Mark continued his series on Joseph this morning, looking at Gen 41:45-54. At this point in the story, Joseph’s fortunes have been dramatically reversed, thanks to his interpretation (by God’s help) of Pharaoh’s dream. As a result, Pharaoh gives him a new name, meaning ‘God speaks and lives’, a testimony to God’s power throughout Egypt as Joseph travelled the whole of the country, making plans for how to deal with the years of plenty and famine. God’s fame was thus spread throughout Egypt.

The seven plentiful years came and Joseph used his administrative and organisational skills to store the overflow of grain (more numerous than the grains of sand!) Despite initially trying to keep track of the surplus grain, Joseph found it was ‘immeasurable.’ God is that kind of God! – as Rend Collective sing in ‘Immeasurably More‘,

‘More than all we ask
Than all we seek
All our hopes and dreams
You are immeasurably more
Than we can know
Than we can pray
All our words can say
You are immeasurably more

There’s nothing greater than Your love
You’re more than we can imagine
There’s nothing sweeter on this earth
You’re more than we can imagine.’ (Rend Collective, ‘Immeasurably More’)

God does things in a bigger and better way than we can ever imagine (see Eph 3:20-21) and in so doing, demonstrated the futility of the Egyptian gods of harvest. God is plentiful, abundant and immeasurable; He lavishes His love on us. (1 John 3:2)

Pharaoh gave Joseph a wife (the daughter of the priest of the sun god!) and during the seven years of plenty, two sons were born to him. The first, Manasseh, means ‘God has made me forget’, testimony to how Joseph’s circumstances were changed by God. The second was named Ephraim, for God caused Joseph to be fruitful even in  the land of his affliction. God can enable fruitfulness wherever we are. After thirteen years as a slave, the dream is about to be fulfilled and everything is changing for Joseph. When the seven years of famine came, as God had foretold, there was bread in Egypt. God is faithful and accurate to do all He has promised. We may have to wait at times for the fulfilment of the dream, but it will come.

Last September Stephen received a packet of chilli seeds as a birthday present and planted these in the little container which came with the present. The instructions said the seeds would take 3-4 weeks to grow. We had almost given up hope when in November, signs of life appeared:

By the end of December, there were definite signs of growth:

By about March, we transferred (with some trepidation) these three fledgling chilli plants to a larger growth pot and continued to watch in fascination as they grew. Based entirely on their size, we named them ‘Daddy plant’, ‘Mummy plant’ and ‘Runty’, for the third plant was decidedly lagging behind in terms of size. (Whether these names mean anything to the plants is debatable, but it helped us to identify them and if Adam got to name all living creatures, we thought we’d join the story!)

For many months, the plants just grew and grew, tended lovingly by Stephen, who would water them and turn the pot around so that the sun could shine on them.

Mummy and Daddy grew enormously; Runty is still struggling in size. However, after a health scare in May when he appeared to have died and flopped alarmingly, he has now started to grow again:

Then came the magic moment in May when buds appeared on the plants:

Then flowers came!

And finally we can see the beginnings of a recognisable chilli!

There is a long way to go yet, but these chilli plants are proving to be a vivid pictorial reminder of the truths we learnt about spiritual growth earlier this year. Spiritual growth is an organic, natural process. It cannot be rushed and will be faster for some people than for others. It is almost impossible to believe that these three seeds were planted at the same time, for the growth rate has varied so much. ‘Mummy Plant’ is now considerably taller than ‘Daddy Plant’, despite lagging behind for so long (Daddy is now concentrating on producing chillies; Mummy has only just started to bud). Runty is still so much smaller that it would be easy to give up hope, but despite being spindly and weak-looking, his leaves are now peeking over the top of the plant box. All three are growing, even if the rate appears so markedly different.

There is considerable differences in the pace of growth between these three plants, but the process of growth is the same. They all need water, light, space, nutrients from the soil and warmth to grow. They have all grown upwards towards the light first, their leaves curving elegantly towards the sun. Their stems, so flimsy and spindly initially, have thickened before the buds could appear. First the bud, then the flower, then the fruit. This process of growth, given by God, carries on inexorably; the only thing we have had to do other than ensure water and light and warmth were provided is to pollinate the flowers because the plants are growing indoors where no bees are present.

When the conditions are right, growth inevitably occurs because that is how God designed it to be. Growth, remember, is God’s Regeneration Outworked With The Holy Spirit. He is the One ultimately who makes all things grow: ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.’ (1 Cor 3:6-7) So much of growth is slow, unseen, unremarkable. But when we look at the miracle of this little chilli plant growing on Daddy plant, we can definitely marvel at natural growth. How much more should we marvel at this miracle of spiritual growth going on daily in the lives of each one of God’s children!

Debbie gave us an update on the most needed items for the food bank. The following items are urgently required:

• Sachets of sugar (packets of sugar easily become hard and cannot be used)
• Breakfast cereals
• Dried milk (as many people do not have fridges)
• Tin openers (tinned food is welcome, but many people do not have tin openers)

In order to raise money for these items, we still need clothes, bags and belts which can be weighed and exchanged for money. Please note that bedding, towels and curtains are no longer accepted.

