POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – A NEW YEAR – A NEW TIME

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - A NEW YEAR - A NEW TIME

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

Take note: On Positive Daily Inspiration we are sharing daily the spiritual meanings on The 12 days of Christmas along with A LOT of good Christmas stories you could use. Subscribe or we will post daily in our archives:
http://positivechristianity.org/archivedir.php

(For donations to be credited to the calendar year – see below)

_____________________________________

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.” Ezekiel 36:26

I’d begin this morning by reading from the 40th Psalm: “I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God … You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you … Then I said, ‘Here I am in the scroll of the book it is written of me, I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart'” [Psalm 40:1-3, 5, 7-8].

I seek to encourage you, this new year, to live more from your heart. I understand that some people have a misunderstanding about what it means to live more from the heart. Just the other day a man came to me and said, “That has been the cause of all my trouble, all my life. I have been following my heart and it’s gotten me into all sorts of problems.”

I want to dispel some confusing thoughts about living from the heart.

Living from the heart does not mean blind emotionalism. It does not mean in every instance, “If it feels good, do it.” It does not mean to throw your intelligence and common sense overboard. Living from the heart means following God-given Christ intelligence.

Living more from the heart does not mean that you become more emotional.

The emotions grow out of our predominately held thoughts and beliefs – our persistently held attitudes. The emotions are actually seated lower than the heart – in the pit of the stomach.

You have to deal with your emotions in two ways. First, when you have them, you have to admit it. Have you ever seen anyone who you know is furious, who angrily says, “I am not angry!”?

You think, “Oh yeah? Then why is your face red and steam coming off of your scalp?”

You have to acknowledge your emotions and deal with them appropriately when they come up.

Then, if you find that these emotions have been destructive, you need to take some time looking at the thoughts and beliefs and attitudes that spawned them in the first place. Maybe you are going to have to make a correction in that area.

Our scripture referred to a new song. It concluded with the words, “I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart.” Each of us has a song of the heart. It is what we are about. We need to discover it, sing it, and live it, with all our being.

This is not about singing somebody else’s song, no matter how wonderful it might be. It is not about dancing to someone else’s tune. It is about finding and singing your own song, telling your own story, and dancing your own dance.

Your song, your message, your story, the meaning for your life was hidden within your heart, from God on high, the moment you were first conceived in the mind of the Almighty. I am sure many of you remember Thoreau’s words: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Whatever beat you march to, or tune you dance to, or song you sing, let it be yours. Let the music of your life be from your heart – the higher heart, the Christ within you.

And allow others the freedom to sing their songs, no matter how out of tune with your ear or syncopated in rhythm.

We are each created by God. Love others and appreciate them without exception, without trying to make them be like you, or sing your song, or play in your band, under your direction.

Ross Snyder wrote a wonderful piece entitled, “The Person Next To You.” His words have helped many to be more tolerant of the songs of the heart of brothers and sisters who are different from them.

I want you to take a moment right now and look at the people around you.

I want you now to close your eyes and listen to these words from Mr. Snyder that I have modified somewhat. With your eyes closed, meditatively think about the people around you as you hear these words.

A person has invisible activities. The person nearest you is an exhaustible sort of existence. Nine-tenths of his or her possibility has not yet been touched on. Deep within this person is a great toughness, a great tenacity, in the face of adversity.

A person has an overpowering will to survive, to arrive at destinations, to blossom with the spontaneity of a rose at 7 o’clock on a June morning.

The person sitting next to you is an urge to become manifest, to become something in particular, to emerge as a dependable structure, from out of a hazy, undefined cloud of being, and then to make clear and vivid this pattern until he or she is significant life.

This person is in pain to be authentic, to experience a moment of truth, to have a story and a song. This one needs to be known even as he or she knows oneself – at a level deeper than words.

Each person needs to know his or her own song of the heart, and needs to sing it, proudly. Most people either do not know their song or are afraid to sing it, so most people are suffering. We seek to be authentic, to be real, not just a copy of somebody else, not just standing on the stage singing somebody else’s song. It may be a great song, but if it is not ours, we are not being authentic. We need to be heard, acknowledged, and appreciated for singing our song, our way.

We are not isolated cave dwelling hermits or some kind of individual, self-contained creatures. We live in community with other human spiritual beings. We need to be heard. We need to be acknowledged, appreciated, and loved. And we need to actively listen to others and hear and appreciate and acknowledge and love those who are around us.

I believe these acts of listening, hearing, acknowledging, appreciating, and loving others and ourselves are vital to our world. These acts are needed for us to be whole and well and strong, and for our planet to be healthy and prosperous.

I believe that this is the message that Jesus Christ brought to this world.

I have three extremely important ideas about living your vision that I want to share this morning. I want you to take your Sunday bulletin and a pencil or a pen because I want you to participate with me this morning.

Somewhere on that bulletin I want you to write four key thoughts. I want you to take them home with you.

