Exodus 33:12-23 remains a pivotal passage for me, an ongoing reminder that it is the Lord’s presence with us which distinguishes us from other people and is the ‘bottom line’ for believers. Moses talks with the Lord, demonstrating that an ongoing relationship with Him is necessary. He can’t afford to rest on his laurels or rely on what God has said to him in the past; he needs God to continue to teach him His ways so that he may continue to find favour with Him. As when God originally called him (Exodus 3), the only thing he has to sustain him is God’s presence (see Ex 33:14 and Ex 3:14). Moses recognises that it is this presence which will be the convincing sign to other nations (Ex 33:15) and boldly asks to see God’s glory. (Ex 3:18)

This is becoming my daily prayer: ‘Now show me Your glory.’ (Ex 3:18) It was a vision of God’s glory that commissioned and sustained the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel; it was a vision of God’s glory in the form of the exalted Christ which fuelled the book of Revelation. God’s glory reminds us of who God is, of His transcendent power, of His personal love and care for us. How did Moses continue through forty years in the wilderness, dealing with a stubborn and stiff-necked people who made an idol the minute his back was turned? How did he cope with the incessant moaning and groaning and complaining which dogged his life? The moments of provision and victory seem overwhelmed by the years of carping and unbelief, and it is hard to see how Moses could retain his sanity in all of that. The answer, I believe, is found in this passage, when God shows him His goodness and proclaimed His name to him. A vision of God is necessary to thrive in this life. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else will help us to endure.

Dave spoke tonight from Matthew 15:21-28, a rather surprising story where we see Jesus being apparently quite abrupt and unfriendly towards a foreign woman who came to Him pleading for Him to deliver her daughter from demon possession. The woman was a Syro-Phoenician, Mark tells us; Matthew uses the more Jewish term ‘Canaanite’ to indicate that she came from a pagain heritage. She was distraught because of her daughter’s situation and came to Jesus as perhaps her last hope. She knew that she did not deserve to be heard, but she came to him asking for mercy, and in this story, we see several pointers as to how we too can approach Jesus.

First of all, she sought Jesus out, making a determined effort to reach Him. She cried out to Him for mercy, and the Greek word indicates a continual, persistent crying out which could not be ignored. She appealed for mercy, identifying with her daughter’s suffering and acknowledged Jesus as ‘Lord, Son of David.’ She may have been a foreigner, but she recognised Jesus as the Messiah, the One sent by God to deliver His people.

Jesus, unusually for Him, seemed unwilling to respond to her cry; He ‘did not answer a word.’ He seemed unresponsive, and spoke of His primary calling being to the lost sheep of Israel. In calling her a ‘dog’, He seems to us blunt to the point of rudeness, but we see that He was testing her faith. His first duty was to the Jews, but once rejected and crucified by them, He became the Saviour of the whole world and now we are all given that Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations.

The woman was so desperate that she was not put off by Jesus’s comments at all. She knew she was unworthy, but she also knew that deliverance came only for Him. In addressing Him as ‘Master‘, she acknowledged that even ‘crumbs’ from Him could save her daughter; she believed and bowed down to Him in a great expression of faith, for which Jesus commended her.

This story teaches us to come to Jesus with persistence, to bow before Him and believe He is able to heal and deliver us. We can tell Him our needs and never be afraid that He will turn us away. Hebrews 11:6 reminds us that without faith it is impossible to please God; we need to emulate the woman’s persistence, insistence, boldness and earnest plea for mercy. We must storm heaven with our prayers, never giving up, asking and keeping on asking until we too receive mercy from God.

Another way in which God works in our world is through testing and temptations. (He isn’t the author of temptation, as James makes clear, but He does use them for our good.) It’s noteworthy that before Jesus began His earthly ministry, immediately after His baptism (which in many ways confirmed His identity as the Son of God to others), He was led by the Spirit of God in the wilderness to be tested. (Matt 4:1) Would He not only do what the Father wanted, but do it in ways that were compatible with how the Father worked?

The first temptation was to turn the stones into bread. (Matt 4:3) Here, we have the temptation to put Himself first, to meet His own needs, to assuage His hunger through miraculous means. Jesus rejected the temptation, reminding the devil, from the word of God rather than from His own strength, that ‘man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matt 4:4) We must never do God’s work in our own strength, putting ourselves first.

