The Resolution That Can Change Your Life
Jan 3, 2010
Exodus 20:2, Deuteronomy 5:6
Happy New Year! I still remember when we were talking about Y2K and how the world was going to crash, and I can’t believe that was a decade ago!
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?
Some of us have given up on New Years resolutions because after many years of trying and failing (to exercise, to lose weight, to spend less, to pray more), we’ve given up on the whole enterprise. We’ve painfully learned an important Gospel truth: human effort doesn’t take us very far. Despite our best intentions, we’re not able to do what we say we want to do. We are weaker than we’d like to admit. Maybe it’s because we recognize our weakness or maybe it’s because we don’t want to face failure yet again, some of us now avoid the whole New Year resolution thing.
But before we throw the whole thing out, let me suggest that there are some good aspects of New Year’s resolutions.
The beginning of the year is a good time to re-evaluate your goals and priorities. It’s a time to identify where you are and where you want to be and be intentional about moving from A to B. It’s about having a vision for your personal life. Self-reflection and evaluation, vision, discipline and intentionality—these are good things.
For these reasons, commitments and resolutions are good. I’d like to say they are biblical. The Bible has many examples of oaths, commitments, promises. In particular, covenants are a big part of the Bible. A covenant is a legal commitment between two parties. It is a binding oath. In the ancient world it was usually made by a stronger nation with a weaker nation, a suzerain and a vassal.
God had made a covenant with Israel, saying He will be their God and they will be His people, and He calls on them to follow His commands. But instead of a covenant of power and oppression, it was a covenant of kindness and favor. This was God’s gracious choice to protect and bless Israel and called on Israel to be faithful and obedient. This covenant resembled a marriage vow of love and faithfulness.
This covenant was formally made at Mt. Sinai, as the Israelites came out of Egypt. And from time to time, the Israelites would have a covenant renewal. They would re-affirm their vows to be faithful to YHWH.
Plains of Moab, at the end of their wilderness wandering (Dt 29)
Shechem, after defeating Jericho & Ai (Josh 8)
Shechem, after completing the conquest (Josh 24)
King Jehoiada overthrowing Athaliah and returning Judah back to God (2 Kings 11)
King Hezekiah turning Judah back to God, seeking to turn away God’s wrath (2 Ch 29)
King Josiah after finding the Law, calling Judah back to God (2 Kings 23)
There were times when people made “New Year’s resolutions,” or even more strongly, it’s like they re-did their marriage vows.
As a church we’re at a time of major transitions. We’re about to start our new KOP campus, Dwight will become the campus pastor of WP. More importantly, as we’ve reviewed last Sept to November, we have a revised, Gospel-driven vision and core values. We believe God has led us to a new chapter for Renewal. We felt it would be fitting, appropriate for us as a church to have a covenant renewal. In particular, we’re asking our members to re-affirm their commitment to Christ, to this church and to our vision. This is not a hasty exercise. We’ll be spending January to consider this more carefully.
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Human effort doesn’t take us very far. We are weaker than we’d like to admit.·
Despite that, commitments and resolutions are good, even biblical.·
As a church about to start a new chapter, we want to make a covenant renewal.
Our recommitment is important. We want to take it seriously. However, what is far more important is not our commitment to God but God’s commitment to us. From a Gospel perspective, the most important resolution is God’s resolution to remain faithful to us.
The 10 Commandments is something of a centerpiece in the covenant God made with Israel. It appears twice in the Bible. In Exodus 20, the Israelites are at Mount Sinai as they came out of Egypt. God makes his covenant with this new nation.
In Deuteronomy, 5 it’s about 40 years later, after wandering in the wilderness and before entering the Promised Land. Deuteronomy is a covenant renewal. In both places, notice how the 10 Commandments begin:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me. (Ex 20:2-3, Dt. 5:6-7)
It begins with “I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of Egypt,” and then the commands followed. I’d like to us to explore its significance as we consider our own personal covenant relationship with God and our covenant renewal as a church.
I hope it will help us see the commands of the Bible in a different light, more specifically, to have a Gospel perspective on the commands of the Bible.
1. Deliverance, then Law
Notice the order. It was not Law and then Deliverance. Here is the law, and if you keep them, then I will rescue you.
No. They had just witnessed the 10 plagues and crossed the Red Sea. They were already brought out of Egypt. This law was not given so they could be rescued but because they were already rescued.
In most contracts, the agreement is, you do your side, I’ll do my side. If anyone doesn’t do their side, the contract is null and void. If you do this/that, then you’ll enjoy these benefits. If you pay me, then I will provide you with minutes and data for your cell phone, I’ll lend you money at an interest rate.
But this covenant is different. God is not saying, if you obey my commands, then you will be my people. It’s not if/then, it is then/so. He’s saying, You are my people, so now I want you to live like my people. (Indicative-Imperative)
Janette’s parents are spending the holidays with us and so we got a rare chance to go and see a movie. We saw Avatar and were really blown away by the visual effects.
Jake Sully has to learn the language and ways of the Na’vi to eventually become one of the Na’vi.
But then later leads a campaign and fights because he is a Na’vi.
Those are two very different motivations, different identities, different ways of life.
God essentially says, I have accepted you as my people, made you my own. You are Na’vi.
You are Na’vi. Now, you must learn to live like a Na’vi.
Suppose Prince Charles [picture] wants to adopt you into the Windsor family and make you British Royalty. He says, You are a Windsor, you are part of the royal family. Now, conduct yourself in a manner appropriate to your name.
God says, I’ve make you a royal priesthood, a holy nation. You bear my name. Now conduct yourselves in a manner appropriate to your name.
The covenant is built on God’s prior commitment.
