'Cuase doesnt it seem like just a month or so ago it was January you we were laying out New Years goals? And we always have this real sense of optimism and faith and hope that this year, there are some things about my life and the lives of those that I love that could actually be different.
There's always this sense, in the new year, that this is the year we could make some changes. So I don't know about you, maybe some of you would like to get in better shape or lose some weight, eat better, maybe be more spiritually focused this year, perhaps spend more time with your kids. Maybe some of you want to get better with your money or quit some kind of annoying habit. I don't know what it would be, but I pray that God would give you the power to achieve those goals this year, because there's something about starting a new year that just brings hope.
So here we are half way through and we’re thinking “boy I should start” haha
Or better yet maybe we need to refocus.
We look at our lives and say, "I need to get those results. And I have no idea all the big changes that I would need to make."
I want to bring some good news to you today if you've ever felt that way. Because, I really believe that it's not often the BIG changes that we need to make, but it's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
Let me say that again because I really believe there's power in this thought, that it's not the big things, but it's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
Let me give you a couple examples. There was a guy, years ago, that I really admired the way he walked with God. I don't know if you've ever known anyone like this but he didn't just call himself a Christian, you could just tell that this guy was very prayerful. When he would respond, he would be searching for scriptures in his mind. You could just really sense this guy was being led by the Spirit in everything that he did. Someone asked him, "Man, what's your secret? Like, what are the big things you do to have these results?" He said, "Well, I honestly think things changed for me 17 years ago when I started reading through the bible every year. Just each year, I'd read from cover to cover through the bible, and that really helped me be grounded in the things of God."
The person was like, "Oh, well, of course, 17 years of reading the bible, I could never do that. That's such a big thing." He said, "No, no, no, no. Really, it's not." He said, "Think about it. It takes me about 15 minutes a day. And if I'm just faithful in that small thing, over the course of a year, I actually read through the bible." A 15-minute discipline changed his life. The guy thought, "You know what? I can do that. I can devote 15 minutes a day." to just make that small change to make a gigantic difference in my walk and relationship with God.
I'll give you another example. Any of you workout/exercise, maybe go to the gym? Have you ever had the thought, “I workout I go to the gym, I don't see any changes., "What's wrong with me?" In an article in the magazine Mens Health shares a conversation between 2 guys:
“there's this one guy, I'm looking at him going, "You're ripped. I'm not. What am I doing wrong?"
I said, "Give me some advice. What are the big things you do?" He said, "Really, it's not big things. I just work out four days a week." I'm like, "Really? Four, not seven?" He said, "No, four's enough." I said, "How long are your workouts? Two hours long?" He said, "No, 20 minutes of weights and 20 minutes of cardio." I'm like, "You're kidding me. 40 minutes, four days?" "Yeah, that's about it." I said, "What about your diet?" He said, "Well, low carbs, high protein." "What else? What else?" "Nothing. That's it." "Oh, what? Low carbs, high protein, 40 minutes, four days a week?" He said, "Yeah, that's about it." And so I thought, "I think I can do that."
Here’s the deal folks... chances are it's not the big things that you think, but it's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
And so what I want to do today is build a foundation.
We're going to start in Zechariah, chapter 4.
So let me give you the context of Zechariah, chapter 4. During the time when this was written, the temple was destroyed and God's people were in captivity so it was a low point in history. We don't have a house for God and we're not even in the place that we're supposed to be. And so people were very depressed. In the year 537 B.C, Zerubbabel led a remanent of people back to Israel, and so there was some hope. We're back in the land where we're supposed to live. And then 18 years later, God spoke to King Zerubbabel and said, "I'm going to give you the power to rebuild the temple."
So let's start in verse 6 of Zechariah 4 and we'll read it and let it speak to us. “This is what the Lord said to Zerubbabel: "It's not by force nor by strength." In other words, the temple's not going to be built in a way that you get credit for it, but it's going to be by my what? Everybody let's say it aloud. "It's not by force, not by strength, but by My Spirit says the Lord of heaven's armies." Here's the thing. You can try to change and you can try in your own power. And you can make some incremental improvements by your power. But if you'll tap into a power greater than that which you possess, if you tap into the power of the Holy Spirit, His Spirit is made perfect in your weakness. And not by our effort, not by our might, not by our power, but by His Spirit, he can transform you.
It's like when I was trying to fix the railing along our stairs. It had come loose a bit and one of the supporting brackets needed to be mounted better. And I can't -- I don't fix anything. I can barely fix a sandwich. And I was fighting with this little screw driver, it was much too small, trying to get this thing screwed into a stud. I went out to the garage to get other tools and our neighbor 3 houses down Jim is walking by and asks what I’m doing. I explain the railing & my hard time which he says I’ll be back. 5 minutes later he shows up with the tool belt on w/ all these funny looking tools or something idk - and 5 minutes later he moves the bracket to a stud in the wall and Voilà the railing is solid.
