himself, you draw upon all his power and love to shape your life.

We need a vision of Christ on the cross, dying there for our sake.If we keep that vision before our eyes, we can find strength. But let the vision of Christ be not just Christ on the cross, but also of Christ resurrected. Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another dead Jew. But with the resurrection, there is unleashed in this world a mighty spiritual power in the hearts of those who believe that Jesus is the Savior, and who then accept him as Lord and work to fulfill his commands.

But how can we who believe keep this powerful and power giving vision of Christ crucified and risen before our eyes, in our hearts and minds and daily lives? We can practice the presence of Christ through daily prayer, through Bible and devotional reading, and through gathered worship and fellowship, study, and service with other Christians. The first two, prayer and devotional reading, are private and essential. But equally essential is a relationship with a community of faith, and within that community participating with a group to study, discuss, wrestle with the application of Christ’s teachings to our daily lives and our world situation. Also essential is to find ways to serve Christ and obey his commands to love others and make disciples.

After we establish a fresh vision of Christ, then we are ready to add to this a vision of ourselves as God intends us to be. Concentrate with me for a moment: Think of yourself, your habits, your lifestyle, your values and goals, your personality as you are. Now vision yourself as having the goals, values, personality that God wants you to have. That's the person who can make a difference in this world for Christ. Now go further -- Image what this church and this community would be like and what we would be doing if each of us became the person God wants us to be.

One last essential part of achieving our resolutions is a network of support to encourage us and help us be accountable to the vision. Now in a small way this church family helps us do this. But we need more. We each need to be a part of a small group to accomplish this need for spiritual growth support. I encourage you to seek out three or four other people, or couples, and begin to meet with them on a regular basis to pray together and have meaningful discussion about issues that you and the community are facing, and how it is going with you spiritually. That is the strength behind Weight Watchers, Tops, Alcoholics Anonymous, and other groups. A biblical based group will help you even more.

For those in the congregations of the churches I serve, besides the personal resolutions you make for this coming year, I have two I hope you will each make and keep. One is that you will take our your copy of the prayer card you put in our prayer box and pray for each of the persons you listed exactly as we talked about doing. If we do this, God will bless our prayers and there will be positive changes for those persons. The second is, I hope each of you will resolve to attend at least one worship service this year at one of the other two churches in our charge. It will make our charge healthier and stronger, and will help us to know each other much, much better.

Carrying out our resolutions all begins with the vision of Christ in our hearts, in our minds, before our eyes. A vision that leads to confession and faith, to repentance and spiritual growth, to becoming who God wants us to be and who we want to be. There is an ancient hymn from the eighth century which puts it well:

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art:

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.   

 Amen