With every New Year comes talk of change: New Year’s resolutions, how to change our lifestyles and so on. Tonight, we explored the subject of change through Mickey’s drawings…

Mickey, our resident puppet, set us the task of guessing what his drawings were, which proved quite difficult for us!

Ultimately, these were part of his attempt to draw the life cycle of a frog!

These ones were perhaps slightly easier to guess:

Here, he was looking at the life cycle of a butterfly!

Both frogs and butterflies undergo transformation in their lives and Mickey asked if we can change in the same way. The answer is that we can be transformed by Jesus, as Zacchaeus shows us. In Luke 19:1-10, we read how Zacchaeus, a tax collector who was hated by people because of his dishonesty and political allegiances, was changed by his encounter with Jesus. When Jesus met with him, he was so changed that he offered to pay back anyone he had cheated four times over! That is the kind of character transformation which Jesus can bring to us. He changes us not through the metamorphosis experienced by a tadpole or a caterpillar but through His Spirit living within us; we are changed ‘from the inside out.’

Real change is possible, but we need the help of Jesus if we are to change.

Garry continued looking at the life of Joseph this morning, focussing on the changes to his life recorded in Genesis 37. In this chapter, we see Joseph reduced from favourite son of Jacob to being sold into slavery by his brothers. From being the favourite son, he went to being a slave of no importance, to having no freedom or control of his own life. Such change is disorientating and probably left him feeling rejected and betrayed, since this change of events came about because of his brothers’ enmity.

How we deal with unfavourable change is hugely important in our lives. The loss of a job or loss of income, sickness and the breakdown of relationships are just some areas where change may be forced upon us, and learning to handle these situations is difficult for us all. We must learn to rest in our identity in God and take our value and worth from Him, because everything else is transient. Knowing contentment in all circumstances is vital (Phil 4); we need to develop godliness with contentment if we are to navigate the stormy waters of change. (1 Tim 6:6-7)

Harder even than the loss of fortune for Joseph must have been the devastating effects of betrayal and rejection by his own family. These things take time to heal, but we see in Joseph how to deal successfully with change.

1. Forgiveness is needed. There was no doubt that Joseph was wronged by his own family, by those on whom he should have been able to rely. Ultimately, people inevitably let us down; they cannot ever fill the hole in our hearts which only God can satisfy. We will always need to learn to forgive others, as Matt 18:23-30 demonstrates. Forgiveness can take a long time and is a difficult process, but it costs more not to forgive than it does to forgive, for unforgiveness damages us. We learn to forgive as we dwell on how much we have been forgiven.

2. Perspective is needed. Eph 6:11-12 reminds us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood; we are involved in a spiritual battle and need to see life from God’s perspective, not our own. Gen 45:4-5 reminds us that Joseph learned this lesson; when he finally saw his brothers again many years later, he was able to speak out forgiveness and also to tell them that ‘it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.’ Joseph learnt that God is able to bring good from all circumstances, even those which have wounded us greatly.

3. Preparation is needed, for persecution will come. Matt 24:4-14 warns us that rejection and persecution will be the lot of all Christians; Luke 6:22 reminds us that we are blessed when people hate us on account of Christ. Christians in many countries (e.g. Eritrea) face ongoing persecution; many people will face rejection from their families if they convert to Christ from another faith. But even in our country, there are issues which demonstrate how orthodoxy is being attacked from within the church and free speech is under attack in many ways. We need to understand that rejection, persecution and prosecution may occur as we seek to honour Christ in all we do and say.

Like Joseph, we will only successfully deal with negative change in our lives if we keep close to God, learn to pray for those who persecute us and forgive those who have wronged us. Then, with the ’50/20 vision’ of God’s word (Gen 50:20 reminds us that what the enemy means to harm us can be turned to good by God), we will be able to stand firm to the end.

One of the downsides of being part of a church tradition that doesn’t follow a liturgy or weekly church calendar is that sometimes you miss out on unusual events that can help us to look at all life from a spiritual perspective. One of these (perhaps rather odd) traditions is ‘Plough Sunday’, which this year will be on 10th January 2021. I’d never heard of it until this week! (I can’t believe I’ve never even heard it on The Archers!)

Plough Sunday is the day in the Anglican year when a plough was traditionally brought into the sanctuary and the community dedicated their ploughing to God, seeking his help and his blessing on the work that was so vital to their very existence. Can you imagine it? A plough in the church building?! If ever we needed a visual reminder that God is interested in our everyday lives and what goes on outside our church meetings, this is it!

Perhaps if we did this kind of thing in our church, a plough wouldn’t be needed to represent our work (we don’t have any farmers in our congregation), but other items could be brought: memory sticks and corporate coffee mugs, ladders and a mop, van keys and Allen keys, schoolbooks, robots and engineering equipment… all brought by the people who use them in their week. And each person could dedicate the work of their hands – home and away – to the Lord their God, in the hearing of their fellow believers. And each person could be commissioned for their work, in the presence of their fellow believers.

