New Year’s Reflection
I don’t know about you, but when I think of “New Year’s Resolution,” I think of failure. We talk about them a lot at New Year’s time, but the rest of the year, the resolution has become an emblem for well-intended but failed plans.
If we realize – as all of us must certainly realize – that most Resolutions are doomed to fail, why do we keep making them? Each year, about this time a few days after the New Year, I remember that I forgot to make a resolution. Then I make a resolution to make a resolution sometime in the next few days. Want to take a guess how well that has come out in the past?
Behind the idea of a New Year Resolution lies a deep desire. Each of us longs for something new – we long for something to be different. Life gets stale after a time, and we begin to lose hope that things can be different. Our sins overwhelm us; our sorrows seem too great for us to bear; the brokenness of the world around us seems never-ending; we are flooded daily with the news of the wrongs others do. In sum, sometimes you and I get fed up with ourselves and others – our complacency, our laziness, our loneliness, our unfulfilled dreams.
So New Year’s Resolutions aren’t just a self-improvement itch. They represent our hope that something can be different, that something can be new.
And it can! How easily we forget that the God who created the universe – who created everything we know, who created you and me – is still in the business of creating and re-creating!
As part of our worship service this morning, we reflected on some of the following scriptures:
Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Isaiah 40:27-31 (NIV)
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Romans 8:18-25 (NIV)
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Lamentations 3:19-26 (NIV)
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
Psalm 51:7-12 (NIV)
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Notice how the work of transformation and newness takes place. Our commitment to newness does not make it come about. Neither do our good intentions. Our perseverance and our diligence do not bring about newness and growth.
As one popular illustration puts it, we can no more make ourselves grow and change than an apple on a tree can grow and change by straining and trying harder. The apple will become all that it was meant to become in the fullness of time. In the meantime, the changes are barely noticeable. And they are natural – brought about by nature herself, not by any work on the part of the apple.
And so it is with us. In each of the scriptures above, it is GOD who does the changing, who re-creates and makes new. That’s not to say we don’t have work to do – but it is not our work that accomplishes the transformation. Rather, we change and we grow even as we stay connected to the source of all newness: Jesus Christ himself. “Behold,” he says, “I am making all things new!”
So let’s make new resolutions – it can’t hurt! But let’s resolve to draw closer to God in this New Year, so he can continue to make us new from the inside out.
I close this post with the words of Charles Spurgeon, who has a way of putting things succinctly and practically. The following is from Spurgeon’s “Sermon for New Year’s Day,” delivered January 1, 1885.
Charles Spurgeon
“There are children of God who need this text, ‘Behold, I make all things new,’ whose sigh is that they so soon grow dull and weary in the ways of God, and therefore they need daily renewing. After a few months a vigorous young Christian will begin to cool down; and those who have been long in the ways of God find that final perseverance must be a miracle if ever it is to be accomplished, for naturally they tire and faint.
Well, now, dear friends, why do you and I ever get stale and flat? Why, it is because we get away from him who says, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ The straight way to a perpetual newness and freshness of holy youth is to go to Christ again, just as we did at the first. A better thing still is never to leave him, but to stand for ever at the cross-foot delighting yourself in his all-sufficient sacrifice.
They that are full of the joy of the Lord never find life grow weary. Getting near to Christ, you will partake in his joy, and that joy shall be your strength, your freshness, the newness of your life. God grant us to drink of the eternal founts, that we may for ever overflow.”
