"On New Year's Resolutions: The Heart of the Matter"
Sermon Transcript for January 25, 2004
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
Now we resume with our sermon series, our study that we began last week with a look at our New Year’s resolutions. Maybe we want to broaden that a little bit to say a look at how we change those things about ourselves that we don’t like, those things that we know need to be changed. What does the Bible have to say about that? Well, last week as you might recall, we learned that New Year’s resolutions only come once a year and we have a tendency to blow it and then wait another year. And we learned that God actually loves new beginnings and for love of us God is always bringing us new beginnings. We learned the word “jubilee” last week. We learned a song. How many of you by raised hands had that thing stuck in your head all week? Good, I was hoping that would happen. We learned that Jesus is our “jubilee”. That back in the Old Testament days, God had a 50-year opportunity for once in fifty years for people to experience jubilee—to be set free from their debts and those things that they were enslaved to. And we learned that we had the opportunity to do that now through Jesus. We remembered that, yes, we continue to blow it; but God continues to be faithful. And most importantly, I think we learned that God refines us in the wilderness. We realized that for love of us, God allows us to go in to the wilderness sometimes and to suffer there. Not for punishment sake, but for loves sake so that we can be molded and shaped into the people that God wants us to be. And God wants us to be happy and content and complete.
Now I want to pick up where I left off on a story that I alluded to last week, which was about a certain incident that happened when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. They were traveling a little ways to get around a certain obstacle and they began to grumble and complain against God. And, well, this is what happened. The story comes from the Book of Numbers, Chapter 21. It says, “They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses.” Can you believe that? I read the Bible stories about the Israelites escaping from Egypt and I am just amazed at those knuckleheads constantly speaking against God and Moses! What does it take to get through to them? Anyway… “and said, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water!’ And I can’t believe they said this. ‘And we detest this miserable food!’” Do you know what miserable food they were detesting? The free food that fell from heaven called manna. Now if you were God and if I were God and I heard that, what would I do? Well, here’s what God did. “Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them;” Ha! That’s what I would have done. “They bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.” Now here’s where God and I part. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.’” Numbers 21:4-9 (NIV)
Now there’s God for you. He’s heard them complain and complain and complain. They even complained about manna from heaven. And so to straighten them out for their own good, God punished them. And as soon as they repented, as soon as they repented, God brought relief. And He knew that their problem was a lack of faith. They couldn’t see God and they needed something visible to remind them. So God gave Moses a symbol of their suffering and said put that up on a pole and they will have something close to remind them that I am near.
Now Jesus said this many years later in the Gospel of John. He said, “In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man” (he’s referring to himself) “to be lifted up—and everyone who looks to Him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.” John 3:14-15. Now Jesus is saying two things there and we’ll talk a little bit more about the other one in a minute. But more clearly what it seems to me that He is saying is that He had been sent in the same way as the snake on the pole as a sign that God is near, as a way of letting the people have someone to look to. And this is so much better than a hunk of bronze on a stick! This is Jesus, the flesh and blood, or the incarnation of God among us. Jesus is there in front of us lifted up as it were as a sign of God’s nearness and of God’s mercy and grace and commitment to our salvation. Yes, Jesus was also referring to how He would be lifted up on the cross.
Now, here’s what happened, going back to the Old Testament. The people had gotten use to being able to look at that snake on the pole whenever they were afraid or lonely or scared, suffering, dying. They’d become accustomed to that. And over a period of generations they had allowed that to evolve into something wicked. And then a King called Hezekiah came along and he recognized that the people had gone far astray from God’s will and God’s way. So I pick up with this Scripture package from 2 Kings, Chapter 18, and this is Hezekiah we’re hearing about. “He got rid of the local fertility shrines, smashed the phallic stone monuments, and cut down the sex and religion Asherah groves. As a final stroke he pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made; at that time the Israelites had taken up the practice of sacrificing to it—they had even dignified it with a name, Nehushtan (The Old Serpent).” 2 Kings 18:4 (MsgB)
Now can you see what happened? Something that started out as simply a reminder that God was near, something physical that they could see, became a god in and of itself. So they worshiped it instead of the One that sent it as a sign. Now we find that very difficult to grasp and we think, “Well, we would never do such a thing.” I’m sure there’s not one person in this congregation tempted to worship any of the hardware in this church. And yet this hardware is a sign given by our predecessors that God is near. The altar is a reminder that God is near. This building is a sign to all of us. The steeple, sticking up higher than everything else around, is a reminder to us that God is near. And we can’t even grasp the idea that anyone would come and name this stuff and worship it.
