Thinking Big in Small Places
By: Pastor Donny Granberry
Humor
One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me and my brother who is four years older than I am.
I was maybe 3 and one half years old and had just recovered from an accident in which my arm had been broken among other injuries.
Someone had given me a little ’tea set’ as a get-well gift and it was one of my favorite toys.
Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news and my brother was playing nearby in the living room when I brought Daddy a little cup of ’tea’, which was just water.
After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home. My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was ’just the cutest thing!’
My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy and she watches him drink it up, then she says to him, ’Did it ever occur to you that the only place that baby can reach to get water is the toilet?’
....Mom’s know!
The central thought I would like to speak on this morning is “Thinking Big in Small Places.”
Have you ever come to the point in which you have all of these ideas, all of this creativity within you and you have trouble getting it out?
You can see into your future, but you can’t seem to find the directions to get you there, and you end up feeling like a hotdog in a steak house.
This morning, I want to encourage you to keep dreaming, to keep thinking big even in small places.
Do not allow your vision to be compromised by the smallness that you see in your situation.
Ephesians 3:20 NIV
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
There are literally billions of people on the earth and the only way we will ever reach them for Jesus is to have a vision that is larger than ourselves, or in the confounds of what we can do.
Microsoft Corp. has made its founder, Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world, but it was started by three geeks in a garage who would not take no, you can’t, or it wont work for an answer.
The Bible also tells us that the just shall live by faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.
What is faith?
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
It’s time to reach into what cannot be seen and fulfill our dreams.
When we came here five years ago, we stepped into what was not yet seen, but was hoped for.
This church had not been filled, yet, but the group that was here wanted to know if I had ever built a church.
As God began to bless, dream busters tried to get us to come down from the wall.
Voices said, Central used to be, Central was, there were people that had were ready to order a head stone, but the people in this church were ready to reach into what was not seen, and fulfill their destiny.
I was told;
• You cannot build the size building on that small a property.
• You will never build a church preaching Pentecost.
• You cannot afford to build what your vision is.
• You will have to downsize and build in stages to afford it.
Some of them may have had good reason for their advice, but look what the Lord has done and what do they say today.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
We serve a God who reached out into nothing and created everything.
It may seem as though you are in a small place in your life today, but get ready, you’re up for a promotion.
2 Corinthians 6:12 The Message
The smallness you are feeling is coming from within you. Your lives are not small; you’re just living them in a small way.
Do not allow your vision to be compromised by the smallness that you see in your situation.
There is nothing small about the God that lives in you!
The army of Israel was hiding behind rocks, or anything else they could find.
They had never seen Goliath in battle, they were afraid of his size.
They saw an obstacle that seemed big which made them feel small.
Saul told David, you are just a youth, yet he saw himself bigger than Goliath.
This was the beginning of something very important.
Let’s fast forward in the life of David.
David has a band of 300 men that were considered to be misfits.
Men that other armies had forsaken.
• Maybe they did not seem to be large enough for other armies.
• Maybe they could not pass the strength test.
• Maybe they were not good enough swordsmen or handy enough with a spear and shield.
• Maybe they were insubordinate before.
• Maybe they just weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
• Or, could it have been that before they just thought small.
This much we do know, the group of 300 misfits, with God on their side, was more powerful than the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands in the armies of Israel.
As he looked at the sea of soldiers in the armies of Israel, and then at his three hundred men he had to think, we may not look like much right now, but you just till the dust settles.
SONG
I’m just an old chunk of coal, but I’m gonna’ be a diamond someday.
If God be our partner, we must make our plans big.
• David had a kingdom of 301, including himself.
• He did not have the finest horses and chariots in the land.
• He did not have the best cooks and choicest dining like Saul.
• He had no land to call his kingdom.
• He had no Capital or walled city. (A necessity)
• He had no palace to sleep in at night.
• He had no crown, no robe, and no ring on his finger, no court, and no government.
Yet David had a dream, he had a vision. He could see the blessings of the Lord in his future.
• I’m just an old chunk of coal, but not for long.
• I may be homeless right now, but I have a palace in my future.
• I may be eating beans tonight, but I have a prime rib in my future.
• I may not be living large today, but the Lord is about to bless me and enlarge my territory.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
God’s desire is to bless you and give you a hope and a future.
It is time to let your faith arise, to believe for what you cannot see and to trust for what you have hoped for.
You may be sitting here this morning and thinking in your heart, that might work for others, but it hasn’t worked for me.
If you would go into the book of Genesis and read about Abraham, you would realize that you are not the first one who has felt that way.
In Genesis 13, God promised to make Abraham into a great nation and that He would bless him abundantly.
However Abrahams present circumstances did not line up with the vision God had given him.
God told him something vital to his vision in verse 14, “The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west.”
God has called you and us to big things.
Look up, and think BIG in your small places!
Your life might never be the same.
