LibertyChurch

Sermons / Mark

September 27, 2015

The Ways of God II

Dr. David J. Vaughan · Mark

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening

Someone sent me a text this morning and said, are you going to preach a sermon? I need it. So, does anybody else need it? Good. Well, then I’ll go ahead and preach a sermon. In Mark chapter 4, we’ve been working our way through Mark, and starting in verse 30, Jesus gives us a parable.

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

This is the parable of the mustard seed, it’s called. Verse 30 says, then he said, to what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed, which when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth. But when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all the herbs and shoots out large branches so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade. And with many such parables, he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable, he did not speak to them. And when they were alone, he explained all things to his disciples. Last week we looked at the parable of the, what you could call the parable of the sleeping sower, the man who threw grain and he went to bed and it grew up and he didn’t know how. And what we learned there about the ways of the kingdom or the ways of God is that ultimately God’s ways are inscrutable. We can’t really understand how God works, but He works and we end up seeing the results. And His work is a gradual work, but ultimately it’s an effectual work. God brings to pass His purpose and His will. This parable is similar and Jesus is trying to get us to see or to hear according to the principles of God’s kingdom.

Do Not Judge According to Appearance

And here in this passage, Jesus wants us to understand, first of all this, that we are not to judge according to appearance. The mustard seed was very small, and it grew to be this huge thing. We cannot judge something about how it appears until we see the end result, right? So this is a parable about seeing, or we could say it’s a parable about hearing because ultimately these metaphors of seeing and hearing the ways of the kingdom mean the same thing. They mean understanding how God works, understanding how God sees things. And so Jesus is trying to get us to see the way that God sees. And in other words, not to judge according to human standards or according to human appearances. Jesus is telling us here, do not judge according to externals because externals can be misleading. The Pharisees were big on externals, right?

They liked the robes. They liked all the religious trappings, all the religious externals. Does that remind you of what we have seen in America this week? All of these externals, all the pomp and all the circumstance, and all of the things that go into this thing that we call religion are all external, and they do not show you the most important thing that God is looking at. And what is that? The heart. Because you ultimately can’t see the heart. Now you can see products of the heart. You can see fruit of the heart, but you can’t see the heart. Just as when the mustard seed is sown, you can’t see the seed. But what you end up seeing, eventually you end up seeing the tree, right? But the seed is buried in the ground. Jesus is trying to teach us here to see and to hear according to the principles of the kingdom, to see things from God’s perspective and not from human perspective. And clearly, one of the most fundamental mistakes we make is that we judge by appearance and we judge by externals. And Jesus tells us specifically not to do that. He even says in the book of John, do not judge according to the flesh, but judge righteous judgment. According to the flesh means according to human appearance and human standards.

God Does Not Look at Externals

There are many applications of this very simple principle, many applications. We tend to judge by physical beauty, it’s a very common thing. You know that the people that are considered attractive get hired more often than the people that are not attractive. People that are attractive get higher salaries than people that are not attractive. And so people judge by external beauty. The Bible tells us that Jesus himself was not beautiful. Did you know that? Because there was nothing in his image that would cause us to desire Him.

Jesus came not with an external pomp, not with a hat on his head and a miter in his hand. He didn’t come wearing a robe. Jesus came humble. Jesus came poor. Jesus came in an unknown place in a very small town. Jesus came, was not greatly educated, Jesus held no religious position or office, Jesus had no degrees, Jesus had nothing from a human point of view that would cause people to be attracted to him. Thus the Bible says that he was despised and he was rejected of men. We think of the twelve, the twelve by and large, the thing that’s so extraordinary about the twelve was that they were so ordinary. They were just plain folk like you and I. Just normal people. Most of them are actually the ones that were called, most of them were called while they were just doing their jobs. They were fishing. Levi was at the tax table. Just ordinary people living their lives until Jesus touched them and then he made them extraordinary. Amen.