The good news is that many people attending the Salvation Army food bank are now also requesting Bibles. Spare Bibles can also be donated to help meet this spiritual need.

Please continue to support the food bank and remember that when we serve the poor and needy, we are actually serving Christ.

This is a busy week for birthdays in our church:

We also had a special birthday cake to consume!

Hebrews 4:12 in the Message version says ‘His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defence, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.’

I’ve only ever undergone surgery once: my son was born by Caesarean section because he was breech. With the arrival of anaesthetics, it is easy to regard surgery as relatively minor these days, but in actual fact, any breach of the layers of the skin is painful and a surgeon’s scalpel is razor sharp in order to cut through those layers. When the anaesthetic wears off, the pain is very evident! Any sword wound, any surgery, is painful. Sometimes the pain is excruciating, leaving us gasping, unable to think of anything else. For the first couple of days after surgery, I virtually counted the hours to the next dose of painkillers and found it all too easy to understand how war veterans had become addicted to morphine after the horrors of losing limbs.

God loves us too much to leave us in our sin and hard-heartedness, however. He speaks to us gently and tenderly, pricking our consciences and wooing us (Is 40:2), urging us not to harden our hearts (see Heb 3:7-9). If we do not respond to those pinpricks, however, He has to use more drastic measures. Let’s remember, though, that a surgeon uses the scalpel not to wound – though that is what happens in the short-term – but to heal. Surgery is necessary to cure something which if left would cause us even more problems. God knows that hard heartedness leads to sin and rebellion and ultimately to a rupturing of our relationship with Him, just as an inflamed appendix, if left untended, will rupture and poison our whole system, or a cancerous tumour, if left untended, will continue to grow and shut down vital organs necessary for life. God’s Word may cut us, piercing our doubt and defences, highlighting our sinful attitudes and our lack of trust, but it is also the means by which we are healed. Job 5:18 says ‘For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.’ We may fear surgery, but it is better than the alternative!

David’s prayer of repentance in Ps 51 shows us the importance of keeping our hearts right. All our speech and actions are the overflow of our heart attitudes and Jesus reminded us in the Sermon on the Mount that actions can be more complex than they appear. If we are ever to understand our own actions or the things other people do, we will have to dig deeper than the action itself into the motivation and the belief system which have prompted the action.

The state of the unregenerate heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. (Jer 17:9) From early times ‘every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time’ (Gen 6:5) and those who are without Christ are ‘darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.’ (Eph 4:18) Pharaoh gives us an example of someone who repeatedly hardened his heart when confronted by God’s might and majesty (Ex 7:14, 8:15), and sadly this tendency to hard hearts is not reserved to non-believers. The wilderness wanderings show us the Israelites repeatedly grumbling against God and hardening their hearts even when they had witnessed His miraculous provision. (Ex 17, Num 20:1-13) Moses’s advice ‘Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer’ (Deut 10:16) needs to be applied to all of us.

God’s aim is to transform our unregenerate hearts of stone into renewed hearts of flesh (see Jer 31:33, Ezek 11:19).  He is in the process of sanctifying and transforming each one of us and our role is to guard our hearts, since this is the wellspring of life. (Prov 4:23) Like David, we have to be sensitive to God’s Word and repent when we have gone wrong, asking God to ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.’ (Ps 51:10) Our prayer needs continually to be ‘Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ (Ps 139:23-24)

When we pray David’s prayers in Psalm 51 and Psalm 139, what we are doing is not only giving God permission to enter our lives and cleanse us; we are allowing Him to sensitise our hearts. When our hearts are hardened, when we have hearts of stone, it takes a lot to penetrate our hearts. Every time God speaks to us, we have a choice. We can hear His voice and respond to it. Or we can harden our hearts and ignore Him. God’s voice, if we are sensitive to Him, is like a pinprick. If your skin is soft, you can feel a pinprick. A pin can draw blood. So often, that is how God is with us. He pricks our consciences. He whispers words of exhortation to us. He nudges us to the right choice. He reminds us gently of the way we should go.

If our skin is not soft and sensitive, however, we can jam a pin into it and not even feel it. Our skin can become calloused. A callus (or callosity) is a toughened area of skin which has become relatively thick and hard in response to repeated friction, pressure, or other irritation. Calloused skin is one thing – an annoyance rather than a major problem. But calloused hearts are a much bigger problem. Jesus said that most people who listened to Him did not respond in faith because of their calloused hearts. (Matt 13:15)

If we do not respond to the pinpricks of God’s Spirit, His Word will come as a sword or scalpel to us, cutting through our layers of defence and doubt (Heb 4:12), which is inevitably more painful! Let’s allow God to search and know our hearts and to create in us pure hearts, as David teaches us, we will be able to recognise His voice more clearly and can then choose to obey Him; we are laid open to ‘listen and obey’, which is the response God is longing for.

‘Soften my heart, Lord.’ (Graham Kendrick)