The family service last night looked at the subject of the royal exchange, how God ‘swaps’ so many of His gifts and blessings for our despair and misery.
There are many things we swap regularly in life (clothes, music, TV channels, toothbrushes etc.) and things we change less frequently (houses, cars, jobs.) God gives us beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for despair (Is 61:3). He replaces our sadness with good things, leading us from the dark hole of depression to hope.
Rom 5:20-21 shows us how God gives us grace and forgiveness instead of sin, shame and guilty. Phil 4:19 reminds us that God’s plenty will replace all our neediness, our tiny, finite reserves being replaced by God’s infinite plenty.
Eccl 3:11 shows us that our selfish, ugly nature is exchanged for God’s beautiful, loving nature. We may not have ‘arrived’ yet, but God is at work in us to transform us.
After the sermon, we did our own practical ‘swapshop’, exchanging unwanted presents for other gifts. Some of the gifts on offer:
One of the most unusual exchanges came when Tony (who had won a pair of ladies’ knickers at the tombola during the Christmas market) exchanged these for a men’s toiletries set! He definitely felt he got the better deal in this exchange, just as we definitely get the better deal with God!
