Resolved: Sin No More
“Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” - John 5:14
It is the end of the year again when we reflect on what we left behind and consider what sits before us. As the calendar turns, it is a great time to turn our lives fresh to God.
Many people embark on a journey resolving to make some significant changes in their lives in the new year: weight loss, overcoming some obstacle, reading books, giving up a temptation, getting out of debt. These things can be important and starting in a new year can provide the motivation as a new start, a new beginning, a chance to define a new season of life.
Sometimes the resolutions can seem destined to fail. How many have had a weight loss resolution multiple years and still can’t achieve their goals? It leaves many feeling like there is no point in trying.
In John 5, a man had been unable to walk for 38 years! No matter how much he resolved to solve his problem, he couldn’t make it happen. He had reached the point of not caring anymore. Why try?
Then, Jesus came along and healed him. He gave the man a new start. Now he could walk. Jesus accomplished his resolution for him. Yet, it wasn’t going to solve the man’s deeper issues. Jesus told him there is something more important, “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” What could be worse than being unable to walk for nearly four decades?!
The destruction of your soul—both temporally and eternally.
What is the point of accomplishing any of your goals if you end up in hell (Mark 8:36)? And how can you succeed in your resolutions without submitting your passions first to Christ (Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:34)?
Go ahead and make resolutions. It is good to be better with money, more fit and healthy, more knowledgeable and successful. But it is more important to resolve to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, you have his Spirit to help you walk away from sin and toward righteousness, so you can resolve to walk in the light (1 John 1:5–7). Make that your most important resolution.
Like Edwards, focus your resolutions on making you more faithful to God and useful for his mission. “Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.”
May you be so successful in your resolutions this year.
Resolved: to thank God for Redemption City Church!
Adam and the elders