A NEW COMMITMENTS FOR

THE NEW YEAR (2016)Colossians 3:12-17

Preached at ChristWay UMC on 1/3/2016By Rev. Daniel Yang

7 COMMITMENTS FOR 2016

1. COMMIT YOURSELF TO FORGET YOUR FAILURES

2. COMMIT YOURSELF TO GIVE UP YOUR GRUDGES

3. COMMIT YOURSELF TO RESTORE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

4. COMMIT YOURSELF TO TURN YOUR BACK TO TRANSGRESSIONS.

5. COMMIT YOURSELF TO LOVE6. COMMIT YOURSELF TO SERVICE7. COMMIT YOURSELF TO CHURCH

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Colossians 3:12-17

12 You are God's chosen people. You are holy and dearly loved. So put on tender mercy and kindness as if they were your clothes. Don't be proud. Be gentle and patient. 13 Put up with each other. Forgive the things you are holding against one another. Forgive, just as the Lord forgave you.

14 And over all of those good things put on love. Love holds them all together perfectly as if they were one.

15 Let the peace that Christ gives rule in your hearts. As parts of one body, you were appointed to live in peace. And be thankful.

16 Let Christ's word live in you like a rich treasure. Teach and correct each other wisely. Sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing with thanks in your hearts to God. 17 Do everything you say or do in the name of the Lord Jesus. Always give thanks to God the Father through Christ. Let Pray!

What are some of the activities at the Hmong New Year? Ball Tossing (Pov Pob) between two

persons during the Hmong New Year. We have no so called “dating” in our culture. Courtship in public means taboo or bring shameful to the parents and relatives. Courtship was only allowed at night after the parents fall sleep. Therefore, New Year is the only time the parents allowed their sons and daughters to courtship publicly in front of the people.

With “Pov Pob” the girls hold their balls and pick the guy she likes to have a conversations or perhaps is attractive to her. New Year is the time that parents allowed their sons and daughters to marriage. Hmong believe that it is a good month to marriage and start their lives together.

Bull Fighting (Nyuj Sib Nraus) – Attractive to all people.

Top Spin – Attractive to the men. night to stay warm and having

conversation with each other. Children learned their story through Grandfather's foretold story.

Eating Bread without Yeast – just like the Israel people in the Bible eat their unleavened bread for 7 days to remember when God brought them out of slavery. God instructed them to prepared unleavened bread because it quick to made it.

Every family will prepared bread and eat at night to stay warm and having conversation with each other. Children learned their story through Grandfather's foretold story.

Well it’s that time of year again when in a fit of optimism many of us make great promises to ourselves about what we are going to do in the New Year that we usually abandon about the second week in January.

I am not sure about your, but certainly I did most of mine.

How many of you feel you have achieved your dreams in 2015?

How is your resolutions last year? How may of you kept to your diet in 2015? For 2016, I have 7 new commitments for

us to start in the New Year that will please God and help us to have great relationship with each other called “The ChristWay’s family.”

How many of you actually kept going to the gym past February?

1. COMMIT YOURSELF TO FORGET YOUR FAILURES “Forgetting what is behind and

straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:13-14

That advice from God’s Word has stood the test of time. I don’t know of any more relevant and practical advice for us at the start of 2016 then that!

Proverbs 24:16 - "Even if good people fall seven times, they will get back up. But when trouble strikes the wicked, that's the end of them."

Don’t let your failures prevent your future…

Jeremiah 8:4-5 - "The LORD said: People of Jerusalem, when you stumble and fall, you get back up, and if you take a wrong road, you turn around and go back. So why do you refuse to come back to me? Why do you hold so tightly to your false gods?"

For 2015, we might stumble and fall but we need to get up and stay focus in 2016.

2. COMMIT YOURSELF TO GIVE UP YOUR GRUDGES For if you forgive men when they sin against

you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Mark 11:25 (NIV)

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13 (NIV)

3. COMMIT YOURSELF TO RESTORE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

Be Sure All are Committed With Love

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: Ephesians 4:15Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Ephesians 4:26-27

4. COMMIT YOURSELF TO TURN YOUR BACK ON YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS.

Transgression refers to presumptuous sin. It means “to choose to intentionally disobey; willful trespassing.”

David was referring to this kind of sin when he wrote, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered” (Psalm 32:1). When we knowingly run a stop sign, tell a lie, or deliberately disregard an authority, we are transgressing.

5. COMMIT YOURSELF TO LOVE John 13:34-35 34 “A new command I give

you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Romans 12:10 “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

First John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

6. COMMIT YOURSELF TO SERVICE

Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Philippians 2:5-7 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men

7. COMMIT YOURSELF TO CHURCH

Hebrews 10:24-25: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

How many churches have opened or closed? Church closed down not because they don’t give but because they don’t come to church. If they are in the church they should give.

Psalm 122:1-9 A Song of Ascents. Of David. I was glad when

they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. ...

Let make church is our priority in 2016… Everyone are committed to come to church unless you sick, work on Sunday or travel. Without YOU the church will be closed because YOU are the church.

ConclusionLet remember that we need to committed ourselves to1. COMMIT YOURSELF TO FORGET YOUR FAILURES2. COMMIT YOURSELF TO GIVE UP YOUR GRUDGES3. COMMIT YOURSELF TO RESTORE YOUR

RELATIONSHIPS4. COMMIT YOURSELF TO TURN YOUR BACK TO

TRANSGRESSIONS.5. COMMIT YOURSELF TO LOVE6. COMMIT YOURSELF TO SERVICE7. COMMIT YOURSELF TO CHURCH

LOVE story… Steven and the brilliant Lawyer.