New Year's Resolutions: Why Bother?

"New Year's Resolutions"

(excerpt of Sermon from Christmas 2 - January 4, 2015)

click here to listen to entire sermon

           As we usher in a new year, a prayer that is dear to me has been on my mind and in my heart a lot lately.  While the prayer is technically supposed to be said at night time, I believe the prayer is appropriate as the sun sets on 2014.  The prayer that I am talking about is from the New Zealand Prayer Book and a part of it goes like this…

“What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done. Let it be… Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.”

(Lord it is night - click here to read entire prayer)

            As we reflect on 2014, we can’t help but to dwell on the bad, hold onto the good, and long for what will never be.  We can’t help but to celebrate the good times, grieve for our losses, and feel remorse for our mistakes.  Through reflection some of us may come to realize how fortunate we are for all the blessings of this life.  Others of us may be overcome by all the pain and failure and bad luck the year brought us.  To some degree, 2014 probably brought you a little bit of everything.

            So what do we do with all this reflecting?  Traditionally, we make resolutions; we resolve to make changes in our life.  Based on our shortcomings in the previous year, we think of ways to be better the next year.  So we make resolutions that anticipate a new and better “me.”      

This past week Jamie, Mary Katherine, and I spent some time with good friends.  And over breakfast on New Year’s Day, we talked about our new year’s resolutions.  There was the usual talk of eating better, getting more exercise, getting involved in the community, praying more, and so on.  Our resolutions were earnest and sincere, and I hope that we succeed.  But what if we don’t succeed?  What if we fail?

On some level, we were all a little reticent to name a resolution because we have all tried to keep new year’s resolutions before and we have all failed at keeping our resolutions before.   So what is the point?  Why keep on setting ourselves up for failure?  Why bother if the only thing we will succeed at doing is making ourselves feel bad about ourselves? 

Now, I do not want you to think that having new year’s resolutions is inherently a bad thing.  I do believe amendment of life is critical to our spiritual journey.  If we truly want to follow Jesus, then we will have no other choice but to change how we live and what we live for.  If we truly want to follow Jesus, we are going to have to venture into places that we have never gone before; we are also going to have to refrain from going to places where we have always been.

However, when we follow Jesus, the metric by which we measure success and failure is going to have to change.  Currently, we live in a world that says success means life and failure means death.  Even more, we live in world that says if we don’t check everything off the list, whatever list is trending at the time, we are a failure.  If we don’t eat enough vitamins, exercise three times a day, have 17.65 close friends, play three musical instruments, and run an 8 minute mile—all at the same time, then we aren’t good enough, then we are a failure.      

The way of Jesus, the way of the cross, tells us something different.  If we follow Jesus, our eyes are opened to the paradox of God’s kingdom, a paradox that Jesus’ own mother recognized from the beginning, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”  In other words, success and failure isn’t defined by anything we do or don’t do.  Instead, we are accepted and loved and made worthy through what Christ did and nothing else—even if we do manage to check off all the items on our list.

Salvation in Christ means that you no longer have to live a life where your value is based on how many boxes you check off on the “how to be a perfect person” checklist—as if that exists.  Instead, you get to live a life from a place where you know you are loved and accepted already, from a place where you know that we have been made worthy through the blood of Christ.  Our motivation to live is not born out of fear.  Instead, God hopes that our motivation to live is born out of gratitude for a God who gave his only Son to die for us.

  A friend reminded me that if you make any resolution this year, then let it begin out of a place of gratitude.  We are only setting ourselves up for disappointment if we make resolutions out of a place of fear or obligation or guilt; we are only setting ourselves up for failure if we make resolutions so we can show others or even ourselves how good we are.  I have found that damage is done to my soul and to my spiritual life if I resolve to do anything that is self-fulfilling.  So if we begin by giving thanks, we resolve to look outside of ourselves, more specifically, we resolve to look to God and to others for the opportunity for life.   

  So as you seek amendment of life for 2015, start by giving thanks for a heavenly Father who loves you for who you are no matter what.  Give thanks for the Holy Spirit who calls you back again and again to a life in the way of Christ.  Give thanks for a church community who is here to support you in this journey called life, in your journey for amendment of life.  Give thanks for the love of Christ our Savior who makes you the person that God intends for you to be. 

Nothing other than the love of God in Christ can make you the person that you were made to be.  So whatever happened or didn’t happen in 2014-let it be—for better, for worse you cannot change 2014.  Let it be and trust that God accepts you for exactly who you are, God loves you for who you are right now, not the you that you hope to be or the you that you used to be but the “you” you are right now.  Let it be and trust that Jesus is leading you to a new day, to new joys, to new possibilities.