Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: To get my point across, I'll give you the scripture,
Speaker 1: the story, and then the subject in that order. All right,
Speaker 1: So for all the linear thinkers, that's how this is
Speaker 1: going to go down. The scripture, the story. But actually
Speaker 1: the scripture is a story, so listen to this. This
Speaker 1: is cool. One Samuel sixteen, I'll give you just a
Speaker 1: moment to find it in your Bible. Give you just
Speaker 1: a moment to give your kids some benadryl so you
Speaker 1: can fully or turn it on the kids YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: or whatever you need to do to occupy them. On
Speaker 1: Samuel sixteen one, the Lord said to Samuel, how long
Speaker 1: will you mourn for Saul since I have rejected him
Speaker 1: as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and
Speaker 1: be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse
Speaker 1: of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to
Speaker 1: be king. Verse two. But Samuel said, how can I go.
Speaker 1: If Saul hears about it, he will kill me. The
Speaker 1: Lord said, take a hepper with you and say, I
Speaker 1: have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Invite Jesse to
Speaker 1: the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do.
Speaker 1: You are too annoint for me, the one I indicate,
Speaker 1: And Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived
Speaker 1: at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they
Speaker 1: met him. They asked, do you come in peace? And
Speaker 1: Samuel replied, yes, in peace, I have come to sacrifice
Speaker 1: to the Lord. Now note this, he says, I came
Speaker 1: in peace, but the situation is chaotic. Peace is not
Speaker 1: a circumstance for the child of God. It's a part
Speaker 1: of your inheritance. It's part of your birthright to be
Speaker 1: able to have peace, even in the face of unthinkable problems. Yes,
Speaker 1: in peace, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.
Speaker 1: Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. Then
Speaker 1: he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to
Speaker 1: the sacrifice. Here's where we're going to stop for a
Speaker 1: little while. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought,
Speaker 1: surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But
Speaker 1: the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance,
Speaker 1: or his height, or his profile picture. That's not in
Speaker 1: your version. Don't look at that, for I have rejected him.
Speaker 1: The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
Speaker 1: People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks
Speaker 1: at the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him
Speaker 1: pass in front of Samuel, but Samuel said, the Lord
Speaker 1: hasn't chosen this one either. Jesse then had Shama pass by,
Speaker 1: but Samuel said, nor has the Lord chosen this one.
Speaker 1: Jesse had seven of his sons. Seven of his sons
Speaker 1: passed before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, the Lord
Speaker 1: has not chosen these. We're running out of options. You
Speaker 1: ever feel like that, So he asked Jesse, are these
Speaker 1: all the sons you have? They're still the youngest. Jesse answered,
Speaker 1: he is tending the sheep. Samuel said, sin for him.
Speaker 1: We will not sit down until he arrives. Are these
Speaker 1: all your sons? There is still the youngest. That's the
Speaker 1: Bible story. Now here's my story. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a small town. How many of you grew up in
Speaker 1: a small town? Raise your hand. If you grew up
Speaker 1: in a small town, put a raised hand emoji in
Speaker 1: the chat. If you grew up in a small town,
Speaker 1: tell me the name of the town and the population.
Speaker 1: Monks Corner, South Carolina was six six thousand people when
Speaker 1: I live there. It's bigger now. It's a lot bigger now. Actually,
Speaker 1: when I go back. One time I went back when
Speaker 1: I was in college. I took a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: I was showing them around, very proud to be for
Speaker 1: Monk's Corner. It's not something I'm embarrassed of. If I
Speaker 1: ever take you to Monk's Corner, I'm giving you the tour.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you little pathies. I'm gonna drive you
Speaker 1: out to Macedonia, show you where my band feather Humcomber
Speaker 1: used to practice. I'm gonna show you everything. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show you where I have my first dance. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show you where I have my first kiss. Monk's Corner
Speaker 1: is the home of the tail Race Canal, the Berkeley Stags.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you where I had my first minister.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you all of it because I'm proud
Speaker 1: to be from a small town. So to me, there's
Speaker 1: no shame in that. And I used to tell people
Speaker 1: all the time from when I would meet them, I'm
Speaker 1: from a small town in called Monk's Corner, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: thirt miles from Charleston. This, that, and the other thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: I've heard of Charleston. Did you say Monk's Corner like
Speaker 1: a monk, like a monastery monk. I said, no, it's
Speaker 1: got to see it at Monk's Corner. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I never heard of that before. I said, it's a
Speaker 1: small town. You never would have heard of it before.
Speaker 1: And I was taking one of my friends there and
Speaker 1: I showed him all the things, and when we were
Speaker 1: about halfway through the tour I was giving him, he said, uh,
Speaker 1: I thought you said it was small. I said, it
Speaker 1: is pretty small. And so he said, well, the town
Speaker 1: I grew up in. I won't pretend to remember the
Speaker 1: name of it, but it was another town in South Carolina.
Speaker 1: He said it was population forty five. I say, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we have like six thousand, forty five hundred I guess
Speaker 1: that is. He said, no, forty five, not forty five
Speaker 1: hundred forty five. Wow, I thought you said it was small.
Speaker 1: He said, you got a warm and Applebee's like it
Speaker 1: was Sacks, you know what I'm saying, Like it was
Speaker 1: Nimn Marcus in Monk's corner, but it was to him. Today,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you for a few moments
Speaker 1: about what you call small, what you call small. Really,
Speaker 1: what you call small is all about what you've seen before.