But we really aren’t that different from those people in the Old Testament because if you remember, the snake on the pole started out as a cure for what ailed them. People were suffering and dying because of their own stupidity and their own neglect of God and a relationship that God wanted them to have with Him. And God gave them a fix. Look at this pole and you’ll be okay. Now I ask you? How many fixes or things of comfort in your life have become like the snake on the pole? You know, I have to laugh because my kids and I have a lot of fun. We name things, you know. Reverend Mike has a name for his old word processor. He calls it Betsy. We name things don’t we? We name our favorite car. I name all the squirrels in our yard. I just do stuff like that. But we do, we name things don’t we? There’s nothing wrong with that. Let me ask you something, “If something makes you feel better and when you are having a really rough day, things aren’t going so well, do you ever want to go to that thing? Now you don’t worship at it, but you give over your worries and your stress and your care to it, don’t you?
Now let me just say that in most cases those things were a gift from God like the snake on the pole. It was something that God said, you know, this will help. And it was sort of a sign of God’s nearness. I remember a wonderful musician that I knew years ago who said to me, “I’m afraid to give myself over completely to God because I’m afraid that God will take away the thing I love most—my music.” And in a burst of insight that can only be credited to the Holy Spirit, I said, “Well, perhaps what God is asking you to do is give yourself completely to Him so that you can scoot over and share the bench with Him and enjoy the music together.” Maybe the “thing” becomes more meaningful because of God’s presence in it.
Now, that’s all I’m going to say about that for now. Be careful. The story about the bronze snake is a reminder to us that the things that make us feel better can become false gods. And a lot of times we turn to them when we don’t think that God is near. And that certainly is what happened to the people of Israel. And near the time when the Israelites were close to the land of promise, God issued a lot of commandments to them and a lot of instructions to them. And we find those in the Book of Deuteronomy. I want to share one with you from Chapter 30. And it’s interesting because the things that God refers to here through Moses haven’t happened yet. But we know from history that they did. God says, “When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” Deuteronomy 30:1-6
God said this after years and years of those knuckleheads saying, “We don’t want any more manna from heaven. We don’t want anymore of this not knowing what comes next. We want to go back to Egypt. At least that’s predictable.” And God says to them, “It doesn’t matter where you are, it doesn’t matter if it’s the furthest place on the ends of the earth, I will find you there and bring you back to me.” They would drift away from God and worship stuff because they thought that God was not near. Yet God reveals that He is very near all of the time. And He hints to us in this passage that it is that circumcision of the heart, a physical change—a literal change of heart. I don’t want to be graphic, but the thing about circumcision is you can’t take it back! God is talking about changing your heart so that you are in step with God’s Spirit. And therefore, wherever you are, to the ends of the earth, God will call you back.
Moses told the people that when they were ready to return to God, God would be ready to receive them back. That’s that darn free will thing again. You have a choice to make. You have to be ready. You have to say, “I’m ready Lord.” Be ready for a change of heart. And then God gives these instructions. These are very famous words and they are sacred especially to our Jewish brothers and sisters because it’s something known as the Shema. I want to read some excerpts from it from Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy because there are some good stuff in here that we must remember as well.
Moses said, “Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.” That was a colloquialism in that day that meant a place where everything is just right, you’ve got all that you need. “Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got! Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised …make sure that you don’t forget how you got there—God brought you out of slavery in Egypt. Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. Don’t fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God.” I hope you hear the tenderness in those words. There’s a parental tenderness; there’s a lover’s tenderness. Jealousy is something we always think of as a bad thing, but in this case I believe it is a wonderful kind of jealousy. It’s God saying, “I love you so much that I don’t want you to look away. I don’t want you to turn to those things that will hurt you.”