So come prepared on 10th January at 6 p.m. with your ‘ploughs’! You can show us them via Zoom or we can have a ‘show and tell’ in our service as we think about the role of work in our everyday lives and remember that our whole lives belong to God, not just a couple of hours on a Sunday. As Mark Greene says, ‘this communal act will quietly subvert the self-vaunting ideology of our age, that it is by algorithms and systems, hi-tech and nano-tech, human strength and human ingenuity that nature yields its bounty and that economies and nations thrive. As we go into the new year, Plough Sunday reminds us of our total dependence on God, and that, whatever we do, with him we plough a different furrow.’

None of us knows what this new year will bring (nothing new there, even if perhaps this year the shadow of 2020 makes us more apprehensive about that fact.) But we do know that God cares about every aspect of our lives and is as interested in the plough as the altar, as interested in our work lives as in the worship we bring in our church buildings. Let’s celebrate our work and bring it to God as an offering to Him.

As we approach the end of 2020 and the advent of a new year, many of us feel more nervous and apprehensive than usual. This past year has been so unusual and ‘unprecedented’ (surely one of the words we never want to hear again!) that our usual nostalgia at the end of a year has been replaced by trepidation and anxiety: Government announcements (another one due today…) with yet more restrictions on our lives, rising infection rates, new mutations of the virus… the headlines continue to be dominated by bad news in one form or another. Many are pinning their hopes on the new vaccines, but others are still wary about what 2021 will bring, and so it can be difficult to feel positive about this new decade.

We’ve seen snow and ice this week, and that always gets me thinking about slipping and falling (you can tell I’m getting older now… I managed to slide down a muddy hill on Monday, losing my footing even before the snow and ice!) Many of us can readily identify with Asaph’s feelings in Ps 73: ‘But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.‘ (Ps 73:2) His situation was caused by envy of those who seemed to do better without God than he was doing with Him. We might well identify with him in that regard too; certainly, many of us may feel that we are standing on very insecure ground right now.

And yet when we read the Bible, that is not at all the picture we get. Doubt and fear certainly feature in Scripture, but God does not want us to dwell in that place. Many of the psalms are resolute and confident:

“Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
    they will be remembered forever.
⁷ They will have no fear of bad news;
    their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
⁸ Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
    in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
⁹ They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor,
    their righteousness endures forever;
    their horn will be lifted high in honour.” (Ps 112:6-9)

Jesus spoke of us having a sure foundation in Him: ‘everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.‘ (Matt 7:24)

Other psalms, like Ps 91 and Ps 121, are similarly confident that no matter what may come against us, God is with us and for us, and that truth brings security and hope.

We always have a choice: will we listen to the news, to the doomsayers, to those who have no faith, or will we listen to God when He tells us that we can live without fear of bad news? God never promises us a trouble-free life (quite the contrary, in fact), but He does promise to walk with us through every trial (see Is 43:2-7, John 16:33). Because of this, we can face 2021 with courage, hope and (if I may be so bold) holy defiance and a steady heart.

Garry continued his series on Joseph this morning, looking at Gen 37:5-11. In this passage, we read of a young Joseph having two dreams where sheaves of wheat bow down to him and the sun, moon and eleven stars also bow down to him. We do not know how he told his brothers and father (simply with amazement or with something of a smug bragging), but this revelation further exacerbated the poor relations between Joseph and his brothers. They hated him all the more because of these dreams which overturned the normal order of things, meaning that the younger would receive the homage normally reserved for the oldest in a family; he was odious to them and their anger further bubbled up (eventually resulting in their plot to sell him into slavery.)

Whether anger erupts (like road rage or a ‘red mist’ descending) or is cold and settled, God wants us to know the self-control of the Holy Spirit so that we do not sin in our anger. (Eph 4:26) He wants us to learn to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt 5:44). Joseph is a type of Jesus in that Jesus came to His own people, but they hated Him and rejected Him, even as his own family rejected Joseph (see Luke 4:28-30, John 5:16-18, Mark 3, Matt 16:21).

Joseph reminds us that God can speak to and through each one of us (see Joel 2:28-31). We should expect God to speak to us through dreams and visions (as He did with Joseph’s namesake in the Christmas story). These must be weighed and judged (see 1 Cor 14:29), but we should seek God for these spiritual gifts because we need God to speak in this way nowadays as well.

Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers (Gen 37:14) who were shepherds, looking after sheep. Luke 20:9-13 again shows us how this is an allegory of Jesus, for God sent prophets to HIs people time and time again, but even when He sent His own Son, Jesus was rejected. There are many different views of salvation and redemption, but it is not true that God the Father acts as a ‘cosmic child abuser’ punishing His Son or that salvation is like a bus driver choosing to run over the one boy rather than hurt a bus-ful of passengers when the brakes on the bus fail. Such analogies fail to understand the unity of the Trinity, of how God the Father worked out His plan of salvation (see Is 53:10, Acts 2:22-23) and how the Son willingly came to give His own life (Gal 1:3-4, Eph 5:1-2, Heb 10.) Just as Joseph was sent to help his brothers, so too Jesus was sent to help us, but He went willingly, praying for God’s will to be done. We can be grateful that our atonement is secured through His sacrifice on the cross (1 John 4:9-10) and can learn much about our deliverance as we ponder the way God spoke to and used Joseph.