What a magnificent Christmas season this has been!

How grateful we all are to the wonderful choir, to the rest of our musicians, sound and lighting personnel, ushers, children's choirs, and our own Dr. James Melton, who helped put together a great season with three Christmas concerts, four Christmas Eve services and all the seasonal music for our three services each weekend of Advent.

Perhaps the best way to bring a signature of closure to all this celebration as we come to the end of this year and into the New Year is to read through this poignant story, author unknown, that is circulating the web. It's titled Who Started Christmas??

WHO STARTED CHRISTMAS?? This morning I heard a story on the radio of a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children. After many hours of looking at row after row of toys and everything else imaginable, and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids. She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the elevator doors opened and there was already a crowd in the car. She pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and stated, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot." From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, "Don't worry, we already crucified him." For the rest of the trip down the elevator it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Don't forget this year to keep the One who started this whole Christmas thing in your every thought, deed, purchase, and word. If we all did it, just think of how different this whole world would be.

In a way, that says it all, doesn't it?

We now have segued from the hectic pace of those weeks leading up to Christmas. Our narrow attention is shifting to those semi-nostalgic, reflective memories of an ebbing 2007, as we anticipate New Year's Day and the fresh start of 2008.

Each newspaper, news magazine and TV news program presents its images of the year just past. Time magazine no longer just announces the Person of the Year, who this year is Vladimir Putin whom they call the Czar of the New Russia; but they also publish the lists of the runners-up. Number two was Al Gore, the former Vice President, now a Nobel Laureate, who, in an essay by Bono, is referred to as "America's environmental conscience." Number three is J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. Number four is Hu Jintao, China's leader, who depends on both ancient wisdom and Communist doctrine as he guides his nation into the future. And number five is David Petraeus, the Commanding General in Iraq, who "fought America's most difficult foreign war--and one at home."

Add to these pictures an image of Barry Bonds hitting his seven hundred fifty-sixth home run, the Virginia Tech killings, Britney Spears shaving her head, and the deaths of prominent persons such as Boris Yeltsin, Luciano Pavarotti, Lady Bird Johnson, Ingmar Bergman, Beverly Sills, Steve Fossett, Jerry Falwell, Robert Goulet and Norman Mailer, and you have enough nostalgia to fuel a full day of retrospective musings, as we conclude this year and move to the next.

These moments are noted for our New Year's resolutions, aren't they?

Why is it we make such a big deal over the end of one year and the beginning of another? Why is it that we evaluate our own lives with a clear chronological self-identity that involves our numerical age?

Ten years ago, Lisa Grunwald, the author of a novel titled New Year's Eve, writing in an essay in the New York Times Magazine, observes, "Why mark time by years, anyway? Without a year, I would not be 37 years old. I would just be -- me. We would have no mandatory retirement, no Sweet 16, no annual reports. Without a year, we wouldn't have to choose from a too-wide assortment of Filofax inserts. Above all, we could stumble giddily upon our occasions for celebration rather than having them forced upon us."

Well, facts being what they are, we do measure life chronologically. Our birthdays are important to us. And the end of one year and the beginning of the next, for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, gives us some additional incentive to stop, look ourselves directly in the mirror and do some course alterations. It's a wonderful opportunity to claim God's grace, coming to the foot of the cross, dumping that accumulated stuff that gets in the way of our productivity, that robs us of our joy. What a privilege it is to confess our sins, claim God's forgiveness, and then to come to the table remembering God's provision for us through the life, death and resurrection of His Son and His coming in all the fullness of the Person of the Holy Spirit to enable us to live one day at a time.

As we come to the table today, I'd like to share with you, quite briefly, seven keys to unlock a productive 2008.

As I sat down to write the sermon this week, I asked myself why in the world I picked the topic I had announced, "Keys to Unlock a Happy New Year." I don't even really like that word "happy." It implies such superficiality in a world that has the kinds of issues that we observe.

Just this week, we've seen that image of Benazir Bhutto, the former two-time Prime Minister and would-be Prime Minister of Pakistan, killed by a suicide attacker. To several of us in our congregation, those images have come close to home. Bill and Larrie Parks, who each year are on the hosting team of the National Prayer Breakfast, for several years, hosted the Asian Hospitality Room where dignitaries from that part of the world could come and relax and enjoy refreshments and conversation. Several years ago, Dick and Bev Todd and I were invited by them to come and spend some time in between meetings in that reception room at the Washington Hilton. I'll never forget intimate conversation with Ms. Bhutto, Harvard-educated, intelligent, attractive, passionate about wanting her country to have greater democracy, set free from the one extreme of the rule of an oligarchy made up of self-centered military leaders or, at the other extreme, a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist regime. Her assassination only reminds us of how vulnerable we are in today's world.

