The Power of Small Beginnings: Faith in the Quiet Moments

G'day, thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornstone Heights, Sydney, Australia.

Today we'll be first reading from Zechariah 4, verse 1-10.

Zechariah 4:1–10

Then the angel who talked with me returned and woke me up, like someone awakened

from sleep. He asked me, what do you see?

I answered, I see a solid gold lampstand with the bowl at the top and seven

lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps.

Also, there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.

I asked the angel who talked with me, What are these, my lord?

He answered, Do you not know what these are? No, my lord, I replied.

So he said to me, This is the word of the lord to Zerubbabel,

not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the lord, almighty.

What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground.

Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of God bless it, God bless it.

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 dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord

that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone

in the hand of Zerubbabel.

Today we're going to be reading from Luke chapter 13, 10 to 21.

Luke 13 · chapter mention

On the Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,

and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years.

She had bent over and could not straighten up at all.

When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to the woman,

You are here set free from your infirmity. Then he put his hands on her,

and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignantly, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said

to the people, There are six days of work, so come and be healed on those days, not the Sabbath.

The Lord answered him, You hypocrites, doesn't each of you on the Sabbath unite

your ox or donkey from the store and lead it out to give it water?

Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, who Satan has kept bound

for eighteen years long, be set free on the Sabbath day?

From what bound her? When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated,

but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Then Jesus asked, What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to?

It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden.

It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched on its branches.

Again, he asked, what shall I compare the kingdom of God to?

It is like yeast that the woman has took and mixed into 60 pounds of flour until

it worked all through the dough.

Thank you. You want to take the Bible with you?

There's a really cool passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 15,

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

where for a whole chapter,

Paul outlines a great argument and defense for the resurrection of Jesus and

the resurrection at the end of times.

He suggests, he argues, he makes much of the idea that when somebody dies,

it is not the end. He makes much of the fact that for Jesus,

when he died, it was not the end.

It is not a small chapter. It's the one when you're doing a 1 Corinthians Bible

study you get to and you go, all right, this is a little bit longer than chapter 13, that is for sure.

For 57 verses, Paul makes this whole argument.

And essentially what he says is that if Jesus has not risen from the dead,

then Christians, followers of Jesus are to be pitied more than anyone.

To put it another way, what he says is, if the reality of Jesus coming back

from the dead is not something that is actually true, what are we doing here?

There are other things to do.

You're all lovely people, and those songs were lovely songs,

and this building is pretty cool.

But if Jesus hasn't actually risen from the dead, there is a certain element

of pointlessness that should creep into gathering and serving and praying and worshiping.

And so for 57 verses, Paul outlines this in 1 Corinthians 15.

And in 57, he says, thank God, because he gives us victory over sin and death

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And amen to that.

But in verse 58, he finishes by saying, so my dear brothers and sisters,

be strong, be immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord.

For you know that nothing you do for our Lord is useless.

Nothing that you do for God is in vain.

Nothing that you do for God is pointless.

Why does Paul do this in 1 Corinthians 15? I think one of the reasons is that sometimes in our life,

it can feel like that we are just trying to do something good, even when,

and often when in the world that we live in,

there isn't a reward,

a satisfaction,

a prize for that good.

You may serve, help, love. You may give, yet it may have a sense of like,

is this actually even doing anything? Is this even worth anything?

This evening, what I want each of you to

be doing for me while I speak and reflect on some of these passages and ideas

is to consider and think about the things in your life that sometimes feel like

they're in that category of potentially feeling pointless or useless or in vain,

at least prompting the question within you of, should I be doing this good thing anymore?

I want you to consider those things that could be described as small,

those things that could be described as seemingly insignificant,

those things that have no cheerleader, that are not celebrated,

the things that others speak down about, or maybe the things in our life that

we don't even need other people to speak down about, because that little voice in our head says plenty.

That thing you did, not enough. You could have executed that better.

You could have done slightly more.

You could have given a bit more. You could have done a bit more.

You could have been more helpful, more loving. You could have been more successful, more worthwhile.

And so as you do that for me this evening, as you consider those things in your

life that may feel small,

we're going to be considering two passages that I think gives us a little glimpse

into how, perhaps what God thinks about those so-called small things.

And maybe even a helpful guide for us tonight in terms of how we may begin to

think about and frame them.

And the first passage that I would love us to consider is the one that Lanthi,

so very well read for us, Zerubbabel, basically taught me how to say his name

tonight. So thank you for that.

