Small Things: One Word

Most people don’t know it, but small things make a BIG Difference! Changing your diet, can make you really healthy. Saving some money here, will allow you to have more money there. Praying a little bit more regularly, will make your relationship with God stretch to infinity. A little more practice will make you sound like a concert hall performist. ETc and so on. You see, when you see someone who inspires you, you want to be like them. What we don’t know is that their lives, even though they see so distant from your own, aren’t—they just the small things and it leads to big changes. Do you think anybody wakes up one more and becomes who you dreamed of being? Absolutely not. They worked at it, often times doing everything that’s small and tiny and inconsequential until they finally got there. Nobody got close to God just by waking up one morning, no they dedicated themselves to the small things of God to get close to Him. Nobody got into shape, nobody had a good relationship just because. It happened because they were willing to do the small things.   I was reading a book about Coach John Wooden. If you don’t know who he is, he is the basketball coach every coach, regardless of sport wants to be. He won’t ten championships and seven of those championships came 7 years in a row. He said, “It’s the little things that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” – John Wooden. So he continues to say that every year, he begins by teaching his players to put on their socks—the right way. You would think, if you’re playing basketball on a team, you should know how to put on your own socks. But it was the little things that made the biggest difference.   IT’S OFTEN THE SMALL THINGS THAT NO ONE SEES THAT RESULT IN THE BIG THINGS THAT EVERYONE WANTS.   The beauty of this is that we don’t like thinking about the work it takes because its hard work and we don’t think we can do it, but God gives us the power to do the work. In Zechariah 4:10 the prophet says, “do not despise the small beginnings for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…”   This morning we’re going to talk about the one word that changes your life. This small word can alter what you do from here and now and take it into the future. You see because all it takes is one word to change your thoughts, actions, habits and your destiny. If you don’t believe me, just think about what these situations:

• Jesus said to Martha—only one thing is needed!
• Paul—One thing I do—forgetting what is behind, I press on.
• David—One thing I desire, dwell in the house of the Lord.
• Jesus said to rich young ruler—one thing lack—sell & give.
• One small thing—One word!

One word of encouragement can keep you going. One affirmation can make you come back. One apology can save a relationship. A few months ago, I was feeling really down, and sad. I was feeling desolated with life. It was just a dark time. Nothing was going right. Then I got one word: ENLARGE.   Now when I got this word, I was like, “enlarge what?” Then, as I was reading the Bible, I got to a passage in Isaiah 54 that reads, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” So you see, everything we do in church this year is strategic to making things “enlarge.” It started last year, we talked about enlarging our view of life in our series called, “Erased”, we had a series called “unto us” where we enlarged God’s work unto our lives; we then said, I have a starting point of faith that enlarges our understanding of our religion; then we concluded last month by enlarging our view of friendship above and beyond people on facebook or Instagram. And we’re going to continue onward enlarging our tents.   Every single person, every single day, every single time should have one word to dictate how they live their lives in Christ. On top of that, we should all have one verse that shows us how to do that. Whether that one thing is: Seek, Pray, Give, Simplify, Discipline, Gratitude, Persevere, Believe, we should have one word as a theme. I want to go to Matthew 25. ¹⁴ “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. ¹⁵ To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. ¹⁶ The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. ¹⁷ So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. ¹⁸ But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. You’ve heard this story before. Everybody has some gold, but the important thing I want you to see today is not how much gold each person had, but the small things that they did with it that makes the difference. Let’s continue to verse 19. ¹⁹ “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ ²¹ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ ²² “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ ²³ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Underline verse 21. You don’t see exactly the small things that these guys did to get that one compliment, but you do see the result. We all want to be the person that is in charge of “many” things, but none of us want to do the work necessary to be placed in charge of those things. We’re so busy trying to be the person in charge that we forget that we have to do something to be placed in charge. Let’s go to verse 24 now. ²⁴ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵ So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ ²⁶ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷ Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. ²⁸ “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. Here’s the lesson I want everybody to walk away with: if you’re not going to do the small things, you’ll never be able to do the big things. The last guy wanted to do the big things, but he didn’t want to put in the work for doing the small things. You see the one thing we know about the small things is that you have to do them. If you don’t’ do them, you’ll never get the big things. That’s why today I have one word for all of us, that is: enlarge. Enlarge the small things in your life enough to do them with great care and great authority. Don’t hold back, strengthen them in your life and witness the big difference it’ll make in your life. Let’s pray.