One of the great joys of Christmas is (for me) receiving a new recipe book or some new cooking utensil. My father usually buys me one or the other and it’s great to experiment with new items or new recipes (though I have to confess that the last new recipe I tried did not work out well, a ‘gingered beef casserole’ from the Dairy Diary, which I assumed would be rather like a beef and ale pie, only to discover that ginger ale is disgustingly sweet and doesn’t lose this sweetness, even when slow-cooked for hours with stewing beef… Still, you live and learn!)

More successful was my ‘fondant dessert kit’ (a set of silicone moulds and recipe book allowing me to make hot sponge desserts with a hot sauce filling which was pronounced very tasty by those who consumed this on New Year’s Day.)

One of the interesting things about cooking is how you assemble a list of ingredients and equipment that will, more often than not, bear little resemblance to the finished product. Thus, the fondant dessert used plain chocolate, sugar, butter, self-raising flour and eggs to create a gooey sponge that looked nothing like its constituent parts.

I find Bible study very similar to cooking. A teacher takes the individual ingredients of God’s Word, analysing individual words (What was the Hebrew or Greek word used? Where else is it found in the Bible? What are all the different translations of this word?), striving to understand historical context (What were these ‘games’ that Paul is talking about in 1 Cor 9:25?), looking for how the different pieces of the Bible fit together, seeking to tease meaning from obscure passages, studying to show themselves approved, as one who can correctly handle the word of God (2 Tim 2:15). The process is painstaking, laborious, often simultaneously fascinating and boring, and looks rather like the chef in the kitchen, laying out ingredients, greasing moulds, turning on ovens, creating what is apparently, to outsiders, quite a mess!

Hopefully the finished product looks (and tastes) vastly different from the messy process of study and creativity… but it’s a fact that the finished product cannot appear without the hard work that goes in beforehand. As the cooking proverb goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs…

To celebrate the family service theme, Garry wrote a new song entitled ‘A Fair Exchange is No Robbery’, which looks at the fact that God trades our despair, poverty and burnt-out dreams for His beauty, joy, endless hope and a new song:

‘A fair exchange is no robbery,

But what God trades so lavishly:

He gives beauty, joy – and a brand new song

An endless hope that easy lasts a whole life long.

This ain’t fair, anyone can see –

The things God’s getting back from me:

Burnt-out dreams, despair and poverty,

This can only be daylight robbery.

God gives us this and so much more,

Exchanging things you wouldn’t want to store.

He makes rich and you will see

The riches that He gives last eternally.

A fair exchange is no robbery,

But what God trades so lavishly:

He gives beauty, joy – and a brand new song,

You get an endless hope that easy lasts a whole life long.

You’get an endless hope that easy lasts a whole life long.

Come get an endless hope that easy lasts a whole life long.’ (Garry Turner)

J-P also shared how we need to swap our bad habits for good ones, remembering that to develop new habits takes time. He encouraged us to hold each other accountable and help each other to develop good habits, visualising the success that God wants us to have in this New Year. It’s important also for us to focus on what we want to do (and want God to do), rather than simply looking at the negatives (what we don’t want to do), so that we move towards new goals with confidence and hope.

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!

This morning’s sermon looked at Rom 12:9-21, verses packed with commands about how we should be and what we should do. It’s important to get the balance between knowing, being and doing right; all three are important to a balanced Christian walk.For us to be the people God wants us to be and live a life of service as commanded in Rom 12:9-21, we have to have God (and love) at the centre of our beings – Christ living in us (see Gal 2:20-21). All our doing, if it’s simply oriented in ourselves, will not be enough to please God; all our striving to be ‘better people’ can’t actually get us close enough to God (see Rom 3:23, John 15:4).

