First Baptist Church St. Simons Island

Author: Rev. Justin Moser

Resolutions

Why do we make New Year’s resolutions? I haven’t done any research so this is just my perception, but I imagine that most resolutions do not stand the test of a busy life.

One of my jobs in seminary was working the front desk at the campus gym. Around this time every year we would get incredibly busy as people woke up insanely early to work out and shed those pounds they vowed they would lose in the new year. By the time March rolled around, however, things were back to normal. All of the “resolution exercisers” were back to doing what they had always done. Their desired rhythm of life slipped back into their old way of doing things. So if most of them fail, why do we do them? Or maybe we’ve stopped doing them because we’ve noticed that we hardly ever kept them. If we weren’t going to keep them than why bother, right?

Two words which are different, but related: new, hope. The reason we make resolutions is because deep down we long for newness. We know that some of the patterns that we have fallen into are not healthy for us and we long to change. We long for newness. The New Year, merely gives us the occasion to dream up new patterns, new life. Hope. A new year means new beginnings. The chance to do things differently, a chance to make the right choice and not be bound be the previous year(s). And this prospect, fills us with hope doesn’t it?

The Bible talks about these two words a lot. In fact, 1 Peter 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection from the dead.” New birth. Living hope. That is why we make resolutions. But instead of this being a yearly thing, we are told that new birth and living hope are daily realities of God’s grace.

From the Youth Pastor – July 25th, 2014

If there is one thing that my first full week here has demonstrated it is that we have an awesome church, filled with awesome people, and the young men and women of our church are hungry for depth and eager to make a difference in the world for Jesus Christ. What a great combination!

This past Sunday we started “Juice with Jesus” a series in Sunday School where we will be diving into the life and teachings of Jesus. Join us this week for Sunday school, drink some juice, eat some breakfast, and become strong as Jesus encourages and challenges us. We will be making a slight change to SYTYCD night. This week, we will still meet on Wednesday, July 23rd. In the future, however, instead of watching it on Wednesdays when it airs, we will be watching it on Thursday nights, beginning July 31st. No, you do not have to dance! Come and fellowship with us at our house! If you need our address, let me know.

Only two more Gathering Place Main Events left for the summer. If you are going to join us for dinner this Sunday, please let me know by Friday, July 25th so that I can give the person supplying dinner an informed estimate of how much to prepare. Meet at the church at 6:30pm. Our goal will be to get there by 7:30pm.

If anyone is interested in providing dinner for our Gathering Place event, I am still looking for someone to do August 3rd, our last one of the summer. Thanks to the Joy Sunday school class for providing our dinner this last Sunday.