Don't Despise the Day of Small Things

Small Things

Zechariah 4:9,10 NIV
 
Then the word of the Lord came to me: The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.
Who despises the day of small things?  
 
We who see the great eternal purpose of God are sometimes overwhelmed by the current condition of the church of Jesus Christ. We share in the burden of the Holy Spirit to show forth Jesus Christ in His church.  

Because we share this great desire we can at times become to a great extent discouraged by what seems the indifference of God Himself concerning these things. As a result we increase our own natural efforts to attempt to bring about the purpose of God in this earth. This has never worked and it never will.  

What is tremendously enlightening about the scriptures above is that a couple of verses before this we are given that oft quoted insight that things will be done not by power or might but by the Spirit of the Lord.  

It gives us real understanding in how God does things within the context that we are dealing with. The context is the temple of God or the church being started and finished. Like we’ve talked about before; a revelation of Christ being the Alpha and Omega.  It is amazing to me the simplicity of what is being talked about here. At this point we have a type of Christ in Zerubbabel laying the foundation of the temple. Of course that means that He laid Himself as the foundation.
 
Now what is enlightening to me is that this is sandwiched between the scriptures concerning that this will be done by the Spirit along with the admonition that we are not to despise the day of small things.
 
Here I want to talk about not despising the day of small things.  

We as Christians, out of a misguided zeal, always want to do “big” things for the Lord. Consequently, we make the big plan, recruit, raise some money, and then want results within a week or two.  While there is nothing wrong with wanting to do the will of God, there is something wrong with the thought that it is going to happen immediately in response to some emotional appeals.  

We are always looking for the next “big” thing rather than to gradually, faithfully grow together into the image of God that is in Christ Jesus.  God is building His temple. Yet He wants things to be done His way. If it is not done His way, He has no qualms about leaving man-created works and contracting things down to a few to start again.  

That’s why it was such a sin when David wanted to count Israel. He wanted to boast about how big things had gotten. He wanted to boast in the natural aspects of things rather than in God. He paid a horrible price for His mistake.  Jesus never attempted to do things to impress men. In the end before He died He had just a small handful of men that were left from His 3 ½ years of ministry. Yet on the cross He without hesitation declared that “it was finished.” He had fulfilled the purpose of God that He had come to the earth to perform.  I want to relate to you here a story about Sam Walton, the man who made Wal-Mart.  

He tells us in his autobiography (Sam Walton – Made in America ) that he never had any big vision of creating some great behemoth that the stores have become. Rather he said that all he ever wanted to do was to take care of the little things daily. When he and the other employees did these things, the results took care of themselves.  

I always wanted to be the best retailer in the world not necessarily the biggest… Here’s the point: the bigger Wal-Mart gets, the more essential it is that we think small. Because that’s how we have become a huge corporation – by not acting like one. Above all, we are small-town merchants, and I can’t tell you how important it is for us to remember – when we puff up our chests and brag about all those huge sales and profits – that they were all made one day at a time, one store at a time, mostly by the hard work, good attitude, and teamwork of all those hourly associates and their store managers, as well as by all those folks in the distribution centers. If we ever get carried away with how important we are because we’re a great big $50 billion chain – instead of one store in Blytheville , Arkansas , or McComb , Mississippi , or Oak Ridge , Tennessee – then you probably can close the book on us.  

Sam Walton, in his chosen field, did not despise the day of small things. As a matter of fact he insisted that the company would be run in no other way.
 
This is why the Lord started things in one city and than move from city to city as a strategy when the church began, eventually unto the uttermost parts of the earth.  
The ways of God are that we are to consistently, continuously, gradually extend the eternal purpose of God, not only throughout the earth but throughout the age. Yes the earth is the whole field of our service, but overall that is a meaningless entity from man’s point of view. Why? We are made of flesh and blood.  We have these earthen vessels that we dwell in. That means that we must think locally, even though we recognize that Jesus wants to fill the whole earth with Himself.

Jesus recognized the limitations of dwelling in His earthly body. That is why He tells us about His desire to get past the baptism that He was to be baptized with so that the era of the Spirit could begin.  

Why is this so important? When you think in terms of the whole earth it is so easy to do nothing. It is so easy to flee responsibility. The great majority of Christians without a doubt are to live and act locally. This is the secret of not despising small things.  

Yes we are part of something much bigger than ourselves individually and corporately. Yes we are part of something much bigger than the neighborhoods we live in. It’s like when you hear someone in the world that is boasted about being a citizen of the world. What is usually meant is that they are a citizen of nothing; committed to nowhere and nobody.  The bride of Christ as she is revealed coming down out of heaven is great to behold. That is something big. That is the fulfilment of the eternal purpose of God being manifest in the earth. It encompasses all generations and all believers that will ever live.  

