Our son Michael celebrated his 21^st birthday last week.  When he was born, five weeks premature, and I held that little bundle of life in my hands for the first time, I didn’t know whether the Lord who had given us a son would take him back again. Although I wasn’t quite as old as Abraham, it was the first time I could really identify with him. Twenty one years later, Mike is taller, more intelligent and more attractive than me.

At the age of 75, Abraham was called to follow the Lord. Now, aged well over 100, he was still having faith-stretching, heart stopping experiences. The lesson? We are never too old to face new challenges, fight new battles, and learn new truths. When we stop learning, we stop growing; and when we stop growing, we stop living. “The first forty years of life give us the text,” “and the next thirty supply the commentary.” The “commentary” is being written as we listen to God, and follow His directions, one step, one day, one challenge at a time.  Sad to say, many people understand neither the text nor the commentary, and their lives are ended before they have understood the meaning of life. Genesis 22 records the greatest test that Abraham ever faced. In it we also see the progressive unfolding of God’s rescue mission for planet earth. As we found in our series Christ in All the Scriptures, it contains a beautiful prefiguring of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary.

In both, the lesson from this passage is this:  obedient faith overcomes in the trials of life. I want us to consider five lessons we can learn from the testing of Abraham. We can learn them the hard way or the easy way. With God or without him.

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February 28, 1944, started out like many other days in Corrie’s family watch shop in Nazi-occupied Haarlem, in Holland. Corrie, the first woman watch-maker in Europe, was helping her father, Casper, repair watches, and her sister Betsie, was doing housework in their home attached to the back of the watch shop. Corrie wasn’t surprised when a stranger, under the pretence of showing her a broken watch, whispered that his family was also hiding Jews. His wife had just been arrested. Could she help? Believing that God called her to resist the evil embodied in the Third Reich, Corrie led a clandestine network of rescuers hiding Jews in Haalem. By 1944, Jews still alive in Nazi-occupied countries had a simple choice: hide or die. Corrie agreed to help the stranger.

During the night of 1st March 1944, sleep in the ten Boom house was shattered by a Gestapo raid. That night Corrie, Betsie, Casper, and thirty-nine other rescuers in their network were arrested, beaten and charged with hiding Jews. But in spite of a two day search, the Gestapo never found the six people hidden behind the bookcase in a secret room. Casper ten Boom, Corrie’s father, died in prison ten days after his arrest. Corrie and Betsie were transferred to the Ravensbruk death camp, where Betsie later died on Christmas Day. The Jews hidden behind Corrie’s family bookcase were freed, hidden again, and eventually survived the Holocaust. Corrie Ten Boom had a God-given purpose, that kept her focussed and faithful to her calling during severe trial.

We don’t know what will happen in 2014. But how we respond to the challenges ahead will be determined by our convictions, by our character and above all, shaped by understanding our calling from God. Do you know God’s purpose for your life because you are not here by accident.  Rick Warren says, “Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance…” The greatest tragedy is not death. The greatest tragedy is to live without a purpose.”

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On 22^nd January, the UN is sponsoring the Geneva 2 conference to try and resolve the conflict in Syria. An Iranian delegation has not been invited. That is ironic since everyone, from the Royal Family and the Prime Minister, and even the US President and politicians of both main parties, are celebrating the visit of an Iranian delegation to Palestine this week. They were carrying funds for an opposition leader the Israeli authorities wanted dead. They met covertly with his family, then created a diplomatic incident by leaving the country without notifying the authorities. The historic visit of the Magi has a contemporary ring to it. Without Iran and Iranian involvement in the Nativity story, we would not have exchanged gifts on Christmas Day!

This morning, let us note how the Christmas story is a study in contrasts. The contrast between religious hypocrisy and spiritual integrity. Between the religious hyprocrisy of Herod and the Priests, and the spiritual integrity of the Shepherds and Magi. How are we to distinguish one from the other?

Thank God for the Iranians from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

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What is going to be the biggest musical hit this Christmas? Apparently the all-time, best selling Christmas song is Band Aid’s “Do they know it’s Christmas?” closely followed by Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” and Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”. But beating them all is Mary’s Song. Known as the “Magnificat anima mea Dominum”, it is one of the earliest Christian hymns, sung in hundreds of thousands of churches of all denominations, every week for at least 1,500 years.

