New Year Message

New Year Message

This morning at the start of the New Year I’d like to try and say something about God’s purpose in creating us and His plan for our lives and the world.

And I want to start by saying something that you’ve all heard before – but which is important for you to hear often – firstly because its true and secondly because it is the very foundation of what Christianity is all about.

And that is that God loves you! Yes you – sitting here this morning. Whoever you are and whatever you’ve done – God loves you. And He doesn’t just love you a little bit. He loves you enormously.

You are incredibly precious to him. In fact you are so precious to Him that he’d rather die than be separated from you. 

And of course that’s precisely what He did. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians; “The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Jesus died for you personally, because he wanted to deal with everything unlovely about you – everything that separated you from him - so you could enjoy your life in relationship with him and be his forever.

If any of you are parents, you will know when your child is ill – that you would like to take their sickness from them and be ill instead of them – so they can be well again.

Well that is how God feels about you. Jesus took our sin and guilt and bore our punishment so we could be free – free from fear and condemnation – and so we can stand guiltless and forgiven before him.

So, God loves you – but let’s unpack a bit what that means. It means that He really cares about your everyday life – and He is passionately interested in the details of your life.

He is interested in your relationships. He is interested in your family and friends. He is interested in your work, your hobbies and pastimes.

And He wants all these things to be the best they can be for you - as you choose to live life His way in relationship with Him.

You see God loves life and He created us so that we could enjoy life too. God created us so that we could share our lives with Him and enjoy the beauty of His creation.

When God finished creating the world we’re told in Genesis chapter 1 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

When you see a beautiful sunset just stop a few moments and watch it. It’s there for you to enjoy. And in a few minutes it will be gone.

God wants us to delight in the beauty of the natural world around us. Have you seen those tiny spider’s webs that appear on the grass in their thousands on sunny mornings when its dewy.

What about kittens and puppies or funny animals like sloths or duck billed platypusses? God created some of these as pets to give us pleasure and others simply to make us smile.

And what about the scent of roses, or the taste of honey or some other favourite food. These things all express something of the character of God and His love towards us because He made them for our pleasure.

Did you know that there is a sense of joy in creation? Isaiah chapter 55 speaks of the mountains and hills bursting into song, and all the trees of the field clapping their hands.

And animals can experience great joy. As many of you know, I’m married to a dairy farmer – and when we let the calves out into the fields in spring when the weather is better – they rush around and jump for joy – because they’re happy to be alive.

And ideally God wants us to rejoice in the good things in our lives and to be happy to be alive too.

Some of you may be thinking at this point – but what about all the problems in my life and all the suffering in the world and all the pain and misery and confusion we see around us.

Well yes – God’s perfect creation has been spoilt – and there is evil and pain and cruelty and suffering. And we all suffer at one time or another.

But God hasn’t given up on the world or on you. He is in the business of restoring and repairing the world. Many people reject Him but that doesn’t stop Him loving them and wanting the best for them.

Ideally, He wants to put things right. This is why I chose the Old Testament reading from Isaiah. Because these were the words that Jesus spoke at the start of his ministry.

“The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

And God puts things right person by person, individual by individual. He wants to sort out the mess and confusion in our lives. He wants to restore our broken relationships and to bring peace and joy into our lives.

And then He wants us to roll up our sleeves and help to put right the world around us. To love and help other people; to be peace makers; to be relationship restorers.

To tell other people that there is a God and that He loves them and that He has the power to help them.

You see God knows best. He understands this world and He understands our lives perfectly. He sees the root cause of everything that is wrong in our lives and the lives of people around us.

And as we co-operate with Him - He wants to untangle the mess we get ourselves into and then for us to help untangle the mess others get into.

Most Christmases I end up putting lights on the Christmas tree and every year however carefully you put them away, the lights for the tree end up getting tangled.

And I spend ages carefully untangling them.

Well, God wants to untangle you and he knows precisely how to do it. But he needs your co-operation and obedience in order to do it.

If you’ve ever tried to take a bramble out of a dog’s coat you will know that it’s incredibly difficult if the dog keeps moving or trying to run off.

Well it’s difficult for God to untangle our lives if we keep moving away from Him or running off in our own direction.

It’s the start of a New Year and I think what God wants to ask us this morning is - do we want to do life over the coming year with God or without Him. Do we want to surrender ourselves to Him and try and live life His way – or do we want to go our own way.

It’s up to us. God will never force us to do anything. But if we choose to do life with Him – rather than on our own, He will lead us by His spirit - is spirit - hstep by step and day by day towards the fulfilment His plan and purpose for our life.

And part of this plan is to restore us and make us whole, to untangle us and free us from confusion and fear and to give us hope and a future.

Of course this takes time and it won’t be fully completed until one day we are made perfect in heaven. But the more we submit ourselves to God and try and live in a way that is pleasing to Him – the more He will free us and make us whole.

Some people love restoring old cars or motorbikes; some people restore paintings or antiques or old houses.

There is a great satisfaction in restoring something we regard as precious or valuable to its former glory. And God derives great satisfaction from restoring us.

Psalm 35 says “the Lord delights in the well-being of his servant.” God loves to free us from the things that spoil our lives and to see us filled with His life and peace and joy as we learn to live life His way and to obey His commandments.

And His commandments aren’t designed to spoil our fun. On the contrary they are designed to help us live in peace with our neighbours and to enjoy life.

And this is why I chose today’s reading about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was greedy and unpopular and lonely and bound by his love of money.

But as He invites Jesus into his house and into his life, God sets him free  - and he starts to share and give back his money because he’s found something better.

He’s no longer bound by it – and he can start to experience the joy of giving. And his new-found generosity will then flow into the lives of the people around him and make their lives easier.

The other thing I want to say this morning is that God sees great potential in every person here today.

He has invested gifts and talents and abilities in everyone and He sees how these can be used to make Him known and to bless and help other people.

I mentioned a bit earlier about how we like to restore things – for the purpose they were made. And God restores us also – for the purpose we were made.

And that purpose is to play some part in extending His kingdom on the earth.

He wants to work with us and through us to extend His kingdom and make our little corner of the world a better place.

And God sees potential in every person however old or outwardly down trodden or seemingly weak they may be.

Every person has the potential to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus to be loving and kind and generous and happy.

To shine like a star in this dark world as Paul puts it.

Yes, the world is dark and we hear of terrible things in the news each day but behind the scenes all around the world are Christians with their sleeves rolled up, working and giving and praying to help change the world.

So, to close, as we start this New Year as I said earlier, I think God wants to ask us quite simply - if we want to do life in the year ahead with Him or without Him.

We can react negatively to what’s going on in the world or our lives and blame God for the mess.

Or we can submit ourselves to Him and invite Him into our lives to be our Lord and our God. And then do our best each day to walk with Him through life – and allow Him to heal and straighten out our lives as we in turn – with His help – seek to be an agent of healing and restoration to those around us.

I’d like to close with a brief time of prayer and reflection.