How to Make 2006 a Great Year

Tom Shrader draws from several New Testament passages to outline four resolutions for the coming year: investing in real friendships, breaking free from whatever enslaves us, cultivating genuine passion for Christ, and expanding our understanding of the culture we are called to reach. He argues that circumstances do not determine the quality of a year, but intentional, Spirit-empowered choices do. The teaching closes with a reminder that the Holy Spirit living in every believer is the power source that makes lasting life change possible.

“Genuine love, genuine forgiveness, genuine joy is found in a relationship with Christ.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Year in Review

Recorded: 2006 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 44 min

Themes: new year, resolutions, friendship, freedom, passion for christ, cultural engagement, life change, holy spirit, feeling stuck, wanting to change, struggling with addiction, seeking deeper friendships, young adult, new believer, spiritually dry, midlife reassessment

Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:1-7, 1 Corinthians 7:23, 2 Timothy 2:4, Romans 9:1-4, Philippians 1:9-11, Acts 17:22-23, Acts 20:36-38

Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, pneumatology, spirit-empowered living, discipleship, spiritual formation, new testament ethics, intentional christian living

Full Transcript

Introduction

This is part of our annual series that we do here at church and at Priority Living as well. It is so rewarding because it happens every year, and just this morning as I was greeting people at the 10:30 service, a young man said to me, "I'm really excited about this lesson today." He was refreshingly honest. He said, "I don't say that every year, but my life has changed a lot, and last week and this week are really important to me as my life changes." I want you to know that I may have taught this lesson 175 to 200 times, and every time it is a challenge to me, and I hope it is to you. We looked back last week. We look forward this week.

The Top Ten Resolutions

This is not necessarily about resolutions in the traditional sense, but I did go into Google and type in "New Year's resolutions," and it brought up the ten most frequent ones. Number one is to spend more time with family and friends — fifty percent of Americans appreciate their loved ones and want more time with them. Number two is fitness: to get in shape, to exercise, with the understanding that exercise and health make you look better, feel better, and think better. Number three is different from fitness — it is simply to lose weight, one of the most popular resolutions every year. As you have experienced with me over the years, I have had an ongoing fluctuation in this whole area, and this is the first year I can remember saying I know I need to lose weight and having absolutely no desire to pursue it.

Number four is to quit smoking. According to this, on average, smokers will try four times before they quit for good. Number five is to enjoy life more — life is hectic, and people want to enjoy it more. Number six is to quit drinking, very similar to the quit smoking resolution. Number seven is to get out of debt, which ties into one of our topics today. I promise you that you will repay yourself many times over if you adhere to this one. Number eight is to learn something new, which is also part of today's message. Number nine is to help others — volunteerism, or what we would call service here. And number ten, which I resolve twice a year — at vacation time and at the beginning of the year — is to get organized, and I still have not done much about it. Those are the top ten most popular resolutions.

We are always operating in a slightly different realm than those, though some of them may overlap with what we are going to talk about today.

Our Premise: A Great Year in Spite of Circumstances

Open your Bibles, if you have them, to 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 1. We are going to visit three or four different passages today. If you want to turn to them, great. If you want to listen and make a note of them, that is fine too.

Our premise is that you can make this a great year in spite of circumstances. That is really important. We are challenging you not to be unaffected by circumstances — because they will affect you — but not to allow them to determine the quality of your year. By circumstances, I mean the politics, the economics, the employment situation. We are talking about you taking control of the areas of your life that you can address, regulate, and manage.

Resolution One: Improve Relationships

The first thing I think needs to be resolved this year — and obviously there are many, many others — is to improve relationships. I have Christian relationships in mind here specifically, though when you say relationships it could certainly mean husband and wife, a dating relationship, friendships, all of those.

Look at what Paul writes to Timothy: *"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God."* That tells us who is writing. Then we have the recipient: *"To Timothy, my dear son."* If you are new to this, you might think, oh, this is a father-son letter. Not really, at least not in the sense that they share a chain of DNA. They share a chain of spiritual DNA. Timothy is not Paul's biological son. He is his son in the Lord. And then Paul has a wish for Timothy — he wishes something specific over him.

What We Wish For Those We Love

Watching people give gifts and express their hopes for my grandson has been interesting. People talk about what they wish for him and what their hopes are. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories. I was sitting in my office one day at Coldwell Banker, and a woman on our team was getting married. We all chipped in to buy her a gift, which I have no problem with. But then came what is to me the most painful part of the whole thing: signing the card. I never know what to write, and everything sounds trite and trivial. I have always found "Congratulations, Tom" to be expressive, brief, and to capture the whole thing nicely.

