Changing Lives - Go Small

Well, for the last month, we have been talking about changing lives.

When we give our lives to Jesus, when we follow him, our lives begin to change.

It's a process that God starts inside of us.

It's a deeply spiritual thing.

Ephesians 3.20 says God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us his spirit deeply and gently within us.

That is how God works with us.

He begins to change us, to make us into the people that he created us to be.

But we don't want that change to simply stay within us.

We want it to affect others in our lives.

We want to help other people change their lives through knowing Jesus.

We want to be changing lives, but we want to take it a step further and be changing lives, working to change other lives.

To be changing lives, changing lives.

We got this story in this last week from a great guy here named Stacy.

This is what he wrote.

He said, I was raised in an atheist household.

So of course, church wasn't in the picture.

As I grew older, I went to church with friends on occasion.

And then when I got married, I went with my wife and was saved.

My family and I have only been coming to his hands for a little over a year.

I enjoy it very much, but sometimes I feel like I'm just going to church.

I want to be more involved.

I want to do more, but I don't know how.

We started speaking about changing lives.

I was ready.

After service, I took a stack of invite cards and I handed every one of them out.

I was so excited.

I never felt like I knew how to be a righteous follower or how to talk to people about God.

Believe me when I say that has changed.

I invite people, I talk about God to everyone I know.

So in this whole process of trying to help change other people's lives, God has changed mine.

I love that.

That's the way it works, as we work to change other people's lives, our lives change even more.

So the two things go hand in hand.

And right now we have a goal as a church in this next season that we're entering.

And I don't know if it's a one-year season, two years, only God knows that.

But we're gonna work to change a thousand lives.

That's what we're working to do.

We we change lives by showing people the love of Jesus.

That is why we exist as a church.

We love people to Jesus because it's the love of Jesus that changes everything.

In fact, God's word says it's by his kindness that we are led to repentance.

It's the kindness of God that draws us to him.

So we want to introduce as many people in this world, in this community, to the love of Jesus.

We absolutely do.

If you're here for the very first time, more than anything, more than enjoying yourself this morning, enjoying the worship, thinking I'm an okay person, whatever that is, more than anything, we want you to know that you're loved.

You are loved by the creator of this universe, your children in the kids' area, they're loved, and they get that.

My son had this conversation with me last week.

We were putting him to bed, and he had this pretty serious look on his face.

My son's a very expressive kid.

And he looked at me, he said, Dad, I love you.

But it's always an interesting thing to hear after I love you, but not as much as I love Jesus.

And I said, Well, son, that's okay.

That's okay.

That's the way it should be.

I'm proud of you for that.

And he said, Yeah, but Dad, it's okay.

You can love Jesus more than me.

When even children get a taste of God's love, it connects.

If you have teenagers, our students understand what it's like to be loved the way that God loves them.

That's what our whole youth group is built on.

That's why our youth group is such a tight-knit family.

They know what it's like to be accepted for exactly who they are as part of God's family.

So we exist as a church to love people to Jesus because it's his love that changes everything.

1,000 lives is a is a big goal.

It's significant.

And I don't know about you, but I like big goals.

I like to have big goals in my life that are driving me forward.

I am so much better at setting big goals than I am at finishing big goals.

But I'm really good at setting them.

I really am.

It's about to be New Year's, and that means New Year's resolutions for a lot of us.

I'm sure that many of us are about to set some goals in our lives.

The thing about a goal like a New Year's resolution is you want the goal to be worth the amount of time that you're allotting for that goal to happen, right?

So if it's a New Year's resolution, that goal has to be big enough to deserve a year's worth of investment.

You don't see many people say, hey, my New Year's resolution, I'm gonna lose three pounds.

I'm gonna eat one less bite at every meal.

You probably could lose three pounds doing just that.

You don't see many people say, hey, this year I'm gonna read one book.

I'm gonna read five chapters of the Bible.

This year I'm traveling, I'm going to Rome, Georgia.

It's just, there's nothing wrong with any of those goals.

They're all good things.

Lose three pounds, hey, that's great.

That's progress.

Read a book, I guess that's a worthwhile endeavor, depending on the book.

Five chapters of the Bible, that's always gonna be something that's fruitful.

I'm sure there's something to do in Rome, Georgia.

Some of you might be from Rome, Georgia, and you can tell us what to do.

You can tell us when we're there visiting, but we don't get excited about those kinds of goals.

We get excited about the big ones.