Speaker 1: What you call small has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: what you've seen before. And in the passage that I
Speaker 1: read to you, we have several indications of the reality
Speaker 1: that a lot of times what we call small is
Speaker 1: big to God. The flip side of that coin is
Speaker 1: what we call big is small to God. But today,
Speaker 1: for the next thirty minutes, come on, let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Fifty minutes. You know, what you call a short sermon
Speaker 1: is really relative to what you grew up in At
Speaker 1: the Methodist church, that poor preacher got twelve minutes, and
Speaker 1: that included the communion. Okay, so when I'm preaching fifty minutes,
Speaker 1: fifty five minutes, it's like, Wow, this is like a series.
Speaker 1: If you grew up in a Pentecostal church, my whole
Speaker 1: sermon is an introduction, It's like that's all that's all
Speaker 1: you've got keep going. So I thought i'd ask the
Speaker 1: establishing question for you, what's your frame of reference when
Speaker 1: you consider the challenges of your life, the gifts God
Speaker 1: has put inside of you, and the resources that you
Speaker 1: have in this season what you call small? For instance,
Speaker 1: in the text, I will admit to you that I
Speaker 1: have only ever preached this text from David's perspective. It's
Speaker 1: easy to because this is the point in his life
Speaker 1: where he is transitioning from shepherd to king. So I've
Speaker 1: always seen this text almost like a terrible or an
Speaker 1: Old Testament illustration of the New Testament concept that if
Speaker 1: you are faithful in little God will make you faithful
Speaker 1: in miche and I believe that, how many believe that?
Speaker 1: That if you start small and use what God has
Speaker 1: given you wisely and invest it wisely, whether it's your
Speaker 1: money or your energy, or your time or your skill,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, if you invest it wisely, God will
Speaker 1: multiply it. That's not the people say it's the prosperity gospel,
Speaker 1: or it's the blabbit grab it or the see it
Speaker 1: and say it or whatever the people call it. No, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no no. That's just the principle of life.
Speaker 1: That what you invest well increases. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: the story was always about how this little shepherd boy
Speaker 1: did a seemingly insignificant task, and while he was doing
Speaker 1: the task, I read it to you a moment ago,
Speaker 1: God called him up for something more important. I kind
Speaker 1: of used it as an illustration, like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: be a good employee and God might make you a supervisor.
Speaker 1: Be a good supervisor, and one day you might own
Speaker 1: your own company. Own your own company one day, and
Speaker 1: you might end up on prescription pills because it's stressful
Speaker 1: to be the boss, and nobody ever tells you that part.
Speaker 1: That's what I that's what I should have told you,
Speaker 1: what I missed, and what I always seem to miss
Speaker 1: when I just gravitate towards the parts of scripture that
Speaker 1: to me are big, right, Like on Samuel sixteen, is
Speaker 1: is David annoying it as king? First? Samuel seventeen is
Speaker 1: David killing Eliath first. Samuel eighteen and nineteen saw the
Speaker 1: king that we're seeing replaced here in this process, Us
Speaker 1: is throwing spears at David, so he's fighting for his life.
Speaker 1: But one thing I wanted to to stop and talk
Speaker 1: about for a moment today, I won't spend my whole
Speaker 1: time on this. But but look where God sent Samuel
Speaker 1: to find the king, Bethlehem. That's a very small detail
Speaker 1: in the text, but the significance of it hinges on
Speaker 1: understanding the context of Bethlehem Micah five two. But you,
Speaker 1: Bethlehem Ephrath, though you are small among the clans of
Speaker 1: Judah in comparison to all the other clans, that the
Speaker 1: Messiah could come from you, the small one. Yes you,
Speaker 1: yes you, you, the little one you, the one with
Speaker 1: the ged you, the one with the one with the
Speaker 1: issue that's not mentionable on a stage like this. The
Speaker 1: term itself is diminutive in the context of Michael five
Speaker 1: to two. It's not just a thing that means size.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, I grew up in monk's corner. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's like calling it the backwoods. It's actually not a
Speaker 1: very commonly used word, but it means trifling, insignificant. Now,
Speaker 1: the one that God would raise up to change the
Speaker 1: world came from that same place that they called backwoods.
Speaker 1: So do we see a principle already at work here
Speaker 1: that God brings things that he sees as great from
Speaker 1: things that we call small. That's my whole message. The
Speaker 1: rest of this message will just say that over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, that God brings the
Speaker 1: biggest things out of the smallest places. I'm so passionate
Speaker 1: about this that I spent some time analyzing my own
Speaker 1: life in preparing for this message, not only coming from
Speaker 1: Monk's Corner, but you know, thinking about our church right now,
Speaker 1: and how in some ways our church has never been
Speaker 1: smaller when you count the people that are in the
Speaker 1: room on a Sunday, I remember when those top rows
Speaker 1: used to be full with people. None of them were
Speaker 1: wearing masks, none of them were in has mad suits,
Speaker 1: none of them. You know, it's a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: It was a whole different thing. And yet if I
Speaker 1: remember where we started as a church, Yes, this is
Speaker 1: actually like really big. Chad text me Julie every Sunday
Speaker 1: if the numbers were up and down from the week before,
Speaker 1: but the numbers he sends me for our online ministry,
Speaker 1: like people come in from all over the world, like
Speaker 1: people watching from Japan and Indonesia, and people watching from Brazil,
Speaker 1: and people watching from all kinds of foreign countries Alabama, Algeria,
Speaker 1: all over the world. I'm saying, and he'll say we
Speaker 1: were down this week. But the number that he would
Speaker 1: send me to say this is what we were down to.
