Small
At the Beginning of the Kingdom of Israel we have a story about how the first king, Saul, got started:
1 Samuel 15
Samuel: “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”
Saul: “Tell me”
-So far, this sounds like to Indian gentlemen having a conversation.
17 Samuel said,
“Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”
Saul said
20 “But I did obey the Lord,” “I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king.”
Now, let’s back up to the first few pages of the Bible-Genesis 1, 2 & 3.
God creates a wonderful fruitful world out of chaos and emptiness. He then places the first humans in a garden and commands them to “be fruitful & multiply”. They have one restriction-everyone knows-“eat from all the fruit of the garden, except that one tree”. They were not supposed to eat from the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. If they had honoured God as the source of information about what is good and evil, they would have obeyed. But, as they were tempted by the serpent, they decided maybe they knew better than God what was best.
Saul, in this story, in his position of power, felt he could decide what was best to do, rather than simply seeking to obey God.
He, and the whole kingdom of Israel, was better off when he was small in his own eyes.
The title of this message is Small. I know we all know what the word means, but I looked it up online anyway. Here’s what the dictionary says:
Small
1. of a size that is less than normal or usual.
synonyms: little, small-scale, compact, bijou; tiny, miniature, mini, minute, microscopic, nanoscopic, minuscule; toy, baby; poky, cramped, boxy; wee; tiddly, teeny, weeny, teeny-weeny, teensy, teensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty, eensy, eensy-weensy, pocket-sized, half-pint, dinky, short, little, slight, slightly built, small-boned, petite, diminutive, elfin, tiny; puny, undersized, stunted; squat, stubby; dwarf, bantam; Lilliputian, inadequate, meagre, insufficient, ungenerous, not enough; measly, stingy, mingy
2. not great in amount, number, strength, power.
3. not fully grown or developed; young.
4. lacking strength and confidence.
How is it we have one word for love, but dozens of words for small? As a species we seem obsessed with smallness.
So,
Back to the Scriptures:
At the inauguration of the kingdom of Israel:
“Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel?”
The Context of the Sermon on the Mount
The inauguration of the Kingdom of God
Jesus starts the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, by preaching. & His preaching begins with a collection of paradoxical statements about blessedness, happiness. All of them turn our ideas of what makes us happy on their head.
As a world society, since ancient times, we have thought of health, wealth, fame, and power as the means to happiness. Jesus taught the opposite:
Matthew 5
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Here’s the outline of the message you’re about to hear:
Small
M
A
(pp)
L
L
(I know. There are two p’s in the word small & small doesn’t have two p’s. Think about small apple smappll).
Small
Zechariah 4
God spoke to the king and priest of Israel and told them “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”. In the same passage He said
“Do not despise the days of small things”.
Mustard seed is small. Yet Jesus said that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we can move mountains.
In Matthew 13 Jesus gave the Parables of the Kingdom, in which He described a farmer who plants seeds, some is eaten by birds, some grows in shallow ground & doesn’t last, some grows in good soil, but weeds choke it out so it isn’t fruitful. And some falls on good soil, where it bears fruit-30, 60 & 100 times what was planted.
In John 12 Jesus spoke of His impending arrest, trial, death, and resurrection: “Unless a seed of grain falls to the ground and dies it remains alone. But if it dies it bears much fruit”.
The Bible encourages us to think of ourselves like seeds-not big, small.
(back to the outline)
Small
Meek-Merciful
We think of meekness wrong. We equate meekness with weakness. But that is not what the Bible teaches at all. You may have heard of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He is about an inch taller than me. But I’m about 200 lbs. Dwayne Johnson is about 260 lbs, and has very little fat. All the extra pounds are muscle. He’s huge and very strong. But when he goes for a walk with his little girl, Jasmine, he bends down and takes her hand and supports her. That’s meekness. Strength used to build up. Strength tamed to support and build up others. Strength turned from destructive purposes to constructing others.
Merciful
When I think of mercy, I think of a court of Law. Grace is when we receive a gift we didn’t deserve. Mercy is when we don’t receive the punishment we do deserve. We all love mercy. I want mercy directed toward me. But we all also may be in situations at some point in life where the last thing we want is mercy-all mercy for me. No mercy for my enemies.
“The Lord’s Prayer”
Hurt people hurt people-each of us has been hurt by others, and can use our words or power or authority or position or social media or manipulations to hurt back-mercy leads to & requires forgiveness. Partly for this reason, when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray he included forgiveness (mercy).
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.
“ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6
Our forgiveness is tied to our forgiving, and in frightening ways. If I don’t forgive, I will not be forgiven.
