A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
Showing posts with label New year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New year. Show all posts
New Year 2024/2025
The God of order
 |
| paddy (Patrick-Emil Zörner), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
In 1 Corinthians 14:40 Paul draws a practical conclusion from this fact. In meetings for worship, everything should be done in a fitting, dignified, decent way. The application is not limited to meetings. It applies to the whole of life. All the great advances in science and civilisation have come in the train of organisation and order. Of course, great things are sometimes discovered by accident, but it is the methodical, orderly person who sees their importance.
This is an appropriate thought for the beginning of a new year. It is true that there is something slightly artificial about marking a new year but it is a fact that God made this world to orbit the Sun every 365 ¼ days. He gave it a moon that takes 28 days to orbit. He makes the earth revolve on its axis every 24 hours. These are not accidents. The stars were given to mark the passing seasons. Further by direct command God has ordained that there should be seven days in one week and that one day should be different to the other six and kept special in his honour. Part of the indignity of drunkenness, serious illness and sometimes old age is befuddlement as to the passage of time. All this leads us to stress certain important practical truths which should always be remembered.
1. Take note of the passing years. It is right and Christian to mark the change from 1995 to 1996. It is true that it is not exactly 1996 years since the Lord’s coming nor is there a command from God to keep track of how much time has elapsed since his coming. It is surely laudable, however, to write 1996 AD (not 1996 CE as some would have it). Better still The year of God’s grace 1996. We affirm that history is linear not circular, finite not infinite.
2. Take note of the passing months. Under the Law, the Israelites were encouraged not only to count the years (Jubilee, etc.) but months were also marked by new moon festivals and other seasonal feasts. We are no longer under such laws but it is good to see each new month as a mark of God’s favour and a fresh opportunity to serve him.
3. Remember the Lord’s Day. Again, although believers are not obliged to keep Old Testament Sabbaths, all orthodox Christians recognise the need to keep one day in seven special. We may disagree on details but we all recognise that the Lord’s Day is a special day to be kept, as far as we can, separate to God. It is sad to see many Christians today failing to make progress, largely because they fail to take advantage of this means of grace.
4. Live one day at a time. In Psalm 90 Moses prays that the Lord will teach us to number our days aright. Some people today live such chaotic lives they can hardly distinguish one day from another. Night and day merge in a single stream. Genesis 1 teaches us that there is a distinction between day and night. This is best observed by sleeping at night and working for God’s glory by day. That is not the regular privilege of some who may read this. We will all experience sleepless nights at some stage in life. However, let us not forget the norm. Further, take one day at a time and leave the next to worry about itself. Fill each day not with idle day dreaming but with living for the Lord. Daniel was a busy man but three times in the day were marked off for prayer to the Lord. The psalmist prayed seven times a day! Let us at least begin with prayer and the Word. The Jews divided their day into three watches of four hours; sunrise, the heat of the day and the cool of the day. We think more of morning, afternoon and evening. Organise each day carefully and use each part to God’s glory.
One period where a lot of time can be wasted for some is between 4 pm and 7 pm which may not fit firmly into afternoon or evening. Watch out! Plan ahead yet be flexible. Study the way our Lord conducted himself.
In conclusion, let me mention some more general principles.
- Be alert to the providence of God.
- Look to the Lord for guidance.
- Get your priorities right.
- Do not fall under the tyranny of the urgent.
- Be like Mary not like Martha and make the most of every opportunity.
Finally, do not forget to do all you do in a dignified and beautiful way. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe on his desert island not only kept a careful note of the date but also dressed for dinner. This was not eccentricity but an awareness of the God of peace and order. May we be aware of him too throughout this coming year.
This article first appeared many years ago in Grace.
This article first appeared many years ago in Grace.
The first Lord's Day of 2016
We started the year with communion. We read Isaiah 53 and I spoke about penal substitutionary atonement, which is at the heart and centre of our faith. I then preached to a good sized congregation from James 1:19-21. I had worked up a good little mnemonic - quick, slow, slow; out with the old and in with the new - which should enable any good listener to recapture the whole sermon or at least the text. Some students were still around plus other visitors and one or two newbies who we hope we see again. Everyone was happy to come through for a cuppa after the meeting, which is not always the case, so that was good. We were a smaller congregation in the evening as ever but round the twenty mark. I took three Proverbs that I have looked at before but with some fresh supporting material. Proverbs 27:1, 19:21 and 16:3 are just made for a new year gathering.