Zechariah chapter four, and there's a lot going on in that chapter. There's heaps there.

There's lampstands, there's visions, there's symbolic stuff, there's prophecy.

And I'm not tonight doing a deep dive on that.

I'm very sorry to let you know, but to give you the short of it,

essentially God's people had returned from a season, a long season of exile.

They'd come back to their land and they'd come back full of hope,

full of excitement, full of anticipation, full of like, we're in this together,

right? This is going to be awesome.

And while the return was a moment of enormous hope.

The reality that met them was more underwhelming. The city they came back to was in ruins.

The land wasn't producing what they were hoping that it would produce.

The temple, which for God's people in the Old Testament was a big deal,

this huge temple that stood at the very center of their life with God, now lay in pieces.

And so they had been allowed to return, but the glory of their former days seemed impossibly far away.

And so into this context, essentially, God comes through Zechariah to offer

a boost to their morale with some visions, all with symbolic memory,

imagery and memory rekindling faith,

essentially calling them to trust in the purposes of God.

And so in chapter four, it talks about this task, rebuilding the temple.

And he says, not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.

He reminds them that the things that we do for God, the things that we do that

may be considered good and right,

we don't do them through our force, whether it be our physical force,

whether it be our social force,

whether it be our financial force, whether it be through any sort of political

maneuvering or manipulation, whether it be through trying to gather and herd

and get, it doesn't work like that God says.

He says, if it is my work, if it is good, then my spirit will be the one that

is involved and my spirit will be the one that will bring it to be.

And in verse 10, a verse that I think strikes most deeply at what I'm trying to get at tonight.

He says, who dares despise the day of small things since the seven eyes of the

Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone

in the hand of Zerubbabel.

Essentially, Essentially, how dare you think less of the small day?

Talks about the seven eyes of the Lord. That's just symbolic for God's ability

to see all things in all places and,

We'll rejoice when the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel.

God celebrates the day of the small things, the day that seem insignificant,

the day without the audience, the day without the cheerleader,

the day without the hype.

He says, I see it and I celebrate it. I make much of it. So how dare you not do the same?

And I think tonight that perhaps God might be whispering the same thing into your life.

That thing that you want to convince yourself is small and insignificant.

That thing that has no spotlight.

That thing that seems like you're just trying to take a step forward,

but why do you always feel like you're going backwards?

It might be the small prayer. It might be your new exercise regime.

It might be a new commitment to stop doing this, to start doing this.

It might be a desire to start being faithful. It might be just trying to juggle

all of the impossible amount of things that life has called you to juggle.

And essentially, this little rebuke and this gracious promise is that the smallness

of that thing, the slow progress,

the seemingly unimpressive early stages are not to be despised.

They are to be seen in the light of God's long story.

I wonder tonight if you started to consider more the things in your life as

being as a part of God's long story.

Because it is easy. It's easy, even in our time, in our lives,

in our world, even in our church, to look at things and think, that's small.

And because it's small, it's unimpressive.

And because it's unimpressive, it's not going to get me any

sort of status or celebration no one's

ever going to cheerlead that thing make much of that posted on

instagram it's easy to

look down on things and think what even is the point it's easy to constantly

constantly every day be tempted to describe those things in our life and to

frame them by what they lack rather than what they are.

We can be tempted to think that those things are too small, too incomplete,

even too normal, too underwhelming.

I couldn't possibly celebrate that. But God here is saying, I see those things.

In fact, I am in those things.

I'm right there. They're the things that I'm actually there for.

And I want to suggest, I want to propose for your life even tonight,

Whatever's going on for you, whatever struggles you're going through,

whatever anxieties you have right now, whatever stresses, whatever worries,

whatever things you're just trying to do, those little endeavors,

those little habits you're trying to build in,

whatever it is for you that maybe perhaps that some of the most important things

that God is doing in your life,

those things that may never have a name, may never have a title,

a platform, They never even have a clear and measurable outcome,

as frustrating as that might be,

are the things that God is calling you to have faith in and about,

because those things are not small to him.

In our Luke reading, we see Jesus attend a synagogue, which essentially,

we can translate that to our modern environment.

Essentially, he just comes to a church on a Sunday.

I wonder if you've ever come to a church on a Sunday.

If you look around, churches are filled with all sorts.

And if you go to a different church, that church is going to be filled with

all sorts. You go to another one, it's going to be filled with all sorts.

Sometimes we can think in the church, well, because we follow Jesus,

like we're the good guys, right? We're the nice ones.

