Sermon Cardiff 3 January 2015
Good morning everyone.
I hope we are all refreshed after the Christmas break and we can start the new year afresh. The new year is just an arbitrary line in the sand of time. The calendar as we know it was invented by man to subdivide time in accordance with the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun - in 1582 the current Gregorian calendar replaced the Roman Julian that stood prior to that date. It was decided that a year would be 365.2425 rather than the previous 365.25 days, but to make it simpler that was rounded down to 365 days with an extra day every four years, but even this is inaccurate so we have three adjustment days every 400 years when there are no leap years in three of the four centenary years. This means we keep a consistent 12 months and have a predictable extra day every four years apart from the three adjustment years to make up the difference. Got it. By the way, the Calendar revolves around the calculation of the date of Easter which is related to the vernal equinox. In order for it to work, they lost 10 days in 1582 to re-adjust things.
According to Wikipedia, the Hebrew lunar year is about eleven days shorter than the solar cycle and uses the 19-year Metonic cycle to bring it into line with the solar cycle, with the addition of an intercalary month every two or three years, for a total of seven times per 19 years. Even with this intercalation, the average Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 2525/57 seconds than the current mean solar year, so that every 224 years, the Hebrew calendar will fall a day behind the current mean solar year; and about every 231 years it will fall a day behind the Gregorian calendar year.
So if anyone is interested in keeping things on the right days I suggest they don't lose sleep over it!!
Even today there are dozens of different alternative calendars in different cultures and countries in addition to the standard calendar that we work to, so the subdivision of time as we know it is not an exact science.
Some people make new year resolutions thinking that the new year is a once a year opportunity for a fresh start, others don't, instead dismissing such things as nonsense as we are exactly the same people now as we were on Weds. The truth is both sides are wrong and we'll revisit this in the conclusion.
As you probably know, I've been putting a one line summary of the day by day studies on twitter for a couple of years, (@GCIdaybyday) and at the start of December I started a Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/GCIdaybyday?ref=aymt_homepage_panel ) which has the full day by day study as appears on www.daybyday.org.uk.
If you are not familiar with them, the day by days are a daily scripture and a short study or thought about it written by a variety of GCI members around the UK & Eire. I don't know how many of you follow the day by days on line or with the daily emails, but they provide a wide range of topics and thoughts about them. For example yesterday's day by day is as follows. This was written by James Henderson.
The Light for 2015
“…the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…” 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIVUK)
How should we find a way through another year? Jesus and his gospel light up the path before us, is what the Bible suggests.
Many of us try to make life decisions when a new year begins. It is as if we want to make a clean break from how our life has been or from problems that seem to hold us back. I remember the story of a Christian lady who took on the name of Peace Pilgrim. She would have seemed eccentric by today’s standard but she decided to devote her life to walking back and forth across America until people were mature enough to live in peace. Her first walk was on the 1st January, 1953 when she left Pasadena, California to head to the US East Coast. One of her wise quotations was this: “For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections”.
I like her view about light. Christ explained that he was the Light of the world. His disciples did not understand fully what he meant. He later explained that his followers would take the light of his glory wherever they went. That was the good news, the gospel of salvation through Christ; the only true spiritual light of the world.
As we begin a new year, let’s not look elsewhere for the light: turn to Jesus and his gospel, and not to imperfect reflections.
Prayer
Help us, Father, in this New Year to walk in the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. In His name.
Amen
The name "Day by Day" comes from 2 Cor 4v16 which is going to be the key scripture today. Lets read the whole passage from v 15 - 18 to get the context.
"All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to over flow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen us eternal."
I think this passage is a good summary for us to think about through the year as church and as individuals so lets look at the passage in more detail.
"All this is for your benefit" refers to the passage preceding and what is to come. 2 Cor 4 has so much content and I covered a lot of this in a recent sermon, it refers to us being treasures in jars of clay and while we go through problems we are not crushed or defeated and we'll be raised with him. It also refers to Jesus being light in the darkness and the light shining in our hearts. He starts in verse one by telling them not to lose heart. Paul is saying all this to encourage the Corinthians that despite the ups and downs of life, they have Jesus to cling on to, and the surety of his resurrection and the resurrection they themselves could look forward to.
"All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to over flow to the glory of God."
Paul is giving us an insight into the early church here. The gospel, the good news of God's grace was reaching more and more people. He's saying this so that thanks giving overflows. Not to Paul's glory, or the early church leader's glory, but to the glory of God. Notice he's referring to grace reaching more and more people - if we put this together with Galatians and Ephesians and his other letters it reaffirms the message that Paul was preaching was grace not law and legalism.