And today we are going to see why. As we saw last week, Mary had some serious liabilities – she was pregnant, she was young, she was poor, she was unmarried, she was from a dubious neighbourhood. And that was just the start of her problems. Besides all that, she faced divorce by Joseph, rejection by her family and death by stoning. Good reasons why, when the angel left her,

“Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.” (Luke 1:39-40)

Luke 1 wonderfully records the providential work of God in providing Mary with a friend who would understand. The narrative of not one, but two, miraculous conceptions woven together in parallel, as the mothers support and encourage each other.

1. Both begin with an introduction of the child’s parents.
2. Both mention specific obstacles to childbearing—Elizabeth’s barrenness and Mary’s virginity.
3. The angel Gabriel made both announcements, each time to someone living in a small, out-of-the-way location..
4. In both there was a fearful first reaction to Gabriel’s words and a statement of reassurance from him.
5. Then there is a description of the coming son and,
6. In each case, an objection raised—by Zacharias, unbelief; by Joseph, lack of understanding.
7. Last, Gabriel’s promises confirmation that his announcement will come to pass.

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Remember the last time you filled out a job application?  You listed your education, your skills, your work experience. Then you hit the final question: “What is it that makes you uniquely qualified for this position?” How do you answer without appearing arrogant? And when I am asked to give a reference for someone, the question I stumble over is “What are the applicant’s weaknesses? Employers assume your availability, but what they really want to know about is your liabilities. Most employers hire on the basis of competence. They look at your skill set and maybe your personality type. Only the enlightened ones care much about your character.  But God doesn’t operate this way. In today’s reading from Luke, we learn what it means to say “I am the Lord’s servant comma”

1. No matter who you are, the Lord can use you

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.” (Luke 1:26-27)

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“High fidelity: Julian Richer rewards staff loyalty with holiday homes and trips on the company jet. Next? He’s planning their inheritance…” That was the eye catching headline in the Independent this week.

“Why can’t all bosses be like Julian Richer? I’m not going to beat about the bush here: I think Julian is great. If I had to hold up someone as a role model for other wannabe tycoons to follow, the founder of the Richer Sounds hi-fi chain would be that person. … So what earns him this accolade? The way he treats his staff, the fact that in surveys 95 per cent of them say they love working for him. And then the way his approach translates into tangible results: 52 stores that produced profits of £6.9m from sales of £144.3m last year in an austerity-hit economy, and helped him to build a personal fortune estimated at £115m.

Based in what property agents refer to as the “secondary” shopping streets – the tattier end – his shops, full of in-your-face Day-Glo posters, have won awards galore for their levels of service, and achieved sales unheard-of in the electronics industry. For years, his London Bridge branch could claim to have the highest sales density of any shop in the world.

It was no surprise to hear Richer, 54, who still holds 100 per cent of the company he started 35 years ago, explain this week how he has formed a trust for when he dies so that the business becomes a mutual, similar to John Lewis, under which every staff member receives an equal share…That’s how he is. He’s often talked of the business surviving after he’s gone, of putting a structure in place to ensure his methods continue. He calls them the Richer Way (he’s pulled them together in what must rank as one of the best business books in history, now in its fifth edition, called, not surprisingly, The Richer Way). These include: providing free access to holiday homes in the UK and abroad (regardless of sales performance); trips aboard the company jet for those who suggest the best ideas; cash handouts for staff so they can go to the pub and brainstorm; the use of a Bentley for the store which does the best each month. His reasoning is simple: a happy workforce supplies good customer service, boosts sales, decreases complaints, and eradicates theft and absenteeism.”

A wise investor… in people. Our theme today is “How to Become a Wise Investor in 2014” That’s because today is our annual Pledge Sunday. Today we are asking you to make a pledge. To indicate in writing, up front, what the Lord has laid upon your heart to give back to him in 2014. Actually to ‘give back to him’ because we are acknowledging that everything we have has come from him.

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