Often the opposite. In fact, often the reason we're here is because we're way

more messed up than everybody out there and we're here where we need Jesus more than anything.

Well, Jesus arrives to this synagogue and there are all sorts of people there,

including it says, a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years.

She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. This woman,

we're not given her name.

We're not given her circumstances. We're not told why she was there that day.

We're not told if she comes every single week, or maybe she heard a little whisper

that Jesus could be there. So she is coming along that week.

I think perhaps probably not because there's no indication in the story whatsoever,

none, that she asks Jesus, calls out to Jesus, stretches out to Jesus.

It's not one of those stories where Jesus felt power come out of him.

It's not one of those stories where this woman just demands his attention. No, she is just there.

And it says Jesus saw her. And this woman for 18 years has been hunched over.

She's had a deformity, a physical struggle, something that has impacted her.

You could imagine in every single way, a woman that, especially in these times,

because of this would have to have been living at the fringes and the margins of society. lady.

And the thing that strikes me in this story that I, that I've just been mulling

over in my mind is the posture of this woman in this story.

It is, it is down constantly, always facing down. She can't meet people's eyes.

She can't see what people are saying to her.

Her perspective is always down.

And that would be, in my mind, a difficult way to live for so many reasons,

perpetually underneath the eyeline, perpetually underneath the gaze and the

spotlight of public life.

But in verse 12, Jesus sees her.

And in that moment, he calls her forward.

He sets her free with his words, lays hands on, and immediately,

in an instant, for the first time in 18 years, her perspective goes from down to up.

And it says that she immediately begins to praise and worship God.

We don't know why Jesus chose this woman in this story.

There probably were other people there going through some stuff, almost definitely.

But Jesus did. He saw her. 18 years of silent, difficult, struggling,

undone in a single word and a single touch.

And she straightens, I think, not just physically, but existentially.

Her perspective of the world is all of a sudden transformed.

And for the first time, she can meet the gaze of other people's eyes again.

Jesus restores more than just her body, I think. He restores her ability to

be seen, not as a problem, not as a disruption,

not as, oh, she's here again, but as a person in that society at that time, as a person of worth.

He essentially lifts her out of not being able to see and not being able to be seen.

He lifts her out of invisibility. Right?

And the reaction, the reaction should have been joy.

The reaction should have been awesome. How good is that?

Fantastic. Celebrate. The reaction should have been everyone getting around

and being like, we've got a glimpse of God's kingdom here today. Let's celebrate this.

That's not what happens.

You see, there was a synagogue leader and this was his, this was his domain.

This was his place. He ran the show here.

We don't even have a sense of whether he invited Jesus or knew Jesus was going to be there.

But it says he became indignant, which is an excellent, excellent word,

by the way. I don't know if you've ever been indignant.

And he cannot process what has just happened. It doesn't fit within the categories,

the labels, the expectations that he has of what is the right thing. Doesn't match up.

And so he does what I'm sure none of us have ever, ever, ever done before.

When you have a problem with something that somebody has done, it doesn't go to Jesus.

What he does very cleverly, he goes to everybody else.

And he develops an idea. He advocates for a sort of a category or a sort of

a philosophy of what the right way to go about things is.

He says to everybody else, in this synagogue, what we believe here is that you

come for healing on the correct days.

Not today. Today is the Sabbath. Yeah.

Synagogue leader, I think, represents the temptation that we can often have,

especially in the church,

which is to prioritize systems over people, to prioritize programs over the

nuance of what's actually happening in the human hearts involved in those programs,

to prioritize control over compassion,

to prioritize order over mercy, to prioritize the socially acceptable,

the way things are done, the correct ways over the miracles of God.

And Jesus to that tells this parable. He says, Jesus asked, what is the kingdom

of God like? What shall I compare it to?

It is like a tiny little mustard seed that someone took and planted in their garden.

It grew and became a tree and the birds perched in its branches.

If you've never seen a mustard seed before on Friday night, Jeremiah very rightly

pointed out that maybe you've seen a chia seed instead, very similar type size. it's small, it's tiny.

You do not want to spill 300 of them all over your kitchen floor. They're little.

But even though they are that little, what they can do is over time,

given enough right conditions,

if planted, can produce a huge tree that can serve as shelter for others.

It becomes something larger, more generous, more

alive than its little beginnings could ever suggest

and Jesus is saying he's saying this is what

the kingdom of God is like this is what it means to come and be a follower

of me not the platform not the glory not the impressiveness not that everybody

thinking you're doing the right thing all the time not looking awesome not always

being good at things not always being somebody who is on top of their game no

come and join me in the small things the hidden things the broken things the unimpressive things.

Jesus is teaching us that the kingdom of God, to be a follower of him,

can sometimes seem quiet.

It can sometimes seem underground, unseen.

No spotlight, no cheerleader, no celebration.

And just like the healing of the woman in the synagogue, the mustard seed and that second parable,

I don't know if you caught it, 60 pounds of flour and dough,

so it seems a lot to me, essentially saying that God wants to move through the smallness,

through the hiddenness, through the gradual transformation in what he's doing

and what I think perhaps what he might want to do in your life tonight is reframe your idea of normal,

reframe your idea of what it means for God to be working in your life.

We so often fall into the temptation of thinking, well, if God is here,

if God is involved, in it. It's going to be impressive. It's going to be big.

It's going to seem so obvious.

But God, Jesus is saying here, it's often, in terms of Zechariah 4,

often it's just one brick laid down.

It's just one seed sown and hidden.

And for Jesus, he's saying to his audience a lot that they're expecting a Messiah,

a king to come with political banners and armies and all of those sorts of things.

And he's saying, I am going to die.

And there is nothing more useless,

pointless, nothing more that seems that of utterly having no meaning,

no glory, no success than death.

It's the opposite. it, which is why I think Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is making

much of the resurrection, because sometimes we need to know that the things

in our life that seem like death,

that seem like pointlessness, that seem like they have no meaning and no purpose,

are sometimes the things that God is giving the most meaning to.

The kingdom advances and it grows and it spreads through all of those things

that seem small and pointless and full of death.

Jesus did not get a golden crown. He got a crown of thorns. He hung on a cross and he died.

And if you're a follower of him thinking this is going places at that moment,

you would have been one of those followers thinking this did not go to good places. Yes.

Is a statement, a principle, an idea here of how God still works today.

Even in your life, what seems too small to us often in the hands of God is the

very thing which he is going to transform you with the most.

We can look at our lives. We can look at things like our spiritual lives and

see very small progress.

We can look at our relationships and we can see very small steps that take a

long time to even get anywhere.

We can look at our efforts to serve, to parent,

to forgive, to open up a Bible from time to time, to pray, to do good for our

neighbors and think, this is too small.

And the world that we live in will reinforce that message to you over and over again.

It will get you to stop doing those small things that God gives value to because

it wants to tempt you to the big, the large, the strong, the impressive.

We can think that what is slow is ineffective. What is hidden is irrelevant.

But God says otherwise. In your life, he says otherwise.

Like I said, for Zerubbabel, it was a brick. Lay a brick tomorrow, next week.

Don't despise the small thing. Whatever that brick is for you,

that one prayer, that one feeling of faith, that one nice thing you're going

to do for somebody, that one anything, that one walk around the block.

Don't compare it to the temple that used to be there. Don't compare it to the

buildings that other people have laid.

Just lay that brick because that's where God is.

Don't need to see the whole tree in order to see the value of planting the seed.

You don't need to finish the temple in order to see the value to lay that first, second, third brick.

Some of the most faithful things that you will do in your life will be unseen,

will be uncelebrated, will not be made much of, but God will be there.

I don't know if you've ever been here at church on an anniversary or something like that.

You see those old pictures of the people that built this very building that we're in.

One of the things I was thinking about is the fact that when you look at those

slideshows, it's cool to see how this building came to be and how this church began to exist.

But I think to myself of those people that were building this actual building

a long time ago, You look at those slides and you think, I think to myself,

none of us know their names.

None of us know their personalities, what they found funny,

what sort of person they were, whether they were there because they loved Jesus

or because their wife told them to or because they wanted to be wherever their friends were.

We don't know what they had gone through. We don't know where they are now.

All we know of them is the bricks that they laid here, the seeds that they sowed here.

And I think to myself in the small corner of ministry that I get to be a part

of here at the Heights Church on a Friday night when we have Fuse, I think to myself,

all those years ago, they wouldn't have even possibly been able to imagine the

stuff that we get to do at Fuse on a Friday night.

I also thought if they could get in a time machine and find themselves here

to fuse, they'd probably be

very confused about what we call and consider to be ministry these days.

However, because of what they did, a tree was built that we now on a Friday

night are able to come under and be under the shelter of.