So it isn't easy to use the word "happy." Better are the words "joyful," "blessed," or "productive."

The text for today is Psalm 119:9-16. It begins with the rhetorical question, "How can young people keep their way pure?" Although it is designed to help young people, it also is pregnant with significance for persons of all ages. The fact is, we're entering a new year. It's a new beginning for each of us, and we are privileged to make the most of it. It's a fresh new beginning that comes, leaving that Hefty bag full of junk at the foot of the cross, claiming God's forgiveness and new life for the future. This is a moment to exchange our garbage for grace!

So let's look at these seven keys.

Key #1: Live in obedience to God's Word.

The Psalmist understands clearly the importance of a life lived in obedience to God's Word.

Although this is not an academic treatise on the importance of the Bible, it is a statement that is prayed out by the Psalmist, dealing with that part of the Scriptures he had at the time--basically the first five books of the Old Testament. He cries out of his own heart the desire that is his, to live a life that is pure. He realizes that that can only happen as he lives in obedience to what God has told him about life, guarding his life with God's Word.

Fortunately, today, we have not only the first five books of the Bible, but we have all the richness of the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

I've discovered the hard way through the years that it is one thing to know God's Word academically; it's another thing to live by it. How sad it is when preachers and seminary professors, who have a tremendous knowledge of the Word of God, mess up their lives in the ministry by simply not living according to it.

The Psalmist answers his own question as to how he can keep his way pure. He responds, "By guarding it according to your word" (Psalm 119:9).

Are you living your life in obedience to God, guarding it by God's Word?

Key #2: Seek God with your whole heart.

The Psalmist writes, "With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments" (Psalm 119:10).

What is your aspiration in life? What is your heart's desire? What is your ambition? What do you really yearn for?

Be honest. The key to unlocking a blessed, happy, fulfilled, productive, a joyous 2008 is to be a person seeking God with all your heart. Is that your case?

Key #3: Treasure God's Word in your heart.

The Psalmist writes, "I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you" (Psalm 119:11).

King James states this, "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." Some would say that this means memorizing Scripture. That's a tremendous thing to do. I thank God for the Scripture I have memorized. It comes to me at times when I do not have a Bible with me, an access to the Word of God at a moment of decision. But it's not just the memorization of verses. It's the integration of the very core of biblical teaching into our lives. The key to unlocking the year ahead in terms of joy and fulfillment and being all that God dreams of your being involves the very treasuring of God's Word in your heart.

Question: Are you treasuring God's Word in your heart, internalizing it into the very core of your being?

Key #4: Bless the Lord with praise.

The Psalmist writes, "Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes" (Psalm 119:12).

Stop, think through all the things that God has done in your life. Think of all the promises in His Word that He has fulfilled. I find that I tend to concentrate on those promises that are not yet fulfilled in my life. When I stop to count my blessings and to address God with praise for who He is and what He's done in my life, I find my very being transformed. The list of what he has done is so much larger than those areas in which He has not yet given me His answer. People wonder how anyone can make sense out of certain tragedies, ongoing problems in one's life. I guess there's no way, unless our lives are lives of rejoicing and praise.

Are you blessing the Lord with praise?

Key #5: Declare to others God's Word.

The Psalmist writes, "With my lips I declare all the ordinances of your mouth"(Psalm 119:13).

What a privilege it is to not only be a person who is growing in your own relationship with Jesus Christ, but someone who is sharing with others verbally what God has done for you. I'm not suggesting that you become an offensive person, who people want to shy away from because you're always hammering them with religious utterances. Far from that. Jesus himself had a way of sidling up to people, identifying with them and giving them a word of encouragement, as well as a word of truth. Not everybody liked what He said. He ended up going to the cross, because He got on the wrong side of a lot of people. At that same time, He was straightforward with His words, which were life-transformational to those who took them seriously.

Let's face it. The only reason you and I are here in a place of worship is that someone has told us about the Lord and, in some way, invited us to a personal relationship with Him and to conversation and fellowship with others whose lives He's transformed.

Key #6: Meditate on God's precepts.

The Psalmist writes, "I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways" (Psalm 119:15).

It is important that we zero in in our meditative thoughts on what God has done. Let's not leave to Eastern mystics of other religions, to Transcendental Meditation, to those who have given their lives to that which we call "contemplative" exclusive domain to this activity. Every follower of Jesus has the privilege of meditating on God's Word. What a privilege it is to take verses of Scripture and let them be your "mantra." What a privilege it is to use passages of Scripture for "Thought Conditioning" that lifts us above our normal complacent non-spiritually stimulative thoughts to giving full attention to the Lord.

Are you meditating on God's precepts?

Key #7: Delight in God's statutes.