And so God says the circumcision of the heart is to literally write God’s Word on your heart. To be so committed to your understanding and study of God’s Word, to listen so intently to what God says to you, that it is a part of your every thought. I know, you look up at a pastor and you say, “Well, that’s what you’re paid to do. So it is easy.” Well, you know what? I use to work for a living. I remember those days punching the time clock. And what I know is that you express God’s word in the way that you do everything you do. So how is God reflected in the way that you do everything? Is the reality of God’s nearness in your thoughts every moment of the day or are there times when you’d rather not think that God is near? I remember something about those days when I worked in the truck business where I felt that I had two lives, you know—the life at work and the life everywhere else. Well, maybe that’s what the Israelites problem was. Maybe their problem was they thought that they could do whatever they wanted sometimes and then they could remember God’s nearness at other times. God makes it very clear that God is near all the time. So the secret to success as given to us from God’s own heart is to always have God on your mind and circumcision, that transformation of the heart.
Now, if you hear the passion in those words, then you need to understand that Jesus is the incarnation of God’s passion--the literal, physical representation or presence of God’s passion for us. God loves us as Scripture says, “so much that He gave His only Son for our sake.” And Jesus said that He would be lifted up like that bronze snake, and I think at this point that we can think of it in terms of the cross, as a sacrifice realizing that God knows that we can’t seem to perfect this. He had generations of people to practice on and to look at I should say. Let’s not assume God practices anything. But to look at the people of Israel and God can say, “You know, they’re never going to totally get this so I’ve got to make the way of salvation for them. I love them that much.” The way of salvation is Jesus, the flesh and blood of God here on earth living our lives like us, but without sin. So Jesus is raised up on the cross as a sign for us of God’s forgiveness and grace. And before He died, Jesus said, “You know, the old ways are not wrong. I’ve come to affirm them.” And so in numerous places in the Gospel, He makes it clear that He is fulfilling the old ways. He’s completing the plan that God had for those people that we’ve learned about the last couple of weeks as we’ve studied in the Old Testament.
And what we’ve learned from that is Jesus is Lord. We’ve learned that not only was he our sacrificial saving grace of God, but that He is also our Lord. I heard it said recently that Jesus can not save those whom He cannot command. I think that’s probably true. If you want God’s grace, you have to obey God’s will the very best that you can. And remember that God is near. Jesus made that really clear. There’s a story you are probably familiar with about a young man who came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what thing must I do to gain eternal life?” And Jesus said, “Why do you ask me what is good? There is only One who is good.” (And my Bible “One” is capitalized because Jesus is saying it’s Him.) “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” Now I don’t think Jesus was deliberately sarcastic. But I know He had a sense of humor. And I can just hear him sort of chuckling as He’s saying this. Because the man’s says, “Which ones?” And Jesus says, “Oh, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself.” And the guys very pleased and he says, “I’ve done all of that. So what do I lack?” And Jesus says, “If you want to be perfect, if you really want to be perfect, go and sell all of your possessions. Give to the poor. You’ll have treasure in heaven. And then follow me.” And if we understand that Jesus is Lord, then we can hear these words very clearly. Jesus is saying, “Sure, you can play by the rules. You can be known in your community as a very upstanding and decent person. You can be revered by others around you as an honest and fair person, a keeper of the laws. But if you really want to be like me, if you really want to achieve the kind of perfection that you know God is calling you to, you’ve got to get rid of the stuff that stands between you and God.” I told you earlier, I don’t think we have false gods in the same way that they worshipped idols back in the Old Testament, but I do think that we worship our stuff.
Now I’m not saying that you should all go out and sell all of your stuff. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. What I’m saying is that if the stuff gets between you and your relationship with God, you’re not going to make it all the way to a complete relationship with God. You know, so if you’re like me and you name stuff, and maybe there’s a thing that you call “Old Jess”, “Henry”, “Betsy”, well, maybe “Betsy’s” got to go because maybe that is standing between you and your relationship with God. Jesus pointed the way to the Father. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So Jesus is the example you must surrender first and then accept His Lordship.
