Pastor Tim Dunn "Small Things" (Sunday 2-23-25)

Welcome to Life City. This podcast was created to celebrate

what God is doing and what protectsas our vision is

to reach the hungry, the hurdy, and the hopeless. God

has given us our heading. Join us today as we

listen to the Word and we pray that God speaks

to you in this message.

I'm glad you're here today. You can be seated, no,

come on. I have a tendency to use my kids

as examples, to their chagrin, but it's part of being

Pastor's kid. But that's what relates to me. While back,

London was going through a practice at Shooting Skeet over

there in Fort Worth Trap and Skeet and her and

I had shot through one round of twenty five and

she's done all right, not great, but she's done all right.

And what we didn't know is there was this woman,

an older woman, she was watching and she come over

and she asked me, she said, hey, do you mind

if I give her a little advice? Yeah? Absolutely. She

had told me she wasn't just some random woman. She

told me that. She said, I'm an instructor. I'm a

class one instructor at Skeet and so I'd like to

show her a few things. I was like, yeah, absolutely,

have at it. And so she walks over to London

and she's talking to her and she began to talk

to her on her stance, positioning of her body and

all of that, and really she made one small little

adjustment and after she made that adjustment, they shot at

a couple stations and pop, you know, everything was breaking.

I was like, man, and so we got done with that,

and she shot a full round and way better than

the round we had previously shot. And even now when

she goes into a tournament or a practice, the first

thing she does is she remembers that little small adjustment

that made her better, a better shooter. And so for

the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna talk about small things.

Small things, because everything done in the Kingdom of God matters.

Everyone in the Kingdom of God matters. Nothing is overlooked

by God. I want you to know that nothing is

overlooked by God. No one goes unnoticed by God. Every

offering of your time, your talent, and your treasure is seen,

is heard and deposited in heaven. Amen. I hope you

believe that, for it's kept. And every act of obedience

is rewarded. Amen, every single one. I've quoted this many times.

It's a quote from an author, Mark Batterson. He's also

a pastor, and he's makes this statement. And when I

first time I read it, it just spoke to me.

He said, if we will do the small things like

they are big things, God will do the big things

like they are small things. It's the whole thing of

Another quote I've used is, if we'll do the natural,

He'll do the super Amen. And so I want to

start in the Book of Zachariah, chapter four, verse ten.

You may know this first phrase says, for who has

despised the day of small things? Who has despised the

day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see

the plumb line in the hand of Zerubrabyl, And we're

gonna talk about that next week. They are the eyes

of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the

whole world, basically telling us he does not miss a thing. Amen.

There is nothing that goes unnoticed by the eyes of

our Lord. Amen. He sees and knows everything. What you

do in public and what you do in private. You

can keep it from us, you can keep it from others,

but God sees everything. He sees every act of obedience,

he sees every time he hears, every time you pray

for somebody. He knows it all, and it's registered and

it's kept in heaven. So my hope is to unpack

and teach over the next couple weeks. I'm gonna try

to teach. I'm gonna try from chapters three in chapter

four of the Book of Zechariah Zachariah for the next

two weeks, and we'll see where it goes from there.

In chapters one through chapter six, there are eight visions

that are given to the prophet from the Lord, and

we're gonna look at two specific visions. And I want

to start in chapter three. In chapter three. As we

begin chapter three, this is the fourth vision that the

prophet has received. And I want to I want to

start here because I want to show you what the

Lord showed me. I want I want to examine how

God has done the big things like they are small things.

That way, hopefully it'll give us the charge, It'll give

us the courage, the confidence, the gumption, the conviction to

do things like their big things. Amen, because that's what

we want to do. So let's let's start, and we're

gonna take this verse by verse in chapter three. If

that's okay. There's a big fancy word for this kind

of study. It's an exegetical type of study. But that's

I don't use words like that, So I'm just gonna

say we're gonna go verse by verse. That's more my speed.

Then he showed me Joshua the High Priest, standing before

the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his

right hand to oppose him. Other translations use the word

resist him, to oppose him, to resist him. And so

this is the first picture that we're painted of this

vision to Zachariah that the Lord has given him is

and this vision is in direct relation and revelation to

the purpose of the church. I want you to know

that it is. And so we have this depiction of

this man, Joshua the High Priest. Now, when you look

at that, you can associate that with the character of

Joshua from you know, the Book of Exodus and so on,

and the book after his name Joshua and those kind

of things. But it's not another character of Joshua that

played a role in Israel. But when you really begin

to dig into this vision and understand what the Lord

was trying to show the prophet Zachariah. Remember, why did

the Lord speak to prophets so that the prophet could

share the word of the Lord. In the Old Testament,

God spoke to prophets for the people, and the prophet

would speak to the people for God. That was the connection.