Speaker 1: It's a number that my Monk's corner mine. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: have to talk to Monk's corner me to get a
Speaker 1: frame of reference to remember this is actually pretty good.
Speaker 1: Do you ever have to do that to yourself, Like
Speaker 1: take yourself back to a frame of reference where you
Speaker 1: weren't jaded, where you didn't get used to things, and go,
Speaker 1: this is actually really good. What in the world am
Speaker 1: I complaining about? What am I stussing about? This is
Speaker 1: actually awesome. Say it in the chart. This is actually awesome.
Speaker 1: Whatever the devil tries to tell you all, this is nothing.
Speaker 1: This is just a little thing. This is just insignificant.
Speaker 1: This is something you could have never imagined. This is
Speaker 1: if he's just three twenty in real time. This is
Speaker 1: above and beyond and deeper and bigger and broader. What
Speaker 1: you call small today you thought was impossible yesterday. When
Speaker 1: you live in it, you this seems little to you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you'll see people come to Elevation Church and they'll
Speaker 1: have a camera, video camera recording the whole time. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you something they flew to get here. They
Speaker 1: drove all night to get here, and it kind of
Speaker 1: checks all of us because we're like, Wow, this was
Speaker 1: on your bucket list to be here, and it's in
Speaker 1: our backyard. The issue in One Samuel sixteen is not
Speaker 1: only about where it happened, though, and it's not only
Speaker 1: about who had happened to David. I want to spend
Speaker 1: a few moments talking about who had happened through Samuel.
Speaker 1: Samuel was a seer, a prophet, He was never referred
Speaker 1: to as a priest. He served multiple roles. You know
Speaker 1: how we all have to flow in multiple roles from
Speaker 1: moment to moment, trying to be a student and a son,
Speaker 1: or a parent and a husband, or a husband and
Speaker 1: a pastor and a pastor and a husband and a
Speaker 1: dad and a boss. And like for me, sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: go into a meeting in the church and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if I should be pastor Stephen or get this
Speaker 1: crap done. I don't want to say it one more
Speaker 1: time pastor Stephen and switching all those multiple roles can
Speaker 1: be confusing. But there's also a change happening here that
Speaker 1: is beyond Samuel, in that God never really wanted Israel
Speaker 1: to have a king. He wanted to be their king.
Speaker 1: They insisted that they'd be like all the other nations.
Speaker 1: Not for no reason. They were under attack the Phoenician people,
Speaker 1: we know them as the Philistines, who were really good
Speaker 1: at making weapons and were seafaring people, so they would
Speaker 1: attack you where you had no defense, were pummeling them,
Speaker 1: and so as a protective measure, they wanted to build
Speaker 1: their nation like the other nations as a protective measure.
Speaker 1: Not because they were seeking to disobey God, but they
Speaker 1: were seeking to defend themselves. Pause. When does our self
Speaker 1: defense become disobedience? Wow, it's when we implement something in
Speaker 1: place to protect us that actually keeps us from experiencing
Speaker 1: God's presence with us. The king they chose, and I
Speaker 1: don't have much time to talk about, Saul. Everybody say better, Saull,
Speaker 1: just get it out of your system, you heathens. They
Speaker 1: needed someone who could protect them. But you know, like
Speaker 1: we always do, we kind of you know, when we
Speaker 1: reach for the wrong thing, we don't really realize how
Speaker 1: much it will cost us, because all we can see
Speaker 1: is how much it comforts us. And it comforted them
Speaker 1: to have a king it comforted them to have a
Speaker 1: to have a tall king. Saul was tall, head and
Speaker 1: shoulders above the rest. Saul looked like a king to
Speaker 1: everybody else, but he never really saw himself that way.
Speaker 1: Can I show you this? This is for Samuel? Fifteen?
Speaker 1: Where is it? Guys? Fifteen fifteen? Uh? Did I give
Speaker 1: you this one? Yeah? I don't think I gave you
Speaker 1: this one. I'm have to find it myself, y'all. Give
Speaker 1: me a second. This worth fine? Here it is fifteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: I didn't give you all that one, did it? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did? Fifteen seventeen. Samuel told Saul. Listen what he
Speaker 1: told Saul. This is so good. I put it in
Speaker 1: last minute. So I said, although you were once small
Speaker 1: in your own eyes, did not you become head of
Speaker 1: the tribes of Israel. Here's why that's important. God had
Speaker 1: promoted promoted Saul beyond Saul's perspective of himself. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: are living in a role or responsibility that you have
Speaker 1: not fully caught up to mentally yet to realize this
Speaker 1: is who I am now. So Saul looked like a
Speaker 1: king to them, but he didn't feel like a king inside,
Speaker 1: and that became a problem. Because for all of Saul's reign,
Speaker 1: he overreacted. He it's hasty. He did the thing that
Speaker 1: made sense instead of the thing that pleased God. He
Speaker 1: did the thing that made sense instead of the thing
Speaker 1: that pleased God. He did the thing that made sense
Speaker 1: instead of the thing that pleased God. He went by
Speaker 1: what he saw instead of what he heard. He went
Speaker 1: by his senses instead of by his spirit. And by
Speaker 1: the time you get the first Samuel sixteen, God is
Speaker 1: removing Saul from his position of authority. The transition will
Speaker 1: not be immediate, but it's underway. Saul is out. It's
Speaker 1: gonna take everybody else a while to figure that out.
