‘The Message’ paraphrase of the Bible came out of Eugene Peterson’s frustration that so many ordinary people in the United States of America had no real connection with the Bible. As a pastor of a local church, he longed for people to share his love of the Bible, and so he set about translating it into ordinary language they could understand. The Bible – God’s word to us – is worth understanding. It has a revolutionary message of good news; it explains the world as we see it and as we long for it to be; it tells us that God loves us and has done things which can have a lasting impace on our everyday lives if we believe.

All of us at all times need to read the Bible in language we can understand (one reason for the many different versions of the Bible we find nowadays.) There is no point simply admiring the Bible from a distance. It’s a book which needs to be opened, read and re-read, digested and lived out, because it contains God’s heart, the fount of wisdom and the good news that Jesus Christ has made a way for us to become children of God.

Yet few people take the time to read this book and dismiss it as irrelevant or merely of historical interest.

There is little point admiring a beautifully presented meal or a magnificently decorated cake if you don’t then eat the food. The Bible is daily bread for us, nourishing us, nurturing us.

There is little point admiring a glass of ice-cold water in hot weather without imbibing it and being refreshed. The Bible is water for our souls, refreshing us, restoring us.

Don’t leave the Bible as an unopened keepsake on a shelf. It’s not meant for decoration. It’s meant to change the world, one person at a time.

In Noah, we see one of the first amazing miracles in the Bible: the rescue of Noah and his family from the destruction of the flood. Noah lived in difficult times (Gen 6:5-10) but was able to remain blameless and upright and to find favour with God even in these times of great sinfulness. He is a reminder to us that we don’t have to go along with the crowd, be moved by peer pressure or conform to the world; we can influence others for God and swim against the tide!

God communicated His heart and His plans to Noah, and the fact that God does this consistently with people is a great miracle (see also Ps 103;7, Ps 25:8-9, 14). Jesus said that He was the good shepherd and we, His sheep, know His voice (John 10:2-4). It is a miracle that God communicates with us and has removed all barriers created by sin through the sacrifice of His Son. God spoke with Noah and gave Him the exact plans for the ark (see Gen 6:13-21). Noah had to do more than listen to God, however; he had to mix what he heard with faith and act in obedience. The secret to his success was ‘Noah did everything just as God commanded him.’ (Gen 6:22, see also Gen 7:5) If we want to see God do miracles in our lives, in our church, in our community, then we must be people who hear God speaking to us and who obey Him when He tells us to do something. The church is a God-led community. It’s not about our good ideas or our good works in themselves. It’s about God speaking His life into us and sharing His plans with us and about our response to God.

But of course, Noah had to do his part, and much of that must have seemed ordinary and hard work. Phil 2:12-13 says, ‘continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.’ On the one hand, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favour and we are saved by God’s grace through faith (Eph 2:8-10), but we also see that there can be a human element to the miracles of God (the boy offering the disciples his picnic lunch and the disciples distributing and collecting food in the Feeding of the Five Thousand, for example.) Noah is an example to us of persevering faith. He worked hard to build the ark and then waited patiently for over a year till all the flood waters finally receded. Much of that time must have seemed dull and mundane, but his ongoing obedience resulted in a new covenant with God and new blessings (see Gen 8:22, Gen 9:8-16). Blessing will always follow perseverance and obedience (see also James 5:11, Gal 6:9)

Garry spoke this morning from Gen 42:6-17, the part of Joseph’s story where he meets his brother again. It appears from this passage that this meeting triggered in Joseph a memory of his original dreams. Dreams often seem to die, but at this point, Joseph must have realised that God was working in the situation. God does not forget the dreams, evne if we do!

The situation must have been difficult for Joseph and his reaction seems quite harsh, almost vengeful, even if fully understandable after all his brothers had done to him. Eph 4:17-24 reminds us that our reactions should be different to those of the world. It is easy to appear ‘nice’ for short periods of time, but when the pressure is on or something totally unexpected happens (like the brothers’ appearance), what we find expressed is often our raw reaction, the ‘real’ us. We have to be aware that the enemy is always prowling around, ready to devour us, and must allow our new nature to shine through. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us at such times so that we can reflect our new natures, our changed selves.

Joseph ultimately let go of his bitterness and harsh attitudes and struck a deal with his brothers. (Gen 42:18-20) He was prepared to let the changes God had been working in him to shine through. We must understand the times and allow God’s new nature to shine through us. There must be a difference in how we act!