I'm gonna lose 30 pounds, I'm gonna read 20 books, I'm gonna read the entire Bible, I'm going to Rome, the actual Rome that all the other Romans are named after.

Those are the kind of goals that inspire us.

The greatest goals, the greatest dreams are those that take more than one lifetime to see accomplished.

There have been people that have dared to dream big enough dreams that they know they're probably not going to see that dream all the way through.

People like Martin Luther King dared to dream big enough dreams, that they knew it would take generations of work to see those results.

But it was worth it because those dreams were worthwhile.

Jesus was like that.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 28 said, Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Now, when Jesus said nations, he was not talking about political groups.

He wasn't talking about a nation like we might think of a nation.

He used a Greek word that actually means ethnicities, it means people groups.

So, in other words, Jesus was saying, take my message to all people.

I want every person that exists to know who I am.

And not simply hear my name, but to actually know who I am.

I mean, we live in Georgia.

If there is a Bible belt, we're part of the buckle, right?

You don't have to drive very far to pass 20 churches.

There are plenty of people that have heard about Jesus in this community.

But what I've found in my life is that there are a lot of people who have heard about Jesus, but it's not the real Jesus.

And they have rejected this Jesus that was presented to them, but they should have rejected that Jesus because he's not actually Jesus.

They don't know the real Jesus.

And if they could, if they could see him, if they could get that taste of who he is, their natural response would be to want him and to desire him in their life.

This goal that Jesus gave us, tell everyone about me, our 1,000 lives goal, it's just really a smaller goal under the umbrella of that one, but it's one that is so far from being fulfilled.

We might think that 2,000 years later, in the world that we live in, this goal is almost reached.

Surely by now everybody's heard of Jesus, but that's not the case.

Not even close.

There's this group called the Joshua Project, which keeps track of missions, places where the gospel has gone, places where it hasn't.

Forty-1% of the earth's population lives among a people group that has not really heard the news of Jesus Christ.

41%.

But see, it's okay because Jesus gave us a goal that is worth not one lifetime, not two lifetimes.

It's worth however many thousands of lifetimes it's gonna take for everyone in this world to know the love and the grace and the power of Jesus in their lives.

That's why we work toward that together.

That's why we make sure that the people in our lives and our circles know who Jesus is and know what Jesus can do for us.

It's because that goal is great and it's worthwhile.

God made us, Jesus knows how we're wired.

He knows that we are inspired by big dreams and big goals.

The challenge, though, is actually reaching those goals, right?

Like I said earlier, it's way easier for me to start a big goal than to actually see it happen.

It takes work, it takes some know-how.

And common sense would say that if you want big results, if you want a big goal, you've got to go big, right?

If you own a business and you want that business to grow, you've got to go big.

You need to market big, advertise big.

Guys, if you're dating someone, you want to impress a girl, go big, right?

Go to Jared, buy a diamond.

That's what you've got to do.

Husbands, you want to impress your wives this year for Christmas?

Go big, right?

Buy her a car with a red bow on it, park it in the driveway.

How many commercials are we gonna see in the next month where that happens?

Twenty?

I mean, it's every year.

There's there's so many of those commercials, and I hate those commercials for a couple reasons.

I know there might be some of us that are in a place in life where you could buy your spouse a car and they would be happy about it and excited.

That is not my life.

Number one, ladies, I think you should be upset at those commercials because it is always the man buying the woman a car.

And the woman just goes, Oh my gosh, I'm so excited, a car.

It's never the other way around.

It's as if they don't think you can buy cars, so you should let them know, hey, we can buy cars too, okay?

But what blows me away is you never see those commercials play out like it would in my life, at least, and I'm imagining in many of our lives where the woman opens her eyes and says, You bought a car?

You bought a car?

You didn't talk to me, you spent that kind of money?

Are you crazy?

My wife would, my wife would slap me in the face if I bought a car and didn't tell her about it.

How much of our money did you spend?

Well, all of it, but it's shiny, right?

Now, if our wives' guys bought us a car, we'd be like, cool, awesome.

This is good.

See, our culture says, hey, go big.

You want to impress someone, you want big results, you gotta go big, you gotta spend big.

Well, what if the person you want to impress is God?

How big do you have to go to impress God?

Now please, please know when I say this, God loves us.

He has given us his love.

It is a gift.

We are his children.

When we accept a relationship with Jesus, we are in the family.

We do not have to impress God to earn his love at all.

At the same time, it is possible to live a life in such a way that God looks at us and says, Yes, that is how it's done.

That's how you live life.