Eph 2v8-9 says this most clearly when he said "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God - not by works so that no one can boast."
Notice that the thanksgiving over flows - not just being thankful but that it overflows - this is a contagious form of Christianity - you often find that those who've had a close shave in a car accident or an exploding cooker are so thankful they've been spared that they go around telling everyone their testimony - but we can tend to take our salvation for granted. What Jesus has done for us, while we are still sinners as it says in Romans 5v8, when we really do not deserve it - is remarkable and this Paul says results in an overflowing of thankfulness.
Depending on the translation, it either reads overflowing thankfulness or overflowing grace - the word is also translated super abounding or super abundant. It's interesting that different translations put the emphasis differently, however you get the gist - what we are talking about here is the reaction to grace is thankfulness and we should take that into the new year.
Now for the key scripture v16. "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."
He's repeating the phrase he used at the start of the chapter - in v1 he said "Therefore, since God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart..." Why was he repeating this? Maybe he feared that the Corinthians were losing heart with the gospel? Battle fatigue may have been setting in and in the face of persecution and perhaps they were suffering from discouragement? In the context of the chapter he'd said in v8-9 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed."
Persecution is happening today so this is a relevant topic even today.
Paul goes on to say "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." Our physical existence in this country is pretty good compared with other countries, even when things go pear shaped there is still a safety net, however flawed, to provide for basic needs, and even if you slip through the net, there are Foodbanks which can give you emergency help. But that's not the case elsewhere and was not the case in biblical times. For us, ill health is something we all suffer from universally and no matter how much money you have, it does not stop you getting ill and suffering. Paul is highlighting the fact that everyone is wasting away - life is a cycle we can't avoid.
Our bodies may waste away, or perish as it says in the King James, but inwardly we are renewed day by day. It is the inward renewal that gives us hope and stops us from losing heart. It gives us a perspective on things which stops us from despairing at our lives and the state of the world around us.
Our new lives in Christ are a journey of transformation as we grow in grace and knowledge as it says in 2 Peter 3v18. Inner renewal means that no matter what happens around us, we are fresh for the fight. We have the hwyl to carry on from the inside rather than having to be pushed or dragged into things. We all know of people who have the heart for service despite their physical conditions - this is a practical application of this verse. Their renewal may not be physical, but they have the hwyl to do things that people would not expect them to be able to, and not naming names they do a good job of it as well - despite their constraints.
Paul also talks about renewal in Colossians in the context of the presence of Christ in us transforming us into new people
READ Col 3v1-14 you have the contrasts between old and new as our old self dies and we are renewed in the image of Christ. Challenging isn't it! Although we are forgiven for anything we do wrong, it still leaves physical consequences and a trail of destruction and hurt. Notice the new attributes these too will have consequences but positive ones and all things are bound together in love. What, or rather who is love? God is. Whatever side of the problem we find ourselves we end up being hurt, however it's talking of bearing with each other and forgiveness as Jesus forgives but the new man demonstrates the attributes of God so we're talking about transformation from the bad to good, from hurt to healing. Isn't that God's grace in action. Forgiveness on one hand but transformation and renewal on the other.
So, with this in mind as we stand being continually renewed in Christ we can continue in 2 Cor 4v17
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
Paul went through some horrendous trials in his life with prison and ship wrecks and beatings for his faith and he describes them here as light and momentary. He could see that the eternal glory was greater than everything he had to put up with in his life which meant that he did not lose heart and had confidence in the future that lay before him. He continued.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen us eternal."
Isn't that a profound but encouraging scripture. The doomsayers are already predicting a bad year with financial crises and terror alerts, and no one in immune to this - anything could happen any time and any where, as the Sydney hostages proved a couple of weeks ago. But - are we afraid of this or do we have confidence that this world and all the troubles therein are only temporary. We have some great discussions in our mid week meetings about reality and what science is discovering about the fragility of what we think is solid and real - the God Question DVDs give us a good overview of current research and the more they delve into matter, the less they find which is why they have been looking for the God particle which holds it all together. Guess what - we've found it - and it's slowly making us more solid and real as the temporary old self is put to death and is renewed and replaced by Christ day by day.
So, to conclude, at the start of a new year, we look back at the year past and look forward to the year ahead. As individuals and as church it is a time to both reflect and look forward, however it's not a once a year opportunity. We are renewed day by day and week by week. We are not therefore the same as we were in 2014 or even yesterday, because we are individually and collectively continuously growing in grace and knowledge for the glory of God. How are we going to look next year? Who knows - but with the transforming power of God's presence it will not be the same as we are today.
I hope we all have a Happy New Year!!
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