I tell him he's awesome and he goes back home.
Three minutes later, Cathleen walks in and she said, "Joe, did you?" You fixed it!” She hugs me
Now I’m lovin this folks. I am superman right now. So after her excitement I tell her… actually Jim fixed the railing And she said, "Oh that makes sense" and walks away.
Bottom line is, I can fight all day long in my own strength, but every now and then, you need a little neighbor Jim power drill strength. Okay?
You can try your best all day long to make all your changes, but when you tap into the Spirit of God, there is a strength beyond what you can muster up on your own. Some of you, you've tried for years to change something, to improve something, and you cannot do it. This is the year that it will not be by your might nor by your power, but by His Spirit says the Lord. God says, "I'm going to give you my power to rebuild this temple."
Verse 7 says, "Nothing, not even a mighty mountain will stand in Zerubbabel's way. It will become level plane before him." In other words, when God calls someone to do something, there is no force on earth that can stop the power and the will of God through that person.
He goes on to say, "And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the temple in place, the people will shout 'May God bless it.'" May God bless it. I love the fact that before the construction starts, God already sees the end. Before you even attempt to do what God puts on your heart, God knows what the result can be if we surrender to the power of His Spirit.
Beginning in Verse 8 says, "Then another message came to me from the Lord.
Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of this temple and he will complete it."
If you'll pause there for a moment, I did a little research on the background of this story, and what I found is that the initial phases of the construction was actually very awkward. It went rather slowly. And if you read in Ezra, there were times when people visited the early stage of construction, and they actually cried. They cried. It's debatable as to why they cried. Some people believe they cried because they were happy that the temple was being rebuilt. More people actually argue that they cried because they were embarrassed because it was so unimpressive. They're like, "This is so small and so pathetic. There's just a few rocks there. This isn't going to amount to anything."
And the reality is that's the way we often feel.
You go to the gym, you're on the treadmill, and you're thinking, "I've got to lose all this weight and I've only lost 1 pound. There's no way I'm going to get anywhere." "I've got make all these changes. I try so hard and I go three days and I fall back into it."
And we get so embarrassed so often by the small beginnings.
Verse 10 says this -- and I hope this will encourage some of you -- "Do not despise these small beginnings. For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin."
You've got to put one stone before you put a second stone. You've got to start somewhere.
And God rejoices to see you be faithful in the small things.
One of the challenges is so often, we look at people and we see their highlight reels and we know our behind the scenes. And we get so intimidated. You look at people in the bible and you're like, "Look at David. He was a man after God's own heart. He took down Goliath. I want to take down my giant." But we forget that he was faithful for years in the fields, tending sheep. And whenever a wild animal would come up, he would run off the animal or he would kill the animal. What was happening? He was learning to be faithful with the small things so God could trust him with the big things.
People look at Ruth and Boaz. Girls, all the time, "I want a husband like Boaz. Boaz just sounds handsome." Okay? You forget Ruth was faithful to Naomi when she didn't have to be, when it would have been easier not to be. She was faithful out in the fields for years and years, for time after time. And it was that faithfulness that opened the doors of God's blessing through Boaz. It was the things that no one saw that resulted in the marriage that everyone wanted.
We look at Daniel in the bible like, "Oh, he's got such great faith. I mean, he's standing in a lion's den, and his faith is unwavering. I want faith like that." Well, we forget that three times a day, year after year, you know, what Daniel did? He stopped whatever he was doing, knelt down three times a day, and sought the Lord in prayer. What kind of faith do you think you would have if you devoted three specific times a day, everyday, to seeking after God?
It's the things that no one sees that results in what everyone wants.
There’s a great book called "Wooden on Leadership." It was about John Wooden, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. He coached for U.C.L.A, ten NCAA titles, seven consecutive titles, unheard of between 1967 and '73. You know what the first practice consisted of for Coach Wooden? He brought the players in, didn't run drills, didn't run sprints, didn't practice free throws or passing.
The very first practice consisted of sitting down, putting your socks on and putting your shoes on very very carefully. Because, he found that no one ever thinks about how you put your socks on, and therefore, you get blisters. And he made a very important point that we're a team that cares about the
details, because the details matter.
In fact, John Wooden said this: It's the little things that are vital. Little things make the big things happen.
I love that. It's so often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
And it's in these small changes, that maybe no one else will notice, will bring about the results, I believe, that we've always wanted. Because it's impossible to describe the power of a focused life. When you focus on one thing,
it's amazing what you can accomplish.
There's power in focus.