It's impossible to make a deep impression on God.

If you read Scripture, you see men and women that did that very thing, King David, as a shepherd, had a heart that was so in sync with God that God looked down and he saw him guarding sheep and said, He's the next king.

David impressed God so much.

If you read the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah is doing this great thing for the nation of Israel, trying to rebuild the wall around the city as it's fallen apart.

And constantly through the book of Nehemiah, he says, Lord, remember what your servant Nehemiah is doing.

In other words, he's saying, God, notice me.

Notice what I'm doing.

I'm doing this for you.

We can live our lives in such a way that it gets God's attention.

We can make an impression upon him.

In fact, it's even possible, believe it or not, to amaze God.

Sounds like it should be impossible, but it happens in Scripture.

Jesus went and visited his hometown early in his ministry.

He was going there to tell people who God really was, who he really was, to heal them, to perform miracles, but the people in Jesus' hometown did not want to have anything to do with him.

And so he left.

And he was amazed.

He was literally caught off guard by how little faith they had.

In Mark 6, 6, it says Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.

There's another time in Scripture where Jesus himself was amazed.

There was a man that came to Jesus.

He was a Roman soldier.

He had a servant, a friend of his that needed to be healed.

He came to Jesus, he said, Jesus, can you heal my friend?

And Jesus said, Absolutely, I'd love to.

Take me to him.

And the man says, No, Jesus, I know who you are.

You don't even need to be there.

Just say the word and he'll be healed.

And Jesus was in awe of this man's faith.

In fact, in Luke 7, 9, it says, when Jesus heard this, he was amazed.

Turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, I tell you, I haven't seen faith like this in all of Israel.

This man amazed God.

He impressed God.

That's a distinction.

So if we want to be people like that, if we want to impress God, how big do we have to go?

Right?

What are the things we've got to do?

Well, Jesus actually gives us an idea of that in Matthew chapter 25, starting in verse 31.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

It says, When the Son of Man, Jesus, comes in his glory, when he comes for the second time, and all of his angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne.

All the nations, again, all the people, will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.

Now just imagine for a second Jesus saying that to you.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father, and inherit the kingdom of God.

That is your reward.

That's incredible.

He says, For I was hungry and you fed me.

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me into your home.

I was naked and you gave me clothing.

I was sick and you cared for me.

I was in prison and you visited me.

Then the righteous ones will reply, Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you?

Or thirsty and give you something to drink, or a stranger and show you hospitality, or naked and give you clothing, and when did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?

And the king will say, I tell you the truth.

When you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.

These people in this illustration that Jesus is using have obviously made a very big impression upon him, upon God.

A strong enough impression for him to say, Come, inherit the kingdom of God.

That is your reward.

And is it just me?

Or do the things on that list seem a little small to deserve that kind of attention?

I mean, feed a hungry person.

It doesn't say end world hunger.

Feed a hungry person.

How many of us have fed someone that's hungry?

You're going through the grocery.

You can raise your hand if you want, it's cool.

Most of you have, I'm sure you've probably been at the grocery store and they've said, hey, would you like to donate a couple dollars to whatever charity they say?

And you say sure and you just slide your card.

Or maybe you've seen someone on the side of the road and you happen to have a few dollars and you said, hey, why not?

You just rolled your window down and you gave it to that person.

That's what Jesus is talking about.

Feed a hungry person.

Caring for someone who's sick, visiting someone who's in prison, inviting a stranger into our home.

That may seem like a really crazy thing in this culture, but what Jesus is saying is take someone who's an outsider and bring them in.

Bring them into your life, into your circle.

Bring them into your family, into this family here.

It feels like to me, these things should be a little bigger.

Jesus should say, Hey, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom of God because you're one of the few that gave a million dollars to charity.

You started a church.

You gave everything you had to the poor.

You prayed 20 hours a day.

That's a lot, actually.

Maybe a week.

Let's say a week.

That's more realistic.

But those are the kinds of things that would qualify in my mind as going big.

And yet Jesus tells us here that if you want to impress God, if you want to make an impression upon the God of this universe, the God that can speak a word and make a universe exist, go small.

Do something small.

And as strange as that might sound at first, when you really think about it, it's not.

Because in life, it is the small things that matter most.

It's the little things.

If someone in your life does a lot of little things over time that hurt you, if they do some big gesture to make up for it, does it work?

If you have a boss that daily berates you, makes you feel small, makes you feel incompetent, takes credit for your work.