Last Lord's Day of 2015
So the last Lord's Day of the year has come and gone. We had decent congregations morning and evening as although there are many away at the present time we do have students back and some visitors. At the beginning of the new year I like to take a text that will act a sort of motto text fro the year ahead. This year I have chosen John 10:28, 29 a very comforting verse for believers teaching the perseverance of the saints. I found that there was not so much to say about the verses but it was good to underline the threefold assurance found there and I hope it will be a help to us in the year that lies ahead. In the evening I took the text Hebrews 10:23-25, an exhortatory passage ideal for the turn of the year though not one I had looked at before at such a time. There was a little more to say this time and illustrations came easier. I tried not to turn it into a mere call to do the right thing.
Midweek Meeting December 31 2014
I wasn't sure what to do but in the end we had a midweek meeting at the usual time in the usual place. There were only six of us but it can get like that at times. We simply sang a new year's hymn and read from the last chapter of the Bible before briefly talking through topics for prayer and then praying. We closed with a Margaret Clarkson hymn on the Second Coming. People were off to other things after the meeting, of course. I headed home with my wife and son to join our only other son still at home for some TV and a game before welcoming in the new year. So 2015 is here. What does it hold?
Lord's Day December 28 2014
It was the last Sunday of the year and although several were away the congregations were not too small. In the evening three people were there who would normally be elsewhere but I guess there was no evening service there. I preached in the morning from 1 John 2:15-17. I thought 1 John 2:15 would make a good motto text for us this year. I have sent for postcards with it on. I did a children's talk on the candy cane, which I was not aware of before. (See here for an example of how to do it). It was good to sing a new year hymn or two. In the evening I preached from Zechariah 10:4 which I took as a Messianic text declaring him to be our cornerstone, our tentpeg, our battle bow and the one who raises up rulers in his church. There was a lady there in the morning who we have not seen in ages since she left London. She has many troubles and she came home with us before we took her to the A&E where I left her but she did not hang around there. I hope she is okay.
CHBC Motto Text 2014
I have made it my practice over the last few years to begin the year with a motto text. This ear it is Romans 13:12. An mp3 will soon be on the church website and the text of the sermon can be found here on preached sermons.
Calennig
We were in Aberystwyth on the first day of the year. I have come across it before but I wanted to note how during the day there was a knock at the door and some children from over the road to my wife's parents came to the door and sung a lovely traditional Welsh song. Calennig is the Welsh for "New Year celebration/gift," though literally it translates to "the first day of the month," deriving from the Latin Kalends (cf the English word "Calendar").
Wikipedia says that many people give gifts on New Years morning, with children having skewered apples stuck with raisins and fruit. In some parts of Wales, people must visit all their relatives by midday to collect their Calennig, and celebrations and traditions can vary from area to area. In Stations of the Sun Ronald Hutton gives an example of a Calennig rhyme from 1950s Aberystwyth,
Dydd calan yw hi heddiw,
Rwy'n dyfod ar eich traws
i ofyn am y geiniog,
Neu grwst, a bara a chaws.
O dewch i'r drws yn siriol
Heb nesid dim o'ch gwedd;
Cyn daw dydd calan eto
Bydd llawer yn y bedd.
("It is new year's day today, I have come over to you to ask for a penny or a crust and bread and cheese. O come to the door pleasantly without waking anyone; before the arrival of the new year again many will be in the grave.")
New Year 2013
We welcomed the new year in with relations and friends, like many others, by getting to one of North London's higher spots, Alexandra Palace, from where we could see fireworks across the city, something we had not done before.
Lord's Day December 30 2012
The 53rd and last Sunday of 2012 was a final opportunity to gather and worship the Lord together. We were a little down in numbers as some are still away and a few are unwell. I took the opportunity to preach some new year sermons. In the morning we looked at Psalm 91:14, 15. This will be our text for the year ahead, as it were. Full of comfort, it also implies the duty to pray and to love God on our part. In the evening we looked at 1 Chronicles 17:16,17 the text from which John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. What a blessing it has been to regularly gather with God's people over the last year. How we long for God's blessing in the year ahead too.
Hymn of the week 38
We enjoyed singing new year hymns again yesterday. I mentioned a Doddridge hymn this time last year. See here. We enjoyed singing it again and this other one by the same man.
Our Helper, God, we bless Thy Name,
Whose love forever is the same;
The tokens of Whose gracious care
Begin and crown and close the year.
