I pray your New Year is filled with God's grace and mercy.

Let us center ourselves with prayer. God of mercy, grant that the Word you speak this day may take root in our hearts, and bear fruit to your honor and glory, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reading Colossians 3:12-17
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe your selves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Sermon “Be-Attitudes for the New Year!”
Happy New Year!
Every year we make New Year’s resolutions. We want to improve our health, so we create a diet and try to follow it. Or we promise to quit smoking and make an action plan. Or we join a gym and promise to work out at least three times a week. We promise not to waste money and to save or to tithe, or to be on a schedule so we can be more productive. We decide we will work on our relationships by setting aside a date-night for our spouse or a game night for our children.
This can be called a program approach. You set up a program and you are doomed to failure. How many diets have you started, only to find yourself going back to your same old habits. You get busy, you get distracted and your commitment begins to waver and your program begins to fall apart, usually around the 24th or 25th of January.
So maybe what we need for real change is an attitude adjustment. We cannot change our behavior without changing our attitudes, because our attitudes are basis for our behavior. So let’s look at some real change we can make in lives.
1 Be positive.
Paul uses a clothing analogy and you know if you think about it, if your clothes or your shoes are uncomfortable, if they are too tight you can’t move freely. You know yourself when you’re mindset is fearful you feel all tight and tense, and it is hard to be compassionate and you can’t possibly be kind. You can’t be open to hearing others and when you can’t hear others you get focused on yourself you lose your humility and without humility you can neither be patient nor gentle. It is like having ill-fitting clothes, we can’t move around freely if we live in fear. Paul in II Timothy tells us; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
2 Be perfect.
I don’t mean perfect in the sense of never making a mistake. It is Christ’s love expressed through us that makes us perfect in God’s eyes.
The difference between a nice clothes and a stylish look is the way all the pieces come together. In God’s closet we find love. Love is the attitude that brings all the parts of our character into a single whole. Love, in the words of one writer is “not an emotion, but a policy.” Just as wood putty fills cracks and defects in wood, so that the wood might be useful, so love covers the individual defects and idiosyncrasies in our faith so that we can be useful to God and to one another. The Message paraphrase of the Bible calls love “Our basic all purpose garment,” some might call it the little black dress of faith. Without love our compassion, humility all of those wonderful qualities are but a clanging symbol.
3 Be peaceful and thankful.
Living at peace with our families, friends, co-workers and fellow Christians is not always easy. Noah had as much to fear from the woodpecker inside the ark as he did the storm raging round him. Our “umpire of conduct,” paraphrasing the Greek, is the rule of peace.
There is a question we might ask ourselves before we take an action. “Will my action promote peace?” Has anyone here ever improved a relationship by being confrontational? Another way to consider the same question would be simply, “Will I, will God, be thankful for how I acted?” Holding those questions in the back of your mind will contribute in a positive manner to all your relationships
4 Be praiseful.
Whatever you do, do it as praise to God. This maybe the most helpful attitude change you can make. Look at why you do things; do you separate out your reasons for doing things? Are there churchy things you do to praise God and then other things you do for other reasons? Just as a little experiment, tonight when you place your head on the pillow go through your day, what did you do that was to praise God and then what were the reasons that you did everything else. I had a friend and he was in constant conversation with God everything he did was prayer of praise. As result his life became a prayer of praise to his creator. Now did he live a perfect life, was he ideal Christian no, but he was grounded in God.
5 Be purposeful.
The name of Jesus Christ is the center of our Christian living. His name provides our identity [I am a Christian].
It provides something else, something perhaps we don’t think about. The name of Jesus Christ provides us authority for our conduct [I do all I do in Jesus name]. As a Christian I need not cower not bully, neither whine nor despair.
If we begin the year not by making a list of all that is wrong with us and trying to white knuckle change by creating a program, a schedule but by looking at our attitudes. Going into God’s closet taking out what he offers us and remember whose we are and who we are. Seek first the kingdom of God and all else will be added to you. All those resolutions that we make and break before the month out will be unnecessary, because the change that you seek will happen as a natural outgrowth of being clothed in Christ.
Be positive, Be perfect [in God’s eyes], Be peaceful and thankful, Be praiseful,
And Be purposeful. And have a blessed New Year!
The grace and peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Pastor D