Sinclair Ferguson

But they're not more secure because you and I are held, if we're Christ's, in the hollow of His hand.

They are happier, but because He is ours and we are His, we can be happy here.

Of course, we'll only know perfect happiness when we're with those saints in glory and when we're perfectly holy, when we're with the spirits of righteous men made holy, as Hebrews says, and in the presence of Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

That's where our lives are heading, to be conformed to the image of God's Son.

But if we're His, we can already be happy.

So as we're still in the very first week of this new year, let me wish you a very happy new year.

We don't have to write the date nearly as often as we used to, do we?

Our emails carry it automatically.

And most of us don't write personal letters anymore.

Do I say a happy new year?

I'm not really very sure what we should do as Christians.

But what I'm fairly sure of is that we can still say Happy New Year.

This week we've already had a covenant for the New Year commitment and a hymn for the New Year praise.

And I want today to talk about a text for the New Year.

Actually, it's a very short passage in one of Paul's letters.

You're probably familiar with it, and perhaps you even know it by heart.

It may even be your life verse.

But even if you don't know it, I think you'll be able to remember it quite easily.

It's Paul's personal resolution in Philippians 3, verses 10 through 14.

He says, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death and by any means possible attaining the resurrection from the dead.