The devil then wanted to use Jesus to dazzle the crowds of the people on the streets below with a miracle, to put a little excitement into their dull lives, jumping from the roof of the temple and seeing God’s angels rescue Him in the kind of miraculous entertainment  and distraction which many of us want from religion. (Matt 4:6-7) Jesus saw this for what it was: putting God to the test, rather than living in trust. Miracles do form part of a life of faith, but they come as God sees fit, not as a distraction to the difficulties of life or a substitute for trust. Every time we seek alternatives to trust, whether that is through our own hard work and effort or other means, we are deviating from the way God works. Trusting is the one ingredient which we can never omit from a life of discipleship.

The final temptation was the temptation to worship the devil and thus gain worldly success: he ‘showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”’ (Matt 4:8-9) In essence, this is the temptation most of us face regularly: doing things the world’s way, calling success what the world calls success, succumbing to worship of the visible and tangible instead of the invisible and spiritual. Jesus’s identity as the Son of God meant He had a greater kingdom than anything the devil could offer; He was there to announce the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). He didn’t need to do things the devil’s way, and nor do we.

We would prefer not to face trials, temptations and troubles, but God uses these to refine us, strengthen us and teach us repeatedly to trust in Him alone. Like Jesus, we are tested so that we learn to do things God’s ways, rather than our own.

We looked at some of the ways in which God works this morning, trying to discern His ways and means in our world. We saw that God works primarily through love because He is love. (1 John 4:8) Motives are hugely important to God; why we do things is as important as what we do and 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 makes it very plain that love is more important than tongues, prophecy or even miracles. Love motivated God to give His Son for our salvation (John 3:16) and therefore anything we do cannot be motivated by selfishness or self-interest, because this is not God’s way.

Many of the ways that God works seem contradictory to us or confusing because they are not the way the world works. The world is all about personal achievement: getting on in life, putting yourself first, being determined and getting ahead, ‘looking after number one.’ God works in ways that seem paradoxical to us: ‘whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.’ (Mark 8:35) “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45) The path to greatness, Jesus taught, comes through service and self-denial, a message embodied by Jesus. (Phil 2:1-11)

The paradox of the gospel is clearly explained for us in 1 Cor 1:18-25. Only as we embrace God’s foolishness and weakness can we begin to live as He wants us to; we must walk in humility and servanthood if we are to imitate God. God’s ways will always be personal, never forcing His will on us, but always inviting us into relationship and partnership with Him. This will require a constant transformation of how we think and act, a renewing of our minds, a willingness to embrace what may well look crazy to us. That’s what faith is all about – embracing God on His terms, not ours.

This morning we continued our series exploring the big question of life, and looked at the question ‘How does God work?’ We saw that God’s ways and means are very different to ours and that He cares as much about how we do things as what we do. Key to understanding God’s ways is the passage from Isaiah 55:8-9 which tells us that His thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours. We cannot ever hope to fathom God’s ways if we only use human reasoning and understanding.

Life is a journey; Jesus told us He was ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life.’ (John 14:6) So often, we are more concerned with destinations rather than the journey, but God is as concerned with the process of transformation along the way as He is with our final destination (being conformed to the image of Christ, as Rom 8:29 says.) Transformation means a total renewing of our minds (Rom 12:1-2), starting with the U-turn of repentance (Mark 1:15) and continuing with our daily discipleship, believing and following Jesus and becoming ‘fishers of people.’ (Mark 1:17) We simply cannot carry on viewing life, people and God as the world does; God works through transformation and a reordering of reality, so that we see life as it really is, not as the world pretends it is.

You’ve probably all heard the story of the girl who rescued starfish, only to be told there was no point doing this because of the sheer need all around: “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!” Her reply was, “Well, I made a difference to that one!” In effect, we can feel overwhelmed by the needs all around us and feel that whatever we do doesn’t make much of a difference. But I believe that every act of kindness makes a profound difference to the person receiving it, and that’s why we are so thrilled to be involved with Dearne Churches Together in giving out gift bags and food bags to local families in the school holidays.

Today, we gave out 86 bags to families with over 200 children, giving them crafts to do, puzzles to solve and all the ingredients they needed to make pancakes, the traditional food for Shrove Tuesday. Judging from the photos we received already, there’s been some good pancake making going on!

Each bag contained craft activities:

Thank you to all the churches who contributed to the bags, to all the church volunteers who packed the bags and distributed them and to all the families who came along to collect them! Don’t miss out on the next gift bag – to celebrate Easter, we’ll be giving these out on Wednesday 31st March, so book in now!