Speaker 1: But God tells Samuel, I'm done with Saul. It's not
Speaker 1: a matter of you praying more for Remember, Samuel had
Speaker 1: invested a lot in Saul. He had tried to coach him,
Speaker 1: correct him, and there came a point where God got
Speaker 1: tired of Saul. Before Samquel, did you know some stuff
Speaker 1: God takes out of your life while you're still trying
Speaker 1: to hold onto it that was too deep for him. Boy,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run it back. Some stuff you're not ready
Speaker 1: to let go of yet. God's just gonna take it away.
Speaker 1: That's what he did here. He said, how long will
Speaker 1: you mourn over what I've rejected? And the crazy thing
Speaker 1: about it was Samuel didn't even like Saul to begin with.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like they were friends. It wasn't like he
Speaker 1: was a good competent king. He made more messes than
Speaker 1: he cleaned up, He tore down more than he built,
Speaker 1: He costs more than he was worth. And yet there's
Speaker 1: something about losing what you know that doesn't even take
Speaker 1: into account if you really wanted it to begin with.
Speaker 1: He tells him to go to the smallest place, Bethlehem,
Speaker 1: same place Jesus was born. That's the place where David
Speaker 1: would be waiting. He tells him to do the smallest thing,
Speaker 1: fill your horn with oil, because that was the instrument
Speaker 1: that the prophet used to signify change through anointing. Something
Speaker 1: so small as fill your horn with oil would lead
Speaker 1: to something so big, David, the king through whom came
Speaker 1: our Messiah, Jesus Christ. But Samuel has to go all
Speaker 1: the way to Bethlehem, and yet there's one thing he
Speaker 1: doesn't know as he travels. Who am I gonna annoint
Speaker 1: when I get there. It's like God left out the
Speaker 1: one tiniest little detail that would have been so helpful.
Speaker 1: And so for me, this is confusing God. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna tell him to fill the horn with oil, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell him how to get past the gates
Speaker 1: with the heifers and all of that, somebody say bring
Speaker 1: the heifer. If you're gonna tell him bring the heifer,
Speaker 1: then why not tell him? And by the way, is David.
Speaker 1: And so when you get there, skip all the other
Speaker 1: seven and ask for David. You know, we would do
Speaker 1: this much just to recommend something to somebody. When you
Speaker 1: go to the restaurant, order this off the menu, right,
Speaker 1: we would do that for somebody if we knew what
Speaker 1: was good on the menu. And yet it's like God
Speaker 1: wanted Samuel to have to go through the process of elimination,
Speaker 1: the process of elimination. Sometimes God will take you through
Speaker 1: the process of elimination. Now, this isn't just a multiple
Speaker 1: choice test in fifth grade where you're crossing off the answers.
Speaker 1: This is the process of God bringing you to things
Speaker 1: in your life and going no, not that. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was that, No, not that. How about this, Well, no,
Speaker 1: that's not that either. That's not that. So what we
Speaker 1: always think is that the first thing God shows us
Speaker 1: it's going to be his final answer. So then we
Speaker 1: get frustrated when the first thing doesn't work. If Samuel
Speaker 1: would have gone home after looking at Eliab, Saul would
Speaker 1: have stayed king and the nation would have perished. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about now, what must it be like to
Speaker 1: be Samuel. This is not a small moment. It's not
Speaker 1: small to us. It's just this little annoying say ceremony.
Speaker 1: To him, this is everything, this is the nation he
Speaker 1: gave his life to serve. And you know what's weird,
Speaker 1: Sometimes people have no idea how big the burden that
Speaker 1: you're caring is because to them it seems small. It okay,
Speaker 1: there's two tendencies that we all have. Let me go
Speaker 1: and teach your mode for a moment. We either have
Speaker 1: a tendency to dramatize. I don't think you should look
Speaker 1: at your husband or wife right now. I think you
Speaker 1: should look straight ahead. I'm just giving you a marriage seminar,
Speaker 1: or to downplay. Both are dangerous to dramatize. Oh, this
Speaker 1: is the worst ever. It's never been like this before,
Speaker 1: and nobody ever said anything nice to me. Yes, seventeen
Speaker 1: people did just not the one that you wanted to
Speaker 1: say it the way you wanted them to say it.
Speaker 1: That's drama. Ties over generalize. They always they never dramatized. Dramatized,
Speaker 1: So that's to make it bigger than it really is.
Speaker 1: And that's a problem. That's the problem. Trust me from
Speaker 1: firsthand experience. I know, I'm not talking about what I
Speaker 1: studied in a textbook. I'm talking about what I relived
Speaker 1: out in my own psychosis of sanctification to go. That
Speaker 1: really wasn't that big. What was wrong with me? You know,
Speaker 1: you watch old film of yourself in your mind and
Speaker 1: you're like, God, that's embarrassing. Please let's delete that off
Speaker 1: the hard drive of history. I'll tell you what else
Speaker 1: is just as bad as dramatizing, though, is downplaying stuff
Speaker 1: to go like, oh, it didn't bother me. So I
Speaker 1: was encouraged that God allowed Saul or Samuel rather to
Speaker 1: go through a grieving process his disappointment. He wasn't saying
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to mourn, you know, God the eleventh
Speaker 1: commandment is not thou shalt not be disappointed. But if
Speaker 1: the disappointment becomes a dead end, that's a problem. So
Speaker 1: what I'm having to learn to do in my adult
Speaker 1: life right now? How many grown ups do we have
Speaker 1: watching the message or grown ups in the making and metamorphosis.