That was the relationship between the people, the prophet and God.

And so God showed Prophet this vision. And so we

have this character, this depiction of this man, a high

priest named Joshua. And so if you look at it,

the name Joshua means the salvation of Jehovah. It means savior.

And so what the Lord was showing was a depiction

of Jesus Christ standing there before in his in his

fleshly fleshy body, standing there before the Angel of the Lord.

And Satan we all know who he is. Satan standing

to the right of Jesus. Now it's it's a couple

things here. I want to point out where Jesus. The

position Jesus took was a position of intercessor. He still

takes that today. Every day. There is intercession that is

made for your life, for your soul, for your mind,

for your heart. Amen. Every single day he intercedes for you. Amen,

cohosition of intercessor. And he is standing there as a

high priest. Now we're reminded in New Testament in Hebrews

four fourteen, if they'll put that up, seeing then that

we have a great high priest who has passed through

the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. And so we

have this, this picture of the high priest. Now we

all know in the Old Testament times what the high

priest job was. On the day of atonement, the high

priest would enter into the Holy of Holies through the veil,

and he would take the blood of the sacrifice, and

he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice upon the

mercy seat between the cherubs, on the on the in

the ark of the the ark of the Covenant, and

he would make an atonement, and he would intercede for

the sins of the people, and he would intercede for

their sins to be rolled back at least a year

in that day in time. And so this is the

depiction that we are given here, as this vision begins

to be unwrapped before us, that we have Jesus standing

there as an intercession and as a high priest that

can make an atonement. Now we understand because we're not

living in the time where the New Testament hasn't happened yet,

So we all understand that his death, burial, and resurrection

paid that price of atonement for our salvation. Amen. And

so he's standing there in this vision, and Satan is

standing at his right hand to resist him. Now, if

you've ever done any studies, you understand the right hand

is a representation of power and might and strength. And

it's no coincidence that Satan was standing to the right

upon his right hand to Jesus, Amen, Because Satan is

always trying to hinder the power of God from working

in your life. Amen, That's what he wants to do.

He wants to hinder the power of God from working

in you. Because truth be told, Satan is not and

I'll put it to me, Satan is not afraid of

Tim Dunn. He's not Satan the man. Tim Dunn doesn't

keep Satan up at night. He doesn't pace the floor

worrying about me, the man man. That's not that's not

where what he's worried about. What he's worried about is

when myself or any of you allow the power of

God to begin to work in your life. That's what

keeps him up at night. That's what worries him. That's

what stresses him out because he knows, without the power

of God, I am a man full of weakness and mistakes.

But with the power of God and the authority of God,

I can say to that mountain be moved into yonder sea,

and it happens. I can speak peace to a storm

because of the power that's in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Satan understands where that's what the source is. Amen. And

so oftentimes we also know him as the accuser of

the brethren and man the Bible tells us that he's

the accuser of the brethren. And he goes and he

accuses you of all kinds of things, some that he

has no right to accuse you of. Some of his

accusations you're innocent of. Some of them you're guilty of. Okay,

that's his job, that's what does. He's very good at it.

And he goes and he stands at the right hand,

and he resists the power of God to work in

our life. A man, his hope, his hope is to

get you and I cut off from the flow of

the power of Jehovah in our life. Why because he

knows we cannot fulfill the purpose of God. We cannot

fulfill the will of Go without the power of God.

Roy is just Roy, and we love Roy, but we

love Roy with the Holy Ghost. We may not love

Roy as much without the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. And

that is true about all of us. We love everyone,

but we love us with the Spirit of God in

our life, because we're a much better person with Him

in us than not. Amen. And So if a church,

if a city, if a community, if a family, if

a husband or a wife, or a young person, would

ever understand that it's not about what I do. It's

about allowing the power of the Spirit of God to

begin to work in us. If we could ever, would

we begin to do that? That's what empowers the church

to change a city. That's what empowers people to change

their circumstance and change what God desires to do in

their Amen. And that's what Satan is so afraid of.

And so in this vision, Satan's standing to the right

of this character that is named Joseph but is depicted

as Jesus Christ. And he's accusing, and he's he's because

this is the thing. He attempts to use every spirit

of hell at his disposal to try and hinder you

from walking in the power and the purpose of God. Amen.

We have to understand that. Amen. We understand that he's

working on that. Behalf. Amen. And so he goes before

the throne of Grace and he begins to accuse us.