The first thought is “My song of the heart.” Put a colon after it and draw a line under it. Beneath “My song of the heart,” write the word “clarity;” beneath that word write “commitment;” and beneath that word write “cooperation.”

My song of the heart:

Clarity

Commitment

Cooperation

If you have these four items working in your life, you will have a magnificent life. And if any of these is missing, something is missing from your life and you are not living up to your full potential as an authentic, actualized, loving, whole person within the community of humankind.

What is your song of the heart? It is something more than you have right now. It is that which defines you as a person. Your song of the heart is what your life is all about. If you do not know your song of the heart, how can you stand straight and tall and sing it unashamedly on the stage of your life? If you do not know your story, then how are you going to know if you have lived it when you come to the end of your life?

Ninety-nine percent of the people on this planet consider themselves unsuccessful or have some degree of frustration and unhappiness precisely because they do not know, or they do not sing their own song. They get by; they exist; they breathe; they eat; they sleep; they go to work; they have children and grandchildren. And they live unfulfilled because they never sang their own song in their own way. This is a great tragedy and a tremendous waste of human life. And it is totally unnecessary. Most people are not living their own lives, they are living a life that someone else wanted them to live.

Let me share two true stories with you. One man sang his own unique song and the other did not. First is the one who did not sing. Tim wanted to be an architect. He took mechanical drawing in high school. He was good at it.

During his senior year in high school, he studied architecture. He was one of the best in the class. He wanted to go to Georgetown University, which has a very fine engineering school with pretty high academic standards.

His high school guidance counselor told him he was too weak in mathematics to go there. This young man’s parents had never been to college, but they wanted him to have the opportunity, so they saved money for him and gave him a choice. He could go to college or he could have a brand new car. Because that guidance counselor told him he couldn’t make it at Georgetown University, he decided not to sing his song. The day after graduation, he had a brand new shiny car. He was proud of that.

Today, twenty-five years after graduation, that car sits rusting and decaying in a scrap heap, and so does his vision.

Brian is another story. His family was dirt poor. Brian’s father died when Brian was young. His mother did the best she could. Brian’s song was to be a lawyer, but there was no money to go to college, not even a state school. So, he went into the service and served in Vietnam. Four years later, he got a part-time job working in the inner city, and he went to college on a GI bill. He was a “C” student. His grades weren’t really good enough for law school, but he wanted to live his vision with all his heart, and he did.

He applied to dozens of law schools at considerable expense, and everyone of them turned him down, except for one. They said to him, “You don’t really have the grades to get into law school, but because you worked your way through college and you helped kids in the inner city, we think there is something about you that deserves a second look. We have a summer remedial program. If you take the program and successfully complete it, we’ll let you into law school in the fall.”

He did it. He struggled. He made it into law school by the skin of his teeth. When he graduated from law school, he did so with honors.

Today, he is married with a great wife and two gorgeous children. He put his wife through college (nobody in her family had ever been through college); he put his younger brother through college. He’s in his mid-forties now.

He only has to work when he wants to – as much or as little as he likes.

He lives in a beautiful home and is happy and satisfied.

He once confessed that he knew he had just average intelligence, but he was committed to living his vision. He did that, and to this day, he reads at least one chapter in some kind of positive thinking, self-development book, every night.

He sings his own song of the heart and you can sing yours too. But first you have to have clarity. You need to discover your song, if you don’t already know it. You must tune into your own heart’s music. That is not always easy to do because everyone else’s music is blaring around you.

Right now, as I am speaking, there are other noises. There may be people scraping ice, heaters blowing, people rustling papers, or doors opening and closing. You can tune them out if you want to.

What is your song of your heart? Is it what your parents said? Or your teachers? Or television? Or movies? Or your school guidance counselor?

Or your minister? Or your friends? Or society? Or family? Or the ego?

Or is it what the higher heart tells you?

You and God are the only ones who know what your song is. You might have known when you were a child, but you put it aside because someone said it was dumb, or it embarrassed him or her, and they didn’t want you to do it. A parent might have said to you something like one man’s father said to him when he told him he was going to be a minister. He said, “Why do you want to be a minister? You will never make a living at that! Be a lawyer, like me, or a doctor.”

If you are not clear, you cannot sing your song; you can’t live your life fully, you can’t find your way. Take the time to be clear, concise, and straightforward in your song of the heart. Work at it, diligently.

Don’t rush it; don’t be impatient.

Decide to keep an appointment with God every day. Give your time back to God.

I encourage you to make an appointment with God. Sit in the silence of prayer.

Pray. Meditate. Do a heart lock-in. Do it regularly, until you hear your song again. If it takes two years, or five, or ten? So, what! The important thing is that before you exit this stage of life, you have stood tall and proud and clearly lived your vision in front of God and everybody.

The second idea is commitment. You must be totally committed to your clear, concise vision of your heart. Jesus knew His song of the heart and had total commitment to it. On the Cross, as He was taking His last breaths, He was teaching us some of His most powerful lessons in life.

He was sharing with His very last ounce of energy.