So the card started making its way through the office, moving from cubicle to cubicle, working its way toward me. I could see it coming, and I started to perspire. As it got close, I looked at what the person just ahead of me had written, thinking I might borrow something from it. That is when I laughed, because what they had written was this: "I wish you on this special day all the world has to offer." And I thought, what a strange wish — pestilence, famine, earthquake, volcano, hunger, sin. And yet that is how we think, even as Christians.

Even as Christians, we instinctively begin wishing for the little people in our lives that they get into the right school at the right time, land the right job, find the right this and the right that. I cannot tell you how often some well-meaning person comes up to me and says, "I hope you're praying for a spouse for your grandson." I am generally kind and generous, so I do not take them on. But inwardly I think, what a thing to pray —

Grace, Mercy, and Peace

Paul doesn't say, "I wish you all the world has to offer." He says, "I wish you all God has to offer." Grace, unmerited favor, Jesus dying on the cross, the Spirit sustaining us — something we didn't earn. We get that, don't we? There was nothing we have done, are doing, or will do to merit salvation. We can't earn heaven. It's a gift of God. It costs us nothing. It cost Him His Son.

When we say "unmerited," we understand that from our part. God earns that, deserves that, in terms of His sacrifice. Beyond grace, Paul wishes mercy — that we don't get what we deserve, not judgment, but mercy, that God is kind and gracious to us. And he wishes peace: not the absence of turmoil, but the presence of God in our lives.

Even as believers, we say these words and we mean them, yet in our minds we are frequently shocked and surprised when difficult times come. Life throws things at us — it may be economic hardship, it may be relational tension, it may be something physical. We are not exempt from those things.

Paul doesn't say, "I wish you a carefree, worry-free life." He says, "I wish you peace," which for us is not the absence of turmoil but the presence of God in the midst of these things. Our lives as followers of Christ don't just immediately get fixed the minute we come into right relationship with Him. But Paul says: even as this world hurls all of these things at you, as the normal wear and tear and stress of life come at you, I wish you peace — that you would see the transforming presence of God in the midst of it.

Paul's Emotional Connection to Timothy

Look at what Paul writes next: "whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears." So often when we hear someone talk about Paul, the picture painted is of a stoic, reserved man — not a lot of emotion, black and white, hard-nosed. But here he says, "I am recalling your tears."

Timothy was, I would argue, one of Paul's favorite people on the planet. Paul left him in charge of his favorite church, the church at Ephesus. As Luke writes in the book of Acts, he describes Paul leaving Ephesus — and part of what Paul said there was, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard yourselves." Luke then records this: "When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them, and they began to weep aloud and embrace him and repeatedly kiss him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again."

There is a real connection there. You were not made to live in isolation. You need this kind of relationship around you. Paul says, "I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy." And he knows Timothy is more than just a name — he says, "I know your mother and your grandmother."

The Danger of Distraction

Time Magazine this week ran a cover story called "How to Sharpen Your Mind," and it included a series of pieces on mind and body. One thing it notes — contrary to popular opinion — is that the mind is actually sharpest between the ages of 45 and 65. It also reaffirms what we read everywhere: you need seven to eight hours of sleep. If you're not getting that, regardless of who you are, you have issues. The issue also touches on what to eat, creativity, meditation, and the benefits of something as simple as a cup of coffee.

One piece that stood out was on multitasking, and the conclusion is straightforward: nobody can really do it. Having three, four, or five things going at once may mean you get three, four, or five things done, but they won't be done the way they should be. A study they cited found that the average person is only 11 minutes into a project before the first distraction arrives.

Because of these distractions — because of not being focused, because of remaining open to a cell phone ring or a new email — we are wasting on average 28% of the workday, or 2.1 hours a day. The five biggest interruptions, in descending order, are: a colleague stopping by, the worker being called away from their desk, the arrival of a new email, the worker switching from one task to another, and a phone call.

The article closes with this observation, almost as a throwaway line: "At the same time, we have to stop pretending that we are machines that can endlessly process tasks without a break. There is a reason that research shows the number one work interruption is not an electronic signal but rather a human being stopping by." And it's the same reason —

You Need People

A personal call feels welcome even when you're busy. We are social creatures, and to do our best work, we need to set aside time in our work day to connect with others. You need people.

