In our series exploring the big questions of life, we looked further at the question of how God works in our world. It’s not enough to just know what God does or even why; we must be people who work in the same ways, never subscribing to the world’s idea that ‘the end justifies the means.’ God cares about how we do things as well as about what we do; He cares about motives as well as actions. Prov 16:2 says, ‘All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.’ Our motives determine what we do, who we are, and who we will become, and it’s necessary to have motives aligned with actions, understanding that God sees below the surface and beyond the superficial. (1 Sam 16:7)

Ultimately, we looked at 3 ways God works and contrasted these with how the world works:

• God works through humility and servanthood

• God works through foolishness

• God works through faith

• The world works through arrogance and pride

• The world works through wisdom and knowledge

• The world works through achievement and effort

Humility and servanthood are the path to greatness in the kingdom of God (see Matt 20:20-28, John 13:15-17). Humility comes before honour (Prov 15:33) and Jesus showed us that the Pharisee, with his arrogance and pride, did not receive justification from God, but that the tax collector, humble before God in asking for mercy, did. (Luke 18:9-14)

The foolishness of God and His world of paradox can’t be understood with natural eyes, but demonstrates God’s modus operandi. (1 Cor 1:18-25) Who would choose a couple well into old age and barren to be the start of your dynasty? Yet God chose Abraham and Sarah. Who would think of marching around a city and then blowing trumpets as a way of seeing walls tumble? Yet that was the way God led Joshua to defeat Jericho. Who would think a teenage boy could defeat a giant experienced in warfare? Yet God used David and his sling and five stones to bring down Goliath. Who would think people could withstand a fiery furnace? Yet God protected Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were thrown into that furnace. If ever we need to understand how God works, we can look at the cross. This is the way God chose to save us!

One of the hardest things for us to grasp in the Christian journey is the ongoing need for faith and trust in God. We are conditioned to believe that hard work, effort and achievement are the way to get on in life, but God is more interested in faith. Paul expounds on this key ingredient in Abraham’s life in Romans 4, and Jesus often spoke well of people who demonstrated faith. To the centurion who came to Him to ask for healing for his servant, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.’ (Matt 8:10) To the woman who reached out to touch the hem of his cloak for healing, He said, ‘Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ (Matt 8:13) To the ones who brought their friend to Jesus via a roof, we are told, ‘When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”’ (Matt 9:2) Jesus praises faith; He commends Mary for her devotion to Him rather than Martha’s strivings and bustlings: ‘”Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”’ (Luke 10:41-42) Interestingly, Jesus often called his disciples ‘you of little faith’ (Matt 6:30, Matt 8:26, Matt 14:31); in Greek, simply ‘little faiths.’ It’s faith which defines God’s people, not effort or achievement.

A few weeks ago, my 4-year-old granddaughter announced that she would like to make hot cross buns (thanks to a Cocomelon video of the song which sees a family baking…) I gathered the ingredients required and we set out one Saturday morning to make them.

I soon discovered two things:

1. the ‘Blue Peter’ quality of videos (‘here’s one I prepared earlier’) may add viewing quality to videos (real life is too slow, isn’t it? – making these buns was like watching the proverbial paint dry!) but bears little resemblance to real life

2. the amazing properties of yeast

In the recipe, we had to assemble various ingredients and mix together with yeast, covering and leaving the mix to ‘prove’ for an hour. Off we went to do something else, returning to find the mixture had doubled in size in our absence and was threatening to overflow the bowl! We added mixed fruit and spices and did the same again. At this point, my granddaughter lost interest in the whole proceedings. Used to baking buns which cook in 20 minutes, she was by now thoroughly disillusioned with hot cross buns.