Do you remember His last recorded words from the Cross? “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” His purpose was to be our spiritual leader and example. He was so committed to that purpose that he could look death in the eye and not back up. No one ever lived there vision well, without commitment.

In Proverbs 16:3, we read, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”

Does one who never really lived ever really die? If you want to really live, you have to have a heart, a theme, a story, a vision, to which you are committed.

If you are at a place in your life where you are frustrated because you don’t really know your song of your heart, then now is the time to make a commitment to discover it again. Now is the time, no matter what your age, to discover your song.

Go to God. It is not God’s reluctance that keeps you from getting God’s message. It might be your own resistance. It is our own resistance if we are not getting our guidance right away. Some people are afraid, for some reason or another, about living their vision.

The point is, if you have a song of your heart and you are committed to it, then you will have the sweetest, most precious, most wonderful experience known to man or woman.

The last idea is cooperation. In the 133rd Psalm, we read: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head … it is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained His blessing, life forevermore.” [Psalm 133:1-3]

You should not sing your song alone. You need harmony and accompaniment.

How wonderful it is that there are kindred spirits to sing with you, to support you, to lift you up.

Human life is not meant to be an A cappella solo. There are beautiful arrangements with orchestra, your own percussion section, and voices to support you and lift you up.

You sing the song of your heart and invite others to sing and support you, and then, in turn, you support them and help them sing theirs. That is dwelling together in God’s love, cooperating with our fellow human beings.

When we do that, we find that we are truly living in the place where the Lord ordained God’s blessing, life forevermore.

One of the reasons we have churches is for kindred to live together in love.

What one heart cannot bear alone, 100 hearts beating together can.

I would hope that when you find your heart cannot bear its burden alone, you come and be part of this church or any church, that you will find a class, a minister, a counselor, or a retreat. Cooperation is a key to singing your song.

Today, we touched upon the most important topic I know of: the song of your heart. There were three key ideas:

Clarity – be clear and concise in your song.

Commitment – be committed to your song and if you don’t know it, be committed to finding it.

Cooperation – cooperate with others in singing your song and in helping them sing theirs.

Do you remember that attorney named Brian I talked about? I said he was a “C” student. It dawned on me as I was writing this that he was, indeed, a “C” student where it counted.

He had the three C’s – clarity, commitment, and cooperation.

That has made the difference in his life and it can make a difference in your life. That is the way to way to fulfillment – to sing the song of your heart and live your vision.

Happy New Year!

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________

This is the time when we experience the presence and the power of God. Meditation is the time when we go in prayer and feel and know that we are one with God, that we always have been and always will be.
We have prepared for this time. I would like you to find a comfortable position: maybe put your feet flat on the floor and take anything that might be in your hands and put it aside. Breathe deeply at your own pace, several times.

With each inhalation, know that you are drawing in faith, as well as fresh oxygen. With each exhalation, know that you are letting go of tensions, stress, and strain. You breathe in faith and you let go of any thoughts or feelings or frustrations that have made you feel separate from God.

Breathe deeply and release slowly and gently. Know with me, silently in prayer: I am relaxed; I am poised; I am at peace; I am one with God; I always have been and always will be. For the next few moments, I stop worrying about what might be and I stop fretting over what has been.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I am still, centered in my heart, and there I meet with God. There in the quiet, in the peace and love-filled space of my heart, I remember what my life is about, what my dream is, what my heart-song is.

I remember something I may have let go of many years ago, believing it was impractical, or I was incapable of accomplishing it, or that it just would not make any difference to anyone. I surround that dream, that vision, with my belief.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

This day, many of us have dreams for 2021.

God will help us to make this world a better place. One of the best ways to live our own dreams, is to be free and not encumbered by lack of faith.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God helps you to be capable of accomplishing your dream. Believe that. God is helping me, making me capable of accomplishing my dream. If I give myself over to that dream, totally, if I am clear in what it is that my heart longs to sing, if I am committed, if I cooperate with God and my fellow human beings, it is achievable.

This day, dare to believe there is a song in you that will lift you above frustration, feelings of failure, doubt, insecurity, or fear. It will lift you to a new life, greater happiness, fulfillment, peace of mind, prosperity, and health. By going in prayer and finding the song of your heart, giving yourself over to it, and working in partnership with God, you are unstoppable.

Dream your dream. Live your life as you have always wanted to, and trust God in the universe to stream into you and provide you with all the resources and energy and wisdom you need to stand tall and to proudly sing your song. You can do it. It is the truth about you. It is the truth about God with you, right now.

Now, gently, peacefully, serenely, draw your attention back to this place and time. Take another deep breath and know that you are prepared for the truth that is your truth, this day, from God.

May God bless this year for us all.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,000,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

_____

DONATION: To donate credited to this calendar year, do so by midnight on the 31st or send us a check dated before 2021. Your thank you letter will reflect the offering date, even if we receive it at the post office after the first.
Instant online, or recurring monthly giving:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387
Thank you!
___

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth