Some people like the fact we have so much choice and so many options available to us nowadays, while others find this daunting and confusing. Each day we are faced with different choices, and we have to be clear about how we choose to do what we choose to do. Mark spoke this morning from 1 Cor 13:1-14:1, talking about how faith, hope and love can be the guiding lights in our choices.

If we consider buying a new car, we could base our decision on practical reasons (reliability, make, functionality etc.), which is a decision based on reasonable faith. We could, however, base our choice on hope – that our ‘dream car’, for example, would live up to our expectations and hopes. The third motivation, love, however, tends to be the one that sways us most: we buy a car because it is ‘just right’, and ultimately because we love it.

Love has to be our guiding light in all choices. Love is practical, reaching out to those in need, showing kindness to all. God Himself is love and love was His motivation for action (see John 3:16, Rom 5:8). His lavish love is unconditional and we are urged to ‘pursue love’ (1 Cor 14:1) more than anything else. So often, we value other things (spiritual gifts, faith, knowledge, giving to the poor and so on) more than love, but if love comes first, the other things will follow. We need to strive to love, acknowledging our shortcomings, but realising also that this is our life’s work. Faith will one day give way to sight; hope will one day be fulfilled, but love is eternal and therefore must be the main factor in all our choices.

Many of us live life with a feeling that what we do on an everyday basis is inconsequential, unimportant, insignificant. Mothers used to working who are on maternity leave feel that their routines of feeding, winding, changing nappies, bathing and clothing a newborn are repetitive and unfulfilling (despite being utterly exhausting as well!) Those working in manual jobs feel that there is little value to the back-breaking work which leaves them shattered at the end of a day. Those serving in cafes feel that feeding ungrateful people who are always in a hurry is of no real significance in the ‘grand scheme of things.’ We are worn down by a sense of busyness which leaves us dissatisfied or by work that we perceive as meaningless and often look enviously at others whose work seems more fulfilling or important to us.

I was going to write about ‘the God of the inconsequential’, a God who is interested in our daily routines and everyday work, but ultimately I find that I cannot do that, because what we deem inconsequential is not actually unimportant or insignificant. God, instead, invests the ordinary and the mundane with meaning. Without the mother’s care, the baby would die: how can we then deem this work insignificant, if it is nurturing life, health and wellbeing? Without the labourer who works to build our homes or the farmer who works to feed us, we would have no dwellings and no food: how can we then deem this work unimportant, if it provides shelter and nutrition? Without the waiter who provides a service and a friendly smile, many people would neither be fed nor have contact with others: how can we then deem this work unfulfilling if it reaches out to others?

The problem we so often have is a limited perspective. The Bible urges to do whatever we do in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Col 3:16) Paul tells the Ephesians, ‘Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.’ (Eph 6:7-8) Jacob’s hard years of labour for Laban passed quickly because he was motivated by love (see Gen 29:20); the monotony and apparently meaningless nature of our work can often be mitigated if we understand the bigger picture of that work or can see our service as being unto God.

There is nothing inconsequential or insignificant about lives that are wholly dedicated to God. We may not be able to readily see significance in our work (unlike the surgeon whose interventions may very visibly save someone’s life), but we can trust that God’s purposes can be worked out even through the ordinary and the boring. G. K. Chesterton reminded us that few grown-up people are strong enough to exult in monotony, but ‘perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony’, creating a new sunrise each morning and each snowflake unique in its snowflake character! When we see the inconsequential in this light, we have strength to carry on.

Mark spoke tonight on the subject of force fields, something much loved in science fiction! A force field is a barrier made up of energy or particles to protect a person, area or object from attacks or intrusions:

It seems from Luke 4:16-30 that Jesus was divinely protected (maybe not by a force field, but certainly by a ‘God-shield’!) After reading from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue, every eye was fixed on Jesus (rather like when a stranger walks into a cowboy town…) They knew that God could heal and do great things, but their reaction seems to have been ‘who does Jesus think he is?’ His words infuriated and enraged them (they ‘exploded’ with anger at the claims He was making), so much so that they were going to kill Him, planning to throw Him off a cliff. Yet ‘he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.‘ (Luke 4:30) It must have seemed as though God intervened and His protection was on His Son.

God had plans and purposes for Jesus and that was not the right time for Him to die, so God intervened. Jesus was not scared off by the venom He had provoked, but continued to preach God’s message of repentance and love to all.

We often feel alone and afraid, dragged down by situations. panicking as Israel so often did when faced with enemies. Just as they were commanded, however, we need to stand still and see God’s salvation (see Ex 14:13-14), for He is a shield to His people, providing angelic protection at times (Ps 34:7). We need not fear, however much situations may change rapidly, because God is on His throne and in complete control of all situations. Our lives and our times are in His hands and we too can know the protection and help which Jesus experienced.

Social media makes a great deal of noise about the need for good communication skills, but for the Christian, the most important communication skill we can have is prayer (which could be likened to condensed milk, having lots of goodness in a deceptively simple format!)

Stephen spoke this morning from Dan 3:16-18, reminding us of the need for:

1. prayer in reality (not simply reserving prayer for set times and specific places, but understanding that prayer is not meant to be formulaic, but based on our relationship with God, and is, therefore, something which can be ongoing and constant.)
2. prayer in faith (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego demonstrated faith in God’s ability to deliver them; they knew God was there with them in reality, as the ‘fourth man’ (Dan 3:25) demonstrated visibly to others.)
3. prayer in action (these three men demonstrated a living and active faith which led to action. Ultimately God’s action in their lives delivered them from the fiery furnace. As we are prompted to pray, God moves in action through our prayers, rescuing and delivering us and those for whom we pray.)

Why were the Psalms written? Paul tells Timothy, ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Tim 3:16-17) The Psalms are useful and helpful to us because they equip us for every good work, but their importance also lies in showing us how to communicate with God and in affirming the reality of response to God in all its diverse forms.

In the introduction to the ‘Message’ version of the Psalms, Eugene Peterson comments on their ‘raw honesty and detailed thoroughness.’ Many of us have preconceived ideas about how to speak to God, believing that God must be approached tentatively (because He may well turn out to be as capricious and moody as our earthly parents) or diffidently (because He may be as indifferent to us as others have turned out to be) or politely (because politeness is the thing He values most.) All of these ideas can shape our prayers and leave us confused, resentful and reluctant to pray at times.

The Psalms, though, are ‘God’s gift to train us in prayer that is comprehensive (not patched together from emotional fragments scattered around that we chance upon) and honest (not a series of more or less sincere verbal poses that we think might please our Lord.)’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Answering God’, P 5-6) When we read the Psalms, we see a wide range of response to God: from adoration, praise, worship and thanksgiving, to anger, confusion, hurt, bitterness and complaint. No human emotion is left out; we see in these prayers what it means to be human and that we can approach God freely, confidently, boldly, children welcomed into the loving arms of mercy, grace and kindness. Generations have found reassurance and hope from the diversity of the psalms and as we pray these prayers, we become aware that there is no situation which can keep us from God. When Paul tells us to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), the Psalms show us how to do this.

The book of Psalms is a long book in the middle of the Old Testament, part of the ‘Wisdom’ genre of literature. It is one of the longest books in the Bible (the longest by chapters and the 3^rd longest in terms of number of words.)

Different religious traditions number the psalms differently, though most Jewish, Protestant and Catholic versions of the book each include 150 individual works. The Eastern Orthodox Church’s Septuagint Bible includes a 151^st psalm, while some versions of the Bible used by Middle Eastern Syriac churches have 155 psalms. The reason for the different numbering is that the Hebrew numbering sometimes combines (splices, joins) a psalm that is reckoned as two psalms in the Greek numbering–and vice versa.

Part of the popularity of the Psalms lies in the fact that they are often quite short to read and in many Christian traditions, the Psalms are read regularly, either monthly or bi-monthly, something that is easy to do because of their individual composition. Because they are individual prayers, they can be read individually without necessarily losing the ‘thread’ of the story (as with the historical books or the Gospels), though as we will discover later, they still retain a unity which means we should read them all regularly, not simply dipping in for our ‘chocolate box’ fix of promises!

Eugene Peterson reminds us, ‘The Psalms come to us embedded in Holy Scripture. They have their own identity as a book, 150 prayers with a clearly marked beginning and end. They are, at the same time, an integral part of a larger book, the Bible… They have the Torah for their mother, the Prophets for their father and a luxuriantly rambling family tree.’ (‘Answering God’, P 16) Each of the books of the Bible is necessary (2 Tim 3:16), but none is complete in itself; we need to read and study the Psalms keeping ‘the bigger picture’ of the whole story of Scripture in mind