Happy new year – a fresh start

I really love celebrating New year’s eve, staying up and seeing in a new year with friends or family that you greatly care about. The reason I think I love it so much is that it’s a way of underlining the previous year and starting afresh on a new page.

A new year brings hope – something better, something different.

That’s why many people make New Years resolutions, to either stop a bad habit or pick up new and better once – a fresh start.

Towards the end of the Old Testament history of God’s people they needed a fresh start. They had come a long way from the days of Moses where they enjoyed the blessing of being Gods chosen people (Numbers 6:22-end), where they were given his name and known as his.

They started okay but later in their history The leaders of God’s people rarely followed God or led the people to know God for themselves. God gave opportunity after opportunity for his people to have fresh starts. time and time again He called for them to come back to him. To have a fresh start with God. That is God’s nature.

As we enter 2023 are you in need of a fresh start? How are you feeling at the beginning of this new year? Physically, mentally, emotionally. And How do you feel spiritually? Do you feel really close to God, fully living a Jesus like life, ready to shine your halo? 

We are works in progress and sometimes on a daily basis feel in need of a fresh start with God. Maybe we lose our patience, maybe flat out lie, maybe we deny that we live God and know him. 

The good news for all of us is that God is willing and able to give us a fresh start. A good thing for a new year

Jesus- God’s son

There’s a song I learnt when I went to Christian summer camp when I was younger it’s based on John 3:16 and shows that Jesus God’s son was the plan for helping the world have a fresh start with God and enjoy relationship with him being in his company.

As we’ve looked at over Advent and Christmas, Jesus was the promised baby, the wonderful counsellor, mighty God everlasting father, prince of peace. As Gods son he was to be our everlasting father too!

What do you think that means everlasting father?

One commentator wrote: everlasting Father refers to Jesus’ father-like character. He will provide and protect his children with wisdom and compassion. This child, son of God, would come to earth to redeem and adopt sinners into the family of God, offering love and protection as our everlasting.

Jesus as Everlasting father came to redeem and adopt – in other words to offer us a fresh start – to know again we are a child of God – he’s adopted us.

Galatians reading

That is what our reading from Galatians tells us – that through Jesus we are redeemed, receive adoption to sonship, have God’s spirit in our hearts, and receive an inheritance from our Abba Father. We see God in all three persons at work here in the Galatians passage and He as three persons is at work in our life too.

We declare that in words of affirmation of faith. Common worship has this following affirmation of faith that I think agrees with the Galatians passage and is as follows

Affirmation of faith 

We believe in God the Father,

from whom every family

in heaven and on earth is named.

We believe in God the Son,

who lives in our hearts through faith,

and fills us with his love.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit,

who strengthens us

with power from on high.

We believe in one God;

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And it is this God who adopts us, offers a fresh start and lets us be called a child of God.

A fresh start through Adoption 

What does it mean to be adopted? What is happening when adoption takes place? In the UK Adoption is the legal process by which a child or a group of siblings who cannot be brought up within their birth family become full, permanent and legal members of their new family. In the bible reading the word sonship means the exact same thing

We may know friends who were adopted, or have been adopted ourselves. Even if we don’t know someone personally in books and movies there are quite a number of characters who were adopted. I love a good story. I love escaping into a book or a movie. To see a storyline develop, to see good overcome evil and for the hero or heroine of the story to have a happy ending.

In Roald Dahl’s  book Mathilda found her family in Miss Honey, her teacher who understood her and loved her as her own

In Kung fu Panda Po was adopted by Mr Ping a Goose who raised him as his own

Paddington came all the way from Peru had no family in England but in a sense he became adopted by the Brown family – he found a place where he belonged. 

Oliver is adopted by Mr Brownlow, a well off gentleman who showed love and forgiveness after Oliver got caught after his friend tried to steal from Mr Brownlow. Oliver was shown love and care like he had never known

Finally superman known as Kal-el from planet Krypton is sent to earth and found by Martha and Jonathan and given a new name, the name Clark Kent.