And that's just one tiny example. But here's the thing that I really think about

and something I talk to our youth leaders about a lot is that we don't do fuse

on a Friday night necessarily just for the people that come along.

Because we may spend time week by week investing in people through message and

love and relationship and fun and community, week by week, doing those little

seeds, doing those little laying a brick in their life, just doing what we can.

But the thing is, we may make an impact in young people's lives.

And I hope that we do on a Friday night.

Really what we could be most excited about isn't the season that we're in,

not the season that they're in, but what if one day one of the young people

that we are working with, encouraging, making part of our community,

in 10 years, 20 years, come alongside a person who hasn't even been born yet

and is their person, who invests in them, who saves them from a dark place.

And imagine if that person, a generation later, does the exact same thing.

You're thinking to yourself, there are things in your life that seem like an

unglorious sowing of a mustard seed.

And what God says is, I want you to see those things within the full long story of my perspective.

Our perspective is today. Our perspective is what I'm feeling right now.

My perspective is that thing that's stressing me out about tomorrow.

Our perspective is what other people think about us, what we need.

But God's saying, hey, instead of just seeing there, what would happen if you were to look up?

What if you were to see things as bigger and see some value and some purpose

in those things that even though they seem like they have none?

I wonder whether there are things in your life that God has already begun and

that you have already been tempted to abandon because it's taking too long. The vibes aren't there.

If God was really there, it would seem bigger. You want to believe.

Whether you have looked at things that are unfinished, small and uncertain and

thought, I'm just, I'm not sure about this anymore.

But then the message that I have for you tonight is that those things are enough

and that God can and does work through those small things.

Don't despise the small things.

Don't want to be tempted into thinking that if it is not big,

if it is not glorious, if it is not as good as other people's,

if our story isn't as good as the other person's story, if our career isn't

as good as the other person's career,

if our attempts to serve God are less impressive than other people's,

we can start to think it has no purpose and no value.

And I'll give you one last example from a Friday night perspective,

because that's the space I think in and work in,

besides Natalie, let's take her out of this equation, who does the most for

our youth group on a Friday night to exist?

It's the parents that drive their kids here on a Friday night.

And as a parent, I can tell you, there are a lot of reasons to despise that small drive.

There are a lot of reasons to not take that trip.

That can seem like not as important. That can seem like, oh,

you know, like the actual ministry will happen in this space here.

But God doesn't see it like that.

God sees it all and he makes much of it all.

And I'm just wondering tonight, if you could have the imagination,

if you could have the thought to think about what is it in your life?

What is it in your situation that falls into that abstract category?

And let this be your encouragement tonight. is if all you can bring to God is

a mustard seed of faith, then just bring it.

And don't think small of it. Don't think less of it. Don't think it's not enough.

If all you can see is a single stone laid on uncertain ground,

then lay it down and trust it.

If all you can do is lay one step, then take that step.

If all you can do is just hope, then keep hoping. If all you can do is one thing, then do the one thing.

Even when it feels too small to matter, even when it can feel like it's not

worth celebrating, not worth feeling excited about, even when it can feel like

it's never going to have a cheerleader, a celebration, a party,

it's never going to seem like God is in it. God is saying, what are you talking about?

That's the very thing that I am in.

The smallness of the work, the slow progress, the unimpressive early stages,

these are not to be despised.

They are to be seen in the light of God's long story in your life.

He does not despise the small things. He says to you, how dare you despise the small things?

He rejoices in those things and he says, hey, come and rejoice in them too. Let's pray.

Lord, really, I pray tonight that your spirit it would be here and working.

I pray that we would believe wholeheartedly that the things in our life that

we believe to be good and true, the things in our life that we are just trying, God, to bring in faith.

Lord, we wouldn't despise them, that we wouldn't feel like they're second rate, not good enough.

Lord, help us to believe not just in those things, but Lord,

really to lift our heads and to believe in you.

Help us, God, to believe in you and in your presence and in the way that you

really are and in the ways that you really work and in the ways that you really

want to work in each of our lives.

Lord, I pray for every person here, God, that you would be working in their

hearts and their minds, even right now, even in these last couple of songs of

worship, that you would bring within them and through them,

Lord, something of significance and meaning, not just in size,

but Lord, in the way that they, within their heart, value it.

I pray, God, that they would value it because you are in those things.

God, we thank you so much for your son, Jesus, who showed us the way,

even if that way included a path to death.

And in his name, Lord, we pray these things and we sing what we're about to sing. Amen.