Being

Paul gives us 6 commands about how we should be and 4 about how we should not be. The positives are:

1.Be devoted to one another in love

2.Be joyful in hope

3.Be patient in affliction

4.Be faithful in prayer

5.Be willing to associate with people of low position

6.Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone

The negatives are:

1.Never be lacking in zeal

2.Do not be proud

3.Do not be conceited

4.Do not be overcome by evil

Paul reminds us that love has to be free from hypocrisy and dissimulation; it has to be sincere. Much of what he talks about here relate to the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, patience, faithfulness etc.), another indication that we must have God’s life within us if we are to be all that He intends us to be. Humility and pride are contrasted, and we are not be slothful or indolent, but must have God’s energy, enthusiasm and passion within us. If we are going to do what is right, we have to ‘be careful’, having thought through beforehand what God’s Word says to do in certain situations, for in a crisis, we will react instinctively. Knowledge has to be assimilated, hence the need for transformed and renewed thinking (Rom 12:1-2).

Doing

Some of the things we are commanded to do (such as showing hospitality to people and honouring others) seem eminently practical and reasonable. Many of these commands are connected with others so that there is a balance between what we shouldn’t do and what we should do. Paul tells the Romans to hate what is evil and cling to what is good, for example, offering us a contrast between our response to evil and our response to good, reminding us that we are to be ‘glued’ to all that God says is good (which is why we need to know God’s Word.) However, much of what Paul teaches us in this section goes against the grain: we are commanded to bless those who persecute us and not to take revenge, for example, showing kindness and forgiveness to all (see also Matt 5:43-45, Eph 4:32). Thackeray commented, ‘Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural’ , and we often feel that God asks more of us than is humanly possible.

We need not only to reflect on Jesus’s response to enemies (see Luke 23:34) but how Christ’s life in us produces the same response (see Acts 7:60). Paul is calling for supernatural behaviour indicating a spiritual origin and maturity. We cannot live the Christian life from the outside in, but from the inside out. As Darrell Bock says, ‘The reason the disciple can love all humanity is that the disciple knows that God will deal justly with all one day.’ We have to give room for God’s vengeance, understanding that He will deal with everything justly (see also Matt 5:40-42, Luke 6:36).

Paul sums up this section of advice and commands by saying, ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ (Rom 12:21) We may feel that evil is prevalent and will prevail, but God reminds us that He is in control and love never fails. Martin Luther King Jr said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’ As Boromir discovered in The Lord of the Rings, the evil ring of power could not be used to wage war against the Dark Lord. Evil cannot be overcome by a stronger force of the same kind; it can only be overcome by good. Paul tells the Ephesians to ‘put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.’ (Eph 6:13) If we are to stand strong this year, we have to be integrated people, people who know the truth of God’s Word and who live by that truth, people who are becoming all that God intended us to be as we allow Him free reign in our lives and people who will do all the things God tells us to do, whether those things make sense to us or not.

Our heart for 2016 is to see many people saved. When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas what he had to do to be saved, their reply was succinct: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.’ (Acts 16:31) Our longing for this year is for it to be a YIELD YEAR, a year when God brings salvation to many, including our households – family members who do not know the Lord or who have wandered away from Him. We long to see people bow the knee to Jesus, surrendering their hopes, fears and lives to Him and reaping the lavish gift of eternal life He bestows freely to all who believe.

Let’s pray for salvation to come to many: to our family members (we want to see parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, step-parents, step-children and everyone else worshipping and serving the Lord), to our neighbours, to our friends and acquaintances, work colleagues, and to our community. Let’s pray for salvation to come to all who set foot in our building as they feel and recognise the presence of God. Let’s pray for salvation to come to all we meet, that God will give us boldness in witness and wisdom in sharing the gospel and that He will be pleased to reveal Himself to many. We know it’s God’s will for people to be saved (see 2 Pet 3:9) and we long to be faithful ambassadors and willing co-workers with God in this precious task of reconciliation (see 2 Cor 5:17-21).

Yesterday’s New Year’s Day party was the usual feast of good food:

There were plenty of silly games, some including food (the aim of this game was to eat an After Eight placed on your forehead, without using your hands…)

Mark devised a game not of ‘pass the parcel’, but ‘pass the baby’ (thankfully none of our real ones!), with forfeits done when the music stopped:

One of the forfeits involved slapping someone, which Jade enjoyed!

Then there was the familiar Goldthorpe-style ‘musical chairs’. The ladies are quite calm about this:

… but for the men, this is serious business, with a trophy to be won!Mark McKeown was the worthy winner this year, regaining his trophy after Tony’s victory in 2015, and giving a worthy winner’s ‘thank you’ speech: