I think many of us despise the boring and the mundane, even though these make up a significantly large proportion of our time and energy. We are more interested in the spectacular (healings, miracles, mass salvation) and the glamorous (exotic holidays, buying new gadgets to entertain us) than in the ordinary jobs of everyday life which seem so utterly lacklustre and unremarkable.

As I study 1 Corinthians, I’m struck by how much time Paul – that great apostle whose gifts included teaching, miracles of healing and even raising the dead – gave to what I would call the ‘nitty gritty details’ of life. He wrote extensively about practical subjects: eating meat that had been sacrificed, how to deal with a communion service, what to do about spiritual gifts, how to deal with church discipline. And he spent quite a lot of time thinking about the practical details of organising money for relief support. (1 Cor 16:1-12, 2 Cor 8-9). Such things are not particularly exciting. Think, in modern terms, of customs forms, VAT and other forms of red tape and you get the picture!

I spend a lot of time on what might be termed the unspectacular. Putting stickers on plain goody bags to make them look attractive to people so that when we give out God’s Word at the Christmas market, they might actually keep the bag and look inside. Travelling on buses and trains to visit people in hospital. Juggling rotas so that we have people to help at coffee mornings and with the preaching of God’s Word at church. These things seem a far cry from what I’d like to do at times and often seem to take up far too much time.

But if Paul took time out to organise a collection to help needy Christians in Jerusalem, our shopping for the food bank must also be valuable. If Paul thought it was important to write about mundane things like that, then our ordinary, ‘boring’ lives must be significant in God’s bigger picture, even if we can’t see it now. Cleaning the church building, checking the insurance details, filling in the CCLI records so that Christian artists can be paid for the work they offer to God… these things are not ‘a waste of time.’ Nothing done whole-heartedly for God is a waste of time. (1 Cor 15:58)

Aaron Shust reminds us that Jesus knew all about the ordinary: ‘Forsaking majesty, embracing mundane and all of its shame.’ (‘Wondrous Love’) Matt Redman reminds us that God’s grace is not just for the mountain-top experiences but is there ‘in the everyday and the mundane.’ (‘Your Grace Finds Me’) Zech 4:10 says ‘Who dares despise the day of small things?’

God looks for faithfulness in the ordinary, boring, mundane things of life. Paul tells the Corinthians, ‘Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.‘ (1 Cor 4:2) Jesus said, ‘Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.‘ (Luke 16:10) Honour God with the ordinary, and maybe then the extraordinary will be mingled in with it!

Prior to Sunday, when we are running a Christian bookstall through CLC Bookshops in Sheffield, why not have a look through your bookshelves and see if you can help Bible college students? Yesterday, we received this email from CLC:

‘Having recently run several book sales at theological colleges and with more coming up, CLC Bookshops need used books for those preparing for Christian ministry. The students’ main cry is for commentaries (whether part of a set or not) published after 2000 and of an academic/practical standard including and above that of the Bible Speaks Today series (IVP). Declutter those shelves, emply those boxes, tell your friends and family – and put those cherished resources to good use. Drop off your surplus commentaries – and other Christian books, DVDs, music and audio CDs – at the bookshop and they’ll be very gratefully received. What CLC cannot use is passed on to Book Aid.’

Because we are involved with CLC, if you bring these resources to church on Sunday, we will take them to CLC for you when we return any unsold items, so you don’t even have to make it to Sheffield!

The quiz tonight had us guessing the identity of some rich and famous people from their childhood photos. See how you get on!

Guess who?

The answers?

David Beckham

The Duchess of Cambridge

Robbie Williams

Hugh Jackman

Sometimes, the children of famous parents become famous themselves, often building on their parents’ celebrity and fame. We might not be rich and famous in the most accepted sense of the words, but certainly, we have been blessed in the spiritual realms with every spiritual blessing from God (Eph 1:3) and are heirs of everything God owns! We are being transformed into His image (2 Cor 3:17-18), made to reflect His likeness.

Tonight’s family service looked at our identity as children of the King of Kings. Garry spoke from 1 Tim 1:17 and Romans 8:16-18, reminding us that God has chosen us to be His children and treats us exactly as He treats His beloved Son. Once, when on holiday in Bridlington with a friend and his family, Garry was given the same money to spend at the amusement arcade that his friend’s mother gave to all her children. He was treated exactly the same as her own family.

In the same way, God treats us exactly as He treats Jesus; we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. We may feel timid, diffident, unworthy and as though we do not belong in God’s family, but He treats us as children of God.

Mark reminded us that God chose us before the foundation of the world and that since God is the King of all the universe, we are ‘rich and famous’ in the Lord. We are God’s special people (1 Pet 2:9), handpicked by God.

Last week we had an October birthday to celebrate!

At our former building on Beever Street, the truth that ‘God is love’ (1 Jn 4:8) was written on the back wall in large letters:

This simple but profound truth has the power to transform our lives. Stephen spoke from 1 John 4:7-17 this morning, reminding us that God’s love is not flat, but is four-dimensional. Just as a child’s pop-up book captures the child’s imagination and brings the story to life through its careful use of 3-D images, so too do we find that God’s love, fuelled by Father, Son and Spirit, has the power to shape and transform us. God’s love gives: the Father gave His only Son, so that we might have fellowship with Him and with each other. God’s Son is a channel for that love, a love which is unconditional and which motivates us to love. As we hear, see and read of God’s love, we are invited also to experience and participate in that love by His Spirit. Nothing else can satisfy, fuel and keep us.