Andrew preaches from Psalm 121.

Conscious of it or not, we are all switchers at some level (energy providers, mortgages, favourite food!). We are all deeply yearning for a better deal in life. If you’re a Christian, there is a straight-up warning here: Switching from Christ is not prudence, but madness! And if you are still wondering about what to think about the Christian gospel – there’s an all-out showcase of the good news here, you’re invited to switch to the best deal.

Did you ever think about the fact that the Bible makes a really big deal about something we tend not to want to talk about much?

Sin.

The Bible’s urgent diagnosis of you and me is a deep-seated, fatal, constant sin issue. Sin is no minor issue as far as the Bible is concerned. As far as God is concerned. Sin stains and sin destroys and sin separation us from God who is holy.

You might be sceptical of this diagnosis. To which the Bible asks you to rethink that scepticism and challenges you to consider if this scepticism is a blind spot. On the other hand you might be a Christian who concedes the sin problem, yes, but at the personal level -day to day - you’re turning a blind eye to it, minimising it, scrambling to contain it, or just living with it.

The writer, in comparing the old covenant religious ritual with new covenant sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ… brings us to appreciate not just how serious the problem of sin is… but how amazingly powerful and liberating and redemptive was Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This clarity gives us the confidence to get real about sin again. Moves us away from religion and back to the cross.

We’ve had a mortgage with the bank for some years now and I started to wonder if it really was the best deal in terms of rates and repayments – so I filled out the online form requesting more info and pressed submit. A few days later I received a phone call from one of their employees. But it ended up being a very short phone call, because, as she explained, we already had the best deal. Better than anything else they or any other bank could provide for us.

Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Well, the answer was already out there in our 20 second conversation… no! We already had the best deal!

Since that conversation, though, I have like never before started to appreciate once again that great deal, the best deal – a deal that the passage of time might have made me undervalue.

The writer to the Hebrews is on the phone to us, just now - like he was on to the original recipients of the letter in the first century. And he’s assuring long-time Christians that with Jesus, we are on the best deal. And as he explains it, you know what this has the potential to do for you and me? It can provides us with something new. A fresh appreciation of something we probably knew at one time, a deepening appreciation that could be the catalyst for your growth and perseverance as a Christian.

As the announcements came in on Friday that the government would finally lift most pandemic restrictions, one of the comments I heard on radio really struck me. Go live your lives – said one of the government ministers – urging people to enjoy their new freedoms. The old system of restrictions is gone, so go and live your lives. I was deep in Hebrews 7 at the time, thinking about the message from God’s word to us in Blackrock. What we’ll see today, is that the writer to the Hebrews is making a similar kind of instruction.

He’s urging a group of Christians to allow the reality of their new situation sink in – and therefore to live out their lives in light of it.

And yet there’s a huge difference between Friday’s announcements and Hebrews chapter 7. As we have heard all along the lifting of restrictions is no guarantee that there won’t be a need for further restrictions in the future. But Hebrews tells us that the arrival of Jesus Christ brought in for God’s people a better hope, an eternal, forever hope.

We might just be facing the perfect storm in 2022. I’m not talking weather events like storm Barra. Instead, I’m suggesting metaphorically that the cultural revolution that has engulfed us at full force these last ten years coupled with the pandemic-exhaustion that’s literally surging through our national and personal psyche has left Christians struggling. Now you add in the hard things going on personally, in your own life. A perfect storm. Thousands of Christians in churches like ours across the country and across the world, those who are still gathering, are standing on the precipice of despair. We live in faith-testing times. It feels to me – and this is likely your experience too – that society around us has lost patience with Christians and their biblical truth claims. The question is: will you and I lose hope?

This year when we’ll all have the opportunities to make small, daily presentations to friends and family and the people we work with, so these four words will be the slogan that points us to that which is of first importance. A slogan that urges us and those we know to take the journey that leads to life - We preach Christ crucified. 

This week we welcome Lucas da Costa as he opens up 1 John 1:1-10 for us. 

The Call of Emmanuel - Matthew 16:24-28

The run up to Christmas this year has left us a bit weary.

It’s been less dashing through the snow and a bit more dashing of our hopes. Less frosty the snowman, more NPHET the no-man. Are your nerves jingled, are your tempers jangled?

Perhaps it’s this current weary context - coupled with the stuff about life that’s routinely distressing – that brings us here longing, hoping, craving to be reminded of real Christmas good news. That’s my role today.

Please don’t be so familiar with it that fails to salve your weariness.

Remember that when Matthew wrote … his book was breaking into 400 years of weariness. With the announcement that God was making his long-promised arrival. Jesus Christ. And this arrival would be unlike other turning points in history. Jesus Christ was Immanuel: God with us.