In Matthew 18-the parable of the unforgiving servant-Jesus drives this home with the story of a king who forgives a multi-million dollar debt. A servant begs that he be released and he promises to repay everything. Then he goes and finds someone who owes him a few hundred bucks. He strangles him and demands to be paid back. The debtor begs to be forgiven and promises to pay back. But the first servant has him thrown into debtors prison.
The king hears and is furious. He has the unforgiving servant thrown back in jail and has the one who owed a few hundred bucks set free. Un-forgiveness is like that. The one you refuse to forgive is set free, but you are imprisoned by your lack of mercy.
Corrie Ten Boom wrote a wonderful book “The Hiding Place” in which she describes the sufferings of her family during World War II. Her parents kept Jews in hiding in their home, seeking to help them find a way out of the country and to avoid the death camps. The Nazi SS agents discovered their secret and threw them all into prison, a death camp, with Jews and others destined by the Nazis for extermination. Corrie’s parents and sister were brutally tortured and killed. By a fluke of administrative error, she was released. After the war she wrote her book and travelled around to tell the story of God’s grace and forgiveness. At a party celebrating her a man with a heavy German accent introduced himself. He thought she may not recognize him, and said he was the prison guard who had tortured her and her sister. He said he had since become a Christian, and wanted to ask her forgiveness. She hated this man. And the thought of forgiving him disgusted her. Yet she knew Jesus commanded forgiveness. So, she began to reach out her hand to shake his and to say the words “I forgive you”. As she did, she described a wonderful warmth that filled her heart. As she obeyed the Lord’s command to forgive, He filled her with forgiveness, with mercy. Corrie Ten Boom said this:
“When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives with the command the love itself.”
Small
Meek & Merciful
Aching
(pp)
L
L
Aching
Mourning
I once attended a funeral. It was a tragic situation. I happened to be visiting the US and had found my friend, Dave’s phone number and called him (out of character for me-I don’t use phones for calling). I asked how the family was, and Dave said “not very good”. I thought he was joking and asked what he meant. He said “She’s dead”. The young family had three kids, all teenagers. Their mom had cancer, and was in constant pain for years, but the doctors didn’t diagnose until too late. Once the cancer was discovered she survived only two weeks. They were dear friends. Dave asked if I would help with arrangements for the funeral and speak. After the funeral we were all having lunch, and I was sitting across from Dave. He was smiling. I said “it’s good to see you smile”. He said “O. I was smiling? Sorry.” I told him, really, it was good to see. He should feel free to smile. He said he was just thinking how blessed he was. Neighbours he barely knew had been delivering meals for the family the whole week. Many pitched in to arrange for the funeral. The outpouring of generosity was deeply touching, he said. He had good reason to be grateful. I told him I thought his wife would have been happy to see it. He said ya.
It is often in our deepest times of grief and loss that we see our LORD’s hand most clearly. Those who morn in Christ can, indeed, be happy-have abiding joy-because our joy is not based only on all the good things that happen. We serve a Lord who takes the worst of circumstances and turns them for our good.
Small
Meek & merciful
Aching
(pp) pure peacemakers
pure in Heart
I know. Small doesn’t have any pp’s. But pp in music means very quiet. When composers first started using p to indicate piano, pp (pianissimo) was the quietest setting and ff (fortissimo) was the loudest. It seems to fit, even though it doesn’t fit in the word. Small is too small to fit all the Beatitudes. Think of a small apple. A Smappll.
The word for pure here means a clean heart. Yet I think there is more here than just moral or character cleanness. I think it refers to purity of purpose.
In psalm 86, David prays “give me an undivided heart”. Our hearts can so easily be divided among a collection of drives and motivations. We are multiplicitous beings-our hearts swayed this way one day and another way the next. We want God’s will, but we also want things we know are not God’s will. I think partly for this reason, the father in the Proverbs exhorts his son
“Above all else, guard your heart, for out of it are the wellsprings of life”.
proverbs 4:23
Jesus warned that it is from our hearts that all forms of sin come. It’s not, therefore, what goes into our mouths that makes us unclean, but what comes out.
Matthew 15
Notice the promise: “They shall see God”. Purity of heart is required for those who want to see God. Moses saw God. Isaiah saw God. The list in the Old Testament is pretty short. In the New Testament we see God in Christ Jesus. If you really want to see Jesus, you have to pursue a pure heart.