And that happens every single day throughout the year, but at the end of the year, he throws a big Christmas party, buys everyone a really nice dinner.

Do you cut into that steak and go, totally worth it?

This makes it all better.

No.

But if someone in your life does the little things, they're dependable, they care about you, they serve you, they have no agenda.

If someone does the little things and then they make a big mistake, how easy is it to forgive that person?

Because it's the little things that matter most.

Those of us who've accomplished big goals in our lives will often say it's the little things that make all the difference.

So if you're someone that has maybe lost a lot of weight, I'm sure you did a few big things, but you would say, hey, it's all the little choices that I made.

It's the 50 times I ordered salad instead of pasta.

None of those times in and of themselves accomplish the result, but added up, it's those little things that make all the difference in the world.

It's the little things that really matter.

It's the little things that matter to us in our hearts, and it's the little things that matter to God.

One of the things I love the most about this church is that we care about the little things.

We're about to celebrate our 10-year anniversary in September, which is uh pretty amazing when you think about it.

Ten years.

Ten years ago, his hands got started with about 200 people.

Today there will be more children in the nursery and in his kids than there were in the entire church ten years ago.

And it's it's awesome.

That's great.

And I've been here for about eight of those ten years, and I can tell you from experience, from very, very hands-on experience, that this church is not what it is today because a few people did a lot of big things.

That happens from time to time, and it's it's exciting, it's great.

But this church is what it is today because of all of you who are willing to do small things.

It's all the people who have been willing to get here early and make some coffee and shake hands, set up Lord's Supper bread, do whatever else around here is needed.

It's the people that are willing to go small.

I was helping Megan in the nursery last week.

Liam got sick last Saturday night, so she stayed home with Liam.

I said, Well, hey, I don't have to speak this week because Ken was speaking, and I'll go to the nursery.

I'll just I'll make sure it's running smooth for you.

Megan laughed at me, and when she got over that, she uh she told me what to do.

So she gave me this list of things to do.

So I went to the nursery before each service, and I read off the list, and there was this woman that was helping for the very first time, and so I took her to the room Megan said she needed to go to.

And we got to talking as we're walking, and she just told me that she was really excited to help because she could just tell there was a need.

We have a lot of people that help with our kids.

The people that help in the nursery, on average, commit to three hours a month.

That's what the commitment is.

Three hours a month.

Some people help more, but that's that's what most volunteers do.

That doesn't seem like a big thing.

Three hours a month.

But it's the 150 people committing three hours a month that adds up to make something great.

If we want to be a church that sees big things happen in our community, big things happen in the lives of the people that we love.

If we want to be a church that sees a big harvest, that sees lives changed, souls coming to know Jesus, marriages transformed, marriages saved, broken hearts healed.

If we want to see those kinds of results, it's gonna be on the backs of those of us who are willing to do the small things.

And I love the fact that this is a church full of people who recognize the value in the small things.

We'll never get to a thousand lives if we don't care about one life.

It won't happen.

Even financially.

I mean, really, there's one time in scripture that Jesus commends someone for giving financially, and it's a woman who gave such a small amount that it would seem completely inconsequential.

It's about everyone doing what they can.

Not a few people doing great, grand things.

All of us, every single one of us, can do a small thing that leads to a great result.

That's what's taken us from where we were to where we are now.

It's going to take us to where we're going.

This last month we've talked a lot about his hands as a church.

We've talked about that more than we have probably ever before because we're we're going into a new season as a church.

God's given us a unified vision.

He's bringing us together like never before.

But in the midst of that, I don't want us to lose sight of how big of a deal this small things idea is for our own lives.

Because I know that many of us might be excited to be part of a church where God is moving and it's growing and people are being reached, but we look at our own lives and we say, hey, I have some big problems.

I have big needs.

I have big hurdles that I need to get over.

So how do I go about that?

And the answer is the exact same.

You go small.

Whether it's financial in your own life, your marriage, relationships with your children, your career, your job, whatever area of your life has the biggest need, what's the smallest thing you could do to start making a difference?

A lot of us have probably taken Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, or at least familiar with it.

We're actually going to be doing that again in January on Wednesday night, so we'll talk about that more next week.

Dave Ramsey talks a lot about getting out of debt.

And if you're someone that has a lot of credit cards and they've got various amounts of debt on them, you would think that the smart thing to do would be go big.

Start paying off the card that has the most debt.

But that's the opposite of what Dave Ramsey says to do.

He says, hey, start with the smallest card, pay it off, and then roll that to the next one.

