TREASURY OF SERMONS
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My New Year Resolution
By Rev (Dr) Timothy Tow
(Preached at Vancouver BPC, 3 Jan 1999)
Text: John 9:4-7
What is my New Year resolution? It is to finish daily my assignments before the fateful year 2000 comes.
I have known of a WWII friend who wanted to make a million dollars, but he never attained to it. Because it is out of God's will. Proverbs 23:4 says, "Labour not to be rich." A Christian should rather seek God's Kingdom and his righteousness, "and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt 6:33 ). "But godliness with contentment is great gain."
I remember two years ago when our leaders hoped, at the beginning of year, to make Singapore a world class city, with a marina so close to town that Singaporeans could go yatching at our doorstep. The economic crisis that soon followed in August 1997, which no one could predict, caused the project to be shelved.
"New Year resolutions are made to be broken" has become an accepted saying. It is due to the weakness of the flesh, but more often made not according to God's will. Take for example, that WWII friend of mine who wanted to earn more money instead of seeking God's kingdom and righteousness. My New Year resolution is rather to finish my daily assignments.
How did Calvin and Ting Li Mei become such great scholars? By reviewing the daily lectures they took immediately after class each day. That should be our policy.
Such policy actually originates from our Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus saw the man born blind, perhaps in the long shadows of the evening sun, He swiftly sent him to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and immediately he saw. Jesus said, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" (Jn 9:4).
1999 is the most crucial year because we have now but eleven months when the Millennium Bug will bite. Though there are reports of happy corrections of computers, there is a great Unknown and Mystery before the testing comes. Our only sure hope is in Christ's Second Coming, and we are to be ready at all times.
To be ready, we must make sure our salvation. We often hear of being saved in a fundamental Church and we may think we are all right when we are not. If you cannot say your sins are forgiven, you are not ready for His Coming. So when others are gone and you are left behind, how scary it will be!
If you say you are ready, you must check up on your spiritual health. Do you attend Church regularly? Do you try to serve in some capacity in the Church, eg. Sunday School teaching, choir, fellowship, etc. Do you support the Church with your funds, happily, regularly? That is the vertical line of your Christian testimony. The horizontal line, making it a cross, is do you do your duty to yourself and your family? Confucius says that a "filial son to his father will take good care of his own body." You owe a duty to yourself to live right, to improve in your study and work and in obligation to your family members.
I would apply this principle to four categories of people:
(1) To the student. Your New Year resolution should lead you to study well and pass your examinations. As a young man you must submit to National Service. Here, you do not want to shirk, to do the least because you think bad about your lot. But if you do it faithfully, as you pass your exams, God will bless you extra. I have known of a young man who performs his duty faithfully so that he is made an officer. This stands him in good stead in that he is given a place at the university, and when he graduates, he is given a good job.
(2) To the wage earners. Do your duty to your parents, wife and children. Do your duty to the Lord your God. God will prosper you.
(3) To the retiree. And that at the early age of 60! You still have 10 to 15 years to serve the Lord. Why not continue to work for the Lord? The example of Eld Khoo suffices. Several FEBC students that have come into His Vineyard by resigning from their jobs are blessed of the Lord.
The work of the Lord is not pressurised like the world's. Jesus says, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Think carefully and respond to the Lord's call. He will not leave you nor forsake you.
(4) To the rich. Do not think that your riches will give you security. He that will save his life shall lose it. Remember the rich fool, how he made every provision for his body, but not for his soul. One morning he made grandiose plans to pull down his barns and make greater ones to store his profits. God said, "This night, you will die, and whose possession will yours be?" To the rich I counsel. Do good while you may. Give your share of wealth for missions, for the building of God's house, for the relief of the poor, and God will look after you in time. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble" (Ps 41:1).
Let our new year resolution be the finishing of our assignments daily, each one according to his duty, especially in this crucial year of 1999, before the ominous Millennium descends. Amen.
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