Amid ten thousand snares we stand,
Supported by Thy guardian hand;
And see, when we review our ways,
Ten thousand monuments of praise.
Thus far Thine arm has led us on;
Thus far we make Thy mercy known;
And while we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.
Our grateful souls on Jordan’s shore
Shall raise one sacred pillar more,
Then bear, in Thy bright courts above,
Inscriptions of immortal love.
Our Helper, God, we bless Thy Name,
Whose love forever is the same;
The tokens of Whose gracious care
Begin and crown and close the year.
Amid ten thousand snares we stand,
Supported by Thy guardian hand;
And see, when we review our ways,
Ten thousand monuments of praise.
Thus far Thine arm has led us on;
Thus far we make Thy mercy known;
And while we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.
Our grateful souls on Jordan’s shore
Shall raise one sacred pillar more,
Then bear, in Thy bright courts above,
Inscriptions of immortal love.
2010 and eternity
A little slow off the mark I guess - I wasn't sure just where to begin until I found this quotation near the very end of F W Boreham's Bunch of everlastings. He says
I recently took a long, long railway journey through a thousand miles of civilisation, a thousand miles of desert, and a thousand miles of bush. The train bore me to a part of this vast continent in which I found myself surrounded by trees that were entirely new to me, and by flowers such as I had never seen before. I freely expressed my admiration, and, when the time came to commence my homeward journey, I found among the mementoes with which I was presented a beautiful bunch of everlastings. A Bunch of Everlastings! It seems to me I have this morning been gathering just such a bouquet. Here is Stephen Grellet listening to the great word that rings through the silence of the forest Etemity! Eternity! Eternity! Here is Uncle Tom uttering the same word with strange and wonderful effects: Eternity! Here is Dr Chalmers confessing that the mistakes of his life lay in his forgetting the greatness of Eternity! The list could be indefinitely continued; the valleys are full of everlastings. ‘That night,’ says Ebenezer Erskine, in recording in the pages of his diary the greatest spiritual crisis that he ever knew ‘that night I got my head out of Time into Eternity!’ ‘The vastness of the word Eternity was impressed upon me,’ says Andrew Bonar in his diary; and, a few months later, he says again, ‘I strive to keep the feeling of Eternity always before me!’ ‘Gentlemen,’ exclaims old Rabbi Duncan to his students as he dismisses them at the end of the year’s work, ‘many will be wishing you a Happy New Year. Your old tutor wishes you a happy Eternity!’.
Hymn of the week 30
This is one of two Doddridge hymns for the new year in New Christian Hymns that we sang yesterday,
Great God, we sing Your mighty hand
By which supported still we stand;
The opening year Your mercy shows,
That mercy crowns it ’til its close.
By day, by night, at home, abroad,
Still are we guarded by our God,
By His incessant bounty fed,
By His unerring counsel led.
With grateful hearts the past we own;
The future, all to us unknown,
We to Thy guardian care commit,
And peaceful leave before Thy feet.
In scenes exalted or depressed,
You are our joy, and You our rest;
Your goodness all our hopes shall raise,
Adored through all our changing days.
When death shall interrupt our songs
And seal in silence mortal tongues,
In fairer realms, O God, shall we
Your praises sing eternally.
Great God, we sing Your mighty hand
By which supported still we stand;
The opening year Your mercy shows,
That mercy crowns it ’til its close.
By day, by night, at home, abroad,
Still are we guarded by our God,
By His incessant bounty fed,
By His unerring counsel led.
With grateful hearts the past we own;
The future, all to us unknown,
We to Thy guardian care commit,
And peaceful leave before Thy feet.
In scenes exalted or depressed,
You are our joy, and You our rest;
Your goodness all our hopes shall raise,
Adored through all our changing days.
When death shall interrupt our songs
And seal in silence mortal tongues,
In fairer realms, O God, shall we
Your praises sing eternally.
New Year 2009
We're back in London after welcoming in the new year in Wales. We were in Aber with Eleri's parents and her younger sister and family. We didn't do anything very special though the boys had fun with glow sticks. Earlier in the evening we were at a party in the church and before that we were all invited over to Eleri's auntie and uncle for lunch. On new year's day we played football again then after lunch we held our traditional silly string squirting event, which has featured here before. After that we packed and hit the road, stopping at MacDonald's Meole Brace retail park en route. The house was pretty cold when we got back but it's good to be home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)