Peace Makers
The Washington Post published an article on the former president of the United states, Jimmy Carter. I don’t care what you think of politics, what Jimmy Carter has done with his life after the presidency is astounding. He still lives with his wife Rosalyn, in the house they built in the 60’s in Plains Georgia-a small town with a population of just over 700 people. In august this year (2018) he taught his 800’th Sunday School class since he left office at Maranatha Baptist Church. The article proclaims what President Carter was most proud of:
“He said he regrets not doing more to unify the Democratic Party.
When Carter looks back at his presidency, he says he is most proud of “keeping the peace and supporting human rights,” the Camp David accords that brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, and his work to normalize relations with China. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts” Washington Post Aug 17 2018
He was the only president since World War II in whose administration the US was not at war. Whatever your politics, whatever reasons you might come up with that peace in his time was not a good thing, maintaining peace, making peace between and among nations, is a great accomplishment by any measure.
Back to our outline
Small
Meek & Merciful
Aching
(pp) pure peacemakers
Longing
Longing
Hungry, thirsting
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled”.
Augustine said this:
You made us for Yourself,
and our heart is restless,
until it rests in Thee. -Augustine
John Piper, meditating on these passages, said it better than I can:
“God has put eternity in our hearts and we have an inconsolable longing. We try to satisfy it with scenic vacations, accomplishments of creativity, stunning cinematic productions, sexual exploits, national sports extravaganzas, hallucinogenic drugs, ascetic rigors, managerial excellence, etc., etc. But the longing remains.” John Piper
And, as always, C S Lewis, in his brilliant book Mere Christianity, has a profound insight concerning this longing of the soul:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” C S Lewis
John Piper continues . . .
Do you see the structure? The first four Beatitudes describe the broken, grieving, quiet person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. And the next four Beatitudes describe the merciful, pure peacemaker who gets persecuted for his righteousness.
Doesn’t this structure, then, give us the definition of righteousness? If we were hungering for righteousness in verse 6 because we were empty, and then we get persecuted for righteousness in verse 10 because we’ve been filled, isn’t it proper to define righteousness as that with which we have been filled, namely, mercy, purity, and peacemaking? -John Piper (an excellent message on the subject) https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/blessed-are-those-who-hunger-and-thirst-for-righteousness
God places within us a longing for Him, for Good, for Truth, for Beauty, for Mercy, for Peace, and for those who pursue these things, they will be filled to overflowing with Joy and Rejoicing, even in the midst of the worst persecutions.
Small
Meek & Merciful
Aching
(pp) pure peacemakers
Longing
Laughing
Laughing
Jesus said when we’re slandered and persecuted to Rejoice & be glad!! (?) Why? Because we’re in really good company. That’s the way prophets, and, of course, Jesus, were treated.
We need to think a bit less of ourselves, and more about the big picture, one in which we should be happy to be small. Think again of the
Seed- it’s small, yet, when you plant it, and it dies, it grows into a plant that bears fruit. Each fruit has multiple seeds. Each seed has the potential to become another plant, with more fruit, and more seeds, and so on. Small thing, big impact. Or think about a
Virus. I’m not talking about a computer virus. I mean the biological kind. Think about it. These things are so small we didn’t even know they existed until recently. You need special equipment to see them. Yet this tiny microscopic entity can ruin your day, or impact your life, and some can even kill people by the millions. Small thing, big impact. Or think about the recent weather.
1 degree. The past week there have been two of the most destructive hurricanes (the one in the Philippines and China was called a Typhoon, but they’re the same. A Typhoon is a hurricane that is not from the Atlantic Ocean, and visa-versa-a Hurricane is just a Typhoon over the Atlantic). Scientists have been predicting such super storms would increase in number and frequency. Why? Because the average temperature worldwide has increased about 1 degree in the past 100 years. 1 degree temperature change. Small change. Big impact. Or think about the list of heroes of the faith in
Hebrews 11
I think our favourite characters are the ones who conquered evil enemies, or saw amazing miracles, parting seas, raising the dead, things like that. But, honestly, my favourites on the list are the others-the ones at the end.
“There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them.”
These were not successful people in the way we often think of success. But they were faithful.
Paul understood this, I think. He explained it this way:
2 Cor 12
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Steve Green Bernie Herms & Doug Mckelvey were inspired by this passage and a few others to write the song In Brokenness You Shine (sung during the service)
How could I know when others said
A word or two then walked away
That You, the Man of Sorrows
Would come near to stay
You'll always stay
I want to see
Your beauty one more time
In brokenness You shine
In brokenness You shine
C K Chesterton said it this way:
How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it
Small
Meek & Merciful
Aching
(pp) pure peacemakers
Longing
Laughing
