What expectations do you have for this new year which just began?
· Perhaps that’s not a question you’ve thought too much about… but every one of us has formed a sense of expectations for life…even if not specific, our souls have a general sense of what we expect in life as we enter a new year.
· Most likely for most of us our souls are still a bit unsettled by the events of this past year… the attack upon our own country that tragically took so many lives… and the broader economic woes that it accentuated.
· Such events cause some to see a pessimistic year ahead…and while outwardly there may lie many challenging circumstances ahead…the reality we come to celebrate this morning… on this first Sunday of the new year… is the fundamental reality that the universe is still run by a benevolent and all powerful God… ‘a community of love.’ Who holds out ‘peace on earth for men and women on whom is favor rests.’
· As we consider our inner expectations as we enter this new year…one of the significant realities which God calls us to grasp… is that He is the God of today… the God of the present.
Matthew 6:34 (Msg)
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” - (cf. Ps. 84:10; 118:24; Matthew 6:11; 2 Cor. 4:16)
· Context is declaring the reality of life under God’s reign… and how one facet of entering and experiencing this new life involves transforming our sense of worry. As we enter the life God has for us… reality of His benevolent care… the trust we discover will allow us to give ourselves to the day at hand.
· More than some cliché idea of ‘taking it one day at a time’… as if to offer some nice advise…Jesus is describing the very nature of reality. > God cannot resolve tomorrow today… it’s simply the nature of experiencing His hand. His faithfulness for tomorrow cannot be experienced today. Today is the only tangible moment you have in which in which you can experience His faithfulness.
> Embrace the day… it’s the most sacred moment in your life.
Psalm 118:24 (NIV)
This is the day the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Lament. 3:23 (NLT)
“Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.”
The faithfulness of God begins afresh every day. How easily many of us may think of God’s faithfulness as a ‘static entity’… that His heart of mercy towards you is inactive… or worse… it gets used up over time.
> But as the prophet declares, the mercies of God begin afresh every day… ‘are new every morning.’ His faithfulness is active every day. He is the God of each moment in your life.
> Embrace the day… it’s the most sacred moment in your life.
Psalm 23:6 (NLT)
“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.” -
What does His goodness and unfailing love do? Is such goodness and love held waiting for some unique moment in our life? > It PURSUES US… each one of us.
(Hebrew word used - Radaph- to run after, chase, follow after, hunt, pursue)
The “love” (hesed; KJV, “mercy”) of God is the covenantal commitment to bless his people with his goodness, i.e., his promises. The psalmist expresses deep confidence in God’s loyalty. Instead of being pursued by enemies who seek his destruction, God’s “goodness and love” follow him…every day of His life.
What days? Special days? > ALL the days of our life.
> Embrace the day… it’s the most sacred moment in your life.
As we prepare for the new year… God wants to awaken us to the reality that 2002 will not simply be lived one day at a time… but by one sacred day at a time.
· Only as we awaken to the sacredness of each day… will we experience the fullness of this new year.
· Our tendency is to let our expectations be defined by yesterday… or deferred to tomorrow.
· The result may be a tragic loss of not embracing the sacredness of each day… and therefore experiencing God as the God of the present.
God’s perspective for embracing the present: the present is sacred but not separate. The present that is sacred is connected to the past and future… it is informed by the past and future.
Far from some notion that each moment has no meaning apart from itself…we live in relationship to the God of all time… the Alpha and Omega… the God of the beginning and end. The God of today is the God who provides continuity.
Past…Today (the present) is not controlled by yesterday (the past)… but it is connected to it… and that connection is the hand of God. How has God shown His goodness? His faithfulness?
> Today is to be an extension of that reality which God has made known.
It’s like the building of early suspension bridges…
Once upon a time, it was decided that a suspension bridge be built over an extremely wide gorge. But how to build a bridge across such a great span? To begin the project, a length of string was attached to an arrow and the arrow was shot across the space. Then the string was used to pull a length of twine across. Then the twine pulled a thick rope across, and the rope pulled a cable across. And then a second cable. > Each one of us have made some initial connection with God in the past. We became open to the need within us … and a connection was made. > We need to grasp those connections… and add to them.
Future…
The living God has always related to us through promises… in the sacred moment….
Such promises are calls us to live in the present consistent with the future He has made known. Beginning with Abraham…the promises of the future called him to step out in the present.
Such promises are not the same as our own planning and goals.
Goals are good… but they can become our gods… in the sense that we hang our hearts upon them. Our contentment becomes contingent on some goal that lies in the future… something we are still waiting to see change… and therefore disengages us from the significance and sacredness of the present.
Planning is good… but not as a substitute for the present…. When it is, it’s not really planning…. it’s procrastination… using the future to avoid the present. The two must stay connected.
A quote I have kept on my desk - “What I’ll be tomorrow, I’m becoming today.”
