You’ve heard the old adage: "If life gives you lemons — make lemonade." 2008 was a real lemon of a year. Our IRA’s are worth less. Our houses are worth less. Thanks to the dollars being printed and pumped into the economy, the dollars we have saved are worth less. Unemployment is up. Production is down. The presidential election certainly didn’t come out like conservatives had hoped. Corporations and even the executive that allowed them to fail are being bailed out at a cost of billions of dollars to the taxpayers. Greed and corruption seem to be the norm, instead of people just doing the right thing. And there is no sign that things are going to get better any time soon.

And the problems have not been limited to our country. I read a news article that quoted an office worker in India as saying 2008 was a year of crime, terrorist activities, bloodshed, and accidents. Japan has long boasted a system of lifetime employment at major companies, but that has unraveled this year amid the financial crisis. People who never had to worry about their jobs are out of work.

Several governments were toppled. And Israel is at war with the Hamas, not to mention the ongoing conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and other places around the world. Even piracy on the high seas was big news this year. People are so depressed that New Years celebrations around the world were somewhat subdued, or people just didn’t spend much in celebration.

With all the lemons we were served in 2008, and this being the first Sunday of the New Year, we’re all probably looking ahead to what we hope will be a vintage year for lemonade.

Many kids are taking this quite literally. While their parents are wondering how to make ends meet, many kids now have an opportunity to make literally some great lemonade and get rewarded for it — beyond their wildest dreams.

Inc. magazine loves the entrepreneurial spirit of the cul-de-sac lemonade stand, so they started a contest a few years back to honor "The Best Lemonade Stand in America." Each year, entries come in from around the country with pictures of fresh-faced youngsters smiling behind pitchers of sparkling liquid gold. The optimism of these kids, though, goes way beyond racking up cash for chasing down the ice cream truck.

Many of these young CEOs are building their lemonade stands for the benefit of someone else. The 2007 winner, 11-year-old Grace Bova from MacUngie, Pennsylvania, got her whole neighborhood involved in a lemonade stand to raise money for cancer research in response to the plight of a neighbor suffering from melanoma. Grace called it the "Race Against the Sun" Lemonade Stand and, along with friends and neighbors, raised more than $4000 for cancer research.

You can read the stories of these kids at inc.com/lemonade. One thing that comes though in each winners story is the idea that focusing on attitude and potential instead of circumstances and problems is the key to an optimistic outlook.

It might be hard to appreciate lemonade stands in the dead of winter, especially if you’re in Duluth, Minnesota, or Minot, North Dakota or Bangor, Maine. But it’s not hard to get at what Paul is getting at in our text. It’s his way of saying that he wants to build — he wants his life and ours to be — the best lemonade stand ever.

As a goal for this the first Sunday of 2009, it’s not a bad idea. The opening lines of this letter to the Ephesians find the apostle Paul bubbling with the kind of giddiness and optimism that makes for a great spiritual lemonade stand. In the Greek, our text is all one sentence which reads like a breathless, excited greeting of the kind you hear from a wound-up preteen.

The joyous tone of the letter’s opening is quite surprising, too, given the fact that Paul had been given some serious lemons to deal with in his own life as an apostle. Remember, Paul had that "thorn in the flesh" that constantly bothered him. He spent a lot of time in jail or under some form of arrest. He was shipwrecked. He went hungry on more than one occasion.

So, how can we ensure that this year we’re going to make the best lemonade ever? How can we increase the chances that our lives will be — sweet, rather than sour? Fertile, rather than fallow? Fulfilling, rather than futile?

Given lemons, Paul lays out a theology that helps us understand how we are the recipients of the best-ever blessing possible, and how this, in turn, holds promise for us as we face the New Year.

Despite his circumstances and surroundings, Paul begins the letter by laying out for the Ephesians some reasons for optimism. The foundational theology of the letter is all about "blessing," a word form which appears three times in Ephesians 1:3 alone. In Christ, God has provided the whole cosmos, which Paul refers to as "the heavenly places," with a reason and rationale for hope regardless of how things look at any given moment.

The incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus had burst upon the world like a heat wave in the middle of winter, changing everything. Paul may sound a bit like a hyped-up kid peddling cold lemonade to thirsty passersby, but what he’s selling is truth of infinite and faith-fulfilling value: the refreshing and renewing benefits of a life of faith in Christ.

What are those benefits? Paul breaks them down into three essential theological flavors — three ingredients, if you will — that should enable his readers to mix up a fabulous brew for their present and future lives. He explains how we can take the lemons we have been given, and serve up some lemonade.

First, we were chosen by grace. "Before the foundation of the world" God had already planned its salvation and "destined us for adoption" as God’s own children. The thrust of the message here isn’t so much about the predestination of individual souls as it is about God’s plan for all of creation. God has established a plan of salvation, making God’s adopted children "holy and blameless" through the "glorious grace" of Christ, God’s own "Beloved."

Just to as briefly as possible clarify the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of predestination is this: Whatever God has done, is doing, and will still do for us during our life on earth to bring us to faith in Christ and to preserve us in this faith unto eternal salvation, is not a matter of chance; it is not motivated by any personal merit or worthiness on our part. Although we have no direct knowledge of our election, we do have the many promises of God that remind us that through faith we shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

As long as a person is without faith, they cannot consider themselves as being elected. But this doesn’t mean that he or she is not elected. God the Holy Spirit may still call them by the Gospel. The comfort of this doctrine is that it shows that our election is not a matter of chance. It’s not a matter of a personal choice or personal merit. What this doctrine does show us is that our salvation is a matter of deep concern to God. It was something He had worked out before the world began.

When we follow Christ, we live our lives for a greater purpose than just ourselves. When we engage in acts of justice, mercy and peace, we’re accomplishing God’s plan for the world. If you’re looking ahead toward the New Year, there’s probably no greater resolution or plan you can make than to see your purpose within God’s plan. Take a clue from little Grace Bova; find where God is at work around you and pitch in!

Next, we were redeemed by Christ’s blood. Here Paul evokes some Passover imagery. "Forgiveness of our trespasses" means release from the bondage of guilt and shame we carry with us from our pasts. God did not allow us to wallow in the poverty of spiritual slavery, but instead has "lavished" the "riches of his grace" upon us. In Christ, God’s plan, "the mystery of his will," has been revealed and accomplished "according to his good pleasure" and in "the fullness of time."

For some, starting a new year is a daunting task because the past is such a heavy weight. What an awesome thing it is to know that God has released us from all that and offered us a clean slate made possible through the forgiveness won for us on the cross by His Son, Jesus Christ. Paul wrote joyously about this release from bondage while chained to a prison wall, not focusing on his own circumstances but on Christ.

Last, in Christ, we have an inheritance. These days we think of an inheritance as simply money we unexpectedly receive or some property that can be turned into money. In the ancient world, an "inheritance" was usually received in the form of land that was not to be sold away. While the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, they held out hope that one day they would return to the land promised to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was this hope that kept them going in the midst of horrific oppression.

Paul expresses this guarantee of an inheritance in spiritual terms. Having been delivered from slavery to sin and death through the death and resurrection of Christ, Paul reminds us that we are promised an inheritance, too.

God’s purpose in Christ was to redeem the world and renew it, which was the whole reason Christ came into the world in the first place. Our inheritance, then, is to be united as part of all things in heaven and on earth with Christ. That hope we have in Christ, our salvation, has been made possible by what Jesus Christ accomplished for us through his perfect life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection.

Through faith, we have obtained what is ours through the promises we have in Christ. This means that we are to live and work with that inheritance as a present reality. Because of what Christ has done for us and in us, we are empowered to enjoy spreading the wealth of our inheritance!

Lord knows that life often gives us lemons, but if we take Paul’s good news seriously we can have a completely different outlook as we plan for a new year. Like kids in a big neighborhood full of thirsty folks, we have something refreshing and renewing to offer, something that can profit the whole world. We’ve been given the tools, the ingredients and the menu to put together the best spiritual lemonade ever — one that quenches the deepest needs of the human soul.

Time to get to work! Amen.