Paul had a lot of things that might commend himself to people. He had education and in the Jewish community he had status. But what did Paul tell us in Philippians 3, that he counted all of these things loss for Jesus? He lost all of these things. His status, his position. The Bible tells us that Paul had an infirmity, we don’t know what it is, but one of the theories is that Paul had a problem with his face and his eyes. In Galatians, he says to them, I came to you because of my infirmity. In other words, he was traveling through the area and because of his infirmity, he had to stop there. God used that. He preached the gospel. Many of them got saved. And it says in Galatians, he says to them, you would have plucked out your eyes for me. And so some theologians theorized that Paul was actually disfigured. Of course, we know that Paul was beaten many times, right? He was stoned. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a stoning, it’s very brutal. So if you can imagine what Paul might have looked like if he had been stoned several times. Rocks hitting his face repeatedly, having been beaten numerous times. He was probably not real attractive. So we tend to judge by externals, and yet God doesn’t. He’s not looking at physical, things like physical beauty. One of my favorite heroes from history is William Wilberforce. You all know the name? I wrote a book about him. You ought to read it. It’s a great book. But it’s a great book because Wilberforce was a great character and he did a great work. And God used him to abolish slavery in the British Empire in the 19th century. And one of the striking things about Wilberforce was that he was about 5-foot-1, and everybody said that he was ugly. True. He was not a good-looking guy. So God takes somebody five-foot-one, a shrimp, they call him the shrimp. Actually, they call him the mighty shrimp. He was five-foot-one. When he got older, he had scoliosis, kind of like me, and he got bent over. I get bent over sometimes, but then I get straight again, then I get bent over. But he got permanently bent. So when he got older, he was probably at my age, he was permanently bent over like this. So in reality, he was probably about four and a half feet tall. And he wasn’t attractive. And yet, this is a man that moved nations. So you cannot judge according to as things appear on the outside, because that’s not what God is looking at. And this is what Jesus is trying to get us to understand: do not judge by appearance but rather judge righteous judgment or judge according to truth.

Do Not Judge by Size

Now in this parable of the mustard seed the main emphasis isn’t beauty the main emphasis is size. It’s size. Do not judge something according to its size. Notice here that Jesus says in Mark 4, he says that the mustard seed is smallest—well, there are smaller ones.

But it was the Jewish proverb that if something was small, they would say it is as small as a mustard seed. It was referred to as, like, a simple figure of speech. Jesus wasn’t teaching botany here, okay? He was using a common proverb. But he emphasized its size, and of course from size, appearing, this whole issue of how things appear.

But what Jesus wants us to understand here is that we cannot judge something according to the size of a thing or a person, if you will.

And on the other side, we must learn to value and see the importance of small things, whether for good or for bad. Now, God, we’re learning the ways of the Kingdom here.

God Uses Small Things

The Lord is teaching us about the ways of God and the ways of the Kingdom. And what he wants us to understand is that God often uses small things. He uses small things. Obviously, a seed is a very small thing, right? But then it produces a very large tree. Now, I’ve never seen a mustard tree in real life, have you? I’ve seen pictures of them. But in the Middle East, they could get very, very large. So God takes something very little and turns it into something very large. And all throughout scripture we see this pattern where God takes something very small and does something important or valuable through that very small thing. In the book of Judges we have a series of judges who were fighting battles for Israel. One of them was named Shamgar. Remember him? Probably not. He fought Israel’s enemies and you know what his weapon was? His weapon was an ox goad. A stick. He defeated God’s enemies with a stick. We’ve all heard the name Samson, right? Yeah? Samson, he fought the Philistines and it says in Judges that he defeated 1,000 Philistines. And you know what his weapon was? His weapon was the jawbone of a donkey. A small thing, certainly in battle. We all know the famous story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. He confronts Goliath. Goliath has his armor. He has his sword, he has his helmet, and what does David have? A sling and a stone. And yet it was through the small thing, the smooth stone, that David defeated Goliath. So we see this pattern all throughout scripture where God takes a little thing and uses a little thing to do a great thing.