In the back of the bulletin there is a really interesting article about "Brainy Baby." It notes that in 2003 there were 140 videos or DVDs for kids age two, and today there are 750. There is Einstein Baby, teaching your baby Italian, and all of that. Let me just read what the article says — I don't know whether they're right or not: "The more TV babies watch, the more likely they are to have attentional problems later in life. The Academy of American Pediatrics recommends no TV viewing of any kind before age two."

The article then asks: if we're not going to have Baby Einstein teaching, how are these kids going to learn? And it offers a radical idea — you spend time with them. The article specifically addresses learning a language, even learning Chinese. Children who tried to learn Chinese from a tape and also from a person showed a clear difference, and the finding was striking: "Apparently, the presence of a living, breathing human was essential. There's a lesson there for any parent who wants to encourage early learning. Most experts agree that what matters most is not what toy the baby plays with, but the way in which you interact with your child. Babies prefer humans."

Here is the point: you don't outgrow that. You need people around you.

What Real Friendship Looks Like

You need a friend, or friends — and I don't mean your Christmas card list. I don't mean everybody who got a card from you. I mean people you can call, who will call you back, who will genuinely and significantly care about you. You need to work at these relationships and maintain them.

Let me give you four things Paul does to maintain friendships, very quickly. He writes to people, he prays for people, he visits people, and he networks people. He writes them, he prays for them, he stops by face-to-face, and he networks. Now, "networking" can carry a bad connotation — you think of walking into a meeting and buying something. But that is not what I mean. A man came up after the last service and said, "Let me give you a great illustration of networking. I told you I was going to a certain city to work. You gave me the name of a guy to call. I called him, we met every week over a period of years until he left that town, and we have cultivated a significant relationship." That is networking, and you can do it all the time.

You need to be engaged in other people's lives at various levels. You need one or two core people with whom you can share almost everything — I say almost everything because I don't believe anybody shares everything. You need some other people you can get on the phone who will respond. I have certain topics, and for certain topics I'll call certain people. And you need to be engaged in a community process — home groups, or some version of that. Paul didn't just minister around Timothy; he was engaged in Timothy's life. You are going to have a great year, a magnificent year, if you find a real friend.

Do Not Become Slaves of Men

Here is the second thing. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 23. Paul writes, "You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men." The price is obviously the blood of Jesus Christ. We sing a song all the time: "You'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross." You were bought at a price — don't become slaves of men.

In his Study Bible, John MacArthur has a footnote on "slaves of men." He writes that this refers to sinful slavery — becoming slaves of the ways of men, the ways of the world, the ways of the flesh. This is the slavery about which we are to be concerned.

Here is what we are saying: Jesus died so that you might have eternal life. Jesus died so that you would no longer be slaves to sin. You are free. How silly it would be, then, to put yourself back into slavery. You are free from the bondage of sin and from the consequence and agony of death. How foolish it would be for someone who was enslaved before the Emancipation Proclamation to experience that declaration of freedom and then put themselves back into slavery. We would never think that.

Here is what He is saying to you and me: you must be equally sharp. God has freed you from slavery to sin so that you are free — not to do whatever you want, but to enslave yourself not to sin, but to righteousness. How could we possibly enslave ourselves to this world? I can think of a whole list of things. It could be alcohol. It could be drugs. It could be your anger or your hate. You could be enslaved to your past and simply cannot get beyond it. You could be enslaved to stuff.

The Number

I picked up a book this week on my regular trip to the bookstore. I was intrigued by it, so I bought it and gave it to Neil to read and mark up for me, because I wasn't sure I wanted to read it myself, but I knew it would interest him. The book is called *The Number*. How many of you have seen this book? I have now asked this question to probably 1,500 people across the services, and only two of you have seen it. The number is this —

Breaking Free from Enslavement

What are the things that have you enslaved? Paul writes a similar passage that shapes my thinking in 2 Timothy 2:14: "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so he may please the one who enlists them." You can easily become enslaved to money — making it, accumulating it, protecting it, spending it. One article noted that the top 25 percent of people who are ready for retirement have $100,000 or more saved. All of a sudden, that pursuit can own you entirely.

One of the interesting comments in this whole discussion of multitasking is that we are so busy, and so people offer what they think are helpful suggestions: turn off your cell phone, don't answer every email the moment it arrives. Those are tools. They don't own you. They are tools. What are the things that enslave you?