Speaker 1: How many potential future hopeful grown ups do we have
Speaker 1: in my adult life. I'm having to learn how not
Speaker 1: to dramatize it while at the same time don't downplay it.
Speaker 1: How long will you mourn over what I've rejected? There
Speaker 1: comes a time where you've got to put it in
Speaker 1: his place and move on. But there also comes a
Speaker 1: time where you've got to say that sucked. Normally, I
Speaker 1: tell you to touch your neighbor and say things like
Speaker 1: God is good and glory to his name, you know
Speaker 1: all this, look at somebody and say that sucked. That
Speaker 1: sucked when they lied to me, That sucked when they
Speaker 1: said they had my back and they actually did have
Speaker 1: my back, but they had a knife that they used
Speaker 1: in my back. That sucked. That sucked. I gave so
Speaker 1: much and received so little. That sucked. The funny thing
Speaker 1: is some people can't even hear the message that I'm
Speaker 1: saying right now because I said the word sucked. Something
Speaker 1: so small is that word and the holes in my
Speaker 1: jeans will keep somebody from here in the message that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to preach, because watch this, we not you.
Speaker 1: We have this tendency to make big what God calls small,
Speaker 1: and to make small what God calls big. So the
Speaker 1: trick of it is, don't ever diminish anybody else's it's pain. Ever,
Speaker 1: don't ever try to tell them things like ah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can give them a little tough love, like come on,
Speaker 1: let's go, let's do that, come on heavy, all right,
Speaker 1: you can do that, But don't ever look at somebody
Speaker 1: like that's all you're going through. That's all. I used
Speaker 1: to get frustrated when people would I call them toppers.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call them. Do you call
Speaker 1: them that? Toppers? Like you have a good story, they
Speaker 1: have a good story. You want a trophy, they want
Speaker 1: a Grammy everything, there's nothing you can do. You have
Speaker 1: a house, they have a neighborhood. Right, you went to
Speaker 1: the beach, they went to Mars. They bought an island.
Speaker 1: But we also sometimes not only we try to top
Speaker 1: each other with accomplishments, but it can be like, oh
Speaker 1: you went through that, I went through this, right, we
Speaker 1: do it mentally, like we kind of make what other
Speaker 1: people go through small and something that we don't realize
Speaker 1: is we are only seeing it. Remember, what you think
Speaker 1: is small is relative to what you've seen. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that from them a few minutes ago. That's also
Speaker 1: true when it comes to people's pain. Sometimes you're only
Speaker 1: seeing it on the surface and you're like, why is
Speaker 1: that so hard for them? There is a history to
Speaker 1: why that's so hard for them, and something knocks them
Speaker 1: off balance and you're like, well, you know I went
Speaker 1: through that and I didn't act like that at all.
Speaker 1: That's a small thing. Now, that's what you call small.
Speaker 1: And you've got your own little petty your own little
Speaker 1: petty problems too. We all do. We all do when
Speaker 1: in the passage, Samuel has this moment that for us
Speaker 1: is so you're just going to pour some oil on
Speaker 1: somebody said, no, it's much bigger than that. To him,
Speaker 1: this is a big moment for him. Like even what
Speaker 1: we've been going through the last year, since our lives
Speaker 1: changed so much, I think there's this tendency to just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: It is. It's weird. I'm kind of worried about, like
Speaker 1: what it will do to us as a society that
Speaker 1: we're kind of not touching each other. Like that's not
Speaker 1: a small thing. You understand that. And sometimes we downplay it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I'm excited about something that's in my life,
Speaker 1: I will downplay it. And there's a reason that I
Speaker 1: do it. If I make it seem small, I feel safe.
Speaker 1: The other day you called me out on this. Know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say. I was telling somebody about a
Speaker 1: song I wrote, and I was showing it to them,
Speaker 1: but I was scared they wouldn't like it as much
Speaker 1: as I did. So as I'm planning, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's not really that good of songs. Just a little song,
Speaker 1: just a I mean, I'm not saying it's a big
Speaker 1: song or anything like that. What was I doing. I
Speaker 1: was making it small while I showed it to them,
Speaker 1: so I could beat them to the punch of putting
Speaker 1: it down. Come on, come on, if I call it small,
Speaker 1: you don't get the chance to. So now sometimes we
Speaker 1: go around just saying stuff about ourselves, you know, just
Speaker 1: putting ourselves down. The problem with that is Christ is
Speaker 1: in you. So when you put down what He made,
Speaker 1: you insulf a manufacturer and you don't get to do that.
Speaker 1: But see there's a danger in down playing it too.
Speaker 1: And Elijah said to me afterwards, he was like, I
Speaker 1: thought we liked that song. Were we talking about the
Speaker 1: same song or we listened to the same song. I said,
Speaker 1: you caught me. I admitted to him. I confess to him.