God Uses Small People

We also see God uses not only small things, he uses small people. Small people. I don’t mean his stature, necessarily, but I mean small like ordinary, just people like you and I. Moses, of course, had great training as a child, but at the time that he was called, he was actually an exiled criminal. And we forget that, that he was no longer in favor, that he was a hunted man, he was an outlaw. He was also 80 years old, so he was getting up there, if you will. He was a poor public speaker, and yet God called him to be a leader and a spokesperson for God. God took the small person to do a great work. We think of Rahab, the prostitute. Prostitutes then, as now, are frowned upon, and yet God chose a prostitute to be a person who he used for the deliverance or the victory of his people. And Rahab, we learn, is even in the line of Jesus Christ. Is that awesome or what? What a beautiful picture of God’s redemption and how he uses the small people. If we had time, we could read through Hebrews 11 and maybe at some service we’ll just read through that passage. The striking thing about Hebrews 11, when you read through the text, is that most of these people were just ordinary people. Now the mistake that we made when we read our Bibles is we read Abraham with it. Wow, Abraham, the father of the faith, or really Moses, look at all the exploits that he did. But the thing that we have to understand is their fame is a result of what God did and called them. It wasn’t they were famous, and God said, oh, I need somebody who’s really smart. Let me see. Let me pick so-and-so. I need somebody who’s got a lot of influence, and so let me pick so-and-so. And we often think this way. Well, if God would save so-and-so, they could have so much influence. And then he passes them by. And then he picks somebody who’s a nobody and then uses the nobody. And after God uses them, guess what happens to them? They become a somebody. Think of when God called Abraham or Moses or David. David was the youngest in his family. He was the last one that his father expected would be chosen because he was the youngest. Yet that was the one that God chose. We see this in history outside of Scripture. Spurgeon was called when he was 17 years old. He never went to Bible college. He never went to seminary. And within two years, at 20 years old, he was preaching to 25,000 people every week. People were getting saved in droves. God took a man who was basically uneducated according to worldly standards and used him to save untold thousands. I think of D.L. Moody. Now, D.L. Moody, if you ever see the picture, he wasn’t little. He was large, okay? But in terms of status, he was little. You know what he did before God saved him? He sold shoes. He sold shoes to people, and yet God saved him and transformed his life and that through his ministry Thousands upon thousands of people came to Jesus Christ Men that were dying on the battlefield during the Civil War heard the gospel from Moody and came to Jesus So God takes ordinary people you think when God called Martin Luther, I mean Martin Luther You know, he’s one of those names that you know will live on The names I’ve mentioned, when you think about people of historical prominence, there’s only, really, it’s a very short list. But these men were great men because of what God did after He called them. They weren’t great men beforehand. Luther was a neurotic monk. He was. He essentially said so. He was just one of many thousand medieval monks living in the monastery, saying their rosaries and their prayers. And he was basically a nobody. And yet now most Christians know the name of Martin Luther, many non-Christians do. Why? Because of what God did after he took a small person and then did a large work through him.

God’s Work Has a Small Beginning

So we see that God uses small things, God uses small people, and God’s work, in God’s ways, often has a small beginning and this is very critical for us to understand. Jesus uses the example of the mustard seed and so nature is a perfect example of how God works in the spiritual realm also.

The seed is very, very small but it produces a very large tree. So the beginning is small, end is large or great. Every person of renown, every great philosopher or author or musician, composer, theologian, preacher, every one of them began their life the same way, very small. So small they were inside their mother’s womb. So small that at the moment their existence began, they were so small they could not be seen with the human naked eye. That’s pretty small. So God’s work has a small beginning in nature, but it has a small beginning also in grace. The Old Testament church, we often attribute it to the call of Abraham, which is probably so. Abraham wasn’t a person of renown. He was an elder. He had a family. Over time, his tribe grew, if you will. But he wasn’t a great monarch. God called him. Here is a nomad. He calls him. And he calls him, and then he says to him, I’m going to, your offspring is going to be so great, you’re going to look up at the stars and not be able to number them. The seashore: not be able to number the grains of sand. Your offspring are going to be so great. See that’s why Abraham’s remembered today. Not because of who he was when God called him but he was great because of what God did after he called him. He was just another tribal leader if you will or nomad when he was called. The same is true in the New Testament church. You know, we tend to think of the birth of the church as Acts 2, you know, on the day of Pentecost where all these people got saved. But actually that wasn’t the beginning of the church, because the church is the body of Christ. The church really began when Jesus was conceived, when Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary, when his body was conceived and his soul was conceived. So Jesus was a conceptus, that’s what they call it.

So small at one point, he cannot be seen with the naked human eye. Now that’s a small mustard seed, is it not? And yet it has grown to where now Jesus has influenced the entire course of human history and has radically changed millions upon millions upon millions of lives. And yet at one point in his history, he was so small, he could not even be seen. The disciples that Jesus called, as I said, were ordinary people. At one point his entourage could all fit in one room at one table, as they had the Last Supper. Not very impressive from a human point of view. A small band. This principle is also true in our individual lives because what we have to understand is that growth is the law of grace. Growth is the law of grace. And growth assumes a small beginning and then an increase over time. And so we need to understand that in our own lives, regardless of where we’re at at any point, that we can always grow and develop just as that small seed, that mustard seed, when sown, grew and became a large tree.

