Christ Centered Goals for the New Year

People tend to make a lot of goals and plans this time of year.

• I am going to work out twice a day

• I am not going to look at ice cream…I will just eat it with my eyes closed.

• I am going to read the whole bible each week

• Sometimes our goals get a bit grandiose and unrealistic and often they are doomed to be discarded in the first week.

Anyone else have good intentions each year…but they never quite result in how you envision…I trust this message will provide a framework to go into the new year differently.

This message is a bit of a transitional message as we have concluded our Christmas series and then next week we will have our kickoff Sunday where we reveal the annual theme and where we are going as a Church and How we can all work together to glorify God as the body of Christ.

Today I want to talk about individual goals and focus on as Paul Tripp says, God is a God of the mundane…I want us to be a good position to have…

Christ-Centered Goals for the New Year.

The passage that we will unpack today will be in the Letter from James, specifically chapter 4, verses 13-17. If you are using the bible in the chair in front of you, please open to page ___ in the back of the bible.

When we read this passage, you might think that James is being pretty direct, and he is. He is calling out a sinful heart where goals and plans simply do not involve the Lord. He seems to be specifically focusing on merchants with a good amount of resources, who tend to make some presumptive man centered plans.

But we all have to wrestle with the fact that we can get so focused on what we want to do and accomplish, we at times can completely ignore the Lord…and in short, we don’t want to do that in the new year.

• The context of our passage is that James has already called out the source for our quarrels and conflicts in our relationships…it is because of the desires, the goals we so often have that are self-focused ..and these desires wage war in our hearts and then come out in our relationships and cause us to fight and argue with others if we do not get our desires and also in order to get our desires.…

• As we often say, I do what I do because I want what I want and because of this..

• I am willing to ignore God, go around Him, commit adultery against God to get what I want….that is pride where my goals are more important than God Himself.

• Then James warns us of being so consumed with what we want that we focus much of our energy speaking against one another, judging each other, complaining and grumbling against other people –pridefully putting ourselves in the place of the Law, in the place of God –the one and only lawgiver and judge…

So James is addressing an ongoing theme of the danger of living with man centered Goals.

And so going into the new year, we want to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and recognize His presence, so we don’t ignore Him, don’t seek to go around Him to get what we want…and instead we go to Him, put Him at the very center of our lives and Trust that He will exalt us at the proper time and that He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to His power that is at work in us…

• We want to have that mindset each and every day and especially in the small, everyday mundane life situations that reveal what our goals are and allow us to change and grow to have Christ centered goals.

So with that in mind, lets …

READ JAMES 4:13-17

3 Key aspects to setting Christ Centered Goals

I. Understand that only God knows what will happen in the new year

In short, we want to remind ourselves at the beginning of the year and the beginning of each day that…

God is Sovereign

If we cling to this truth in the everyday mundane aspects of life…our whole world opens up in terms of our purpose, our delight and if we respond to life with pride or humility.

Eph 1:10b-11 – In Him, also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.

This year, God is sovereign, just like every other year that has ever existed and every year that is to come…God is in control of every sparrow that falls to the ground, every hair on your head, every word that everyone is going to say to you this year….He is sovereignly in control of it all.

And everything He is doing is done to reveal His glory, goodness, majesty, love and Justice. His very nature.

The sovereign plan of God was to send His son to die on the cross…to perfectly display His mercy and justice…to show His very nature to mankind and to make a way to redeem mankind… Hebrews says about Jesus that…

Heb 1:3a – And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

God is sovereign, He is the one who upholds, not some things, but all things by the word of His power….

Knowing His word, means knowing that He is in control of all things…and we must set goals with that truth ever before us. And that should not lead us to passivity but to wise action where He is the focus.

You see…

Pride places my plans first

This is what James is honing in on….

James 4:13-14a – Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

The fictitious illustration James is setting forth is people who are making plans to increase your net worth, thinking about where you are going, even thinking about the whole year, thinking about a lot of things, just not the Lord.

To be clear…There is nothing wrong with wanting to work hard, plan wisely, and seek to increase ones business…but the question is where is the Lord in that?

The main issue is the presumptive self-sufficiency and self-focus.

I don’t know about you, but I can often get consumed with my to-do list, or things I am looking forward to enjoying, or how things are not going my way…and it is amazing how quickly one day leads to the next and we can stack up those days with a whole lot of details, planning, desires and I can step back and be in shock that I really have not thought about the Lord much if even at all,

• but I have thought a great deal about what I want to do or what I am not getting.

Pride is not just telling people how good you are at ping pong…

• Pride is when we miss the mark and we forget or ignore that we are here to bear God’s image, to fill the earth with His glory, to represent His likeness in the way we exercise dominion over creation.

• The way we point to Him in the everyday mundane situations of life…

Pride is wanting to bear our image to other people, and get them to reflect our desires and plans back to us…in short pride makes everything about us…

whereas…

Humility views God’s will as most important

Humility recognizes that this world, this life, even your life is not primarily about you…Proverbs talks a lot about wisdom and we so often see it is rooted in a right view of man and a right view of God…

Prov 11:2 – When Pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom.