Speaker 1: I said, forgive me, Father, I have sin. I do that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll put stuff. I'll make it small because it
Speaker 1: makes me feel safe, because somehow I believe that for
Speaker 1: God to be big, I have to be small. God
Speaker 1: is not like Saul. God is not insecure. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is worth putting on your refrigerator. God doesn't need
Speaker 1: you to be smaller for him to be big. God
Speaker 1: is not gonna get any bigger because you shrink yourself
Speaker 1: down smaller. Oh, I'm just a worm, I'm just an
Speaker 1: I'm just a sinner. That's already established. Okay, all of
Speaker 1: that is already a fact. We already know you came
Speaker 1: out of Bethlehem. We already know you're limited, we already
Speaker 1: know you're human. But the thing about the thing about
Speaker 1: when you bring yourself down to that level, it doesn't
Speaker 1: acknowledge your humanity. It diminishes the divinity that God has
Speaker 1: put inside of you. We think God is like our
Speaker 1: insecure friends from middle school who had to bring us
Speaker 1: down for them to climb up. God's not like that.
Speaker 1: So religion is like that. Religion treats God like the
Speaker 1: worst friend or worst boss you've ever had. The only
Speaker 1: way they can feel big is to belittle you. So
Speaker 1: then we bring that same mentality into our relationship with God.
Speaker 1: We think that for God to be great and glorious,
Speaker 1: we have to be screwed up and horrible and oh God,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I just everything about me is wrong.
Speaker 1: That's how Saul was. That's not how God is. Saul
Speaker 1: was so insecure. Remember he didn't think he was a
Speaker 1: king in his own eyes. So when David came out
Speaker 1: to fight Goliath, Saul said, you can't fight him, You're
Speaker 1: too small. Can I ask you something? Was Saul talking
Speaker 1: about David or was Saul talking about Saul. That's the
Speaker 1: same thing David's big tall brother said, Eliah. He was
Speaker 1: still salty that Samuel didn't annoy him. Remember Samuel was
Speaker 1: walking around, He's like, oh, the tall one. The tall
Speaker 1: one reminded him of the sul one. So we gravitate
Speaker 1: toward what's familiar, right, even if it's not right. Oh,
Speaker 1: this must be, this must be how it is, This
Speaker 1: must be how it is. And the Lord said, I
Speaker 1: don't look at what you look at. I don't see
Speaker 1: what you see. I don't measure like you measure. I
Speaker 1: don't take stock like you take stock. I don't count
Speaker 1: like you count. What you call small, I call sacred.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad that what you call small? Your little
Speaker 1: life running around barely getting the to do list done
Speaker 1: on a good day, And I mean barely. I didn't
Speaker 1: even say you got it done well. I just said
Speaker 1: you kind of got it through it enough to call
Speaker 1: it a day. And all of that adds up. TIF
Speaker 1: David was asking about a Rhythm album the other day.
Speaker 1: I sent him a screenshot of every single that Rhythm
Speaker 1: has released. I said, you already made the album. You
Speaker 1: just didn't know it while you're doing it. You've released
Speaker 1: eleven songs. That's an album, But to you, it was small.
Speaker 1: You're already building a legacy in your kids. And if
Speaker 1: your kids are not yet at the stage or age
Speaker 1: where they're telling you thank you, that doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. The kids started reminiscing the other day about
Speaker 1: things that we did for them. They remembered stuff I
Speaker 1: didn't remember. They remembered stuff that while I was doing it.
Speaker 1: I was like, you, ungrateful angels. Remember when you took
Speaker 1: us out of school and took us to the thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I don't remember that. It was a
Speaker 1: blur to me what I thought was small. They were
Speaker 1: getting it. The words we speak, the good ones, the
Speaker 1: bad ones. Sometimes you just say something to somebody and
Speaker 1: you think nothing of it. You tell them, oh, that
Speaker 1: looks good on you. Change their whole day. Even if
Speaker 1: you got to lie to somebody once in a while,
Speaker 1: just take take five seconds and that looks great on you.
Speaker 1: It's like a rehab lie. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like the Lord will forgive you for it. It's
Speaker 1: a greater good kind of issue. But even the little things.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a friend the other day. I said,
Speaker 1: remember when you told me blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And he goes, huh huh. I said, really,
Speaker 1: it was a turning point for my life. He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Don't remember it. I'm glad about it. I
Speaker 1: figure he must be in such the habit of just
Speaker 1: doing the small thing and letting God count and letting
Speaker 1: God do the math. Because God doesn't look at what
Speaker 1: you look at. You look for immediate results. God looks
Speaker 1: for eternal impact. Yeah, God doesn't look at what people
Speaker 1: look at, right God, God does not. God doesn't see
Speaker 1: the situation. He doesn't see the challenge. He doesn't see
Speaker 1: I think the reason David could kill Goliath is because
Speaker 1: he saw him with fresh eyes. Everybody else had been
Speaker 1: out there for forty days. The longer they looked at
Speaker 1: the challenge, the smaller they fell. The smaller God seed,
Speaker 1: the longer they The longer you think about it, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, the bigger it gets, the smaller God gets
Speaker 1: in your mind. On the other hand, when you worship
Speaker 1: like you are right now, this is not a small
Speaker 1: thing that you're spending an hour listening to the Word
Speaker 1: of God. This is not a small thing. This word
Speaker 1: is seed. This seed of this word implanted is able
Speaker 1: to save your soul. It can be grafted into your
Speaker 1: grief and give you joy. It can challenge and read
Speaker 1: direct one word. James compared it to a rudder of
Speaker 1: a ship. The rudder is small, the ship is big.