Now we have this word, this idea wrote Paul wrote

about it in Romans eight, and most of us can

quote it. It's this, this, this word condemnation man. And

see that's what he's trying to bring. He's trying to

bring condemnation upon us. He's trying to show the Lord

that we're not worthy of his power. And truth be told,

we're not because we're all sinners. That's come short of

the glory of God. Amen. And so he's that's that's

his job. He come and he tries to bring condemnation.

And now we know this, we understand this, right, we

understand there is therefore now no condemnation to them which

are in Christ Jesus. And we understand that. And we

know that, and you can quote it and and when

you pray. I'm sure you pray. Lord, thank you for

you haven't condemned me, and and thank you Lord. And

and if I was to stand up here and say,

all right, every person that that that feels condemned today,

I want you to stand, and I want you to

come up here to the front. Nobody may come up here.

Why because we know that we're not condemned, right, we understand.

We've read the story, we've read the Bible. We understand

that we're not condemned. The problem is we live like it. Yeah,

we live like we're condemned. We won't admit that we're condemned,

but we live like it because we constantly let our

past or our present stop us from allowing the power

of God to float through us in order to do

what He's called us to do. Amen. And so we'll

stand on Romans eight and one. There is therefore now. No,

you are not condemned, brother, You are not condemned. Sister.

I am not condemned. Amen. But we allow what we

know about ourself to keep us from walking in His purpose.

We allow what has happened to us and what has

happened in our life to keep us from allowing God

to really bring healing and bring mending, and bring restoration,

and bring all of these things that He desires to do.

That happened by the power of God. Your restoration can't

happen because of a sermon. It can't happen outside of anything.

But the power of God working in your stands constantly

at the right hand of Jesus Is. Because he doesn't

want you healed. He doesn't want you whole, he doesn't

want you restored, he doesn't want you renewed. Amen. And

so he stands at the right hand of power of

Jesus Christ, and he accuses you, and he condemns you,

and he tries to get the Lord to stop moving

and using your life. Amen. Because when the power of

God begins to work, anything is possible. Do we believe that, Amen,

anything is possible. And so we're given this picture. Let's

go to verse two. And the Lord, not the Angel

of the Lord that Jesus stood before, but the Lord

said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan, the Lord

who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a

brand plucked from the fire? Amen? The Lord rebuke you.

And so what we have here is this to the

hindrance and to the resistance that Satan is bringing. He's

standing there in resistance, trying to hinder what the Lord

wants to do in your life. And the Lord speaks

up and says, I rebuke you, Satan. Every advance, every

hindrance that our adversary brings against the power of God

working within the people of God is always met with

the word of God. Amen. Man. And so we find

this in the New Testament. Jesus is standing before Peter

in Matthew chapter sixteen, verse eighteen, and he tells them.

He says, I want to tell you, Peter, that upon

this rock I will build my church first and foremost.

We always have to remember that we are His. We

are the Church, not this building. This building's gonna change,

right there is the change, Amen, something like that. I

may not look exactly like that, but something like that. Amen.

So buildings are gonna change, but we are the Church.

And he says, I will build the Church. Amen. And

the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Amen.

You see, Jesus Christ stands at the ready for your soul,

constantly rebuking, constantly resisting the gates of Hell and their

advancement against you. But this is the thing. Every day

we have to allow the power of God to work

in our life. Every day we have to allow we

have to open the gas so the power of His spirit,

because God is a spirit, and so we have to

allow the Spirit of God to continually and constantly and

effectively work in our life. Amen. It's an everyday thing. Amen.

He doesn't take a day off. Your adversary doesn't take

a day off. Amen. So we have to understand that

it's our duty, Amen, to allow His power to work

in us and through us. So the Lord reminds Satan

who rebukes him. He says, the Lord who has chosen

Jerusalem is the one rebuking you. Is not this? Is

this not a brand plucked from the fire. And that

reminds me of what Peter wrote in One Peter two

nine and ten, where he says, but you are a

chosen generation. Look at somebody next to you and tell

him you've been chosen, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,

a man, a chosen generation. He says, his you're his

own special called out people that you may proclaim the

praises of Him who has called you out of darkness.

And into his marvelous light. Who once were not a people,

but now you are. We have been adopted, We have

been grafted, We have been brought in to the family.

You are now the people of God. He has chosen you.

You had not obtained mercy, but now you have obtained mercy,

and his mercy and his compassion is new. Every single day,

iory who the church is, and the Lord has chosen us.

The Lord has called us. It is the Lord that

rebukes every spirit that tries to hinder his power from

working in us. Amen. And then he says, go back

to verse two. Then he says, is this not a

brand plucked from the fire. I want this to give

you hope. This morning, the Lord here is speaking to Satan.