You go small, and eventually that small thing you do becomes great.

It becomes big.

It leads to a big result.

In your marriages.

If you want to have a better marriage, you want to have a great, amazing marriage, you want to see big results in that part of your life, what is the smallest thing you could do for your spouse every single week that would make an impact in their heart?

There's a woman named Elon that I met through Ken Kington.

She was telling a bunch of us this story about how she and her husband decided to ask each other, what's one thing I could do for you each week, some small thing that would really mean a lot to you.

He's a football coach, her husband, and he said, just when I get home, ask me about practice.

That's all.

There's nothing that men love more than to talk about sports to a woman who acts like they're interested in it.

Okay?

Just nod your head.

Oh, touchdowns.

Yes, that's good.

Yes.

That's all he wanted.

Just ask me about practice.

And she was taking aback.

She was not expecting such a small thing to be what he picked.

This last week, Megan and I decided to do the same thing.

We asked each other, what's a small thing I can do, commit to doing each week, that would make a huge impact for you.

I picked mine in an instant.

One day a week I want to sleep in.

That's it.

One day a week, I want to sleep in.

I want to do something crazy.

I want to stay asleep in bed till like 9.30 in the morning.

So those of us that are laughing right now either have children and know that that really is sleeping in, or we don't have children, and you thought I was joking when I said 9.30 was sleeping in.

It is sleeping in.

Absolutely.

We have two kids.

I've got a little baby girl, and she gets up pretty early.

My son's four, he gets up and makes a lot of noise.

And every time our kids wake up on a day that we could both technically sleep in because we're off work or whatever it is, we have the same routine.

We both pretend to be asleep for five minutes.

Both of us.

We lay there, our thought is like if I act like I'm asleep, maybe, just maybe, the other person will, in a moment of unselfishness, say, I'm gonna let them sleep, I'm gonna go get the kids.

That never happens.

So after five minutes, that expires because both of us realize there's no way the other person could actually be asleep.

It's it's way too loud.

There's just no possible way.

So we begin to have these really ambiguous conversations.

Like we're trying to hint very, very obviously about what we want the other person to do, but we say it in the most gracious way possible.

Like, do you want, do you want me to get the kids up?

Or is that something maybe you would do you want to do that?

I mean, because I I could go either way, you know.

And and Megan might be the only person I know that hates to get up early more than me.

And so she's usually not eager to jump out of bed early.

And so I usually do the wrong thing.

I I get all I get all passive aggressive, I take this like victim mentality, and I say, fine, I'll get up with the children.

I'll take care of the kids.

You just get your rest.

It's not like I've got to go to work earlier than you every day.

Oh, wait, I do.

That's what I say.

And then as soon as I shut the door on the way out, I'm like, that was a terrible mistake.

Because I have to spend the whole rest of the day with her.

Right?

That's not the right way to start.

So she'll come downstairs 10 minutes later and I just try to salvage it and like, hey, you're up.

What's up?

You wanna breakfast?

It's bad.

It's a bad way to start.

But if there was one day each week, one day, that I just knew that's my day to sleep in, Megan is 100% gonna get up with the kids, I would be so pleasant on those other days.

I would I would be working for the weekend just to have that guaranteed day.

So I asked that of Megan, and she said, yes, yesterday I slept till 9:26 a.m.

It was amazing.

Thank you.

I am clapping for myself.

I'm that proud of that moment.

I even looked at my clock and I said, I could squeeze in four more minutes.

But then I'm I went above and beyond as a husband.

I got up early that day to help my wife.

Megan took a long time to pick what she wanted.

And that actually offended me at first because she was like, I don't know, there's so many options.

I'm like, are there that many opportunities being married to me that you're having to weigh all the options?

She said, No, I feel like a genie has granted me a wish and I don't want to waste it.

And finally, finally, she settled on this.

She said, Justin, every week I want you to fix one thing in the house.

Just one thing in the house.

Like that toilet paper holder that's been broken for a year.

It's falling out of the wall, and every time I see it, I just push it back into the wall.

It's been that way for a year.

And I said, you know what?

I can do that.

I can actually do that.

I actually get uh very intimidated by having to fix things around the house because in my mind I've got to do it all at once.

But just knowing that, hey, I can do one thing a week, actually for me, it's really freeing, and I'm I'm excited about that toilet paper holder.

Tomorrow's the day it's gonna happen.

Brian Van Dyne's in charge of our facilities here, and he told me after the first service that they already have a pool going of how often I'm gonna call Brian on Monday.

