THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
I want to bring to each of us a word of encouragement tonight. I must confess to you of my disappointment during those times that I have struggled with my health. I thought I could just pray and believe for my healing. I did what was “spiritual.”
My faith was not destroyed, but I needed a word of encouragement for those times. You know what I am talking about when you pray and believe, but you look and see very little change.
Text: Zechariah 4:1 thru 10(a)
In our text the children of Israel are having to trust the Lord for the reconstruction of the Temple. Solomon’s Temple has been destroyed, and the Lord has commissioned for the new one to be built.
All the people have is a promise from an angel, and the foundation of the Temple. It was a big undertaking and Israelites needed to be encouraged.
Everyone remembers the glory of Solomon’s Temple, but all they have (here in our text) is the foundation. Many are grumbling and murmuring about the little they have. And the angel of the Lord asks them the same question that we too need to ask ourselves,
“Who despises the day of small things?”
The foundation was only a small beginning for what would become a greater temple than Solomon’s. Perhaps they looked around and at each other and said,
What you see is what you get (for now). This is all we have, but this is all we need to have.
God is faithful. God is good.
But there are times (in following and trusting God) that we will have to dare to believe that He is going to accomplish His will for our lives.
We are not reconstructing the Temple, but we have to dare to believe that –
• God is going to save that certain someone and bring them back into the fold.
• God is going to use you to make the difference in the lives of the people you know.
We cannot despise small beginnings in what God has called us to do.
We may have to make a stand for what we believe in.
Sometimes, it is tempting to look down and only see a foundation of stone and mortar and realize that is all you have for all of your hard work and faithfulness.
God knows that it is very critical that we watch over our SMALL THINGS, and make sure we remain faithful.
The devil wants you to think you don’t have much and never will have much to show for your faithfulness.
Moses was just a small baby when his mother placed him into the basket made of reeds. His chances for survival were slim. The world desperately needed Moses to live past being a baby so he could -
• Deliver the children of Israel from the bondage of Pharoah.
• Deliver the commandments and the laws of God to a world lost in sin.
But let’s face it. Perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for a baby was the Nile River. The river was full of crocodiles, snakes & piranhas. When we consider this story of this small baby, this SMALL THING sent from God, we also see the fact that it didn’t matter what the circumstance were. The plan of God for this SMALL THING was too overwhelming for anything to ever destroy little Moses.
The fact is Moses was as safe in the Nile River as He would ever be his whole life.
Did you know No beginnings are ever small if they are begun by God?
In another Bible story:
Abraham and Lot were having to divide their possessions and their herds one day. One would go one way and the other would go another.
Abraham gave Lot his choice first to go wherever he wanted. And then Abraham would make his choice.
Genesis 13:12
Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. (KJV)
We know that Sodom was a godless place to take his family, and how his wife was turned into a pillar of salt.
Don’t worry about all of that yet. Just think of this. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. At this point, Lot didn’t live there yet, but he was headed in that direction. One translation says, that Lot leaned his tent toward Sodom.
Wherever you lean that is where you will find yourself living.
If you will lean towards the favor of God, you will live for the favor of God.
If you lean towards the intimacy of a relationship with the Lord, that is where you will live out your life.
You won’t be able to stop talking about the Lord and praising His wonderful name.
You may know nothing about where it will take you, but you need to lean towards Canaan.
Not towards Sodom.
Mother Theresa was once responsible for the care of literally thousands of hopeless and desperate and hungry people. She was asked how she had the strength to do so. She replied,
“I could not have touch so many, if I did not first touch the One!”
It all starts with the beginnings.
What we do with our beginnings will determine our endings.
Perhaps you have made a few wrong turns.
Ps 138:7 and 8
Though I walk in the midst of troubles…The LORD will perfect that which concerns me…
God is faithful. God is good.
The problem is we don’t want to wait for God to do what He has planned for our lives. It seems that it is taking too long.
What about a cocoon.? We sometimes want results right away instead of waiting for the perfecting of the butterfly. That simply is not the plan of God for the SMALL THINGS.
The life of Stephen is an example to all that find themselves responsible of the SMALL THINGS. Steven was recognized as a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. He and six other men were called by the disciples to handle the more menial tasks of the church.
Nevertheless, Stephen was responsible for many signs and wonders. So many that he was brought before the scribes and Pharisees of the synagogue.
And there he was despised and told to stop what he was doing.
Later he was stoned to death for what were once SMALL THINGS in his life. Just before he took his last breath, Stephen looked into heaven and said,
"Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"
Folks, little is much when God is in it.
The process and perfection of your life is no different than that of Joseph in the book of Genesis.
Joseph ended His life as the second most important man in all the world.
We can read how Joseph had spent times in the fields alone with God.
There, He had dreams of the life God had planned for Him.
But that’s the easy part.
Intimacy is easy for us to understand and long for. But life isn’t always that way. Joseph had very little going for him early in his life.
Consider all of the people who had wronged him in his youth and he never condemned them.
His own brothers betrayed him and yet he did not have them executed.
Joseph never (that we know of) condemned Potifar or his wife for the false accusations and imprisonment he suffered from them.
For Joseph, these were only minor events that had to happen for his SMALL THINGS to become large.
Joseph didn’t spend his life trying to get even with all who wronged him. He was only on the things of God.