In 1969, I took a sociology class, and I am not making this up — I could not make this up. Our topic for an entire semester, the recurring discussion on which papers were written, was this: by the year 2000, as the computer expands and becomes popular, there will be no work left to do, the work week will have to shrink to 30 hours to maintain full employment, and the question was what we would do with all our free time. We are past 2000. That computer has not freed you up, has it?

It drives me a little crazy when someone says they want to meet, we sit down together, their phone rings, and they say, "Excuse me, I have to get this call." And I find myself thinking, well, excuse me, I have to go, because apparently that call is more important than this conversation. Those devices do not have to dictate your life. They are tools.

You are going to have a magnificent year if you can free yourself from the things that have either put you in slavery or entangled you so that you cannot serve the One who enlisted you and please Him.

Intensifying Your Passion

Here is another goal for this year: intensify your passion. Romans 9:1 shows us what passion looks like. Paul writes, "I speak the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel."

To me, that is passion. Paul is saying he knows this is not actually possible, but he wants us to understand the depth of his feeling: he would give up his own faith if it meant the people of Israel might be saved. That is the intensity he is describing.

I have suggested that America has a national anthem, a national bird, a national motto, and "In God We Trust" on its currency. What we need is a national color — one that captures the essence and spirit of the American people. I am nominating the color beige. Someone more cynical than I am has suggested that we do not even sin with vigor anymore.

A recent survey of high school graduates found that 47 percent could not think of a single thing they would die for. Not family, not friends, not country, not honor, not faith — no passion. Nothing that lights them on fire. They are sitting, staring at a screen, with nothing that truly moves them.

What Passion Actually Looks Like

I want to be clear about what passion is, because I do not mean conjuring up something phony. I do not mean walking in tomorrow and announcing that you are really excited about something when you are not wired that way. Passion is honestly you — within the confines and limits of your own personality — expressing something that you genuinely care about.

We see this all the time in athletics. I was last night with three guys from Denver watching a game, and they were very excited. People paint their faces orange and blue, and whatever — that is what they do. I am not asking you to tattoo "Jesus saved me" on your forehead, but I am saying that if you have genuine faith, it ought to kind of ooze out if someone is around you for a while.

If you just saw a movie and it was really good, you are going to tell somebody: "Hey, I just saw this movie, it was great, you ought to see it too." If you just ate at a new restaurant — I went to one the other day and had an appetizer that was incredible — I must have told 50 people about that appetizer. If that kind of enthusiasm is true of an appetizer, or a movie, or a book, how much more should our enthusiasm reflect the fact that Jesus Christ came and died so that we might have eternal life?

Passion That Lights You Up

We were headed to hell, now we're headed to heaven. He did it all. Now our life can count. There should be a passion there, and it may manifest itself in different ways. It may be something like an abortion issue, it may be missions, it may be small groups, it may be teaching people financial security and safety. I don't know, but there ought to be a passion. There ought to be something that just lights you up, and it should be evident to the people around you if they spend any time with you at all.

Years ago, the church folk were going nuts with John Wesley, because Wesley was out preaching in the open fields. The miners were coming, and these people couldn't care less about God — or even if they did care, they were coming to him rather than going to church. The church men went out, and of course in our day and age they would want Wesley to write a book or do a seminar or a DVD or something. They asked, "What's the secret? Why are people coming to hear you?" Wesley said, "Here's the secret, boys: light yourself on fire, because everyone loves to watch someone burn." It's passion.

Expand Your Perspective

We have about fourteen minutes. Let me give you two more points. The first is: expand your perspective. This is a year to learn.

Philippians chapter 1, verse 9 — Paul prays for the church at Philippi. He said, "I pray that your love may abound more and more in the knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." Here is what he is saying: I want you to study God, think about God, meditate on God. I want you to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight about Him and who He is.

I will give you a great way to jumpstart that — leave here, go out into the courtyard, and register for an institute class. It is a great way to begin. But as we have said many times, the study of Him is a means to the end, not the end in itself. It is not just about reading a book so I can say I am done with it. When you start talking about spiritual growth, it gets very difficult to have that conversation because it is very hard to measure or gauge. So what we tend to do is slip into some sort of legalism where we say, "I read this book, I listened to this tape, I went to this seminar, I memorized this many verses, I did all these things." Those are all fine and good, but they are all done in order to produce life change.

Understanding the Culture You Live In

I know what Paul has in mind. I know he is saying: grow in knowledge of the Lord and in insight. I want to take that in a slightly different direction as well, while fully endorsing everything already said. I would say: understand the world you live in a little better. Understand the culture.