These examples from literature help to set the scene to dig a bit deeper into the privilege and joy that exists because we can also be called a child of God. The song Father God I wonder expresses the joy of fully knowing who we are in Christ. fully knowing that we are his children just leads to praise.

Children of God

What does being the children of God mean?

In the letter to the Galatians Paul has been writing to this church to get them to realise that through faith in Jesus they no longer have to be a slave to the law , to the old ways, but that Jesus died and rose again so that everyone would be free from the chains of sin. When we do stuff that isn’t as God intends we can get wrapped up in it. Jesus died so we could be free from that. That as we repent we start afresh with God

Being free though isn’t by what we do, or how good we try and be, it’s only possible because Jesus redeemed us.

Jesus was able to do this because he was the perfect human, raised a Jew, circumcised, knew his scriptures. Fully obeyed God. In the Old Testament God made a deal with his people, made a covenant,  if they obeyed his ways he would bless them, and circumcision was a sign of that. In Luke’s gospel we read that Jesus too was circumcised – this is what qualifies him as being a man under the law, meaning he was obedient to the Jewish law in order to give freedom for all.

Do you feel free from the chains of sin? Do we still strive to be good or do we strive to know our father and in doing so become more like him.

The second thing as a child of God is that we are given Gods spirit. The New Testament letters are full of passages about how the spirit enables us to live as a member of Gods family – Galatians talks about the fruit we produce as Gods spirit lives in us (ch 4) In 2 Peter 1:4 the NLT says ‘And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.’

Are we aware of Gods spirit in us, guiding us, motivating us, helping us to change and grow into more of the family likeness, more like Jesus. Because we have Gods spirit in us we can truly call out to him as our daddy – not a distant inaccessible father but a daddy who sticks close who protects, who gives us and longs for us to have good things and cries with us through the challenges and difficulties of life. 

Because that’s the third thing that comes with being a child of God receiving the blessing and inheritance of our eternal father 

In Matthew we read about how as God cares for the animals so he will care even more for us his children- and he loves the animals so that’s huge!

In johns gospel we see that Jesus desire is for us to have life in all its fullness

And that being a child of God isn’t just for now it’s for eternity.

This year what will it mean for us that we are a child of God.

Maybe you need to hear you are loved and precious and to let go of what might chain you and stop you from being free because of what God has done for you. 

Maybe we need to stop striving and be still and know God as our loving father.

Maybe you need to know you are never alone, that God through his Holy Spirit can live in you guiding directing when we ask Jesus to be part of our lives.

Maybe you need to know God longs to bless you and to know the certainty of eternal life

Conclusion

In this year ahead maybe we need to once again or for the first time have a fresh start with our God who made us and loves us, who sent his son to give us freedom, to redeem us, to give us sonship, legally adopted, given the name Child of God. Maybe we need to more fully accept we are his children and be expectant of all he has in store for us in this year ahead.  Amen.

Script of sermon preached at St George’s by Rev Claire Coleman on 1st January 2023.

Three words and expressions came top of the Oxford Word of the year 2022 competition: ‘Goblin Mode,’ ‘Metaverse’ and #IStandWith. What have they to do with Christmas? Read this talk given at the Sailor’s Church Carol Service on Friday 23rd December.

Oxford Word of the Year – Our contradictory culture

Recently I came across an article about The Oxford Word of the Year. It was a competition run where people could vote on a new word or expression that they felt reflected the mood of our times in 2022. I have to say, the three top words and expressions, were not ones that I was that familiar with, but as I read about them, they did seem to sum up how people are behaving in 2022. At the same time they seemed to be contradictory.

The winner was: Goblin Mode.

Apparently it refers to a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations. You may not have heard of the phrase, but perhaps you have seen people living it out. In the wake of Covid and the enforced lockdowns, many people have looked at their lives and decided to cut out anything that was difficult. They have retired early or given up on volunteer roles, deciding instead to focus on indulging themselves rather than working hard.

In third place, though was #IStandWith.

This is a phrase that was particularly used of peoples’ reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response to the horror of that war, people wanted to show solidarity and support for people suffering in Ukraine. For some #IstandwithUkraine has involved a willingness to make real sacrifices: Our government being willing to accept rising fuel costs as the price of support for Ukraine and people welcoming Ukrainian refugees into their homes.

