Rev. David Holwick A New Years
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 1, 2012
Proverbs 21:1-3
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I. It's that time of year again.
A. After all the holiday excess, we contemplate dialing back.
1) For me (and most) losing the weight.
2) Others are thinking about paying off the debt.
3) Everyone has something they want to get under control.
B. But is it possible?
1) New Years resolutions have a lousy track record.
2) Just think of the past changes you attempted in the past.
a) How many produced long-term results?
b) For most of us, our lives follow a steady trajectory.
1> There may be little blips, but overall it is an arc.
2> An arc that seems to aim downward.
C. Change is hard.
1) Change is also at the heart of the gospel.
2) It goes back to Jesus - "You must be born again."
3) What do we need to understand about permanent change?
a) God directs.
b) God assesses.
c) God accepts.
II. Ultimately, God is in charge.
A. He can control the heart of kings.
1) The image is of a farmer manipulating his irrigation canal.
2) God controls people who imagine they have everything under
their own control.
a) North Korea's Kim Jong Il had such tight control that
schoolchildren memorized his great accomplishments
before they learned math or reading.
b) Comment on his death by a defector from the North:
"He was praised like a god, but in the end, he was
only a human who fell like an autumn leaf." [1]
3) Kings are no different than us - but we are no different
than kings.
a) God's unseen hand directs some of the most important
developments in our lives.
B. God's control and our control.
1) The great paradox of God's plan and our free will.
a) We obviously make decisions, all the time.
b) Yet we are all constrained in a large environment where
our free will is restricted.
1> Your choices have boundaries, depending on whether
you are born in North Korea or the United States.
2> There are also supernatural boundaries that we are
never aware of.
2) Trust God to direct you on a good path.
a) Your immediate prospects may seem pretty dim but don't
despair.
b) God's ultimate plan for you is a good one.
Cheryl Green is a living miracle.
She has survived disability, emotional and physical abuse,
poverty, homelessness, parental mental illness and racism....
Yet she has a Ph.D. from Yale University and is president of
the Green Oaks Mental Health Foundation in Dallas.
The circumstances of her early years, however, gave no
indication of a basis for successful adulthood.
Born, in her own words, "a sight to behold," Green had a major
birth defect that made her legs look like balls of flesh.
Much of her childhood was spent in hospitals for reconstructive
surgeries and examinations by medical professionals.
She recalled that the doctors seemed more interested in her
impairment than in her as a person.
Both of her parents suffered mental illnesses.
Her father proclaimed himself to be God's anointed one and
engaged in abusive behavior.
Her mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and unable to work.
She once tried to kill Cheryl.
Ultimately, her father lost his job, and the once-middle-class
African American family became homeless.
"Circumstances set me up to believe a lie," she said.
"I thought my future depended solely on my own abilities."
But while she was still a teenager, a classmate invited Cheryl
to a church youth group event.
That proved to be the beginning of a deeper relationship with
God.
"I had some questions for [God]," she recalled.
"Why did you create me?
Why did you create me like you did?
Why did you create me with these parents?
Do you love me?
If you love me, why don't I feel it?"
She said two Scriptures changed her life:
Jeremiah 29:11 --
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD,
'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you hope and a future.'"
John 9:1-3
"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?'
'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but
this happened so that the work of God might be displayed
in his life.'"
Faith in God, rather than in herself, put her on a better life
path.
Green and her mother are now close friends, and she manages
her mother's financial and medical affairs.
She was able to confront her father about his past abuse, but
he died before their relationship could be reconciled.
She concludes, "I am triumphant, not because I achieved earthly
success, but because abuse, loneliness and despair were not
powerful enough to destroy or embitter me.
In my long journey, I have discovered God is never far away."
#18857
III. Our perspective is warped.
A. We are good at justifying ourselves.
1) Proverbs 21:2 says, "All a man's ways seem right to him,
but the LORD weighs the heart."
2) We try to look good in other people's eyes, and, even more,
we think we look good in our own eyes.
a) Yet it is obvious to us that other people are in deep
self-deception.
(Note all the recent child molesters who are involved
in charity work and special activities with kids)
b) Could we be deceiving ourselves as well?
1> Quite likely.
B. Most of us are a mixture of motives.
1) Annie Dieselberg recently wrote an email about the Christmas
services at the "Nightlite" ministry in Bangkok:
It was while we were worshiping and singing, "You are great,
You do miracles so great..." that the Christmas spirit
wrapped itself around.
I felt the tears come to my eyes.
Yes, God is great.
I looked around the room at the lives gathered there.
The stories of these women and men testify to God's
greatness and miracles.
There standing and worshiping were two who nearly died of
AIDS but saved by the blood of Jesus are now thriving
and serving God.
There, leading worship, was one who spent years in and out
of mental institutions, but now leads worship and has
not been back to an institution or needed medication
since.
The main worship leader stood with her hands lifted high
once danced on a go-go stage and came to us an unwed
pregnant woman with no home.
There was my precious Gomer who is still in prostitution
but loves to come to worship Jesus and today brought
her son with her.
The lives filling up the room are testimonies that would
fill a book with God's glory.
Immanuel, God is with Us, and He is still coming and
changing our lives forever. [2]
2) God can work with us where we are, but he wants to transform
you into something else.
a) Let him do it.
C. Only God knows what we are really like.
1) My funeral sermons and their limitations of human viewpoint.
2) Find out what God's perspective is.
a) Read the Bible, and take a look at yourself through
its pages.
b) Learn from what it says about human nature, and your
own soul.
IV. Getting on the right path.
A. What God really wants from us.
1) He wants us to reflect his own character.
"To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the
LORD than sacrifice." 21:3
2) Is this a put-down on religion?
a) In a way, yes.
b) Religion that is external and rote is worse than
useless - just ask any non-Christian.
c) Church attendance and giving money and all the rest
are no substitute for a heart that seeks God.
3) But good morality is not a substitute for religion.
a) God wants both.
b) He wants believers who take his commands seriously.
B. Can we even do it?
1) One of Paul's most famous passages, found in Romans 7,
tells how he wants to follow God, but can't.
2) Even good people, religious people, are still warped.
3) We can only do it with God's help.
a) Ask him to make you more moral and loving.
b) Ask him to give you grace.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] "Joyful toasts and bitter memories: North Korean defectors grapple
with death of Kim Jong Il," by Sam Kim, Associated Press,
December 25, 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-
pacific/joyful-toasts-and-bitter-memories-north-korean-defectors-
grapple-with-death-of-kim-jong-il/2011/12/25/gIQAhEHgGP_story.html>
[2] From the Christmas newsletter of Annie Dieselberg, American Baptist
missionary to the Nightlite Ministry in Bangkok, Thailand.
#18857 “Why Did You Create Me?,” by Charles Willis, Baptist Press (with
Crosswalk.com); http://www.baptistpress.org/, March 19, 2001.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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