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.

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 in 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 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. Forgetting 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,

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