Resolution for a New Year

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"Tell me a little bit about yourself." We've all had chances to do that; maybe a job interview, maybe meeting somebody new at a party.

Most of us, when asked to describe ourselves, would give an answer something like this: "Oh, I'm 5'7", a little overweight. I work for ABC company and I like jazz music. A huge Steelers fan. I'm a Democrat, a member of Local 202, but I vote for whoever impresses me the most. I give blood to the Red Cross and sometimes I volunteer for the Boy Scouts. I like to donate a little money to St. Jude's and the Heart Association. My daughter just gave birth to my first grandson, and I'm just as pleased as I could be. Oh, what else? Well, I'm a member of the Methodist church. I guess that's about it."

Don't think that I'm mocking you if that sounds a little like what your answer would be. Those are all acceptable things to say if you were posed such a question. But is that how you really regard yourself in your heart of hearts?

I hope that being a member of a church wouldn't be the last thing you think of. And I hope even more that being a member of a church would not be a poor substitute for a living, breathing, growing relationship with a living God, who is constantly breathing life into you as you mature in your faith.



When asked about the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus Christ said this: "... you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30 NKJV).

Does that describe you? Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart ... when it comes to romance? Your hobbies? Your leisure time? Do you love God with all your soul, when it comes to what you choose to watch on the TV? Do you love God with all your mind, when it comes to the books you read? Or with all your strength, all your energy, all your enthusiasm?

Hebrews 12:29 says that "our God is a consuming fire." Let me ask you this: Does He consume you? Are your thoughts constantly turning towards His beauty, His glory, His grace? Do you reflect often on Heaven and eternity? Or is the fire that consumes you made up of the stuff of this world?

Now, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, and this sermon is certainly not written to lay a heap of legalistic demands upon your life; you know how much I hate that. But I would like to remind you, if I may, that we are made for His pleasure. We were born for eternity, and our thoughts should constantly be returning Heavenward to our great Creator and merciful Savior.

When we make our typical New Year's Resolutions, we reveal just how earthbound we are. "I'm going to lose weight this year--I just know I am. I'm going to exercise and eat healthy and count my calories ... right after all of these Christmas cookies are gone."

Or how about this: "This year I'm going to be more patient with my husband. I promise not to nag him, no matter how many times I have to ask him to take out the garbage, and he just sits there in front of the TV and grunts like he's not really listening, even though I know perfectly well he can hear every word I'm saying. And why shouldn't I be able to expect a little more help around the house anyway?" And so it goes.

Most of our New Year's resolutions amount to a bit of wishful thinking about becoming someone we'd like to be, if only we had a little more will power, a little more gumption, a little more elbow grease. Legalism! Faugh!

And the end of all of our attempts to pull us up by our own bootstraps is humiliating failure, as any legalistic striving must inevitably be. How many of you really lost weight after a New Year's resolution? Is it still lost?

Jonathan Edwards, the great American preacher of the early 1700s, made a list of seventy resolutions when he was about 19 years old. These were not resolutions for a new year, but resolutions for his entire life. Just to note a few of them:

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory ... to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.
7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

These from a 19-year-old! Better than "I'm gonna lose ten pounds before February", yes?

But Jonathan Edwards also understood where the power to make and keep such resolutions comes from. He wrote a preface to his list of resolutions that, to me, is more significant than any of the resolutions themselves: "Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake."

Not legalistic demands, but a reliance upon God's grace, to perform the things in us that please Him for His own sake.

Now, if you think it's unfair of me to compare Jonathan Edwards' seventy resolutions with our feeble attempts at improving our lives, you may be right. Jonathan Edwards was a Paul Bunyan of the faith; I am a Tiny Tim. Edwards was Babe Ruth, and I'm that fat guy on the company softball team who usually strikes out.

But if we truly believe that God Himself is our greatest good, that obedience to His will is our greatest cause, that Heaven is our ultimate home ... then how can our aim be any less than to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength? The archer may not always hit the bull's-eye, but at least he knows where the target is. Let our target be to love God so completely that it's as if we are being consumed by that love.

Now, I'm not naïve enough to think we can, or even should, make grand promises that are bound to fail. If you've never read the Bible before, it might not be a good idea to promise yourself you're going to read the whole thing in a year. If you aren't really strong in prayer, you might not be well-advised to say you're going to pray every day for ten minutes for missionaries in Africa. You might get derailed, and if your train was fueled by self-motivated power instead of grace, you weren't on the right track anyway.

The journey of our sanctification is a long one, and most of us suffer many stumbles and missteps along the way. But one thing we can do is remember. Remember who we are: just humble sinners, saved by grace through the faith of Jesus Christ. Remember who God is: our Creator, our Redeemer, the lover of our souls. Remember that our God is a consuming fire, and so present ourselves on the altar as often as we think of it: "Here I am, Lord. Consume me."

As far as resolutions for a new year go, make what you will. If you try to keep them in your own strength, you're gonna fail.

As for me, I resolve to remember--to remember who I am, and who He is. More than I ever have before. Hopefully every day. And if I stumble and fall, to get back up and start walking again, remembering His love for me, that carried Him to my deserved place on the cross, that will carry me to His place, in that day when I will finally see His face and cast whatever honors I have at His feet.

"Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake." Amen.