These two terms sum up 2022 well, but they also seem contradictory. You cannot embrace Goblin Mode and Stand with those who are suffering. Yet, some people do try and have it both ways. After all it is possible to say, #IStandWith in an abstract way, by putting up a Ukrainian flag or posting on Facebook or Twitter, without being willing to make sacrifices or do anything to really help.

This latter idea of abstract support brings us to the term that came second: Metaverse

The idea of the metaverse is really just an extension of the idea of the world wide web. Already people meet with others virtually using some kind of video call. My daughter recently had some university interviews without leaving the house and I often play chess on my phone with people from all over the world. The metaverse takes this idea and tries to make it a bit more real. It creates an artificial world on the internet, where you interact with others, with a made up image called an Avatar, whilst sitting at home on your computer. You can meet with others, without actually going anywhere or dressing up for the occasion

Perhaps the Metaverse is a way of combining #IStandWith with Goblin Mode. After all it means you can join with others in a virtual meeting, while remaining in bed in your pyjamas and eating ice cream!

God’s Commitment to Us: The Word made Flesh

So what has all this to do with the Christian message of Christmas? Put simply, Christmas is the message that the Son of God rejected Goblin Mode and came to stand with us not in a metaverse kind of way but in a deeply real way. It says at the start of John’s gospel:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,

the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

“The Word” of course refers to Jesus, as God’s eternal Son, who has always been there. It was he who came down from heaven and ‘became flesh.’ Jesus’s conception was not the beginning of a new person, which is the case with every other human being, it was the eternal person of the Son of God becoming something new: a human being. This is the great truth at the heart of the Christian celebration of Christmas.

But in what sense did Jesus ‘become human’? Was it as though Jesus was taking on an avatar, sitting in heaven, but appearing as a man on earth –  communicating to us from a distance, but in ‘bodily form’ like in the metaverse?

Such an idea is similar to an ancient idea called, ‘Docetism’. It was an idea that was rejected by the early church as completely wrong.

The problem is that if Jesus only became human as a kind of avatar, then he was only standing with us in an illusory and ultimately meaningless way. His life and death were as meaningless as someone playing a computer game and dying in the computer game, perhaps upsetting, but not really suffering or sacrificial.

But Jesus ‘became flesh’ or as the carol puts it:

God of God, Light of Light, Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb.

It sounds messy and bloody and it was, because this was Jesus entering into the messy and bloody reality of human existence. This was certainly not Goblin Mode.

To really bring home this point, we need to understand what John means when he says, “we have seen his glory.” To find out we need to read on in the gospel. It becomes clear that for Jesus the moment he was glorified, was when he died on the cross, a bloody and horrific moment, that as the one who became flesh, Jesus entered into in utter reality. Yet, this was also the moment of grace. It is in his very real death, that Jesus took the punishment for the sins of humanity. He didn’t just stand with humanity, he stood in the place of humanity, in order to bring us forgiveness with God and to offer us a way through death to eternal life.

It was the very real, bloody and effective sacrifice of the cross that reveals to us Jesus’s true glory. All of which was only possible because the Son of God became flesh.

Our Response to God?

When we fully understand this message of Christmas, we can find something really worth celebrating not just in December, but throughout all our lives. Here is God come to truly stand with us in the darkness and messiness of our lives.

But, it is also a challenge to us. If Jesus rejected Goblin Mode to come and live among us, if he truly stands with us, then we need to ask ourselves, will we be willing to not just say, #IstandwithJesus, but  fully embrace following Jesus, even though it may mean letting go of Goblin Mode, and rejecting laziness and self-indulgence in order to serve God by helping others and pointing people to him?

This is a transcript of the talk given at the St. George’s Carol Service on 21st December 2023.

Christmas Unwrapped Survey

Something I’ve been involved with for many years in the lead up to Christmas is something called, Christmas Unwrapped.  It is an interactive presentation of the true Christmas story for children in the last year of Primary School. Various churches invite schools from across Thanet to attend.