Labor According to Your Ability

Now, there’s many, many, many practical lessons, but I want to mention two before we close today. And the first is this. I believe Jesus is attempting, first of all, to encourage his disciples. Now, in the context of Mark 4, if you look at the passage again, this parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the sleeping sower follows the parable of the four soils.

And the parable of the four soils, as I’ve pointed out several times, is that Jesus mentions four different soils, but only the last one actually bears fruit. It’s kind of like Jesus said to the twelve, I’m calling you to go and sow the word, but the three fourths of the people are going to reject it. That’s not very encouraging, is it? So I think Jesus is attempting to tell them, you can’t judge by appearances, you can’t judge what I’m doing by how things may appear externally. Okay, so in other words what he’s teaching us and them is that to labor, you listening? To labor according to your ability, no matter how small the results may appear. We labor according to our ability, no matter how small the results may appear.

The Parable of the Talents

Let’s turn to Matthew 25 quickly. We’ll come back to Mark in a moment. And in Matthew 25, we have a very important parable. And this is the parable of the talents.

I’m sure you’re familiar with it. But let’s look at this together. In Matthew 25, verse 14, he says, The kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, that’s me, to another, just kidding. That was a joke, you didn’t get it? You’re not listening. And to one he gave five talents, no that’s my wife, but to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability. And immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his lord’s money. You see, this is one of the problems that result from judging by appearance or judging by the smallness of something. And so we say, well, I only have one talent. My talent’s not very important. And so then therefore the talent is not put to use or we may have a small opportunity and we think, well, this opportunity isn’t very important. So it’s a small little thing. So I won’t take advantage of this opportunity. And so by not taking advantage of the opportunity, therefore, this mustard seed’s never sown and thus it never grows. And so the servant here who had one talent, as the story goes on, and we’ll get, let’s just go to the end, and it says in verse 24, then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord—thus the lord returns, and here’s a reckoning here. I knew you were a hard man. Now how did he know he was a hard man? Why do you think he thought he was a hard man? Because he only had one talent. In other words, I knew you were stingy because you only gave me one talent. That’s what he’s saying. I knew you were a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. And his lord answered and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gathered where I have scattered seed. So you ought to deposit in my money with the bankers and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents for to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Jesus uses that same saying in Mark 4 after He talks about the sower and the seed: he that has will be given more but that he that has not what he has will be taken away In other words, whatever God has given us, no matter how small, these gifts, these opportunities, even these responsibilities, however small they are, they are to be used and developed and cultivated for God. No matter how small. Now I think this is such an important principle, because here’s the thing we have to understand. If you don’t take care of the small things, it will never become a great thing. I read a book recently on the spiritual disciplines, and in the first chapter it was talking about the concept of discipline. The author gave quotes by famous people, famous inventors, famous athletes, famous business people, and they all said the same thing. It was basically this in a nutshell. I wish people appreciated how much work I did to get here. When you see somebody who’s really good at something, say a great quarterback, a great baseball player or something like that, or a great musician, a great pianist, it looks so easy for them. Right? Well, that’s part of the greatness is, that’s what makes it look so easy.

But in fact, those accomplishments have been preceded by hours and hours and hours and days and months and years of practice and preparation and discipline and the use of their gift so that at those moments in public, they’ll shine. A famous pianist, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Even as he got older, it was already considered world-renowned, a world-renowned pianist, he said that he still practiced his scales every day. Every day he would practice in private when no one saw. He would practice his scales, practice his arpeggios every day. He said, if I miss a day, I can feel it when I play. So it’s what we do in the small things that ultimately determines whether we accomplish any great things.

A Call to a Small Ministry

And when I got called to ministry years ago, God didn’t call me, God didn’t say, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to put you on the radio, I’m going to give you book contracts, I’m going to do all this. And he said, I want you to teach a bunch of stupid junior high kids. Well, stupid wasn’t his word. I think I might have inserted that in what he said. But basically, he asked me to do something. And I’m being totally honest with you because I think this is so important for you. I didn’t want to do it. God didn’t call me to what I wanted to do. He called me to do something I didn’t want to do. And I think God often does that because he’s testing us. I mean, look, it’s easy to serve Jesus where you want to serve Jesus. Whoopee. Where’s the cross on that? Where is the cross in that? So, if we choose, our sphere of service by comfort, or by what we like, then where is the cross in that? So, you know, God will often call us to do something which might be contrary to the comfort zone, might be contrary to our personal likes or dislikes, but it’s his will for us because it’s not just about the work, but it’s about us. He’s training us. He’s disciplining us. He’s changing us through the ministry. It’s not just changing people we’re ministering to, he’s changing us. So God called me to do something I didn’t want to do. But I did it. Because I knew he wanted me to do it. I didn’t do it because I wanted to do it. I didn’t do it because I liked it. I did it because he wanted me to do it. And so, it was a small thing. God used that ministry and hundreds of kids came to Jesus Christ.