Now the minute I say that, I find myself immediately having to clarify — no, this does not mean compromising the Word. I should not even have to say that. Understanding your culture is not contrary to solid biblical living. I would suggest it is an integral part of solid biblical living. Paul modeled this for us when he went into Athens and had his opportunity with the intelligentsia of that city.

He said, "I have observed you are a very religious people." It was said at the time that Athens was home to some 35,000 gods being worshiped. Paul said, "I saw a statue inscribed to the unknown God." And then he said, "I am here to talk to you about that unknown God." That is brilliant. Paul did not come in as he did with the Hebrews and open up the Scriptures and read from the Old Testament, because the Greeks would not want any part of that. Nor did he reason with them in the way he would with the Hebrews. He said, "Here is the culture. Here is what they know. Now there is a connection." And from there he presented the gospel to them.

Engaging Hurting People

If you do not have an ongoing, vibrant relationship with lost people in your life, there is no way you are going to grow spiritually the way you could, because those moments of growth come when you are fleshing out your faith in real situations.

I have seven books going right now, which is a bit silly, and I am sure none of them will get finished. So I cannot fully endorse this particular book because I am early in it. But the author is describing a dialogue with a man who is struggling with drinking. He says he walked into a room and the first thing he sensed was that there was not a single person there who had not suffered. They had come face-to-face with their weakness, their inability to change without outside help. They had failed, and yet there was a sense of tremendous hope. They really believed that God could help them and that He would stand by them as they sought to change. They embraced him as he was, but they were certain that he could change. He felt like he was in a fellowship of the wounded — but wounded with healing.

The woman he is speaking with gets excited, assuming he has found a wonderful church. He is describing an AA meeting. She responds and says, "That is the best description of the church I have ever heard." Then he says, "Let me tell you what happened when I went to church during my drinking days. The message was always very polite, but it was always the same: come back when you have your act together."

That should not be the case. It is really important for us to understand that a whole part of our life is engaging hurting, lost people — and let me add to that quickly — hurting saved people as well. When God saves me, He does not clean me up immediately. I really think about some of these New Testament figures and wonder how they —

The Messiness of Real Ministry

I really wonder if Peter, after he denied Christ three times, would be entrusted with leadership of a small group in a church like ours today. I don't say that in a flip way, and I'm not advocating lowering the standard. I'm just saying, do you see the sloppiness of this, the difficulty of this? We want it sliced, diced, and really clean. We want to say, "I've got it figured out." But then you put people in it.

I'm with church guys all the time who will say something like, "My job would be great if it wasn't for the people." Well, your job is the people. That's the whole point. We need to understand that there is an extraordinary opportunity in a hurting world — not to cocoon, not to say, "Clean your act up, get rid of the earrings and the tattoos and all the other stuff, get rid of all your sin, and then you could be one of us." What's interesting about that approach, by the way, is that the moment someone cleans up their act and joins us, they can no longer go back into the culture they came from to share the gospel. Do you see that?

The call is to understand the world and not be afraid of it. At the core, you have people who are hurting, who are unhappy and want to be happy, who are unloved and want to be loved — and the answer is Jesus. The answer is a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. But I have to understand how to communicate that message, and I have to understand how people are thinking.

Expanding Your Perspective Without Fear

The goal is to expand your perspective and not be afraid of the culture. Not to be immersed in it — I understand that — but to expand your perspective. God has provided all sorts of tools in this culture: a BlackBerry, cell phones, PowerPoint, video, and much more. We can go down the road of saying it was always good enough in the old days with an overhead projector and the drums, or we can say, "No — these are great ways to reach people." When we understand that, these tools become resources for the mission.

The Power You Already Have

Now, as I listen to all of this, here is what happens to me: I find myself overwhelmed, because that is only a partial list. You could easily add to it. I'm supposed to make new friends — but I'm already too busy. I don't have time for what I've already got. Now I'm going to make new friends, shake myself loose of something that has me enslaved, become passionate, get more involved, try to learn more. I can't do it.

Let me give you a secret — something you have that an unbeliever does not have. You have the Spirit of the living God living inside of you. I watched an interview with one of the chiefs of police in a southern city that has one of the highest murder rates in the country. She was talking about the problems, and I was waiting for her to identify them. Here is what she said: "We simply can't change hearts." That is exactly it. You have a power inside of you.