Speaker 1: The little thing affects the big thing. A horse can
Speaker 1: weigh two thousand pounds, the human tongue weighs less than
Speaker 1: a quarter of a pound. James makes the argument in
Speaker 1: James three that the tongue is to the ship what
Speaker 1: the rudder is. The tongue is to the life, what
Speaker 1: the rudder is to the ship, the tongue is to
Speaker 1: your life, what the bit is to the horse. What
Speaker 1: you call small stuff you just say in anger people
Speaker 1: live with for a decade. What you call small you
Speaker 1: gotta watch what you speak in moments of frustration. My
Speaker 1: mom taught me don't ever tell me when you and
Speaker 1: Holly get in a fight. She told me this before
Speaker 1: I married her. She said, y'all will get over it
Speaker 1: by Tuesday, and I'll still be hating her about it
Speaker 1: on my deathbed, because you're my baby. I don't want
Speaker 1: to know. I thought, that's great advice, because it'll be
Speaker 1: a little thing to y'all. It's small to y'all, but
Speaker 1: it's big to me. That's why I got used to
Speaker 1: get hurt when I'm preached and I go, well, I
Speaker 1: go up to somebody and I'd be like, did you
Speaker 1: like the sermon? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, what'd you get
Speaker 1: out of it? Uh? That part where you said the
Speaker 1: thing about God was you know, doing stuff? I like
Speaker 1: that I was doing stuff. It's like I studied so hard.
Speaker 1: That's what you got out of it. It was small
Speaker 1: to you. There's a sacrifice for me and vice versa.
Speaker 1: There's volunteers in the church, and you start feeling like
Speaker 1: nobody ever even cares i'd do anything. No, that's fine,
Speaker 1: I'm moped. I'll get my mansion in heaven. But deep
Speaker 1: down inside you're wondering, does anybody care? Like j Max
Speaker 1: said that I'm here, does anybody see that I'm here? Oh?
Speaker 1: I know it seems small. I know it seems unappreciated.
Speaker 1: I know it seems like people just trample over top
Speaker 1: of you to something they think is more important, good
Speaker 1: thing that what men call small, God calls big. We
Speaker 1: need to feed this big crowd, Jesus, and they need
Speaker 1: to go away. The crowd is big. Okay, what do
Speaker 1: you have with you? John six ' nine, Get ready
Speaker 1: to shout over the small stuff in your life. Get
Speaker 1: ready to shout over the small assignments. Get ready to shout.
Speaker 1: Don't shout yet, just get ready to shout, here is
Speaker 1: a boy with five what kind of barley loaves? Big
Speaker 1: fat barleylows? Huh, five small barley loaves, two small fish.
Speaker 1: Of all the ink that God needed to use to
Speaker 1: write the Bible, he wanted to make sure you knew
Speaker 1: it was small stuff that he blessed and multiplied. He's tall,
Speaker 1: but no, that one he looks like a king. But no,
Speaker 1: that one's got cool sneakers. But no, you got any Jesse,
Speaker 1: do you have any this is this is Samuel now said,
Speaker 1: do you have any sons you're not telling me about?
Speaker 1: He said, there's the the one that we're hiding from you.
Speaker 1: He's the youngest one. Is that eleven? Yeah, the Hebrew
Speaker 1: doesn't say youngest. It's the smallest. Look it up, test
Speaker 1: me on it. I wish you would. I wish you
Speaker 1: would look it up on a Bible dictionary. Just like
Speaker 1: Bethlehem was the smallest. The one God wanted was the
Speaker 1: small one. Quit telling God you'll do big things for him.
Speaker 1: He don't want it. Quit parading all the stuff in
Speaker 1: front of God that you think will make him proud.
Speaker 1: He's not insecure enough to need to be impressed by us.
Speaker 1: Oh you've got a small loaf. You've got a small fish.
Speaker 1: Now we're in business. Oh you've got a mustard seed faith.
Speaker 1: Oh you have a little strength, now we're in business.
Speaker 1: What Jesse called small Samuel crowned as king because God
Speaker 1: doesn't see what people see, and God doesn't count like
Speaker 1: people count. By the spirit of God, I say to
Speaker 1: someone today, wait for David. There's gonna be temptation in
Speaker 1: your life to always crown the first thing you see
Speaker 1: that looks good, and settle for something that reminds you
Speaker 1: of Saul, and get in bad relationships just so you
Speaker 1: won't be alone, and take shortcuts just so you can
Speaker 1: get it now. But if you can hear what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: by the spirit of God, wait for David. He's not
Speaker 1: the one that you see who's paraded out in front
Speaker 1: of you. He's not the one that makes sense. He's
Speaker 1: not the one that reminds you of how it's always been.
Speaker 1: He's the one keeping those little sheep in the field.
Speaker 1: He's the smallest one. God's asking like he's in the
Speaker 1: department store trying on stuff. You got anything smaller. I
Speaker 1: appreciate all your big faith. I appreciate you want to
Speaker 1: make a difference. So I appreciate you want to break through.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you got a small prayer, you got a
Speaker 1: detail of your life you think I don't care about.