God first chooses them, adopts them, rescues them, puts His name on them.
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. (Dt 7:6)
The covenant (10 Commandments) is in the context of God having committed himself to them, God having loved and rescued them.
The big deal is not that Israel has to follow the 10 Commandments.
The big deal is that God has chosen Israel to be His people. He has loved and rescued them.
If Prince Charles did adopt you into the Windsor family, and you become siblings with William and Harry and live in the palace, the big deal is not that you agree to follow royal etiquette. The big deal is that Prince Charles has made you a Windsor, British Royalty!
Recognizing God’s greater part changes how we understand what this covenant (and covenant renewal) is about. This is about what God has done for us, the identity we now have, and the relationship we enjoy with God (leads to #2).
2. Reveal and Reflect
Before God gives the commandments, God identifies Himself. He reveals who He is.
YHWH His name, the great “I Am”
Your God In relationship, personal to them
Your God who brought you out of Egypt Mighty and merciful, Rescuer
But the interesting thing is that the 10 Commandments also tell us about YHWH. These laws reveal His values, His nature. They are also a form of divine self-disclosure.
Since these laws reveal something of God’s nature, when the Israelites live according to these laws, they reflect something of the nature of God.
For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. (Lev 11:44)
I am holy. You are my people, you bear my name. Be holy, for I am holy. The law taught them how to reflect God’s own nature.
“The Decalogue, therefore, is not simply a compact code of human behaviour; it is an arresting portrait of God. God is a God of truth, so the people must not indulge in lies (20). He is the giver of life so they must not murder (17), ruthlessly snatching what is God’s property. He is generous, so they must be kind to need people in society as well as to their more familiar relatives and neighbours. God has been loving to outcasts of conventional society (like helpless Israelite slaves in Egypt, for example, 15), so they must be equally loving to similarly disadvantaged people in the land his is about to give them—social outcasts like widows, orphans and aliens. . . . All the demands of the Decalogue are a reflection of the nature of God. The image of God and the standards he expects of his people are inseparably woven together in the fabric of the Ten Commandments.” (Raymond Brown, The Message of Deuteronomy, p. 81)
God’s people are to reflect the nature of God Himself.
This flows out of our first point. God has made the Israelites His people. You are the people of YHWH, so live like it. You are a Windsor, British Royalty, so act like it.
If we believe that we are now the people of God, the children of God, we are citizens of heaven, we will reflect something of God.
Our covenant renewal is an affirmation that we are the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ, and a resolution to faithfully live out that identity so that we are the reflection of God to this world.
We see this in the NT as well.
[Jesus prays] that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:23)
Jesus calls for our unity and prays for our unity because through it, the world can see that Jesus is real, Jesus is the Son of God and that He has poured out his love on His people. Our unity reveals Christ to the world.
That is our desire, to reveal Christ to our world, to spread His Gospel, the story of who He is and what He does.
3. Relationship, Not Law
If these commands reflect something of the nature of God, then our obedience to them both reveals God to observers and it reveals God to ourselves. It allows us to experience and participate in the nature of God.
When we love one another in unity, this reveals God to the world and it helps us experience something of God, that God is love. We know God not just in abstract concepts or facts but in experience and relationship.
One scholar explains how the covenant was an act of God’s love for Israel. By obeying the commands, the love relationship develops and grows.
The new authority [vs. Egypt], however, had acted in love for the people and the obligations imposed upon them in the covenant reflected no less the love of God. This, then, is the context in which the Decalog is to be understood; it was law for a people already redeemed, not designed per se to redeem the people. It was, nevertheless, at the heart of the covenant relationship, for the health and continuity of the covenant depended on the relationship of the people to their God and to their fellow men, and it was to this end that the Decalog gave direction to the people. (Peter Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, 151, italics added)
The law was not to establish the relationship, but for the health and continuity of that relationship.
We believe that because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, we have been brought near to God. We have an open and loving relationship with God. The problem is that so often, we’re not experiencing that relationship. We have a relationship on paper but it’s lacking in our daily experience.
The commands don’t earn us points with God, earn God’s love for us, but it can help us experience that love and develop the relationship.
Let me give an example from a book I’ve been reading, which I recommend, A Praying Life (Paul Miller) [picture]. He points out how Jesus so often calls us on us to ask,
ask and we will receive
if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you
whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you.
What Miller helped me see is that this command to ask is not so much about us getting what we want, having a “blank check,” having a transaction guarantee. It’s not a business agreement. He does answer prayers, but perhaps the focus should be on the kind of relationship God wants to have with us. He wants us to be constantly calling on Him, depending on Him, involving Him. So in our daily lives, we can pray simple and honest prayers:
Help me write this paper. Please help my kids not get sick (or recover quickly)
Please provide a parking space. Please help me know what to say to this person.
Our moments can be filled with prayers and requests, where we invite God to be a part of our daily lives. We’re constantly turning to Him. We always think of Him and His power and love.
The call to prayer is not a command to be mechanically obeyed out of obligation or guilt.
It is a path toward a deeper experiential relationship with our Savior God.
Deliverance, then Law. God first chooses us, makes us His own.
Reveal and Reflect. These commands show something of the nature of God and allow us to reflect God to our world.
Relationship, now Law. These commands reveal God to us. It allow us to experience God and depends our relationship with God.
I do want us to make resolutions to seek and follow God, to obey His commands. And as a church we want to make a covenant renewal. But that is not the resolution that is going to change our lives.
The resolution that is going to change our lives is the resolution that God has made, to make us His people, to adopt us into His family, and to be loving and faithful every moment of every day of 2010 and till the end of time. Our lives are built on His loving and gracious resolution for us.