New Year's Resolution

OT: Joshua 1:7-9 (KJV)

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

NT: Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

‘And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Sermon

Introduction

Happy New Year! It is good to worship God together with you on the very first day of the new year. Did you have a good holiday week, safe and warm at home? Because of the severe winter weather as you all know, we had to switch the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services to online. The elders in the session and I were very heavy hearted about it but I believe we eventually made a right decision. I thank all those who participated in the online worship video making. According to many news, over 60 people were killed in this country due to the winter storm. We pray for them and for their families. We grieve with them. And we thank God that He kept us safe. I pray that God will grant us peace, security, and wellness throughout this new year of 2023.

Korean Traditional Age Counting

In Korea, everybody gets one year older today, I mean the entire country. You may think it is weird but it is the way it has been in Korea. Korean traditional way of age counting is little bit different from America. In America, babies are born on their birthday and they are 0 year old until their first birthday. We count their age by days, weeks, and then months. On their birthdays, they get one year older. But in Korea, babies are one year old at the moment of their birth because they already spent almost a year, nine or ten months in their mother’s womb. We all celebrate birthdays as Americans do but they do not get one year older on their birthdays. In fact everyone gets one year older on the New Year’s Day—today. Statistically slightly over thousand babies are born each day in South Korea. So I assume another thousand babies were born yesterday. And all those thousand babies are now two years old. One year old at birth and plus one on the New Year’s Day. Biologically two days old, legally two years old. I am not joking. That is how we count the age in Korea. Well, I heard that Korean congress is considering to change the legal way of counting the age. But they have not yet. 

New Year’s Resolution

So the new year’s resolution of the Korean congress is to change the legal way of age counting, which is enthusiastically supported by all women over 30 because their age will instantly reduce. For example, if the law passes, a woman was thirty years old last year, supposed to be thirty-one now but she can be twenty-nine this year, again if the law passes. They can feel like travel back in time, getting younger. But the tradition is always hard to change. So I will see how it goes.

By the way, do you have your own new year’s resolution? I hope you all made very good new year’s resolutions. I honestly have not made real new year’s resolutions for the probably last eleven years. During my student years in Korea—twelve years from elementary to high school, and four years in college—I made the new year’s resolutions each year and kept them very well for a few weeks. Then I did not even remember what those were. When I was in Canada, my new year’s resolution was each year to get married—finally successful in seven years. And now I have not had a real new year’s resolutions for like eleven years. I think it is a good time for me and for you to have one now. So I brought two Scriptures as suggestions for your new year’s resolutions and mine.

Aim High

Today’s NT lesson is one of the most famous sermons by Jesus. And it is a wonderful and amazing sermon by itself. But it is also misinterpreted quite often. Jesus said not to worry about life. Some heretic sects say to their people to give up their life, to come and live at their group camp, to give all their money and belongings to church. I am amazed that there are still some people falling for it. Presbyterians are all smart and already know what Jesus means. But let me just repeat it again. Jesus is telling us to aim high. And that is not actually easy thing to do. In this world of materialism and capitalism, the biggest goal and purpose of people’s life is to get rich. People work so hard to make more money. Jesus is not saying that is wrong. Jesus told us that God our Father already knows that we need them. Jesus is not against making money by work or by investment. The point of Jesus’ preaching is that those money and materials shall not be our life goal or purpose. We are standing on the earth but our eyes must look up high above the heavens. The pagans live to make money. Money is their goal and the purpose of their life is to be rich. But we are Christians and we must be different. We must aim high. Our life goal is to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness not only in heaven but on earth as well. As we pray ‘Thy kingdom come,’ we got to ready ourselves, we got to ready our homes, we got to ready our church, we got to ready our town and community for the coming of God’s kingdom. So whatever our new year’s resolutions will be, let us make them aiming high above, not the earthly things.

Stay Balanced

The problem of aiming high for some people, especially very pious and religiously enthusiastic people, that is not Presbyterians, is that they go extreme. I have been in America for eleven years next month. So I have no idea how American society used to be before. But ever since I came to America, I have been told like thousand times that America is more divided than ever, and that we have never been this much divided. Personally I cannot tell if we are now more or less divided than before by being here for only eleven years. But I see this country is somewhat divided both politically and religiously. One side go extreme left. The other side go opposite extreme. One side says yes to abortion, the other no. One side says yes to gun control, the other no. I am not here to judge or decide which side is right or wrong. I am saying many people are one side extreme and they all lost their balance.

Last summer, I saw two quite similar videos from YouTube. A guest speaker was invited to speak at a university somewhere in this country. The speaker was quite left wing. Then hundreds of right wing students came protesting and blocking the speaker from entering the building. They were yelling at and calling him names. The other video was at a different university, still America. The speaker was right wing, and the hundreds of left wing students came and did the exactly the same. Left or right, progressive or conservative, it does not matter. They were all yelling and insulting anyone having different ideas from them. They were all plugged their ears, and did not even try to listen at all—only yelling and screaming. Healthy debates and discussions are missing in this country. Only bigotries are left. There is no healthy balance.

In this time such as this, God tells us through Joshua to have balance that God commanded us, “Turn not to the right hand or to the left.” We need to stay in the middle, not turning too much to one side because our job as the followers of Jesus Christ is to reconcile. Jesus is a complete human born as a helpless baby on Christmas day, and at the same time He is a complete God, and thus Jesus is in the middle between God the Father and the humans. And as the mediator, Jesus reconciled us to God. We got to do the same, staying in the middle, opening our ears to both sides, and eventually reconciling them, making peace in between. Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”

And let us also make our own lives balanced. Balanced meals with proteins and veggies. Balanced exercise, balanced reading, balanced entertainment, and balanced Bible study. And you can achieve all these by simply coming to Church Saturday 10:30 in the morning. It is like a life hack for you.

Conclusion

Friends, many of you might have stopped making new year’s resolutions as I have. How about we set them up this year so that we can make our lives in the new year better. And whatever resolutions we make, let us aim high looking up the heavens above, and stay balanced making peace wherever we go. Then we, the peacemakers, will be called the children of God, coheirs of God’s eternal kingdom with Jesus Christ. Amen.