We don't have to write the date nearly as often as we used to do it. Our emails carry

it automatically. And most of us don't write personal letters anymore. But I still have

one problem. I'm no longer scoring out the wrong date and the wrong year. But I am always

wondering, what do I say to people when I meet them for the first time of the year? 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 chapter 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 and his death and by any means possible attaining the resurrection

from the dead. Not that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to

make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that

I have made it my own, but one thing I do, for getting what lies behind and straining

forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the price of the upward call of

God in Christ Jesus. You remember at the beginning of Philippians Paul

indicates that his young colleague Timothy was with him. And you know that Paul often dictated

his letters and I've sometimes wondered if he mentions Timothy because Timothy was his

secretary in this letter. The letter begins Paul and Timothy. And I wonder if he gave his son

a slight smile when he told him to write his own name down. But if that were the case, I'm

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