Think about the context of what happened here though. This is talked about at the end of a letter that John has written to who? Yes, a number of local churches.  
In the day to day outworking of our faith we do need to see the great fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose. That is truly something that is huge. This is shown forth by the measurements that are taken of its size.  

One of the reasons this is revealed to us is that our steady faithfulness to God in the daily “little” things, is eventually rewarded with the satisfaction of God’s heart.  We must grow into faithfulness in the little things, whether it is in our daily vocations, marriages, child-raising, business dealings, fellowship with one another; amidst the myriad of things that we encounter in the environment that we may find ourselves in.  

So not only are we not to despise the days of small things, rather we are to embrace them as a way of life.

Job: Embracing the Cross

 
The purpose of this article is to stimulate you to willfully take hold of the Cross of Jesus Christ and let it work within you deeply.
 
While there is a lot to learn of the cross in Job, I want to center in on how he sat there under its bloody application to his life, and let it do its work.  

It has become somewhat fashionable in some Christian circles to blast at anything that would oppose what some would call prosperity and wealth. Yet at God’s instigation and permission, He allowed Job to be devastated in every area of His life.  What I want us to look at is how Job responded to what came upon him. The person closest to him counseled him to curse God and die. In other words, she was encouraging him to commit spiritual suicide that would result in his physical death. In this view at least, his suffering and torment would be over.  

Of course all of us who have read Job know of how his friends came and gave their opinion as to why all of these things had happened.  

What was Job’s response? He simply sat under what happened until what was meant to be accomplished was accomplished. In other words; he embraced the cross!  Embracing the cross refers to the fact that he didn’t try to get out from under what it was that God was doing until the time that he was allowed to be.  

In high school I was on the wrestling team. Our coach one time was showing us the move that it took to escape somebody that was using a certain hold upon us. In doing this, he chose one of the students to use for an example. When the student came to him and grabbed hold of the coach in the way that he was instructed, the coach then proceeded to show us how to escape the hold of the student. A surprising thing happened: The coach couldn’t get the student to let go of the hold that he had upon the coach.  If you can picture yourself going through the painful cross of Jesus Christ, this is about the only response that you can have that will profit you spiritually. Like the student above, all you can do is hang onto the Lord with all your strength while He allows what is happening to you to go on. Any other response will take away the desired purpose that God has for you.  

One of the practical steps in hanging on while your world is turned upside down, is to not try to figure out and analyze what is going on while you are going through it. Both Job and his friends attempted to do this and failed completely. While we are told that Job spoke more accurately about the Lord, yet he was also rebuked for assuming to know what was going on.  

The end is this: we must allow the hand of God to work not only in good times, but especially in the tough times. It is the tough times that will determine who you will be as a Christian and as the church of Jesus Christ. He is quite able to hold you up and to cause you to endure. The way to do this is the same way that Christ did it. You can have your anguishing moment of Gethsemane , but once this is over, you must, like Jesus, submit in peace to the will of the father. Do this and the resultant resurrection life of Jesus Christ will be able to work within you. If there is no cross, after all, how can there be a resurrection?

The Purpose of the Cross of Christ

In talking about the purpose of the cross I want to begin by mentioning that it is the end result that we are talking about here, not the way that the cross works.  
Once we see the end result, than we will know the way that we will have to go to get there.  

The end result of the cross isn’t hard to see. We are told very specifically what it is.  There are two aspects I want to reveal here, one is that we are no longer to live for ourselves but for Him. This is a process that works within us over a lifetime. There are no shortcuts or easy way to get there. Still this is one of the things that Christ showed us that we must do.

Just as He lived for the Father, so are we to live for the Lord also. We are to live for Him and Him alone.  

We must remember how we are told that all things are from Christ, for Christ, in Christ, through Christ, and go back to Him.

The second part of the purpose of the cross goes even one step further. Not only do we live solitarily for Him here, but now it is no longer we who live but Christ that lives in us. What a purpose to look for ... or rather die for! 

Most of us don’t even seem aware or believe that such a thing can happen. And yet Paul tells us that he reached this pinnacle. This wasn’t just for Paul; it was for those who would follow after him.  

This is why Paul tells us that Christ chose to reveal Himself in him, so that we may know what Christ expects to do within us.  

While these two concepts are very simple to understand, very, very few ever even take this as a way of life to pursue. The reason most don’t is because to go after this means that you must go through tremendous workings of the cross that most simply aren’t willing to commit and yield to.  

Yet I hope that you will respond to the Lord in this. Both individually and corporately, we must submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Mankind awaits a people that will deny themselves and not only live for Christ, but come to the place where it is no longer even them who are living but rather Christ that is living in and through them.  

Lose your life in this and the Lord promises us that we will find it. We must be willing to take the risk and to step through.  

Do you want to experience this life? Then you must be willing to die to everything. What are you waiting for? Christ is at the door knocking!