Garry spoke tonight about the complaining and grumbling of the Israelites during the wilderness wanderings (see Ex 15:24, Ex 16, Numbers 14). They were so miserable they declared they wanted to die in the desert and could only complain about God’s miraculous provision of manna and quail, longing for the melons, cucumbers, onions and garlic of Egypt (conveniently forgetting their misery as slaves there.) So often, we look back on the past with rose-tinted spectacles, forgetting what God has done for us. In leaving Egypt, God blessed His people not only with a miraculous deliverance but with plunder from Egypt (gold, silver and clothing); nonetheless, they were only full of complaints (‘it was better when…’/ ‘it could be better if…’)

Ps 73 reflects a similarly limited viewpoint as the psalmist sees the arrogant and wicked and envies them, not understanding the full picture until he comes into the sanctuary and sees things from God’s point of view. So often, our understanding is limited, based on an aversion to pain or difficulty. The butterfly has to struggle to break through the chrysalis, however; there is sometimes a need to press on beyond the pain barrier in order to reach the final goal (see Heb 12:1-3).

Everything we go through in life has the potential to make us better – but it can make us bitter. We need faith to trust that God will always take us the best way, even if it is not the easiest. Phil 4:12-13 and 1 Tim 6;6 have much to say about contentment, and we need to learn to be content with God’s way for us. He is good and always does what is right. Whether we believe that or not will determine the end result – growth or grumbling. The choice is ours.

The children got to play in tents and hunt for manna and quail as well!

The miraculous and the mundane may seem to be mutually contradictory aspects of the Christian life, but in actual fact, God is present in both aspects. Jesus is, after all, Immanuel (God with us) and has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5, Matt 28:20). It stands to reason that the God who is omnipresent (see Ps 139) must be with us not only in those moments when His power intervenes miraculously in our lives but in those many moments which seem so ordinary (and frankly dull).

We cannot deny that God is a God who performs miracles (Ps 77:14). We see from the life of Moses so many miracles: not only his calling at the burning bush (Ex 3) but the fact he saw God turn his staff into a snake; He saw God perform ten miraculous signs to Pharaoh using that staff and his words; He saw God part the Red Sea in order to make a way of escape for His people; He saw God provide water from a rock, manna from heaven and quail from nowhere to feed His people. He saw God ensure that clothing and footwear lasted for forty years in the wilderness. If ever we see a man who saw miracles, Moses is that man. Yet it was God’s presence with him which defined him (Ex 3:12,14) and which distinguished him and israel from other nations. (Ex 33:12-16)

If we take miracles out of the Bible, we are not left with very much! If we take miracles out of the Christian calendar, we are not left with very much! Each one of the major Christian festivals hangs on a miracle. If Jesus did not take on human flesh and come to us through the virgin birth (a miracle), we have no hope of salvation, for only one who was sinless could ultimately bear our sins for us. This is why we celebrate Christmas. If Jesus did not really die for us, then we are still left in our sins and can’t be reconciled to God. But Easter tells us that not only did Jesus die, He was also raised to life again – the resurrection being a miracle which turns our whole world upside-down, giving us hope of life beyond death. Then we have the miracle of the Ascension – for how else can you describe this spiritual being ‘disappearing’ from human sight?! Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon people giving them the ability to speak in other languages and the boldness to witness to the resurrection, is a tremendous miracle.  From this point, we see those fearful disciples turning the world upside down by their faith and testimony! All of these festivals remind us that our God is mighty, holy, powerful and able to do ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.’ (Eph 3:20) All of these festivals remind us that God is a God of the miraculous. But at the same time, we have to remember that the Bible is more than an action film. There are lists and genealogies we find boring to read, full of names we find difficult to pronounce. There are sections on dealing with all kinds of life situations, including mould and mildew, which probably cause our eyes to glaze over as we read them. There are stories repeated which feel very much like a child asking the same questions over and over again. Even in the lives of those people we revere as heroes of the faith, there is much that is mundane and ordinary. David may have had his miracle moment with Goliath, but he also spent many a night on the hillside, looking after sheep, dreaming, singing and dealing with animals that wanted to attack the sheep. Moses may have seen God perform miracle after miracle, but he learned humility through forty years in Midian, looking after sheep. Joseph may have ended up as second-in-command to Pharaoh, but much of his work life was spent in organisation and administration, looking after prisoners and deciding, even when he was in a position of power and privilege, where to put all this grain he was collecting.

Gen 24 shows us an ‘ordinary’ story of a servant going to find a wife for his master’s son. It has 67 verses of detail in it, and might be construed as having no miracles. The servant, Laban, Bethuel and Rebekah all acknowledge God’s hand in all these ordinary interactions. The story shows us God working in the ordinary details of life, and thus we see God is interested even in the everyday details of our lives.

Matt 8:14-15 combines the miraculous and the mundane: we see Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever (a miracle) and then see her getting up and waiting on him (the mundane)! Matthew links these two things to show us that the miraculous and the mundane are two sides of the same coin. God is there in both of them, and we will flourish and thrive in life only as we realise this and understand that whichever side of the coin we have tossed today (miracle or mundane life), God is there with us, to help, to bless and to save. His grace is there, everywhere:

‘It’s there on the mountain top,
There in the everyday and the mundane,
There in the sorrow and the dancing/ Your great grace.’ (‘Your Grace Finds Me’, Matt Redman)