Hopeful Beginnings

Pastor Meyer's Sermon

Sunday, December 31, 2006

He was one of the greatest military soldiers of his time, but it seemed to be a hopeless beginning for him. You see, Hiram was born to a father who was cold and harsh and would always look to his son as a failure. His mother was not a source of emotional support to him, either. In fact, Hiram would write later that he never once saw his mother moved to tears. Hiram was small for his age. At the age of 17, his father forced him to join the U.S. Military Academy and, at that time, he barely made the height and weight requirements as he stood at 5'1" and 120 pounds. He had no heart for the military and so he was afraid of failure and, not only that, but he hated the school. But he dare not go against his father's decision. In fact, when the Academy listed his name wrong, he was so timid that he did not go and correct the error. He went through the rest of his life with a partly erroneous name. In time, Hiram settled into his school and he graduated below the middle of his class. And when he returned home, though, he had to endure the mocking and the ridicule of his neighbors because he was in a new uniform. And then that old humiliation he was feeling at a younger age returned, and the boy was so emotionally wounded by this that he felt self conscious in a uniform. After marrying and achieving the rank of captain, he dropped out of the military. He tried various ventures within civilian life in an effort to build a career, but he was not successful. And his path so discouraged him that he almost never became the leader that his country so desperately needed. When the Civil War broke out, he went out to try to enlist as an officer and, to his surprise, found it hard to even get an interview with those who were able to appoint him a position. But once he was appointed the position, he chose to forget his past failures and mistakes and he forged ahead showing exactly what kind of a military leader he could be. And for this young man who lived with a sense of inadequacy who never had any great physical stature and who almost couldn't even make it in a career, his name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. We remember him as Ulysses S. Grant, leader of the victorious northern army and later, President of the United States .

My Friends, we are here at the end of the year and about to embark on a new one. And it's easy for us to get caught up in looking into the past. We see television shows that are having programs that talk about the best and the worst of 2006. We have magazines that are out now, Life magazine Looking to the Past the Last 70 Years and ESPN the biggest stories of 2006. Newsweek , Time , and USA Today , to name a few, will also have articles dealing with the past year. And so we can't help but find ourselves reflecting on past events and possibly even coming up with our own top events of the past year. Maybe it surrounds the mistakes that we've made over the past year. Or maybe we think about the times we've hurt those around us or that we've been hurt. We might even allow an inkling of a feeling to enter a mind that we are somehow failures because we cannot do anything but focus on the past and the mistakes that have been made.

My Friends, it need not be that way. God has given us a hope and a promise. And even though it may appear because of this past year, the coming new year will consist of hopeless beginnings, it's never too late to look ahead, to forge ahead with hope and assurance. Indeed, that is what God would have us do.

And so this morning, I want to take a look at the man whose writings and witness have touched more lives for God than any other except Christ Jesus Himself. St. Paul was a persecutor of the church. He was there when Stephen became the first Christian martyr. In fact, he guarded the cloaks of those that were stoning Stephen to death. But a change took place in the apostle Paul's life. He became a dynamo for Christ and if anybody can give us advice on what we can do to look toward this coming new year with hope and assurance and not look back to the past year with disappointments and wishing that things had gone better, it's the apostle Paul.

I invite you to listen to his word from Philippians 3, “But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” If you wanted to write a prescription of how you can go about looking to the new year with hope and assurance and use just a few words, you would be hard pressed to do better than what the apostle Paul did.

So this morning, as we think about the coming new year, I want to talk to you about three different words. Three different words I would like for you to take home with you this morning, three different words I would like for you to take with you into the new year to help this new year be one of hopeful beginnings. And the first one is St. Paul 's life had a focus. He writes, “This one thing I do.” Most of us make the mistake of doing all kinds of different things but we see Paul's life had one focus. His focus was “the prize for which God had called me in Christ Jesus.” And that prize, My Friends, was eternal life given by God and everything he did in life was aimed toward that direction. And that was how he had such an impact on his own time and upon ours.