Wisdom is all about knowing how life works, how to plan wisely and set good goals and actually know how to obtain them.

Wisdom starts with putting God at the center…the bible often refers to this as having a fear of the Lord…this is a reverence, a focus, a recognition of who the Lord is and that He is to be front and center in every situation, every conversation and even every thought and goal we have.

Prov 9:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

If you want to have good, wise goals this year…we must make sure it starts with a reverence of the Lord.

James’ shorthand way of saying this is…

James 4:15 -¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

If the Lord wills, is not just a magic phrase you append to the end of the sentence to make sure things work out…it is words that are to come out of our lips, because they have been cultivated from a humble focus on the Lord in our hearts.

Sometimes this can come out of our mouths in funny ways…Kids say the funniest things…A couple of years ago my son Sawyer was getting his hair cut..

• Sawyer was talking to the hair stylist about the book he was reading ‘Tom Sawyer’, and he says, yeah I really like it, even though there is some romantic in it…my wife was there and we constantly seeking to reinforce a biblical view of men and women and she said, yes, but it is normal for guys to like girls and one day you might even like a girl….and he said, yeah, if the Lord wills!

So, he had heard that phrase before and that is a good thing, even if it came out in a humorous situation…

When we think about the phrase “if the Lord wills” or “Lord willing”, We don’t want to just tag that on occasionally to the end of a sentence, but this year when we talk about going out for soccer, or trying a new instrument, or picking up a new hobby or going on vacation, or implementing some new family habits…as parents seeking to be godly, we want to be regularly teaching that the Lord is in control and we want whatever we are doing to come under His will…

We also want to have a godly influence with our friends, and we want to regularly talk about How God is working out his great plan of redemption in our lives, and so whatever we may want to do this year, it must be viewed in a way where there is a fear or the Lord, a focus on wanting to submit to His will this year.

Now if we are going to focus on the Lord, that also means we will …

II. Focus on goals that have eternal impact

When we think about man centered plans, one thing we notice is that they tend to focus on this life, what we want from an earthly life, instead of focusing on how to use this earthly life to make an eternal investment and have an eternal impact.

One of the best ways to cultivate this mindset is to remind ourselves of…

The Nature of Man – a Mist

James wants those who are making plans to not get ahead of themselves and forget their very nature and the truth that life is short.

James 4:14 yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

With the whole county getting the flu, we have been battling sickness and the residual cough that never ends…and so we broke out the cool mist humidifier….so almost every night I make sure there is enough distilled water in there, I turn it on, and watch like magic how immediately a mist is formed, and I try to point it at where I sleep and get it as close as possible so I know it is getting to me and being helpful…but no matter how close you get it to you, the midst vanishes and you are thinking is this even working…I want it to like go right up my nostrils and I want to feel it working..…because you see it for about 1 second and maybe a few inches it rises up and vanishes, and it is gone…

….and as I prepared this message, I thought about that humidifier that I have been using all month…and it is good for me as I turn the humidifier on, and watch that mist form to say to myself….that is me…I am a mist…I like to think I am a cool mist, but I am sure my kids would see it differently…but regardless I am just a mist, just a vapor.

If we thought of ourselves regularly as just a mist…how would that change the way we plan and set goals…sometimes when you have very little time, it forces you to focus on what is most important, to prioritize what is most important, because the reality is you can’t do everything, but a wise person does what is most important…and that means you don’t plan out your whole year without a focus on the one who supplies your breath for the whole year.

In fact the breath of the Lord is something that sustains us, but it also reveals the brevity of life…because he is the one who gives and takes away, he is the author of life and death…He know the number of hairs on your head and the number of your days.

Isa 40:7 - The grass Withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

We are like a mist, we are like grass…and so we cannot live and set goals apart from the Lord…it just does not work.

Because of…

The Nature of God – Giver of Life

If you read the next verse in Isaiah it says…

Isaiah 40:8 -⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

The word of God brings life, it brings life eternal…all the things that we plan to do with our lives, much of it is characterized as a mist and grass…but whatever you invest in the word this year, knowing what God says about Himself, about you and about how He wants you to be a part of His great plan of redemption…

…well that is not wasted, that does not easily fade…in fact the time you invest in knowing the bible and applying it to your life…that is focusing on truth that will last forever…and that will help you have a humble response to planning with a focus on your great need for the Lord, rather than all the things you are going to seek to do apart from him.

I really appreciate how James 4:15 says If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” It starts with not what we are planning to do that we want the Lord to bless…but it starts with…we are only going to live another day if the Lord wills…

• lets just start with the fact that he sustains us by His grace, and power and we only are alive each day because of him…when we start there, it really puts the “this and that” in perspective.

Job reminds us that the Lord is in control and our very lives are in his hands…

Job 12:10 - In whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?

So what does this look like practically…well it means we seek to use the limed time we have each day and in our lives wisely…especially in the small mundane aspects of life.

