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.

Mark continued his series on Joseph this morning, looking at Gen 41:1. We left Joseph having interpreted the dreams of the cup-bearer and the baker but languishing in jail for a further two years. He may well have felt fed-up and frustrated and even angry with the cup-bearer for forgetting about him. In hindsight, however, we can see that God was working in the situation to bring to pass plans which were far greater than Joseph could have imagined.

God has a plan for everything to be fulfilled, but we must wait for His timing. As Hab 2:1-3 reminds us, we have to watch out for the dream, keep it alive through prayer and wait for God to bring it to pass. Even when things do not seem to be going our way, God has not forgotten us.

Pharaoh had a dream too. He was a significant person – in charge of most of the known world at this time, and his dream was equally significant for the future of that world. The fact remains, however, that God used him and gave him that dream. God can use whomever He wishes to bring His plans to fulfilment. Joseph will ultimately remind Pharaoh of the fact that this dream is from God (and since Pharaoh considered himself a god, this would be a risky thing to remind him!) The story we are involved in is not just about Joseph or about Pharaoh, however. It is about God, and God will work out His plans using anyone He chooses! Similarly, our lives are not just our own stories, but are a part of God’s great story.

1 John 2:18-27 looks at how we can discern truth from lies and at the form of the lies which abound in the world today. John reminds us that the antichrist (anything which ultimately is against Christ) will deny that Jesus is the Christ (i.e. God’s anointed one who is the only means of salvation) and that He is God’s Son, thereby also denying the Fatherhood of God. We might expect doctrinal tests to tackle practices as well as beliefs, but it is interesting to note that it is primarily what we believe about who God is which determines whether the truth is living in us.

Jesus reveals God to us as a loving heavenly Father. He shows us the closeness of the relationship within the Godhead and shows us that God is not an impersonal force but a loving God who desires to have a relationship with us. It was His insistence on the relational nature within the Godhead which enraged the Jews of His time (John 5:18, John 10:36-37) and which is also a stumbling-block to many today. He repeatedly cut away at religious practices which were legally motivated rather than fuelled by relationship and taught of the personal relationship we now have as adopted children (teaching us to pray ‘Our Father in heaven’, for example; see also Rom 8:15)

What we believe is crucial to how we live. Belief shapes action; it acts as our ‘operating system’ and provides the framework for our whole life. All of us have many wrong ideas and beliefs about God and need God’s Word to re-shape our thoughts so that we can believe the truth, rather than lies. We have an enemy who is a liar (his native language is lies, we read in John 8:44), yet those lies can often seem so plausible to us. We need to dwell in God’s truth, for He is truth, speaks truth and works out of truth  (John 14:6, Is 45>19, John 16:33). He is totally incapable of lying! (Num 23:19) It is only by truth that we can be set free (John 8:32) and so we need to dwell in the truth of God’s Word. (Ps 119:160)

The strategies we need to employ if we are to recognise truth from lies (made possible because we too have an anointing from God, even as Jesus is the anointed One) involve:

1. transformation through the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:1-2) as we tear down everything that sets itself up against God and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5)
2. weighing everything in the light of God’s Word rather than being influenced by cultural norms
3. being led by the Spirit of God as John tells us in these verses (he reassures us that ‘all of you know the truth’ 1 John 2:20 and continue to remain (abide) in Christ 1 John 2:24)
4. test what we hear by the plumbline of truth (fruit takes time to grow, but ‘the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth’ (Eph 5:9))
5. recognise Christ’s Lordship over us (1 Cor 6:19-20) and choose to agree with Him and submit to Him in every area of our lives
6. worship God alone!

It’s not often I even register news from the football world, not because I have no interest at all in football (I was brought up by a sports-mad father and have attended a number of football matches all over the country, not to mention cricket matches, often freezing in April weather that felt more like winter than spring!), but even I heard this week that Manchester United had sacked their manager David Moyes less than a year after being appointed at Old Trafford. The Independent called it a ‘ruthless decision’ after only 316 days on the job; the Metro declared that the board had the backing of former manager (and legend) Sir Alex Ferguson (even though he had also backed the appointment those few months previously…) In semi-religious language reminiscent of Bill Shankly’s view that football was ‘much more important’ than life and death, the Guardian, calling this ‘a very brutal and modern sacking’ said ‘despite being anointed by Alex Ferguson, within 10 months Moyes had lost the support of the players, the fans and board.’ Needless to say, the reasons for the sacking were the poor results in matches played this season, with Manchester United only (!) seventh in the Premier League, and the ‘dour football that is anathema to fans who feasted on success throughout the Ferguson era.’

I have no particular interest in who manages Manchester United (or any other club, for that matter), but this news did make me ponder on how fickle we are as people and how easily we break vows (and contracts) these days. David Moyes was appointed manager on a six year contract, but in less than one year was deemed to have failed so spectacularly that the only answer was to dismiss him (and pay the costs required for breaking that contract.) This is symptomatic of a culture which judges by results and by the visible. In football terms, ‘the Glazers’ leveraged business model, estimated to have cost United £680m in interest and fees since they took over in 2005, requires consistent success on the pitch to keep the global sponsorship deals rolling in and the tills ringing.’  There is no room for delay, no room for slow progress, no room for anything except consistent, insistent, never-ending success in the football world. We view marriage in a similar light, believing that it is all about instant gratification, personal pleasure and my rights. We are very quick to define success and that will always be viewed in visible, material terms.

Such a culture, however, bears little resemblance to the gradual, unhurried way of organic growth in the natural world or indeed to the patience and long-suffering methods employed by God. The God who delights in paradox (1 Cor 1:18-31) and who has utter confidence in the long-term efficacy of His Word (Is 55:8-11) is a God of commitment and covenant and He expects the same from His people. Ps 50:14 says ‘Sacrifice thank offerings to God,fulfil your vows to the Most High‘: Ps 76:11 says ‘Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfil them.’ We depend on God’s faithfulness and immutability as the source of strength and stability in this world; He calls us to mirror these characteristics in our own lives.

One of the fruit of the Spirit is patience; Peter urges us to add perseverance to our faith. (2 Pet 1:6) This will often mean not giving up at the first sign of trouble, pressing on despite our personal feelings (which are so notoriously unreliable anyway!) and refusing to judge by external appearances (John 7:24). I have no idea if Manchester United have ‘done the right thing’ or not; I am not qualified to comment on their decision. But I do know that it is dangerous to make spiritual decisions based only on the evidence of our eyes and that God honours faithfulness and commitment because these reflect His own nature.