He says, I've chosen the ones who've been through the fire,

That's who I've chosen. I've chosen the ones who smell

like smoke because they've just trial after trial after trial,

fiery furnace after fiery furnace. Amen, I've chosen them, Amen,

he said, the ones who have ash all over booze.

He says, I've chosen those. He says, I know what

you're standing here telling me about them, But I already

know that, and I still chose them. Amen. You see,

we have to understand that ourselves, because the adversary sometimes

gets credit for things that we do in our own minds.

Sometimes we convince ourselves we're not worthy, and we give

credit to the adversary because you can't see him, and

so he's easy to blame when in reality, it's what's

going on between our ears. Amen, and we condemn ourselves

and we give credit to Satan. Well, he's the accuser

of the brethren. Well, obviously you've joined his team. Amen.

And we we we get into this rut and we

get into this this this season of life where we

we we don't believe that we are chosen that and

we start making all all of these excuses because of

what we know about ourself. Well, I can't be used

by God because of what I know has happened in

my life. Because of this, I can't do this, and

because of my past and because of what I know

about myself from yesterday, I can't be used by God. Amen.

And to tell us and trying to paint a picture

for us to understand that Jesus Christ knows all those

things about you, and he still chose you. He knows

about the things that you haven't even done yet, and

he still chose you. He knows what happened to you,

and he still chose you. He knows the pain, and

he still chose you. He sees the ash on your

clothes because where you've been burnt, and where you've been wounded,

and where you've been hurt, and where you've made mistakes,

and he still chose you. Why because He desires to

take the imperfect and do something powerful and beautiful with it. Amen.

And this vision that he gives to the prophet Zachariah

is about Jerusalem, but it's a type and a shadow

of the church today that God has chosen us to

change the world. You don't have to be perfect because

He is. Amen. I was supposed to be teaching. You.

Don't scream and yell when you're teaching. Amen. I know

what they know about themselves, and I chose them. I

know what you're going to accuse them of, and I

still chose them. I have chosen them, and they bear

my mark. They're a brand plucked from the fire, and

they bear my name. Amen. They bear my name, Amen.

Verse three of Zachariah three. Now Joshua was clothed with

filthy garments. That's why I'm wearing these. If you thought

I just decided to change clothes into the dirtiest possible

clothes I could find. Joshua was clothed with filthy garments

and was standing before the angel. Amen, when we come

to the Lord, this is how we come, in our filthiness,

with ash all over us, from the fire, from being

beaten down, from being bruised, from being kicked. Amen, we

stand before him in our filthy garments. And then he answered.

In verse four, he answered and spoke to those who

stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him.

And to him he said, see, I have removed your

iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. Amen.

The King James version says, and I will clothe you

with change change of raiment. Amen, I will put a

new robe on you. I will put new clothes. It

points us to the prodigal son. It points us to

this depiction of the Sun who is wasted his inheritance

and wasted his life. And he comes back to the

father's house and he's been hanging out with the pigs

and the slop and the mess and the mud, and

he's all full of those things. And he comes to

the father and he says, hey, I know I've messed up,

and i'd realize what I've done, and I've wasted everything

you've blessed me with. But all I want to do

is I want to come back and I'll just be

a servant in the house. And the servant and the

father says, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You see,

it doesn't matter what you wasted. It doesn't matter where

you've been hanging out. It doesn't matter that you've been

with the pigs and the slum and the mud and

the dirt. You've never ceased being my son. You've never

ceased being my daughter. You've never ceased being my child.

I know how you feel, and I understand what you

look like. But there was never a moment and all

your wastefulness, there was never a moment and all the

poor decisions you made where you stopped being my child.

My name was never removed from your life. My authority

and my power was never removed because of the decisions

you make. And either we believe what Paul said in

Romans chapter eight, that nothing can separate me from the

love of God in Christ Jesus, or we don't. Amen.

And so we have this amazing vision given to the prophet,

and Jesus is standing there, and we understand who he is.

The Son of God is standing there. And he came

in flesh and dwelt among us, and we received his glory. Amen. Tewod.

Corinthians Chapter five, verse twenty one says, for he made

him who knew no sin. He doesn't say that he

took on our sin. That's how we say it. He

didn't take on our sin. He became sin. He says

he for he made him who knew no sin to

be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness

of God in him God doing the big things like

they are small things. Amen. He's telling us, as my

wife comes, I have removed the filthy garments. I know

what you've been through, and maybe you're justified in feeling

the way you feel. Amen. But I've removed all iniquity.

I've cast it aside. I've rebuked the accuser, so you

can stand before me with no condemnation. And I know

sometimes you still picture yourself in the filthy garments. It's

a nasty hat. It's a work hat. And I know

you picture yourself like this sometimes, just burning me unworthy.