Maybe you put a bible on the table where you eat breakfast and you keep it open, and you commit to regularly during the week reading just a paragraph of God’s word to make sure you are thinking about Him, putting Him at the center, where you recognize I need Him to live, I need salvation in Christ, I need to live on not just bread, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Or maybe at dinner time you have a little notebook and you each share a prayer request and before you have dessert, or right after the meal, before you help mom and day clean up…you pray and ask that in these situations God would work in your families life and that you would respond to these situations for His glory.

Maybe this year you have a bedtime routine that really seeks to worship God as you get ready to turn in for the night.

Maybe it means this year you think about the end of your life, and you do some planning this year to be a blessing to your loved ones in case the Lord calls you home.

Maybe it means you put off the fear of man and an overly busy schedule and you make time to talk to a friend or family member about the Gospel… knowing that life is short and you don’t know how many days you or they have left.

Maybe your first step is to admit you will one day die, and you have offended a Holy God with your life and you admit you are going to spend eternity separated from Him in Hell…and your first step is to admit your own mortality…and recognize you need salvation…you need the gift of eternal life that is available through trusting in the D/B/R of Christ…maybe that is your first step in the new year…recognize God gave you earthly life, and that you need Him to give you eternal life as a gift by trusting in Christ.

All of this flows out of a focus on the Nature of man…a mist, and a nature of God…the giver of Life…and the one who works all things out after the counsel of His will.

Now when we focus on How God is in control, and we think about the nature of man and God, and what God has done through the gospel of Christ…well the next step in light of who you are and who God is…is to grow and change to become more like Him….

So our last point in having Christ centered goals this year is to

III. Pursue Righteousness in your planning (v 17)

To put on righteousness, we need to be humble and aware of the importance of putting off unrighteousness,…I pray part of your goals this year is to fight sin, to put off ungodliness, and put on Christ-likeness.

Thinking about fighting sin, is not as exciting as planning a vacation…lets face it there is plenty of times we sin while planning vacation and while on vacation….but it is wise for us to read God’s word and to see how pervasive sin is in the human heart and how much it needs to be addressed.

Sin is missing the mark…and the Mark, the Goal is to live in a way where we bear God’s image, where we follow Christ because we have been redeemed by Christ…and we want to live in a way that reflects His grace and mercy in our lives….in a way where we love God and love others in His name…

That is why James concludes this section that focus’ on doing the Lord’s will…

James 4:17 -¹⁷ Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

We don’t want to just honor God with our lips,…but we actually want to follow through and pursue righteousness in our everyday lives.

That starts when we…

Build a conviction about sin

Don’t be a prideful person who says pride is not a big deal in my life…James says…

James 4:16 -¹⁶ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

One of my prayers for God’s people this year, is that we would be aware of sin in our lives, because we are aware of the holiness of God revealed in His word…

As I said before boasting is not just saying you are good at something, it is often just talking about everything except for God. It is being arrogant and self-consumed and talking as if God doesn’t exist.

Think about when someone says something mean to another person…the next level up to completely ignore them, pretend they are worthless and not speak to them at all…that is a much bigger slight than speaking poorly to someone…we don’t want to boast and arrogantly live as if God does not exist.

In fact, we build conviction about sin, be reading God’s word…the psalmist says…

Psalm 119:9–11 -⁹ How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. ¹⁰ With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. ¹¹ Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.

Make it your goal this year to treasure God’s word in your heart. Not to just read it, but to treasure it…When you read the bible, often time it will help you have a more clear understanding about the sinfulness of man, and even the sinfulness of your heart…but that will help you see how much you need to focus on the Lord, and to treasure Him above everything else.

And then as we treasure God’s word and are convicted to put off sin, we can then…

Delight in pleasing God

One take away I hope you get from this message is to consider if everyday things you are doing are pleasing to the Lord, the way you answer the phone, or text your spouse, the way you talk about your boss or co-workers…the way you respond to your parents or other kids at lunch and recess…and I hope you then you are constantly putting off sin and constantly then growing and changing and thus have greater delight this year in actually doing things that please the Lord.

That helps us focus on the right Goal….

2 Corinthians 5:9 -⁹ Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

We should celebrate when someone does something that pleases the Lord…we should encourage ambition and goals that are really about honoring the Lord…in all aspects of life…

If God is working in your life, and you are growing and you are pleasing Him in an area…I think it is good to share that with others and stir them on to growth as well. We want a delight in pleasing God to permeate the home and also the body of Christ. We want it to truly apply to all of life…

1 Corinthians 10:31 -³¹ Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

We want to go into the new year, in a comprehensive Christ centered way.

Maybe that is in a simple way making sure the word of God is a part of each day.

Maybe it is really stopping and thinking about what you are doing or saying and if it is Christ-like…

or maybe it is focusing each day on guarding your heart and really seeking to put off the sin of pride and self sufficiency each day.

I believe focusing on Christ centered goals, helps us have the motivation to actually pursue them…not just over a year, but over a life time, and we do that by focusing on pleasing God today and wanting Him to be in the center of all of our plans.

Lets pray that God would not only bless our plans this year, but that He would be the very center of our goals.