Some of those kids are on the mission field, some are in pastorates today. God did amazing things because He honored my obedience.

But it was a small thing. Getting together with junior high kids with pimples and all their issues.

Small thing, but souls got saved and that’s not a small thing.

The Size Fallacy

You know, we need some of you to step up and to teach catechism. Small thing. So small that most of you think it’s insignificant. See that’s the fallacy. It’s called the size fallacy. Skeptics use it all the time. They say well clearly man’s not important because if you look at the earth in light of the universe the universe and the billions, not just the billions of stars, now they’re saying there’s billions of galaxies. When you look at the size of everything, clearly the planet Earth is not important and you are not important because you’re just a speck of dust on a floating speck of dust. It’s the size fallacy. It’s like saying an elephant is more important than man because it’s bigger. It doesn’t work that way. So we see we have little children that need the word of God, so in their hearts, they’re like, oh, well, they just love kids. I don’t understand. That’s not important. Let me ask you this. What if I could see the future? And I said, down the hall when we teach catechism, there’s a small group of kids. One of them is going to be the president of the United States. One of them is going to find the cure for cancer. One of them will lead the military in America. One of them will compose some of the greatest music in Western civilization. This will happen for sure, but they need you to teach them the Bible. So when they do all these things, they do them to the glory of God. Would you go down there and do it? Be honest. You better believe you would. Because through them, you would know you’re changing the world. But see, this is the thing about the mustard seed. when you look at it, it looks like nothing. Because you can’t see the end from the beginning.

You have no idea what your children will become. It really could happen. Ben Carson’s running for president. Now, was he going to win? We’ll see. Probably not. Who knows? God’s sovereign. But he’s clearly one of the greatest surgeons in history. He was raised by an African American woman who had three jobs just to pay the bills. Talk about a small seed. A black mom trying to just be faithful to a couple sons. Now that’s a small seed. And yet his life has affected medical history forever. Who would have ever thought that? Who would have given that black kid a chance? Who would have ever believed that he would become what he became? You cannot judge by appearance. You cannot judge by size. You can’t judge by the circumstances at the moment. That’s not how God sees things. And it seems it’s so trivial to you to spend 40 minutes teaching kids catechism that you think that’s not important. And that’s what God is trying to get us not to do. Because if you don’t have a seed, you don’t have a tree. And if you don’t have a tree, you don’t have fruit. We must see and value the small things, the small opportunities, the small people.

Billy Graham and Bill Bright

I’ve told you this story before. Billy Graham and Bill Bright have probably been responsible for millions of people coming to Jesus in the 20th century. Both of those men say that their conversion and their love for the Bible came from a woman teaching in their Sunday school class. Which is true. Well, what if she said, these are just little kids. I don’t really understand the Bible. It doesn’t really matter. I’m not even going to prepare. I’ll show it, but I’m not going to pray for them. History may have been different. Our choices matter. Are you hearing me? And our choices matter in the small things. That’s the point of the parable. Look at the small things. Because the small things, through God’s agency, become great things. Small people, through God’s power, become great people. That’s the principle of the kingdom. Paul said in 1 Corinthians, excuse me, 2 Corinthians 5, he said, I no longer, he said, even though I knew Jesus in the flesh, I no longer know Him in the flesh, meaning I don’t look at Him according to human perspective. I look at no man according to the human perspective. Why? Because he goes on and says, because of the new birth, we are a new creation. You can’t judge somebody based upon their background. You can’t judge somebody based upon their race, their socioeconomic status. You cannot judge people based upon any of those things because the power of God is greater than all of those things. And everything that would dictate against someone, being an instrument of God, is an obstacle that God can easily overcome.

He delights in it. He delights to take the person who you least expect to be used and use that person. Who would have thought that Paul, who was murdering Christians, would then become the apostle to the Gentiles? Go figure. But that’s who God chose. So we cannot judge according to appearance. We cannot judge according to size. We have to understand that our job is to labor according to whatever talents God has given us and to labor according to whatever opportunities God has given us, no matter how small or insignificant they may be.