I know you won't say that because it doesn't sound

very Christian to say that, and I know you won't

admit some of the things that you feel to people.

And that's okay, I get it. But I want to

tell you here today, if the Lord's gonna use Life

City Church to impact and reach this city, this county

and the counties around us, because that's our mission, the hurting,

the hungry, the hopeless, and the hurting and the hungry

and the hopeless. Call it come in all shape sizes, colors, backgrounds, denominations. Right,

some of you are here today, you're hurting, some of

you are hungry. Some of you woke up today feeling

some hopelessness in your life. And so, if we're gonna

accomplish what God has set us to do, if we're

gonna if we're gonna fulfill the mission that God called

us to do to allow the power of God to

begin to work through us, that's what it's gonna take.

We've got to stop resisting because well, you know, just

I'm unsure. I just you know, I don't know you know,

I feel like I can only do these little small things.

Everything done in the Kingdom of God matters, Amen. Every

small word of encouragement matters. Amen. Angel and verse six

or verse five. I didn't give this to them, so

and I said, let them set a fair miter upon

his head, basically a turban. So they set a fair

miter upon his head. And they clothed him with garments.

And the Angel of the Lord stood by, and the

Angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying, thus saith

the Lord of Host. If thou wilt walk in my ways,

and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shall

also judge my house, and shall also keep my courts.

And I will give you places to walk among those

stand by. Amen. Verse eight. Here now, Joshua, the high Priest,

thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they

are men wondered at. For behold, I will bring forth

my servant, the branch. Amen, the branch. Jesus said, I

am divine, and you are the branch. If you abide

in me and I in you, Amen, you will be fruitful.

Stand with me this morning.

Hallelujah.

Go ahead and put verse two. Back up there, I'm sorry.

Verse three.

Well wait a second, Yeah, go to verse two.

That's fine, Yeah, Yeah, that's what I was looking for,

the Lord who has chosen.

There's no doubt in my mind, every single one of you,

at some point in your life, if you're over fifteen

sixteen years old, at some point in your life, you've

felt that calling. You've you've felt that purpose, that this

is why I'm put up certain Yeah, and no doubt

if you discovered that at an early age, you've in

you're over thirty, you've lived some life between that moment

and today, and no doubt there's been some moments where

what has happened in your life, whether by your own

hand or by somebody else's, or whatever the case may be,

something happening to you, you've doubted what God has called

you to do. Maybe it's even caused you to stop

and just not do anything and just be satisfied with

the status quo of coming to church but not really

getting involved and not being the church. See, we don't.

I'm glad all of you are here. See this is

weird for a pastor to say, I don't want you

to be satisfied with coming to church. You know, oh great,

we can stay home next weekend. We need the sembling

of ourselves together. Amen. It. But it's more than just

coming to church. It's being the church for all of

those that stand by. Amen. And because of some things,

because of accusations, because of what you know, what has

gone on, you've just stopped and you've convinced yourself that's

the best, just to not do anything and just go

to church. And I'm used up, I'm filthy garments, I'm

wasted all of these things. But the Lord has come

today and he asked me, told me to tell you

that he sees, he knows, he hears, and he still

chose you. He didn't choose you just to sit on

a seat. He chose you to be the church everywhere

you go, whether it's school, whether it's the grocery store,

whether it's your job, whatever it is, he chose you

to be the church. And he wants his power to

work in your life and through your life, to empower

you to fulfill his purpose for your life. That's why

we're called, that's why we've been chosen not to just say, hey,

look at me, I'm chosen. Amen. We are not a

heifer in a field with a brand on our backside.

We are the people of God. Amen. We are children

of God that are called with a purpose lost Amen,

to make disciples the Great Commission. That's what we're called

to do. And it's high time the church get busy

doing it. Amen. Amen. Amen. We've all had our issues,

We've all made mistakes. If I said I may try this,

this would be a good way to get everybody out

of their seat. If I said, everybody that's ever made

a mistake join me on stage, guess what. Every seat

would be empty. Now we may have one jokester you

sitting there like nune me. Amen, he still chose you. Amen.

The accuser has already been rebuked. You have a purpose. Amen.

Are we gonna get busy doing it? Hallelujah. That's who

the church has called to be. Hey man, as we

close today, I want would you close your eyes. I'm

gonna pray over you, and then we're gonna be dismissed.

Thank you so much for being with us today. We

hope you were blessed in some way by the message.

To learn more about us, check out www dot Mylifecitychurch

dot org, or you can contact us at info at

mylifecitychurch dot org. Thank you once again for joining us,

and we hope you have a great week.