It’s the stuff of motivational speakers . . . from mom to the executive coach . . . “There’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it!” Funny how things come to mind . . . as a kid I believed I was the fastest thing on two feet . . . I had the “blue ribbons” from “sports day” as evidence . . . I can see my mom at the finish line cheering me on . . . my aunt even called me “Speed” as a kid. Nothing but potential . . . pure potential in front of me, I thought. And that’s part of how God wired us, isn’t it? But what happens when that wiring is no longer submitted to the Master Builder’s direction . . .

I’m reading in Genesis 11 this morning . . . post flood by a few generations . . . and, from a human perspective, things are looking pretty good. The whole earth has one language and one speech (11:1) . . . a prevailing sense of unity . . . and a capability to design and build such that, somehow, collectively they decide to assert the power and glory of their humanity. They are going to build a city unlike any city every built . . . with a tower that will reach into the heavens . . . a testament of their power . . . of their capability and glory . . . of their determination to not lose the unity they had worked so hard for.

And God comes down to the city and sees the tower and says, “Look at that! They are all pulling together . . . they are able to share data easily through their common language . . . and this is what they begin to do. Build for themselves and unto themselves. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!” (11:5-6). Not too surprising, after all. They were made in the image of God . . . the Creator of all things . . . the one who is a God of order . . . and, given enough time, order can be analyzed and decoded . . . nothing that can’t be done by people made in God’s image who share information and work towards a common purpose. Kind of explains the wonders of our technological world, doesn’t it? That which we know about genetics and how to manipulate them . . . it’s because we are made in the image of God . . . and have a common language. “There’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it!”

But . . . there was a problem . . . a big problem. This God-wired potential was governed by a humanistic agenda . . . the Creator had been excluded from the discovery of creation . . . the Sovereign had been de-throned and man was sitting where only God had the right to be. And so God says within the fellowship of the Trinity, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (11:7) . . . and “the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” (11:9) And, for millennia now, man has been working his way back to a united community . . . a common language . . . and, as we’ve seen in our lifetime, the ability to achieve things that reflect again the image of God in them. But, tragically, without the authority of God guiding them, nor the wisdom of God indwelling them, this knowledge has really been beyond their ability to rightly handle in so many cases.

And so, I sit here this morning, considering the start of a new year and a new decade. There’s something about a new year that seeds hope of better things to come . . . that causes us to think about new beginnings . . . and new resolve . . . and turns the cup “half full” as we consider the potential. For many of us, we use the new year to believe again that “there’s nothing we can’t do if we set our minds to it.” O, but that we would put God in the center of all that potential . . . that He would have pre-eminence in all the plans . . . that all the resolutions would, at their essence, have the glory of God in mind.

Any potential we possess is because we are made in the image of God. Corrupted by sin and self, that potential is redeemed through faith in the work of Christ on the cross such that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3). Check that out . . . in Christ we posses the potential that comes from being showered with every spiritual blessing from heaven itself. That doesn’t come from a united mankind under a human directed agenda . . . that comes from being united with Christ . . . in His death . . . His burial . . . and, praise God, His resurrection.

You wanna talk about potential? You want to talk about possibilities? I’m not talking prosperity . . . not talking ease . . .not talking making a name for ourselves. But, if God is for us, who can be against us? Through Him who loved us to death, we are more than conquerors! (Rom. 8:31, 37)

O’, that He would be the source of our potential . . . that He would be the guide of our resolutions . . . that He would receive all glory from whatever we set our minds to. Then, it truly would be, regardless of circumstance, a Happy New Year! Amen?