As part of the event there is a survey of the 10 and 11 year olds with various questions to do with Christmas. When asked for their ‘Favourite Christmas Song’,

the most popular was: ‘All I want for Christmas is you’

followed by ‘The Last Christmas’ and ‘Jingle Bells’

When asked for their Favourite Part of Christmas

Spending time with family and Presents took the top two spots

When asked What will you give for Christmas,

Although, some said presents and money, “love” took the top spot!

Now I’m not sure what to make of that. At first glance a child saying, ‘I want to give love this Christmas’, provokes that sense of Ahhhh… isn’t that sweet!

Yet, a more cynical response might ask, shouldn’t you give love all year round, are you saying you only love people at Christmas? Surely, we give presents to express at Christmas as an expression of our all year round love?

And is giving love at Christmas really an excuse for saying, I’m not willing to spend any money on buying you any presents!!

When it comes to the Christian message of Christmas of course it is all about ‘God’s gift of love.’

That’s not to say that God only loved us when he sent Jesus. Rather, the birth of Jesus, was a historical event that expressed God’s eternal love for the world.

As it says later in John’s gospel,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,”(John 3:16)

But more importantly, God’s gift of love was certainly costly.

Love is costly

True love is never cost free. Love means treating another as valuable and important in your life, which means you will be willing to make sacrifices for them and that is costly!

In particular, to love someone, means to make yourself vulnerable to them. It means risking being rejected.

In John’s gospel we are told that the birth of Jesus, was the eternal Word, or Son of God being made flesh. In that moment, God became utterly vulnerable.

He was born not in a spotless maternity ward, but in a stable. Not into a family with a secure home, but one which was temporarily homeless. Not into a world, where he was welcomed, but one where the most powerful man of the time in his area, King Herod sought to destroy him.

Yet, the Christmas story is just a foreshadowing of what was to come.  John tells us:

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” (John 1:10-11)

Someone came to our house for tea the other day wearing a provocative t-shirt with a picture of the typical Christmas stable scene on it. Underneath the scene were the words: spoiler alert – “he dies!”

For the eternal Word, the lack of acceptance ultimately meant a cruel and humiliating death on the cross. This is where God’s eternal love was exhibited even more powerfully. As he says later in John, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13).

So, God’s gift to us was costly – so, what made this gift worth such a great cost. What did Jesus’s death achieve for us.

Part of the answer comes in John 1:

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

Love needs accepting

So that is the gift, but will we accept it?

The publicity produced this Christmas is called, The Great Invitation. There is a sense in which Christmas is an invitation. Not just to come and enjoy the festive feel with traditional services, but to receive God’s ultimate gift. Yet, as with any invitation it needs to be accepted and as with any gift it needs to be unwrapped.

So is this the kind of present or invitation you are looking for?

In the Christmas Unwrapped survey one of the other questions the children were asked were: What do you hope to receive? The answers to this included things like: a phone, PC/Computer game station and money. If all we are looking for in life are material possessions, then we will probably miss God’s invitation and fail to open this most expensive and precious present.

However, when the children were asked about Hopes and Dreams for 2023, the two top spots were for a deceased family member to be with them and for another family member to get better. In this case the concerns were to somehow overcome sickness and death and find restored relationships.

These desires come closer to what God is offering us. God’s gift is an invitation not just to come to a church service at Christmas, but to follow him with all of your life in the way that does ultimately overcome sickness and death, because as children of God, we gain eternal life!

So, will we see God’s gift as merely a decorative gift to be left unwrapped and put away with all the other decorations until next Christmas or will we actually unwrap it and choose to follow Christ in the way of Life all year round?

As Christians we look forward to our ultimate homecoming to be with God in joy forevermore. But how can we be confident that we can make it there?

Football’s Coming Home?

‘Football’s coming home!’ It’s the slogan of one of the most popular football songs, written by David Baddiel and Frank Skinner for the 1996 European Cup.

The song is full of hope that England might once more win a major international competition and so bring the game, ‘home’ to the country where football first began.

