2006--a better year?

The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron and his sons, `This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: ` "The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace." ' So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them." (Numbers 6:22-27)

The ancient Romans used to worship a two-faced god. This god was associated with gates and doorways of all kinds; his symbol was carved on doorposts in such a way that he could simultaneously keep an eye on people both arriving and departing. This god was also the patron of leaving the past behind and making a new start. He was called Janus, and his name is still honored today by our calling the first month of the New Year January.

January serves as a doorway by which we leave the old year and enter the new; it is also the month in which we look back at the mistakes of the year just past and make resolutions to live life differently in the future. As January begins, we say goodbye to the past and celebrate the possibilities offered by a bright, shining new year.

I’m sure that every one of you has some pleasant memories from 2005, happy events that filled you with joy and still warm your heart today. But I am even more sure there are things about 2005 that you would be happy to forget. Loved ones lost to you because of a stupid fight, or their moving away, or their death. Stress caused by changing jobs or moving to a new place of residence. Concern over foolish decisions that you couldn’t stop your children or friends from making. The pain and depression resulting from health problems or advancing age. Despair over your inability to free yourself from an addiction or find relief from a compulsive behavior. Every person reading this has experienced something painful in 2005 that you’d just as soon leave behind as you enter 2006.

Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? Are you facing the New Year with confident hope that things will be better? Not to burst your bubble, but perhaps now would be a good time for a reality check. Think back to other January firsts; call up from memory New Year’s resolutions that you’ve made in the past. Considered as a whole, how many of them have you successfully kept? What’s your track record for shaking off the mistakes of your past? How confident can you be than 2006 will really be significantly better than 2005?

I’m not out to make you depressed. I actually do want you to be optimistic about the new year. But I want you to be optimistic for the right reasons. New Year’s resolutions won’t significantly change your life—not if you are pinning your hopes for improvement upon yourself.

Frankly, most of what goes on in your life is beyond your control. You can’t make the economy go the way you want it to. You can’t stop wars from happening. You can lead a healthy lifestyle, but that won’t prevent you from getting sick or eventually dying. You can be an excellent parent, but you can’t stop your children from engaging in dangerous behavior. You can be the best spouse in the world, but you can’t ensure that the person you married won’t cheat on you or leave you.

But let’s face it—you can’t even control yourself all the time. How many promises have you made that you just couldn’t keep? How many times have you lost or forgotten something important? How many times have you let your anger or your lust or your greed lead you into making a foolish decision? How many times have you been in such a rush that you didn’t consider the consequences of your actions?

We would like to believe that we are in control of our lives, that we know what is best for us. The sad fact is, though, that control is often an illusion, and even when we have control, we make a mess of things far more often than we’d like to admit. This being the case, how can we look at the New Year and believe that we can make things significantly better than they have been?

For 2006 to be a better year, we need to see 2005 clearly. That means that we have to stop kidding ourselves, we have to stop hiding our heads in the sand like ostriches and own up to the truth—we are failures. And the reason we are failures is because we are sinners. We fail because we try to live without God. To live without God is to sin. To make decisions without asking for God’s leadership is to sin. To spend our time on activities that do not honor God is to sin. To spend our money on things that do not serve God’s purposes is to sin. To ignore God by neglecting to give Him our time is to sin.

The failures of 2005 were due to sin. Loneliness happens when our sins drive us apart from each other. Fear happens when sinful behavior gets out of control and threatens us with danger. Anger flares up when sin demands that we get our way, regardless of the consequences. Worry is the result of sin leading us to believe that we can’t trust God to take care of things. Every unpleasant memory of the year just past can be traced to the failures brought about by sin.

Of course, not every memory of 2005 is a bad one; but to keep things in proper perspective, let’s be careful about where to give credit for the good things that occurred. The apostle James tells us that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights" (James 1:17). All good things come from God, and He showers them down on everybody, not just the faithful—Jesus said: He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). And God’s generosity is not limited to just sprinkling gifts here and there; during one of his most famous speeches, Paul declared: "he…gives all men life and breath and everything else…in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:25). God is active continually, making your life possible from moment to moment; speaking of His Father’s ongoing activity, Jesus said: My Father is always at his work to this very day (John 5:17). The only reason that you have pleasant memories of 2005 is because of God’s ongoing generosity.

Since sin is the underlying cause of all unpleasantness, what can we do to make 2006 a better year? On our own, nothing. Our sinful impulses are too strong, too much a part of us. Because of the sin that distorts our thinking, we cannot see the truth of things. Sin hijacks our emotions and colors our perception of everything we see and hear; sin makes it impossible for us to live the kind of lives God had intended for us. Romans chapter 8 tells us, the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God (Romans 8:7-8).

However, things are not hopeless. Paul goes on to say, You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you (Romans 8:9). This is what gives us hope for the coming year being a better one. Second Corinthians 5:17-18 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. It started 2,000 Christmases ago with Jesus, when the Son of God entered the world as a mortal through the womb of a virgin believer. Our Lord grew to manhood without having a single sinful desire; He lived a perfect life untainted by any sinful words or deeds. Jesus lived His life perfectly so that when He suffered and died on the cross, it was not for His own sins, but for ours. All of the anger God harbored at our sins was expended on Jesus; because of this we can be reconciled to God through Christ’s merit.

Christ not only died for our sins, He showed His victory over them by rising again from the grave. Alive once more, Jesus comes to we who believe--and lives within us. Each time we humbly turn to Him in prayer and ask for mercy, He forgives our sins and erases the mistakes of our past, giving us a fresh start that is as new and exciting and filled with hope as New Year’s Day.

Nor does it end there. Because God is within us, we have access to a moral compass that can show the right path through the fog of sin. Because God is within us, we have a source of enthusiasm and strength and courage that can help us to face difficult times with calmness, and enable us to do the right thing even when the right thing is hard to do. When our Lord lives in us, He works constantly to remake us to be increasingly like Him, and while we will never come close to being perfect while on earth, years spent united to the Savior can bring dramatic improvements into one’s life.

No amount of New Year’s resolutions will make 2006 a significantly better year than the one just past, unless your resolution is to follow the advice given in 2nd Peter chapter three: grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Only God can control the weather. Only God can force warring nations to stand down. Only God can bring health from sickness. Only God can bring life to the dead. Only God can erase the mistakes of the past and offer a new beginning. Only God can give real hope for a better year to come.

The prophet Nahum writes, The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him (Nahum 1:7). If you want 2006 to be a better year, snuggle in close to the Lord. Spend time singing to Him songs of thankfulness and joy. Get to know His heart better by reading the Book that He wrote. Spend time praying, and slow down so you do not miss it when He answers your prayers. Ask Christ to lead you through the year, and then let Him! Ask Jesus to take over your worries and concerns, and then let Him! Stop fighting the Savior and instead let Him show you how to live in the months to come.

When Moses was leading the people of God through the wilderness, God told him how a better tomorrow could be theirs. His instruction was this--have the religious leaders, starting with Aaron, bless the people with these words: May the LORD bless you and protect you. May the LORD smile on you and be gracious to you. May the LORD show you his favor and give you his peace. God promised that when the Israelites had been designated as His own people in this way, He would bless them.

God’s representatives still give this blessing today. You hear it at the end of most worship services. If God is important to you, important enough for you to spend time with Him regularly, than you are present when His blessing is given. And it is only by the grace of God that 2006 can be the shiny New Year that we all hope it will be.