Paul, in the New Testament, who was the greatest apostle of all time, if you remember, he had a really hard past. Not only as a non-Christian, at first, but then as a Christian, he faced massive persecution. He was beaten, shipwrecked, left for dead, snakebitten, he was hungry, he was stoned many times -- and not recreationally speaking. You know what I'm saying? "Oh, I didn't know we could do that. Okay, let's go to Colorado. Meet you there." No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. Okay? No, no. We're talking about the guy endured some massive pain. And you know what he said? Rather than saying, "Oh, I'm going to think about my past. Oh, it's been so hard. You wouldn't believe how mean they are to me. Oh, they persecuted me all the time." You know what he said? He said, "This one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining on toward what is ahead." I'm not going to let my past define my future. God has something more for me. So this one thing I do, I let go of all that, and I'm moving forward because God has something else for me.
This one thing. (watch this… vid)
But when you miss your one thing, it's amazing the blessings you can miss.
Jesus visited the home of Mary and Martha, in Luke, chapter 10, and Mary was enjoying the presence of Jesus and Martha was wigging out. "The tea's luke warm, the dishes don't match." Whatever. I don't know what she's doing but you can use your imagination. Jesus looked at her, he said, "Martha, you're upset about so many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary" -- who was sitting at the feet of Jesus -- "has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her." You missed the most important thing.
It's amazing what a life of focus can actually bring. It's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
So here's your assignment, very simple, and very focused, very direct and very doable. What I'm going to challenge you to do is get as focused as you can. What I want to do is I want to ask you to seek God for one specific word that will define and guide your direction for the rest of this year. One word. And then you can also put a verse to it, because this is not going to be by our might or by our power, but by God's Spirit that he will empower us to move forward. And you will not believe how different the rest of your year, and your life can be when you focus on one God-breathed word that can help direct your decisions and guide your life.
Let me just tell you how I've used this in my own life. My word for the rest of this year is the word 'change.'" And let me tell you why.
God is desiring change within me. You see I too, like many others have found myself in a rut. Wanting to see some specific goals but not seeing any tangible results. In my personal life, in my family life, in our church.
So I spent some time looking over the goals I’ve had in those different areas and recognizing that YES change needs to happen.
The verse that I chose -- I actually love this verse from Isaiah 54:2 because it shows the desire for growth but the importance of roots. It reads, "Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch out your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back." I love that motivation. "Lengthen your cords," but also what do you need to do? You need to "strengthen your stakes." In other words, if you want your influence to grow larger, you also have to make sure your roots grow deeper.
Thus some of the changes that need to take place for me in all those areas.
I would ask you: What's your one word going to be? When you pray and seek God, let me tell you how it's going to start off. When you hear and believe God has spoken to you about a word, guess what? You've got confidence. You can hear from God. If you can hear from God about that, you can hear from God about something else. Suddenly, you've got some spiritual momentum and you've got a word. Then you take your word -- I don't know what it is -- "faith, believe, focus, healing, discernment, generosity, serving," whatever. Then you type that in google and type in "serving in the bible." Just do that. "Serving in the bible." along with your word. And then there will be verses that come up. And then you pick you a verse, and then you write it in lipstick on your mirror. You may get it -- I was going to say "get it tattooed," but that would be a bad idea 25 years later, because you'd have 25 years. Don't do it -- but, you know, you get it framed and you put it somewhere that's important to you. And suddenly, when you wake up, there's a verse and there's a word that's focusing you throughout the year. "Discipline," and suddenly you're disciplined, you're making wise choices. "Extra," you're making a little extra effort in all that you do. "Details,"you're following details. "Relationships," you're sitting there serving people in relationships. And then at the end of the year, someone's going to come up to you and say, "Hey, what's up with you? I don't get it. I mean, I don't mean to be rude but you weren't in such good shape last year. Now you're in good shape." They're going to say, "I don't get it. You know, you weren't really involved in the church, and now you're like Mr. Church guy or Miss Church lady, you're there all the time, and you're full of joy because you're making a difference." Or, you know, "You didn't seem to even have a good marriage. Now you're like newly weds, like "hunka, hunka, burning love", all the time. What happened to you?" "You weren't even that close to God and now, you know, all you talk about is how great it is to be used by God. What happened to you? What big things?" And you're going to say, "You know what? I've got to be honest with you. It wasn't anything really big, but it was God put something small in front of me and I just decided to be faithful in the small things over time."
Because you know what God loves? God loves when you're faithful in the small things. He says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in the small things so guess what? You are promotable. Now I can trust you with even bigger things." And when people look on and wonder how is your life so different? What? They can't even fathom. And you just say, "You know what? It's really not the big things but it's the small things that God put on my heart."
Because, when you focus on one thing, it's amazing what God can accomplish through you. Don't let anybody fool you; it's not the big things. It's made up of faithfulness in the small things over time. It's often the small things that no one ever sees that result in the big things that everyone wants.
Do how about you? What's your ONE WORD?
Post it in the comments section for yourself and it will certainly encourage many others :)
Video link to this message given at Focus Church: ONE WORD
link: Focus Church media page
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