Have you ever heard an orchestra tune up? You can do so by listening to this video here.

The musicians in the orchestra, which is made up of a variety of instruments, have to tune their instruments so that the music they play together sounds harmonious and melodious. They tune their instruments to the note A (440 Hz), and the  instruments need to be tuned because of changes in temperature and humidity. For instance, when the conditions are hot and dry, the pitch of the string instruments goes flat. Similarly, with more humidity, the strings sound more sharper. Listening to instruments tune up is not particularly pleasant, but hopefully the end results will be!

Garry spoke this morning about the need for us to be ‘attuned’ to God. Effectively, this means that our wills are aligned to His; we allow ourselves to be ‘re-set’ to God’s note, so to speak, rather than persisting with our own thoughts and attitudes which will lead to actions which are decidedly ‘off pitch.’ The dictionary gives 3 definitions of ‘attuned’:

1. made receptive or aware

2. made familiar with

3. made harmonious

In prayer, we are first of all made receptive to God’s voice as we still and quieten our souls to listen to Him. (Ps 131:2, John 10:4) We become familiar with His voice. It has been said that a parent will recognise its child’s cries from all the other voices around. This is true of God with us, but the more time we spend with God, the more sensitive we become to recognising His voice as well. Finally, as we submit our wills to His will and allow Him to work in and through us, the ‘sound’ that we make in the world becomes harmonious, for we are working with God, rather than struggling and striving against Him.

Just as the orchestra’s initial tuning-up session is not particularly pleasant for the audience to listen to, our struggles in prayer are not always very melodious! Nonetheless, this process of ‘tuning up’ is essential if we are to ultimately make a noise that is pleasing to God. When our lives match our words, when our hearts are yielded to God and there is congruence between what we say we believe and how we live, then there is a joyful sound which pleases God’s heart. Let’s always be listening for His voice and seek to be in tune with Him.

Garry continued his series on prayer this morning, looking at Eph 6:10-18 and particularly at verse 18: ‘pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.’ For our prayers to be effective and productive, we need to pray ‘in the Spirit‘, praying in line with God’s Spirit and according to what He wants. This means praying according to the character or manner of God, even as John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10) or John the Baptist moved in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17).

Just as a child imitates its parents, so we need to imitate God. We need to be aligned and attuned to Him so that we know His mind and can pray accordingly. Paul’s decision to go to Jerusalem (Acts 19:21) was made in the Spirit; it was not a mere whim. He was attuned to what God wanted and was therefore able to see the bigger picture and see things from God’s perspective. Paul told the Corinthians that he was like a father to them and therefore they needed to imitate him (1 Cor 4:15-16); we too need examples to follow (see also Heb 13:7) and can learn a lot from Paul.

Paul urged us to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18), teaching about the gifts of inspiration, of revelation and of power which the Holy Spirit gives in 1 Cor 12 and 1 Cor 14. Speaking in tongues is one way we are drawn further into the presence of God and we need to ask God for this gift and seek not to neglect the gifts He gives us if we are to grow in prayer. Being filled with the Spirit is an ongoing process which requires His fire to be rekindled and revived in us on a regular basis. We also need to spend time with God, getting to know Him more deeply so that we become more sensitive to His leading and to His voice. As we are washed by the Word (Eph 5:26) and enlightened by God’s Spirit, we can put into practice what God says to us in private as we go out to our frontlines, whether that is at home, at work or in our local community. God wants to pour out His Spirit on all people  (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:1-21), not just on some kind of ‘super-saint.’ Praying in the Spirit is something Paul urges us all to do!

Tonight is the monthly family service starting at 6 p.m., so come along prepared for games and fun as well as worship and the Word! The morning service is at 10.30 a.m. as usual.

Don’t forget that the next ‘Churches Together’ meeting will be on Saturday 10th May, starting at 6 p.m., at the Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne. All are welcome and it’s a great opportunity to have fellowship with Christians from other churches and to worship and pray together.

Next Sunday morning (11th May) is our monthly meeting at Cherry Tree Court in Highgate, so the service there will start at 10.30 a.m. We will not be having a service at Market Street in the morning, but the evening service will still be at 6 p.m. as usual, with a Communion service being held in the evening.

On Sunday, we looked at the things we need to grow as Christians, comparing these to things plants need in the natural world to grow and noticing that any imbalance in these five basic needs (nutrients, water, light, warmth and space) will act as obstacles to our growth.