This hope is against a backdrop of despair that with one exception our national team have never won and international competition. Two lines in the song sum this up:

“No more years of hurt

No more need for dreaming…”

Of course football did come home once when England won the world cup in 1966, but it ‘hasn’t come home’ since then and after last night’s result it may not ever return home. There are no guarantees that we will ever win another World Cup or even European Cup.

Driving Home for Christmas

Chris Rea sung the song, Driving Home for Christmas,

It’s a song about someone looking forward to being with his family at Christmas time, but stuck in his car in a traffic jam.

The lines say,

“It’s gonna take some time but I’ll get there

Top to toe in tailbacks

Oh, I got red lights all around

But soon there’ll be the freeway, yeah

Get my feet on holy ground”

I guess this Christmas, with all the train strikes, “Driving Home for Christmas” may be harder than ever, but in the song it’s the hope of returning that keeps him going. He wants to have his feet on, ‘Holy ground’, presumably referring to being home with the family as a kind of sacred space. He also looks forward to the freeway, the open road, where he will be out of the traffic jams and on his way!!

The Christian Life as a Journey

The Christian life is often likened to a journey or a pilgrimage. Indeed, in our reading from Isaiah, the last verse is all about the joyful return of the people of God:

“…and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.!” (Isaiah 35:10)

This will be far greater than arriving home for Christmas or winning the world cup, this is the ultimate glorious homecoming that will bring about everlasting and ultimate joy.

Yet, there is still a journey to be had to get there and we may be so daunted by the journey, that we may feel we will never make it. For some of you it may be that you long to have that wonderful eternal hope promised by Christ, but you are not sure you can keep cope with living as a Christian in the meantime. Following Christ can at times feel too difficult and it may be that you are even thinking of giving up. But Isaiah says in verse 3,

“Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way!” (Isaiah 35:3)

So how does this chapter in Isaiah encourage us to keep going with the Christian faith as we head for our eternal home?

Focus on the Saviour – 35:1-7

Firstly, it reminds us that it is God who saves us, it is not we who save ourselves. This is clearest in verse 4, where the sense is of God rescuing his people from their enemies, the ones who are oppressing them and are keeping them from their home.

Just as to bring football home, another team has to lose if we are to win, so if we are to be saved, whatever or whoever is oppressing us needs to be defeated, if we are to be freed from its clutches.

This looks back to the time of the Exodus, where the Egyptian Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go. God responded by sending a series of Ten Plagues, that forced Pharaoh into releasing the people. The judgement of Pharaoh and the Egyptians went hand in hand with the salvation of the Israelites – just as the defeat of the Russians in Ukraine goes hand in hand with salvation for the people of Ukraine.

For Isaiah that was ancient history. In his time, it was the Assyrians, who had come and invaded the land and taken away many of God’s people and in the next chapter threaten Jerusalem itself. Yet, Isaiah is clear, that although the Assyrians in his time seemed to hold the winning hand, although they seemed unstoppable, God would bring victory against them just as he had against Pharaoh.

In Isaiah’s time the temptation was to give up and just accept the Assyrian rule and ways and forget about the true God of Moses and the Bible. Isaiah is clear, though, Assyria will face the vengeance of God – as they do if you read on in chapters 36 and 37.

Yet, in Isaiah, there is already a step beyond the historical problems of his time, to a greater vision of God acting for his people. Isaiah 35 does not specify the enemy or the oppressor, because the enemy or oppressor does not matter. It is whoever or whatever takes away our life and our health. What Isaiah 35 is clear about, is that God is the one who can overcome anything that causes death and illness, our God is the God who brings life.

That is the beautiful picture in the first few verses. Although, our lives may feel like desert places, dried up and dead from whatever it is that is oppressing us, Isaiah describes blossoms springing up in the desert. Something that happens when the rains come. Yet, here the new life is not caused by the coming of rain, but by the coming of God. It is seeing the glory of God that brings this new and beautiful life. This also extends to new life for humanity, it is when God comes, that the eyes of the blind are open, the ears of the deaf are unstopped , the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shouts for joy. All this happens, when God is there, he comes to save and give us life!

