Articles
“Don't Despise the Small Things”
Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.
Haggai 2:3-5
We are often preoccupied with big things: a bigger car, a roomier house, a more spacious yard. But God’s people often have to make due with less. Sometimes, in comparison to their unbelieving neighbors, Christians have more humbling circumstances and more limiting means. It was s similar situation with Israel after their seventy years of captivity in Babylon. About fifty thousand Israelites returned home. This might sound like quite an impressive number until you remember that Israel was six hundred thousand strong when they left Egypt, and this figure didn’t even include women and children (Ex. 12:37).
Israel had been reduced to a remnant. Upon returning to Jerusalem, they were charged to rebuild the temple, which turned out to be a fiasco. But it was eventually finished with the encouragement of Haggai and others. Once the construction was completed, some of the older Israelites who remembered the glory of Solomon’s temple, wept at the sight of it. In a similar way, we sometimes look at our efforts for the Lord and they don’t seem to amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Are we really making any difference? We seem so small and insignificant. As exciting as the growth here at Dulles is, our neighbors are not exactly flocking to our assembly. It can be discouraging when we compare our relatively small congregation to the well-funded, well-oiled machine that is our society.
Along with Haggai, God sent Zechariah to encourage Israel to finish the temple. “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.” (Zech. 4:9-10) They thought of their time as “a day of small things.” But God promised that joy would eventually overtake their grief. What seemed small and unobtrusive at the start would reach a glorious conclusion.
Around the same time, the returned exiles were rebuilding the broken walls and gates around Jerusalem and were being mocked for their efforts. “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?…Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” (Neh. 4:1-3). Like Nehemiah, we’re sensitive to being despised by the world and we may pray with him, “Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives.” (Neh. 4:4)
It’s easy to feel like we’re not accomplishing much, that we’re just a small, struggling band of saints hanging on by our fingernails. We may think, “Wouldn’t the Lord be better glorified if we were a bigger church making a bigger impact in the community?” We may even wonder if we’re doing something wrong. We might ask, “Why can’t we be a big church like the church in Acts 2?” But we deceive ourselves. The church in Jerusalem may seem large to us, numbering in the thousands, but this was only a small fraction of the Jews who had visited the city for Pentecost.
God often works through small things. Think of Gideon and his 300 men called out of 32,000 (Jdg. 7). Think of little David against Goliath with only his sling, a few stones and his faith (1 Sam. 17). Think of the widow and her two mites (Mk. 12:41-44). Think of Mary, a nobody, and her carpenter husband living in despised Nazareth (Lk. 1-2). Think of Peter, Andrew, James and John, fishermen all (Mt. 4:18, 21). Think of the Corinthians who were not wise, powerful or noble according to worldly standards (1 Cor. 1:26). Israel was, in comparison to the mighty empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, a very small nation. Isaiah describes Christ himself as someone who you wouldn’t give the time of day based on appearances (Isa. 53:2): “is this not Jesus the carpenter’s son?” (Mt. 13:55)
God delights in choosing the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong, the low and despised over the high and mighty (1 Cor. 1:27). Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a tiny grain of mustard seed. “But when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Mt. 13:31-32) Let’s not despise the small things.