“We need to live in the present, neither dragged down by the past nor distracted by the future’s problems or promises. Fugitives into the past and the future have one thing in common: they have difficulty living effectively in the present. The past cannot be recovered, even though we can learn from it; the future is not yet ours, even though we prepare for it. The past lives only in our memories, the future in our imagination,. so the present must become more than a bridge linking the past and the future. We need to rediscover how to live in the present. We have only today, this hour, within our grasp.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade - "If we have abandoned ourselves to God, there is only one rule for us; the duty of the present moment" (Abandonment to Divine Providence (New York: Doubleday, 1975).
-Charles E. Hummel-Freedom From Tyranny of the Urgent: Pages 89-96+
The Apostle Paul grasped this as he wrote…
Philip. 3:7-16 (CEV)
… Christ has shown me that what I once thought was valuable is worthless. [8] Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have given up everything else and count it all as garbage. All I want is Christ [9] and to know that I belong to him. I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses. God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ. [10] All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him to life. I want to suffer and die as he did, [11] so that somehow I also may be raised to life.
[12] I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize. [13] My friends, I don’t feel that I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead. [14] I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven. … we must keep going in the direction that we are now headed.
A process for the embracing the present…
1. Let go of past regret that holds you
‘Not perfect… but forgetting what is behind.’
Inventive genius Thomas Edison lost his great New Jersey laboratories in an inferno-like fire on a December night in 1914. Yet the very next morning, walking among the still smoldering rubble of those buildings that had housed so many of his projects, Edison, then 67, said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God, we can start anew."
John Claypool ("Leadership," 1992)
Years ago a thunderstorm swept through southern Kentucky at the farm where my Claypool forebears have lived for six generations In the orchard, the wind blew over an old pear tree that had been there as long as anybody could remember. My grandfather was grieved to lose the tree on which he had climbed as a boy and whose fruit he had eaten all his life.
A neighbor came by and said, "Dec, I’m really sorry to see your pear tree blown down."
"I’m sorry too," said my grandfather. "It was a real part of my past. "What are you going to do?" the neighbor asked.
My grandfather paused for a moment and then said, "I’m going to pick the fruit and burn what’s left."
> This past year… along with so much that I’m thankful for, I’ve had disappointments… conflicts… regrets that can take hold of my soul. I’ve needed to ‘pick the fruit and burn the rest.’
Each of us probably have some significant regrets… broken relationships, a divorce, a work loss, dreams that haven’t been fulfilled… each of us has probably feels the loss of the world as you knew it a year ago.
> Before we conclude …. invite each of us to bring those regrets to the Lord… the altar.
2. Resolve future ‘contingencies’ to contentment
Common challenge …. Allowing our contentment to become contingent / dependent upon something we become certain must happen first. Getting married / getting divorced…. New job…. New place to live…> Deferring our contentment
Paul learned to be content in all circumstances… he may have wanted many things…. But he only needed to ‘know Christ’…. and thus he was able to embrace each and every day… to live in the present.
Ruth Tucker tells the story of Kari Torjesen Malcolm, who served for 15 years as a missionary to the Philippines. Kari was an MK (missionary kid) who grew up in China: "As a teenager, she was confined for a time during World War II in an internment camp, and there she discovered a deep truth that changed her life.
"In the camp she was number 16, and only one of many Westerners who sought self-identity and comfort behind the walls and the electric fence that separated them from the outside world. There were other MKs in the same predicament, and often they managed to get together for a few moments of prayer--prayer for freedom.
"But as time passed, Kari began to feel uneasy about these times of prayer. Freedom was becoming the ultimate goal in life, and God seemed to become less and less important--except for His answer to their prayers for freedom. She began to pray and search the Bible.
"Kari came to a new outlook on life, and she no longer desired to join the others in their prayers for freedom. It was only then that Kari was able to pray the prayer that changed her life: `Lord, I am willing to stay in this prison for the rest of my life if only I may know You.’ At that moment, she was free."
3. Embrace present grace to grow
Perhaps the most common enemy to the present is the common feeling of shame.
It’s difficult to embrace the present if we can’t accept what we find there within ourselves.
Paul had to come to terms with his own unrighteousness…
‘I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses. God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ.
….I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me.’
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Will our expectations be defined by yesterday… or deferred to tomorrow?
> Invite you … as we enter a new year to embrace the day… as the most sacred moment in your life.
Bring to the Lord… your regrets… your contingencies…. your shame.
The present -- the moment now -- is all we actually have. These are the good old days, because they are here, now, this moment present.
Dr. R. F. Smith, Jr., (Pastor’s Perspective) – ‘We should echo the words of Bishop Polycarp who, in A.D. 155, shouted, "My God, in what a generation you have caused me to live!" And what a day God had privileged us to live in. These are good days -- good old days, good new days, just good days. Period. These are days in which our best energies are demanded, our finest talents called for, and our most expert management of time required. I’m not unaware of the minuses that spawn prophets-of-doom who think that anyone who would call these days "good old days" ought to have his head examined. But these are "our days," the only days we have. Let’s make ’em good by being equal to the opportunities at hand.’