Speaker 1: Know what you call small is big to me. And
Speaker 1: what you think is so big. I got that. The
Speaker 1: stuff that you're up at night about, I was working
Speaker 1: on that, but you keep getting in my way go
Speaker 1: to sleep. That's the little thing. But the little thing
Speaker 1: that you think doesn't matter. Your character, your integrity, the
Speaker 1: way you treat people when no one's looking, the way
Speaker 1: you carry out your responsibilities, that's big to me. So God,
Speaker 1: show me what's big to you that's been too small
Speaker 1: to me, what I've been neglecting. Oh, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if I say I'm sorry, Oh, it doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It does matter. What's small to us as
Speaker 1: big to God. I never try to text my wife
Speaker 1: like she's my assistant. I always try to remember that's
Speaker 1: my wife, because if our communication gets down to just
Speaker 1: getting stuff done, I feel like that's very dangerous to
Speaker 1: our love for one another. Always try to talk to
Speaker 1: her like a human being, even on text. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure I miss the mark sometimes, but that's important to me.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so small. Why are you bringing that up
Speaker 1: at the end of the sermon, Because what is small
Speaker 1: to us is big to God and marriage As he
Speaker 1: rode one text at a time, what's small to you?
Speaker 1: That little thought that you give place to Oh, it's
Speaker 1: not hurting anybody. It's just a thought, just a thought.
Speaker 1: Everything that is seen is made from things that are
Speaker 1: not visible. Hebrews teaches us that you are one thought
Speaker 1: away from ruining your life. You are one thought away
Speaker 1: from moving on into a great future that God has
Speaker 1: planned for you. No, it won't be the big thing
Speaker 1: that will stop you from becoming what God wants you
Speaker 1: to be. He'll do that part. Yeah, it's what you
Speaker 1: call small. Yeah, what you call small? Samuel said, sin
Speaker 1: for the small one. That's the one I want. God said,
Speaker 1: go to Bethlehem, the small one. What step is God
Speaker 1: calling me to take next in my life? The small one?
Speaker 1: But I thought we had a big God. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should preach a sermon called the God of the Small,
Speaker 1: just to let you know that God sees little. You
Speaker 1: be so good. If I could know your name right now,
Speaker 1: But I don't need to, because somehow, some way, God
Speaker 1: is connecting to you right now to let you know
Speaker 1: he sees it and it's significant. You call it small
Speaker 1: compared to God. None of us are that big and strong,
Speaker 1: But I promise you from where God sits, there is
Speaker 1: nothing small about your faithfulness, nothing small about your integrity.
Speaker 1: And I just want to say this to someone who's
Speaker 1: been flirting with the idea of suicide. You can't die
Speaker 1: because even though you feel like your life doesn't matter
Speaker 1: right now, if you don't break this generationally, if you
Speaker 1: don't stand up and decide to live and survive and
Speaker 1: move forward and find a way into the next season
Speaker 1: of your life, you will pass along the same spirit
Speaker 1: that has tormented you. And that's not just if you're
Speaker 1: on the edge. That's anybody who feels like quitting, not
Speaker 1: just quitting life, but quitting the thing that God has
Speaker 1: called you to. It's not small. You call it small
Speaker 1: because you can't see it for what it is. You
Speaker 1: call it small because you haven't lived to the other
Speaker 1: side of it yet. You call Bethlehem small because you
Speaker 1: don't yet know that kings come from Bethlehem, that great
Speaker 1: things come from small decisions, and that breakthroughs come from
Speaker 1: small beginnings. So I want you to stand right now,
Speaker 1: and lift your hands to the God of the small loaves,
Speaker 1: to the God of the small fish, to the God
Speaker 1: of the smallest, the smallest need that you have. He knows,
Speaker 1: and he sees, and he cares. Jesus taught us that
Speaker 1: He numbers the hairs on our head. We think God
Speaker 1: is only someone we can come to with the big things.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you that he cares about the minutia.
Speaker 1: Wait for David. I know you're tempted to replace Saul
Speaker 1: and go back to the things which are not meat,
Speaker 1: are not bread, are not water. Do not satisfy, but
Speaker 1: wait for David, for David, wait for the unseen. Thank
Speaker 1: you Lord that as I have preached today, people have
Speaker 1: once again been reminded and stirred up in small ways
Speaker 1: to remember the dignity of their one life and their
Speaker 1: one act of faith. There's no prayer that we can
Speaker 1: pray that is too quiet for you to hear. There's
Speaker 1: nothing we're worried about that we can mention that you
Speaker 1: would be too busy to listen to. That's amazing about you.
Speaker 1: You're a big God. When we bring all of our
Speaker 1: problems into your presence, something amazing happens. They look smaller
Speaker 1: to us. We want to look at what we're going
Speaker 1: through from Heaven's perspective today. What you call small we
Speaker 1: place under our feet. What you call big will have
Speaker 1: first place in our life. Enable us Lord to seek
Speaker 1: first your kingdom, and all these little things will be
Speaker 1: at it as well. In Jesus' name, I prayer, Amen.
Speaker 1: That prayer was for you. We're praying for you. There's
Speaker 1: nothing our God can't do. And I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you for every little thing that you do. You know,
Speaker 1: we have people who share these messages, who give to
Speaker 1: this ministry, who are really a part of our church,
Speaker 1: and it takes every single one of us giving what
Speaker 1: we have for the gospel to go forward. Just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you. Make sure you're subscribed, make sure
Speaker 1: what else is just let us know that you're here.
Speaker 1: Most of all, we want to be here for you.
Speaker 1: And so until next time, May the Lord bless you,
Speaker 1: keep you, make his face shine upon you, be gracious
Speaker 1: to you. May the Lord turn his face toward you
Speaker 1: and give you his peace. I'm