Like, Brian, how do you fix this?

And it's gonna be a lot, I'll promise you that.

But but that's all it takes.

Both of us are so excited that each of us has committed this one thing.

Those of you who are married, I just challenge you this week, ask your spouse that question.

What is one thing that you could do for me?

One thing that I could do for you that would bless you, that would make a huge impact.

Guys, husbands, if your wife asks that question, there will be one thing you will be tempted to ask for.

Do not ask for that.

If you want that to happen, do not ask for that.

Okay?

Just just I love you guys.

So all it takes, all it takes is I can't even keep myself straight.

It's okay.

All it takes is something small to have a huge impact.

When you think about your jobs, you think about work.

What is one thing you could do around the office?

What's one thing you could do at your job that would have a huge impact?

It doesn't take much to win a lot of shares in people's hearts, does it?

We have a woman that works here named Sheila.

She's amazing.

She does so many things, I couldn't even list them all.

She has this amazing knack to find the small things that no one asks her to do, and she does them.

Every once in a while, she will clean out the refrigerator in the office.

And those of you that work in offices that have fridges know the kind of science experiments that can develop over time.

No one wants to clean it out, everyone just shoves their lunch in some new area.

And I'll open the refrigerator sometimes and it's it's clean, and it's like a light shines from heaven, and there's angels singing, and I'm so excited because I have all these different places I could put my lunch.

And if Sheila were to walk up to me right after that moment, she never would because she has so much to do, but if she did and said, Justin, can I take the rest of the day off?

I would say yes in a heartbeat because it's it's those small things that win shares in our heart.

What is your greatest area of need in your life?

What's the biggest area of your life that needs to change?

What is the smallest thing you could do that would start addressing that area of your life?

And if you can do that small thing, you'll be amazed at how big the results will be.

Worship team, if you want to make your way back up.

We're about to celebrate Christmas.

And Christmas is the celebration of so many things.

But it's the celebration, in many ways, of God becoming small.

See, God understands how big it is to do something small.

In fact, Jesus in Luke 16, 10, said, if you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.

If you'll be faithful in the small things, God will bless you with more.

I've known a lot of people in leadership that want big responsibility, they want big authority, but they don't want to do the little things, and it does not work.

But Jesus understood, hey, you want to see something big happen?

Go small.

The amazing thing about big things is that most of them used to be small.

Just look at yourself.

I'm gonna throw out a guess.

You used to be smaller than you are now, right?

This is kind of interesting.

I saw a pastor use this picture as an illustration once, and it's always stuck with me.

This is a picture up on the screens of a human being at three days.

Three days.

That's uh a micro, uh, what's the word?

Micro something, right?

Microscopic, boom! You're my friend.

Microscopic.

My son woke me up at 4:30 this morning, if you want to know.

Uh, microscopic picture of a human embryo at three days, it's on the tip of a pin.

Okay.

So that's you at three days.

There you go.

That's how small you used to be.

You know what's really crazy?

That's what Jesus looked like at one point in time.

I mean, think about this.

You know, Christmas is the story of a God that is so big that He could speak a word and make a universe exist, becoming that.

That God's plan for changing this world, God's plan for restoring broken people to a perfect God, was not to go big, but it was to become small.

And Jesus left heaven and all the privileges and the power that went with it.

And he became so small.

He became one of us.

And he lived life as one of us.

He took on our weaknesses, he took on every hardship that we could ever bear.

He became small so that he could do something big in your heart.

That's our God.

So if we want to see big things happen in our community, if we want to see big things happen in our lives, the answer is to go small.

Take a page out of Jesus' book, which is called the Bible, and go small.

What is the smallest thing you could do today, in the next hour, that could lead to something great happening in the area of your life that needs it most?

Pray that God shows that to you today.

And when he does, have the courage to do it.

Because it's the small things that lead to big results.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for going small.

Thank you, Jesus, that we don't have to be a people that wonder what our God is really like.

We don't have to be people that see our God as some foreign person that we couldn't possibly relate to.

We know you, Jesus.

We know that you understand us.

We know that you do relate to us because you became one of us, because you decided that the craziest thing a big God could do would be to go small.

Help us follow your lead, Jesus.

Help us do the smallest things we can find in our lives.

And help us trust you.

That if we do those small things, you will you will make good on your promise.

You will you will give us large things, you will bless us, you will produce great results in our lives because we're people who are faithful in the little things.

We love you, Jesus.

We praise you.

Amen.