When looking at the first of these (nutrients), the question often arises in our diet-obsessed culture of which is the most important food type? Many diets focus on reducing the consumption of certain food types (cutting out carbohydrates, for example, or becoming vegetarian and thus reducing the protein we get from meats.) The less practical diets tend to ask us to limit our nutritional intake to certain food types only. It can be both difficult and quite boring to do this for any length of time, however, and the best long-term diet is surely one which has a balanced intake of nutrients.

We can act in a similar fashion in regard to our spiritual food, however. We need the whole of Scripture if we are to grow up balanced and whole. ‘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) So in our church teaching and in our personal reading of the Word, we need to make sure we are getting a balanced diet. The easiest way to do this, practically, is to read something from the Old Testament and something from the New Testament on a daily basis, reading methodically through God’s Word. We may well need help in interpreting or understanding what we read, but the first step is actually immersing ourselves in God’s Word.

There are many reading plans out there which enable people to read through the Bible in this way, so that the whole Bible is read throughout a year at least. Word Live is one scheme. Bible Study Tools is a plan to help you keep on track with a yearly reading plan. The 52 Week Reading Plan is useful in giving what I would call a nutritionally balanced reading plan (each week you are encouraged to read from all the different types of Scripture – the Gospels and letters in the New Testament and portions from the Law, the history books, Psalms, poetry and prophecy in the Old Testament.) In this way, you tend to avoid getting bogged down in the genealogies or stuck in the skin diseases of Leviticus, for example, which often tend to put people off and make them wonder how they are being equipped for every good work in those passages! Many churches have a lectionary, which is a list of parts of the Bible to be read outloud at daily services. All such things are useful in the same way that a novice cook can be overwhelmed when shopping in a supermarket: ‘but what do I buy and how do I make a meal from all these ingredients?!’

There is no point being legalistic in our Bible reading and feeling condemned if we miss a day, for example. But just as food never actually is ingested accidentally (we have to be intentional about eating, despite what many of us believe!) and a considerable amount of time and thought has to go into wise eating, so we must be intentional and determined in our reading of the Bible. It will not just happen; we have to make it happen. We actually have to pick up the Book (or phone or tablet or however we read the Word these days!) and read it.

Natural food keeps us alive and, if we are wise about our food choices, does us good. We do not, however, live on bread alone and need every word which comes from the mouth of God. Experience has shown God’s people over the years that spiritual growth will never occur without the ingestion of the Bible. Let’s eat!

In the Bible studies recently, we have been looking at John’s words on light and darkness and truth and lies. (1 John 1:5-7; 1 John 2:3-11, 1 John 2:21-23) I was recently struck by a lyric in Rend Collective’s song ‘Joy‘: ‘the dark is just a canvas for Your grace and brightness.’ So often, when we pass through dark times, we feel afraid and abandoned, but we really see light best when there has been darkness; the contrast makes the light even more amazing to us.

Last week I visited the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, a free museum of art, craft and design that celebrates Sheffield’s stainless steel heritage through some wonderful exhibits and sculptures. At the moment, there is also an exhibition on printmaking which runs until 15th June. (You can view some of these here, but  you really need to see the full size prints to appreciate them!) Printmaking is the process of making artwork through printing and incorporates etching, lithography, engraving, mezzotint, aquatint, monotype and monoprint and there were examples of these different art forms from a variety of Sheffield artists on display. To say I was bedazzled is probably an understatement. The variety and scope of work on display were amazing.

My favourite artist in that section was Neil Woodall, whose landscape prints of scenes were object lessons in light and darkness. There were three prints on exhibit and a video explaining how the first was made. (You can watch the video here.) The scenes were ordinary: trees, sunlight shining through trees or on water, birds flying. There would be no point posting a photograph of them here, for the size and quality I could give you could not capture the nuances and movement captured in those prints. Even the prints visible on his website are pale comparisons of the real thing.

From all this, I learnt that printmaking is a messy business! His workshop looks like my worst nightmare: big machines, toxic chemicals, ink-stained hands. I watched him painstakingly re-shape work: intricate, delicate, finicky work that seemed at odds with the size of the equipment he was using. I saw the labour involved: turning the huge wheel to press the image of the metal plate onto the paper. I saw the precision, the care, the re-working which was necessary. I saw his quiet satisfaction at the finished product. I no longer wondered about the price tag on that product when I saw what had gone into creating it!