When John the Baptist was locked up by Herod and in jail. He began to have doubts about Jesus. Was Jesus the Saviour, God with us, the promised one of God or were they to wait for God to send someone else. Jesus responded to the messenger that John sent to ask this question with these words:

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”” (Matthew 11:4-6)

They are words that echo Isaiah 35 and other similar Old Testament passages. Has God come to save us – yes he has in the person of Jesus.

And Jesus came to save us not from the Assyrians, the Romans, the Russians or whoever. He came to save us from our ultimate enemies, our sin and death. Those enemies were judged by God in Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection to eternal life. When we put our trust in Jesus, we become the redeemed, those whom God has rescued by paying the price of the death of his son.

So, if we think we might struggle on the way to God’s eternal home, then remember that God has already acted to save us and bring us life from death. We are redeemed not by our efforts, resilience or strength, but by the saving life-giving work of God in Jesus Christ.

Follow the Way – 35:8-9

Second, if we are to have courage to stick with God and come to the eternal home, then we need to follow the way. This idea also links back to the time of Moses. Once the people had escaped the clutches of Pharaoh, they found themselves in the inhospitable wilderness. How were they going to survive on a journey through such a place? The answer was that God was with them and God provided. He brought water out of stone and rained down manna from heaven. They had all they needed.

Again the idea of the Exodus is behind the imagery in Isaiah. The journey of the Christian life can sometimes feel a bit like travelling through the wilderness, but God is with you and he can make the wilderness spring to life.

More than that, though, Isaiah says, God will build a ‘highway’ for his people to travel. In the ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ song, the writer, longs for the ‘freeway’ so that he will be out of the traffic jam, so Isaiah looks to a highway, a specially constructed raised up road, that protects you from the threats and difficulties of travelling through the wilderness. There are two things that he stresses about this highway.

Firstly, it will be a place of safety and security. No wild animals or human bandits will be on it. You may fear that other people or other things can stop you on your journey to God’s eternal home. But God will ensure your absolute safety and protection:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Secondly, this is a Way of Holiness, which means it is restricted. Only the redeemed will journey on it. In other words, to travel on this way, you need to have been saved by God, you need to have chosen to follow Jesus and embrace his ways and the truth he shows us. As Jesus says:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

So, as long as we have set our hearts on following Jesus as the Way, we can be confident that God will provide a safe highway for us to travel to his glorious and eternal home. So, we need to fix our eyes on that wonderful destination as Isaiah does at the end of the chapter.

Fix your Eyes on the Destination – 35:10

The home is called, Zion, which is another name for Jerusalem.

Just as the people led by Moses at the Exodus, looked forward to entering the Promised Land, in Isaiah’s time, it was the city of Jerusalem that became the focus of what it meant to return home.

His was a hope that those who had been taken away by the Assyrians would return home to Jerusalem, the city of their king. A 100 years later, when the Babylonians came and conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, this came to be a forlorn hope, but God did something amazing and brought his people back to Zion. One of the Psalms picks up the joy they felt when that happened:

“When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,

we were like those who dreamed.” (Psalm 126:1)

In the Old Testament, Jerusalem and Zion are seen as the home of God and the place from which his king reigns. It says in Psalm 2:

“”I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” (Psalm 2:6)

As Christians, we now know Jesus to be the true king, appointed by God. His home is not in the earthly Jerusalem, but at God’s right hand in God’s eternal home. So for us the Zion we look to coming to is God’s eternal home, the home that in a very real sense has become our home, because we are adopted as children of God.

In the song, ‘Football’s coming home’ there is a longing for a celebration of victory. In Isaiah there is a longing for the eternal joy, when all the enemies of God including sin and death are completely destroyed. This is not a temporary celebration until the realities of the struggles of life reassert themselves over the joy of winning a game of football, but an eternal joy, because sorrow and sighing will flee away after all is defeated by God.

And it is more than a joy of returning home to a loving family at Christmas – because we will be at home with our perfect heavenly family, where we will see our Father face to face and be welcomed home by Jesus as our brother.

No matter how well we do in the football or how much you are looking forward to seeing family at Christmas, fix your eyes on the ultimate destiny we have as Christians, confident that God in Jesus has saved you for it and that he will provide a safe and secure highway to his heavenly home!