We know in every walk of life, successful people are focused people. They know what it is they want and they know exactly where they are headed. Nothing deters them. All their thoughts and their energies are aimed in the direction of their dreams. And if you want a workable definition of sin, it would be anything that distorts our focus, that causes us to stray away from God's goal for our lives. In fact, we can often find ourselves missing the goal God has given us because we're looking elsewhere. We're looking in the wrong direction.

This past summer, I had the privilege of going with the teenagers to New York City for a mission trip and we took a train on the way out there. And I remember one of the teenagers was sitting in one of those backwards seats, you know those seats that look back toward the back of the train. And after awhile, he said, “Man, I need to move. I'm getting tired of looking at whatever already passed.” There are lots of times where we're looking in the wrong way. We may go about life with a certain goal, but it's not the right goal. It's the wrong one, and we find ourselves tired and frustrated and angry and depressed and we don't know why. And it's because we're not focused on something worthy of our ambitions. And Jesus provides us with that goal upon which we are to focus. He tells us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” In other words, focus on that which you believe God would have you be and do not let anything distract you or deter you. St. Paul was focused, “But this one thing I do.”

St. Paul also knew how to forget. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. So many people are concerned with the past that they destroy their future. They cannot quit looking back. That could have happened to Paul himself. He could have let his guilt about persecuting the church prevent him from giving his best. He could have just hung there with his head down and said, “Nobody's going to listen to me. Look what I've done. I'm finished. It's over.” But guilt is a strange phenomenon. It's a much more powerful force in our lives than most of us realize. And sometimes it will play tricks on you. I remember reading a story about a little boy who, during a power blackout, was acting very guilty and his parents were concerned and they went over to ask the little boy what's wrong. And the little boy broke down and started crying and, through his sobs, he confessed on the way home from school, he had kicked a power pole and he was sure his action of kicking the power pole is what caused the blackout in the entire city. And that might sound extraordinary but really it's not as extraordinary as it sounds because psychologists have used the term “scruples” to describe the person whose sense of guilt over past deeds hinders them from future accomplishments. You see, the word “scruples” comes from the Latin word for small pebble. And you know what it's like when you're walking down the street and you get a small pebble or a rock in your shoe. And every once in a while, you get that intermittent pain of the pebble. So a scrupulous person is walking through life feeling the intermittent pains of guilt. And the question becomes for us is how do we deal with such guilt? And my encouragement is to remember Psalm 32, “And you, Lord, forgave the guilt of my sin.” You see, we need to take our guilt and our shame and cast them onto Jesus because that's what Jesus bled for and He breathed His last for so that we could breath, free of shame and guilt. After all, if the Holy God can forgive us, surely it's time we can forgive ourselves.

St. Paul didn't let his past mistakes hinder him and St. Paul never took his eyes off the goal, and he was a master forgetter. So he was focused, he was forgetting, and then there's one more thing. St. Paul was committed to forging ahead. He writes, “But this one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus.” Paul continues to strain forward because he knew what God wanted him to do. Because he let nothing deter him and because he was willing to put his faith into immediate action, whether he was standing before a mob or whether he was standing before scholars or standing before kings, he was faithful to the calling of God in Christ.

What about you? What is it that God wants you to do? Do you know? Have you focused on what you think He's calling you to do? Maybe it's to take a leap of faith and join a small group or maybe it's to become more intentional in your bible reading or maybe it's to focus on building a more solid relationship with your spouse or your kids. The questions become, “Are you willing to lay aside the pain of the past and commit yourself? Are you ready to go into immediate action? “

Perhaps you feel your life has not been as effective as you would like for it to be. Today, My Friends, can be a new hopeful beginning for you because you can be focused on Christ and His will for your life. We can forget those things that have happened in the past and forge on to a new year filled with hope and assurance. With God's help, St. Paul was able to do it. And with God's help, so will you and I. Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church