I, on the other hand, was fascinated. I returned an hour later, and the mixture had again doubled in size. More things added; the procedure was again repeated with the same results. Yeast was working its magic. As Jesus said, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.’ (Matt 13:33)

When we eventually got to eat the hot cross buns over 4 hours later, I had seen with my own eyes how a little yeast (a 7g sachet) had affected a large mix (hundreds of grammes of flour!) I had a new appreciation of why the Israelites had to bake unleavened bread at Passover (they would never have left Egypt if they had been waiting for the bread to rise!) and a new understanding of the many New Testament references to yeast and how something small can have a disproportionately large effect on something much bigger (this can, of course, be both a positive or negative effect, depending on the active ingredient…)

Most of all, I had a glimpse into the nature of faith. Jesus said that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. Faith is like yeast in our prayers. It may look small and inconsequential, but it’s the ‘active ingredient’ for which God is searching. He is the One who answers prayer. He is the One who actually moves the mountains. But He is looking for our faith to work with. Jesus said, ‘Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’ (Mark 11:24)

We often give up on prayer (like my granddaughter gave up on making hot cross buns) because it is time-consuming and, for the most part, quite boring. We may not ‘see’ results (answers to prayer) for some time. Compared to making buns, having to wait over four hours to eat hot cross buns seemed tedious and unrewarding. How often do we give up on prayer because the yeast of faith seems to yield slow results? We are impatient and want God to answer us ‘immediately – if not sooner!’

It’s easier and cheaper to buy hot cross buns than to bake them, but I am glad we did this, because I learnt so much from this baking experience about faith, patience, perseverance and the amazing ingredient of yeast!

Stephen spoke tonight from Hebrews 3:1-11, starting by quoting from Richard III: ‘now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by the sun of York.’ We may well feel that the idea of a ‘winter of discontent’ is apt for us in lockdown, and whilst we hope for a glorious summer without restrictions, it is all too easy to be like the Israelites, and in times of trouble and testing to start grumbling and losing our focus on God. Heb 3:3 urges us to ‘fix your thoughts on Jesus’, and this is good advice to us at all times, whether in freedom or in lockdown.

Sometimes, life’s situations put us in a position where we can be constantly grumbling, like the Israelites in the wilderness. There, God led them day and night and provided for them in miraculous ways (producing water from a rock, for example, and providing manna by miraculous means to feed them each day.) They lacked nothing in the wilderness, but still kept harking back to the ‘good old days’ of slavery in Egypt where they had a wide variety of food to eat. Ex 17:7 reminds us that Moses named the place of discontent ‘Massah and Meribah’, meaning ‘quarrelling’ or ‘testing, for essentially the people doubted God’s goodness and presence, asking ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

We can feel like this too, asking if God is among us now in our trials and difficulties, but we need to ensure that our hearts do not become hardened and put God to the test. Heb 3:1-11 is a sobering warning to us not to be like the Israelites, not to test God or doubt Him, but allowing Him to touch and soften our hearts so that they are malleable, like the clay in the hands of the Poter. Our discontent, when surrendered to God, can become something beautiful in His hands. If we honour God with everything and in everything, trusting Him and keeping our eyes, minds, hearts and thoughts fixed on Him, then we can look forward to a glorious summer… not because of the sunshine or even because of the lifting of restrictions, but because of the Son whose love and light transform our situations and who gives us hope always.

Garry spoke this morning about how Joseph and Jesus were both sold for silver. Selling a person seems abhorrent to us; although modern slavery still exists, it goes against all our values to see a human being sold for a price. Joseph was sold for 20 shekels of silver to Ishmaelite traders; Jesus was betrayed by Judas for the price of 30 pieces of silver (Matt 26:14-16), which was the price laid down for a slave.

We struggle to understand the level of betrayal involved in both these cases. Brothers are meant to be close friends and allies, not enemies. The disciples of Jesus were his closest friends, like family to him. We wonder how these people can have come to the place of betrayal. Clearly, Joseph’s brothers were jealous of their father’s favouritism and irked by Joseph’s youthful arrogance. Their hatred had simmered for a long time and they fed off each other’s animosity. Later, they would suffer great remorse as they saw their father’s anguish and grief and lived with the consequences of their actions.