Two verses in this text drive home this concept. The Psalmist writes, "I delight in the way of your decrees as much as in all riches" (Psalm 119:14). He continues, "I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word" (Psalm 119:16).

It doesn't take much to remind ourselves what it is to delight in riches. Quite a bit of our time goes into trying to figure out how much money we have, what bills we have to pay, and what we would do if we had some excess funds.

Unfortunately, we tend to see our relationship with God just in terms of "ought's," "should's," "discipline," "obedience," and fail to muse on the delight of all the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus. You and I have a great inheritance. Delight in it.

One of my heroes through the years has been a man by the name of William Tyndale. Tyndale was a parish priest in England in the 1500s, at the same time when Luther in Germany was emphasizing the importance of Scriptures being made available in the vernacular. For hundreds of years, the only access to biblical knowledge was in the hands of the clergy. Coming out of the Reformation period, Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Switzerland and John Knox in Scotland, along with others, was tremendous emphasis on the importance of the Bible. Each of these men did their best to make the Bible available, not just in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but in the common language of those particular countries.

Tyndale set about to make an English translation of the Bible, and he came out with the entire New Testament and portions of the Old Testament in the year 1526. He was labeled a heretic for doing that, for it was threatening to the clergy of his day. He fled from England to the European continent where his translation was actually printed. He finally was arrested in Brussels and was in prison for sixteen months. There, in a letter we still have, he pleads with someone to give him warmer clothing. He was freezing in prison. He said, "My clothing is threadbare. Also, give me some more Greek and Hebrew commentaries, so I can continue my studies." At the end of that sixteen-month period in October 1536, he was strangled and burned a martyr for his conviction and action on that conviction that the Scriptures were important and should be available to everyone.

If they're that important to give your life to make them available, how sad it is when we don't take the time on a daily basis to open them and to apply them to our lives.

And a final word as we come to the table. Most of us are familiar with the name Bill Hybels, the founder of the Willow Creek Community Church, one of America's largest and most influential mega-churches over the past thirty years. My friend, Hybels, through his Willow Creek Association, has promoted a vision of the church that is big, programmatic and comprehensive. A couple of years ago, Hybels commissioned a comprehensive study of his church, interviewing members of his congregation and of other churches that used their model. Hybels reports the results of that study are "earthshaking" and "groundbreaking." In a short book recently published called Reveal: Where Are You?, the survey results show that heavy involvement in church programs and activities does not necessarily translate to spiritual growth and maturity. Speaking at his Leadership Summit last August, Hybels apologized, saying, "We made a mistake." He went on to confess what we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and became Christians. We should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become "self-feeders." We should have taught people how to read their Bible between services and how to do spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Here at St. Andrew's, we're going to do the very best we can to provide intergenerational ministry programs from cradle to grave. But let me make it very clear that, as important as it is to be involved in the life of a Christian fellowship called the church, the gathered people, it is critical for you not to depend on being spoon-fed by us, entertained by us, but to take the initiative on your own to move from infant formula to the solid meat of God's Word in your own personal spiritual disciplines. That's why these keys are so important, as you now come to the table to celebrate the Lord's Supper.

As we enter 2008 and look forward to hearing and implementing the results of the Visioning Together project and entering the new Youth/Family Center, it will be important to realize that these programs and these facilities, at their very best, will only give you handles for your own individual spiritual growth.

These keys to unlock a productive 2008 are keys you can take wherever you go, into all circumstances of life, and find them valid ways of fleshing out what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, what we now will celebrate as we eat of His broken body and drink of His shed blood that offers you and me total forgiveness, new life of being born again by the Spirit of God, eternal life, God-quality life in this life and the life to come.

As we come to the table, will you join me in this New Year's prayer?

Blessed, living Lord Jesus, I reaffirm my commitment to be your disciple today. As I eat of this bread and drink of this cup, I take up my cross and follow you by serving others.

Help me to take seriously these keys to unlock a productive 2008, that productivity, that happiness, that blessedness, that joyfulness, defined not by humanistic, secular values, but by the values of your Kingdom.

As this old year draws to a close, I ask that you would open my mind to see your vision of what you want me to be and to do this next year. Help me to become the person you desire for me to be.

In these last hours of 2007, as I prepare for the New Year of 2008, my commitment is to seek to love as you love, forgive as you forgive, inspire others as you inspire me, giving hope as you give me hope. Help me to confront the physical, emotional and spiritual illness and suffering around me with prayers for healing. Give me a renewed sense that nothing is impossible for you. Replace my insecure grimness with an inexhaustible graciousness. And help me to envision a New Year totally surrendered to you and triumphantly supplied with your strength and courage, as you help me turn the keys that will unlock your future. In Jesus' name, Amen.