Walk by Faith, Not by Sight

Finally, this means we labor and we need to see everything according to the principle of faith. Faith is one of the most fundamental principles of the kingdom. And the reason you need faith is because you cannot see the end from the beginning. If you looked only at the mustard seed, you wouldn’t think it would be so large. Right? Now you can look at a seed and you know that when you put the seed in the ground, it grows, it becomes a flower, a tree, whatever the seed is, right? And so that’s normal, that’s natural. So we know that that happens. So there’s no mystery involved in it. But we only know it because we see it happen repeatedly. We wouldn’t know it if we’d never seen it, because it’s counterintuitive that something so little would become so great. You think about a redwood tree, hundreds and hundreds of feet tall, comes from a small seed. You would never think that this huge thing could somehow come out of this small seed. But we know that it does only because we see it happen. Jesus is saying the same thing applies in the Kingdom of God, in the spiritual realm. But because you don’t see the simple cause and effect in the spiritual, the way we do in the natural, we tend to overlook and not understand the principle. What we need to understand is we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by faith and not by sight. Walking by faith means we walk according to what God says, not according to sight. So if God says that there’s a reward for giving somebody a cup of cold water, then I give them a cup of cold water. Even though it’s just a small little cup of water. You see? I can’t say, oh, it’s not important. But Jesus says there’s a reward attached to that. In Jesus’ ministry, there’s only two places where it says he got angry. You know that? The first one is in Mark that we already looked at, when the Pharisees were hard-hearted, and he asked, should this man be healed? They just said nothing, they’re silent. But the second was when people were bringing little children to Jesus, and His disciples tried to stop them. And the King James, I think, says he was greatly displeased. Well, I can’t translate it into what we might say today, but he was not happy. He wasn’t happy with the fact that his disciples were despising the small things, the small people. And yet, what did Jesus say? He says, out of the mouth of babes, God has perfected praise. We need to begin to value what God values. Amen. That means we have to understand we don’t see the end. We only see the end by faith. In other words, we obey God and we trust God. We do what God’s word says and we leave the results in his hand.

Paul says that he planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. You have no idea what God will do. You may never see the fruit of some of your labor, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are faithful to do what God calls us to do. Do you know that God called many of the prophets to fail? Do you know that? I don’t want to be called to fail. I don’t either. But if I’m called, I better obey. God called Ezekiel. He even says, by the way, he says, whether they hear you or not, go to them and say, thus saith the Lord. And then a little bit later he says, by the way, they’re not going to hear you. But say it anyway, thus saith the Lord. When God called Moses to go to Pharaoh, what did he say? Go to Pharaoh, tell him this, this, this. By the way, he’s not going to listen. I’m going to harden his heart. Well thanks, God. What’s that God saying? Okay, I want you to go to bat and by the way, you’re going to strike out. Thanks God. It’s true. God is not looking for you to be successful. He’s looking for you to be faithful. And fidelity means fidelity in the little things. The little things. You know, we all believe that if the right opportunity presented, am I going too long, I’ll wrap it up. We all believe that if the right opportunity happened, we’d step up and be the hero. I mean, we all, you know, we, listen, we men, we have these fantasies, you know, we’d be the hero. But the reality is, the men that are the heroes are the men that do the small things. And they bide their time for the opportunity. And God will put you on the stage. God will put you on the big stage if he needs you there. But the preparation for that is what you do in the little things. So we have to learn to see by faith. We cannot see the end.

But we can know the end, it will be something greater due to the agency of God.

Closing

What we need to understand is that God values the small things, the small choices, the small sacrifices, the small victories, and the small people. And we need to do likewise. You never know, and you don’t need to know, what God will do with your small acts of obedience. You just need to do them and leave the results with Him. Don’t pass up small opportunities for service. Don’t pass up those small duties you want to neglect.

Ever seen that show about hoarders? I don’t watch it, but I’ve seen commercials for it. I remember seeing this commercial and this person said, basically, I didn’t really plan on being a hoarder, things just started to pile up. And before they know it, they can’t get out of the living room because there’s so much junk in their house. Well, you just add one thing to another over time, right? One thing to another over time. And that little thing becomes a great thing. This principle works for good and it works for bad. We’re told in the Word of God that it’s the fly that ruins the ointment. [audio unclear] Leave the results in God’s hands. Amen? Let’s stand and pray.

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