Now about New Year’s resolutions or making those changes we want to make. Well, let’s get to the heart of the matter before we finish today because this is really the heart of the matter. It’s a question of priorities then isn’t it, a question of loyalty. It’s a question of submission either to the power of sin or to the power of God’s grace. Let me illustrate this in a very personal way. I don’t know how else to do it. Some of you have very good naturedly come to me lately and said, “Hey, Reverend Dan, what happened to all that weight you lost a couple of years ago.” And I very good-naturedly said back, “I found it!” Let me tell you something. A couple of years ago I was on the verge of graduating from a Course of Study, which was an impossible journey but I began and I thought I’d never finish, you know? And I was so excited. And I realized, frankly, that most of my friends in Course of Study school got fatter during the five or six years that we were there. And I just didn’t want to be one of them. So I was a little motivated. I was preparing for my first trip to the mission field to go to Khazistan. I was motivated because they told me if you get sick over there, you’ve got a big problem. So I decided I wanted to be fit and healthy. I was motivated. We were still living in a house on Home Avenue at the time and the routine was somewhat different than it is now that I live next door to the church. And I was motivated. And so by my own will power I lost the weight. Then we moved from over there to over here, which was somewhat stressful. Within a week or two I went back to Course of Study School, which is a really hard place to lose weight. But that’s another story. So you’re beginning to get the picture, I’m sure. Then I came back from Course of Study and a week and a half later I’m off to Khazistan. Two weeks later…well, by the way, in Khazistan they told me it was rude not to eat everything put before you so I obeyed. Now, when I got back from Khazistan we had to prepare for my son, Nathan’s surgery that was going to happen. It was a very scary, complex surgery. And there was a lot of stress associated with that. And it turned out to be a very scary, long, complicated surgery. Then after we got him out of the hospital he had a complication and we almost lost him. But we got him back. Then we started a fund raising campaign. I’ve never been through one of those here. Reverend Mike started having some newer problems with his voice. And, well you see what happened? I ate the stress! I went in to a temple in my home called the kitchen and I bowed down before the sacred god, Frigidare. Yeah, it does sound funny. But you know, it’s not. It’s okay to laugh but it’s true. I gave all that to a false god instead of the one true God who says to me through Jesus “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy…” (that’s that board you put across your shoulders to carry a heavy burden.) “and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27 (NIV) Paul says, “Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” 2 Cor 1:3-4 (NIV)
With Jesus as our Lord we can stand against our bad habits, our stress, and the trouble of our lives. We must do as the Apostle Peter said. We need to “be self-controlled and alert because your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever.” 1 Peter 5:8-11 (NIV)
Now God does that through the Holy Spirit. And if you need power and you need a line of communication with the Lord, it is the Holy Spirit that you use for your source. Paul says, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit, what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” Galatians 5:16-18 (NIV)
Now if you are wondering if you are led by the Spirit, well I’ll give you this. How do you know what kind of plant or tree it is? You look at what grows on it, right? So you can figure out whether you are being led by the Spirit simply by looking at the fruits. And Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Now maybe you are thinking, “Okay, but I thought that what’s this sermon was about?” Well, here’s a piece of advice that always gets a laugh, but I’m deadly serious. Fake it till you make it. I know this because I’ve lived it.
So through you God is enabling you to overcome Satan’s temptations. Enabling you to recognize the false God’s in your life. So just remember this: These things take time. Think about those people we studied last week and remember that it took generations for some of them to get straightened out and prepared in the wilderness to accomplish what God sent them to accomplish. Now I’m counting on that because I haven’t licked this food problem yet. I haven’t beaten that yet. But you know, I know God will help me succeed. And I keep looking for his faithful way of changing me in the wilderness.
Listen to these words from James as we conclude: “Be patient, then brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.” James 5:7-8 (NIV)
Remember how much God loves you and how near God really is. The Spirit of God is with you now. Jesus promised that. I believe it. Isaiah records these words of our Lord God, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)
Let us pray, “Oh gracious God, we thank You, praise You for Your word. Now burn on our hearts all that is from You and change us by Your grace. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
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