We know very little about the motivation of Judas Iscariot, but it seems, like most people, he expected the Messiah to be political, someone who would throw off Roman oppression and establish the kingdom of God on earth with force. He had experienced spiritual power (see Matt 10:1-4), but he was clearly interested in money and the power it brought more than he was in doing things God’s way. Later, he too experienced remorse, realising that Jesus was not going to fight off his arrest and establish a military kingdom, but for him, this never led to repentance and he committed suicide. (Matt 27:3-5)

Betrayal goes against the trust and love which are the foundation of all human relationships. Both Joseph and Jesus show us, however, the power of forgiveness when betrayed and wronged and how to keep on loving those who betray us.

Garry continued his series looking at Joseph and the parallels in his life with the life of Jesus. In Genesis 37, we see how Joseph’s brothers saw an opportunity to get rid of him. They hated him because of Jacob’s favouritism and because of the dreams which seemed to them outrageous and humiliating. We need to be careful not to reject truth just because it comes from people we don’t like or who don’t like us; truth is truth, no matter who the messenger may be, and in this case, Joseph’s dreams definitely came from God.

The deep-burning anger of Joseph’s brothers was not like the red-mist anger which sometimes causes us to do things we later regret. They were serious about their desire to kill their brother (as Reuben’s intervention indicates) – and in the same way, we see how Jesus was hated by many (see John 1:11, John 7:3-5, Matt 12:11-14, Mark 11:15-18). Both Joseph and Jesus were pursued by people who hated them, but the malicious, malevolent plans of other people were subverted by God’s merciful plan in both cases. Matt 16:21 indicates that Jesus knew His death was part of God’s salvation plan and Gen 50:20 reminds us that Joseph reached the same conclusion.

Jesus died for our sins because we could never, through our own goodness and effort, be good enough to reach God’s standard (see Is 59:1-2, Rom 6:23, Heb 9:14, Luke 18:9-14). God’s mercy and justice are both satisfied through the cross. Everybody can be saved, but we are required to call on God in order to be saved. Joseph was rejected and condemned by his own brothers and Jesus too was rejected and condemned, but through their suffering, God worked good. Both Joseph and Jesus were also sold for silver, and it is difficult for us to fathom the motives of both Joseph’s brothers and Judas in selling the life of a person, but we are aware ultimately that it was through the precious blood of Christ that we are redeemed. Human values so often can’t compare with the values and price God puts on human life.

The ‘need-to-know’ basis in politics and other areas of business refers to telling someone the facts they need to know at a particular time and nothing more. In politics, civil servants often use this as their rationale for not revealing potentially incriminating information to MPs, though they like to know everything, as this exchange from ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ between two civil servants makes clear!

• Bernard Woolley : But you only need to know things on a need-to-know basis.
• Sir Humphrey Appleby : I need to know *everything*. How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?
• Bernard Woolley : So that means you need to know things even when you don’t need to know them. You need to know them not because you need to know them but because you need to know whether or not you need to know. If you don’t need to know, you still need to know so that you know that there is no need to know.
• Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes!
• Bernard Woolley : That’s very clear!

In the Bible, there are many things we would like to know. The tantalising information that it was Paul’s nephew who thwarted yet another plot to kill him (Acts 23:12-22) is one such snippet; we have many questions about this news. Was he a believer? Did he have any association with Jewish leaders which gave him access to this information? How did he get access into the barracks so easily, especially if he was quite young, as the text implies? What was his relationship with Paul like? None of these questions are answered at all, which we may well find infuriating, but the truth is that Scripture contains all we need to know. Unlike politics, this is not because God is keeping vital information from us out of churlishness or spite; the Bible declares Him to be a God of revelation (Daniel 2:8 tells us ‘there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries’ and Amos 4:13 tells us God reveals His thoughts to mankind.) We may not get all the answers we want in the Bible, but we do get all the answers we need. In it, we find all we need to live life as God intended it and to be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16)