Even as I begin to talk about this, I almost feel like I have to apologize, as though I'm preaching the power of positive thinking. I'm not talking about that. I'm simply saying you have a power resource inside of you. You have the Holy Spirit living in you to strengthen you.

Look at Where You Were

Look at what He has already done in your life. Look at where you were. When I see somebody who is all messed up — drinking too much, a complete mess, unable to hold their life together, just out of control — you know what I see? I see me before Jesus. That is exactly how I was. What changed me was not my own resolve. What changed me was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And that was not the end of the story. That was the beginning of the story.

Now He lives in us. He strengthens us. He opens our eyes to see the truth. He gives us a resolve. I tried to stop drinking dozens and dozens of times, and finally there was that moment where I said, "I can't do it anymore." And God, in His grace and mercy, simply took that away. He didn't take all sin away — He took that away. I used to dream of a time when I would have a vibrant relationship with my wife, and if I had kids, that they would be good kids who loved me and I would love them. And God did all of that.

That doesn't take away all the problems. He has not promised there will be no challenges in life. But here is what I am saying to you: you may be filled with guilt and anxiety and remorse. You may be feeling hopelessness, fear, loneliness, or confusion. And God comes along and says this: you don't need to deny any of that. There is nothing wrong with a follower of Christ saying, "I'm afraid. I'm hurting." The question is understanding where to look — and the answer is Jesus.

Purpose You Won't Find Anywhere Else

I don't know what you have planned for 2006 and beyond, but I can tell you this: as I begin to incorporate these things and others, my life begins to change. I spend a lot of time in secular bookstores — not necessarily Christian bookstores, but Barnes & Noble, Borders, that kind of place. It is amazing how when one book comes out and succeeds, a whole wave of books on the same theme follows. All the hot topics right now are purpose, direction, guidance, and living a life that counts — along with every variation of those themes.

If you want purpose and meaning and direction in your life, I can tell you how to find it. You can find it in a relationship with Christ, and you really won't find it anywhere else. Anything else is a synthetic copy, a replacement, a knock-off of a personal relationship with Christ. Any sort of high or satisfaction or happiness you feel in a particular sin — or anywhere else outside of Him — is ultimately just that: a counterfeit.

Living Out What We Claim to Believe

Genuine love, genuine forgiveness, and genuine joy are found in a relationship with Christ. All of us who took communion claim to know that. So now we simply have to live this way — in a way that becomes, I think, very attractive and very appealing to some people.

Not everyone will respond. There were some guests here last week who were friends of someone, and when asked how they liked it, they said they liked everything about it except when he said Jesus is the only way. They thought he was funny, clever, witty — they liked everything except that. Well, we are never going to change that, because Jesus is the only way. You are never going to get any of this other stuff without it.

Taking the Message to the Marketplace

That is the message we take to the marketplace. That is the message you take to the office. And if you are not living a life that reflects that, then it is reasonable to assume that nobody around you is going to be attracted to it.

I should be able to see your Christianity, and you should be able to see mine. If you cannot, then it is not good — it may not even be real. Sometimes it is a little more clear than others, but it always has to be followed up, especially with an unbeliever, with an explanation of why we do what we do.

If you start to do things — if you start to help people — here is what non-believers are going to think: they are going to think you are just a good person. You need to say, no, no, no — I am a real jerk. That is not me. That is Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Upcoming Teaching Schedule

Let me give you the teaching schedule, because I know some of you are eager to get back into a book. Next week, Paul David Tripp is here, and he is teaching all five times — I am not sure he fully understands what he has agreed to yet. The following week, we will start a series in the book of James, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, which will probably take us fifteen or sixteen weeks, and then we will return to our study in the life of Christ. We are right now into the last week of Christ's life here on earth.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for Your Son, Jesus — thank You for Him and Him alone. As we look at a new year, and beyond that year to the rest of our lives, we acknowledge that we want to make a difference and see our lives count for something. We pray that we would be gentle, loving, kind, and orthodox people.

For those who may be all alone and really hurting, bring a close friend. Where there is struggle, give a sense of victory in that struggle. Whatever it is that lights us on fire, let us make it evident to those around us. And if we do not yet know what that is, allow us to come before You and discover those things that begin to ignite our passion.

Give us an appetite to know You, to know Your Word, to know Your Son, and to be filled with Your Spirit. So as we engage the culture around us — both in and out of the church — we would do it in a way that brings honor and glory to You, in a way that You might bless. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.