I learnt so much from that time. The closer you got to the print, the less impressive it looked. It was, after all, an object lesson in light and dark, in black and white. No colours on this print, no distractions from the creation simply from light and shade. Close up, it looked like its component parts: blotches of ink and less ink in some places! But when viewed from the correct distance, the scene from God’s creation shone out in splendour.

Our lives are like this. Viewed close up, as we pick over the pieces of our choices and decisions, as we view our bodies in the mirror, they do not look promising. We see the blotches. We see the sin. We see how often we make the same mistakes, fall at the same hurdles, fail to love as we are loved. We become frustrated and feel helpless. There is so much mess. All we see is the mess.

But God is working in our lives, just as the artist works on those prints. There was no mess to be seen in the finished product. And the finished product, viewed from the right distance, was mesmerising, entrancing and so, so beautiful. So it will be with our lives: ‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ (1 John 3:2)

Tonight we looked at the things which we all need to grow spiritually (just as a plant needs these things to grow physically) and how a lack of any of these things can be an obstacle to our growth.

1. Nutrients

Just as a plant needs nutrients to grow, so we need to be fed from God’s Word if we are to grow spiritually. We start with milk (1 Pet 2:2-3) and progress to solid food (Heb 5:12/ 1 Cor 3:2). God’s Word is like honey (Ps 119:103) and needs to be eaten (Jer 15:16, Ezek 3:2-3); Jesus described Himself as the Bread of Life (John 6:35) and reminded us that we need to live on every word that comes from God’s mouth (Matt 4:4). We need to meditate on God’s Word, read it through, study it and memorise it, but above all, we need to remember that it is a living and active word which works in our lives (Heb 4:12.) We are not reading simply to learn academic truth, but to be transformed by that truth: ‘The intent in reading Scripture, among people of faith, is to extend the range of our listening to the God who reveals Himself in word, to become acquainted with the ways in which He has spoken in various times and places, along with the ways in which people respond when he speaks. The Christian conviction is that God speaks reality into being – creation into shape, salvation into action.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Working the Angles’, P 89) We are not simply reading the Bible to find out what God says about certain things, for example; we are listening for what God is saying to us as we read about those things and how they will affect our daily lives.

2. Water

Plants use water to carry moisture and nutrients from the roots to the leaves and food from the leaves back down to the roots. A plant that is not watered will have a weak stem and dried up leaves and will eventually die. We need to drink from the living water if we are to have our thirst quenched (see John 4:10, 14 & John 7:37-39). If we are to experience the river of God (Ezek 47), we need to acknowledge our thirst and understand only God can slake that thirst. The psalmists frequently spoke of this (eg Ps 42:1-2) and it is only as we realise our thirst that we will come to the Living Water.

3.  Light

Plants need sunlight in order to grow, and we need to dwell in the light. Jesus is the Light of the World (John 1:5, John 8:12, John 9:5) and from His light, we gain light and life. Only by coming into the light can we find the freedom and growth we need: ‘Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.’ (John 3:20-21) Sometimes we don’t want to do this, because the light reveals the dirt and the things that need changing and we would prefer to hide away in the dark, but while ever we hide in the dark, we are not growing spiritually. We need light to grow.

4. Warmth

A seed will not produce a plant at all if it is kept too cold. The seed needs warmth to germinate (that is, to develop from a seed into a plant) and to start to grow into a healthy plant. So, too, we need warmth if we are to grow spiritually. This comes from fellowship with God and with others. (1 John 1:6) We need to understand that we are not meant to ‘go it alone’ but need the encouragement and acceptance from other Christians. (Heb 10:24-5, Ps 133:1) Paul urges us to ‘make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ (Eph 4:3), for when there is unity, there will be that warm, loving atmosphere which fosters growth.

5. Space

Plants need space to grow, and so do we! People need the freedom to try new things and to experiment; they need the encouragement that comes from knowing they are accepted and loved. Everyone is valued and important, having a role to play in God’s family, but unity is not the same as uniformity. Instead, there is diversity and variety within the church, with us all bringing different temperaments and talents to the table and all being equally valued and loved by God. As we are accepted by Him and by each other (Rom 15:7), we have the freedom to grow spiritually, putting down roots into good soil.