Christmas - Believe The Good News
This is our Sunday teaching from Pastor Alex Lyne. Recorded live at our Sunday Service in Harris Academy Purley, Croydon on Sunday 22nd December, 2025.
Below you can find the full talk audio, and a summary article. The slides are here.
When Good News Is Only Good News If We Believe It
On Boxing Day 1945, a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda was still fighting World War II — unaware that the war had ended months earlier. Leaflets announcing peace were dropped. Letters from family pleaded with him to come home. He dismissed them all as enemy propaganda. For nearly 30 years, he lived in hiding, surviving on scraps, fighting a war that was already over.
It’s a striking reminder of a simple truth: good news is only good news if we believe it.
At Christmas, the Church proclaims the greatest good news of all — that God has come near. That the Creator of the universe entered human history in Jesus, to rescue, restore, and reconcile us. It’s news many of us have heard countless times. But hearing is not the same as believing.
In Luke 1, Mary receives astonishing news from the angel Gabriel: she will give birth to the Son of God. She is young, vulnerable, and living in a society where this news could cost her reputation — even her life. Confused and disturbed, she asks an honest question: “How can this be?” And yet, despite the uncertainty, her response is extraordinary:
“I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.”
Mary doesn’t just hear the message — she believes it. Elizabeth later names this clearly: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would do what he said.” The blessing is not only in what God is doing, but in Mary’s trustful response.
That invitation still stands for us. We can hear God’s promises — that nothing can separate us from his love, that he has good plans for us, that we need not fear bad news — yet still live as though the war isn’t over. Still anxious. Still striving. Still fighting battles God has already won.
Mary shows us a way forward. She talks honestly with God, bringing her questions without pretense. And then she yields — trusting God even when the full picture isn’t clear. Faith, after all, is not certainty; it is trust.
This Christmas, perhaps the invitation isn’t to hear more good news, but to believe even one piece of it deeply enough that it changes how we live. To step out of the jungle. To lay down our weapons. To trust that peace has already come.
Good news really is good news — when we believe it.