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| Not Many Wise Good things come in small packages. It is a popular saying around our house – and in many ways it’s true. It’s true at Christmas time. Look at the presents around the tree on any given Christmas morning and chances are that the smallest packages are the ones that we will value the most. The big, bulky ones contain sweaters and balls and toys that will break in an hour or the two; but the small packages have jewelry… or watches… or maybe that Ipod that has been your heart’s desire inside. Good things come in small packages. It’s true with food. Beef and mashed potatoes; spaghetti and meat balls – these things come in large servings – and that’s good for a large appetite; but at the end of the meal, there’s nothing quite like a small, round chocolate truffle to finish the palate! Good things come in small packages. It’s even true with people. I have a mother and daughter who both flirt with the 5’ height barrier and three figures on the bathroom scale (that would be 100 pounds) – and these two are both full of energy and sweetness and light… and they don’t take up much space. And they are cheap to feed! Good things come in small packages. Even good wisdom can come from small mouths. I love the story of the little girl whose teacher at school was giving her class a lesson on whales. At one point in the lesson, the little girl stood up and said “One time, the prophet Jonah was trying to get away from God and he got swallowed by a whale.” And the teacher said, “But that’s physically impossible! A whale may be a very large animal, but it has a small throat. It couldn’t have happened.” But the little girl was quick with an answer. She said, “But Jonah did. He got swallowed by a whale.” And the teacher, getting a little irritated, answered again, “But I told you that was physically impossible. A whale can’t swallow a human being.” And the little girl said, “Well, when I get to heaven, I’m going to ask Jonah what happened.” And the teacher said, “What if Jonah went to hell?” And the little girl answered, “Well, then you ask him!” Good things come in small packages. Even God believes this to be true. Ps 8:2 says, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise.” God loves children. But God’s love for small packages goes beyond just the children of the world and reaches down even to you and to me. He is our heavenly father – in the very best sense. Of course, some of you are saying, “But I’m not such a small package. The fact is I’d like to be a smaller package than I already am. I’ve been dieting for months and it doesn’t seem to help!” But that’s NOT what I’m talking about. What I am saying is this: in the greater scheme of things; in comparison to the vastness of the universe and the immeasurable scope of history you are nothing. You are insignificant. In comparison, to the size of this earth, you are not even an ANT. Think of it this way: what is the biggest thing on earth? Mt Everest. Mt. Everest is more than 29,000 feet high. If you wanted to build a human pyramid the height of Mt. Everest, you would have to stack 166,750 average sized Americans on top of one another to reach that height. Pity the shoulders of the guy on the bottom! Everest is huge. But did you know that if you were to shrink the earth down to the size of an orange, it would be a smooth as a billiard ball? In comparison to the size of the earth, even Mt. Everest is insignificant! The earth is just an average-sized planet, orbiting around a smallish star, in a medium sized galaxy inside a universe that stretches as far as we can tell off into infinity. It’s no wonder that the Psalmist said, in Ps 8:3-4, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” NIV It IS a mind-boggling thought that the creator of this Universe; a being more powerful than we can even imagine; a person who stands above time and space; who created matter out of nothingness; and human beings out of the dust of the earth… it is mind-boggling to understand that this God cares for you and for me. It is amazing that he has numbered the very hairs on your head. It is amazing to lay on your back in a dark place in the countryside and to look up into the heavens at the endless depths of space and realize that still this great God cared enough for you and for me to DIE for our sins. What a story! And yet this is the story of the Gospel! And it is the subject of our scripture for this morning. We live in an age that is taken up with the idea of self-esteem. We are all worried it seems about what sized package WE come in. There are shelves of self-help books designed to raise our self-esteem; there is even a governmental Commission on Self-Esteem right here in California. And yet, everything you ever needed to know about self-esteem is found in the pages of this book… and especially in our scripture for this morning which is found in 1 Cor 1:26-31. Let’s open our Bibles and read it together:
Now there are three things about self-esteem that we can learn from this passage; three important truths about the way that we look at ourselves. First, I want you to understand this: if you think you are Great, you are NOT! There are some people who read this passage and think to themselves; “Well, maybe not many Christians were wise, but I was! And I was pretty well off and influential too! All my friends followed my lead. The fact is, I’m an all around pretty good guy. I fasted at Lent just last year (or maybe it was the year before). I gave a $100 to Habitat for Humanity after the Tsunami. I don’t cheat or steal from my employer. I tell the truth most of the time. Really God is pretty lucky to have me on his team.” But let me tell you, something. This is a very dangerous place to be. God is NOT lucky to have you on his team. And if you think on any level that your attempts at righteousness are sufficient to earn you a place ‘on God’s team’ then you are trusting in entirely the wrong set of parameters for your spiritual well-being. Actually, this kind of attitude is especially common among unbelievers. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to speak to someone about spiritual things and had them say to me, “I’ve led a pretty good life;” as if that were somehow enough; as if it somehow would make them deserving of God’s righteousness or wise in a spiritual way. My own grandfather used to say that to me when I tried to talk to him about God But I don’t believe anyone actually really believes that they are perfect. Really, all that they are hoping is that if you were to pile up all of the good things they have done the one side – the money they sent to Habitat or gave to the homeless person on the street, the hours they have worked faithfully at their jobs; the way that they provided for their children and took care of their needs – they are hoping that all of those things added up together will outweigh whatever sins they might have committed and make them into ‘a pretty good guy’ in the eyes of a God who must be good at math. But this sort of self-esteem is foolishness. It is foolishness to imagine that we can stand in the present of an all-righteous God on the strength of our past behavior. Consider the example of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4. Nebuchadnezzar was a very important person. He was the King of Babylon, the most powerful man on earth. He ruled an empire that stretched from Israel to the Indian Subcontinent. And he was wise in the ways of the World. It was Nebuchadnezzar who conceived the idea of taking all of the best and the brightest young people from the lands that his armies conquered and sending them to the university in Babylon – and then selecting the stand outs from that university and promoting them into positions of power throughout the empire. That’s how Daniel got his job Nebuchadnezzar was powerful and wise and wealthy and influential. And He was also full of himself. If Nebuchadnezzar had been able to read 1 Cor 1:26, that part where it says, “Not many wise, or influential or of noble birth,” he would have said to himself, “But I am! I am wise and wealthy and influential.” Nebuchadnezzar was a proud man and because of his pride, he was ripe for a fall. And it didn’t come upon him without warning. At the beginning of Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about a tree that reached to the heavens… but was cut down. And so he called in his trusty interpreter of dreams, the prophet Daniel, to tell him what this dream might mean. When Daniel heard it, he was distressed… it wasn’t good news for the King. And telling the king bad news could be seriously hazardous to your health. But at the King’s urging, Daniel told him anyway. It’s found in Dan 4:19-32:
You see, even the greatest man on earth, even King Nebuchadnezzar was not great in the eyes of God. And every time we say, “You know, I’ve led a pretty good life” we are echoing the words of Nebuchadnezzar! We are begging for his fall. Any time we ask God to look at our life’s work and pat us on the back – look at how many students we have taught, or how many buildings we have built; or how much money we have given; how many people we have counseled; or how many sermons we have preached; any time we say any of those things, we are claiming a wisdom and a reward that does not belong to us. Any time we look at ourselves as great outside of the greatness of God,
we beg for a fall – and chances are, that one day we will reach
a defining moment in our lives – a serious illness; an infidelity;
a financial crisis; a creeping addiction; or a besetting sin that reveals
to us our future as surely as Nebuchadnezzar’s dream revealed his
– and it will be up to US to listen to the voice of God or to suffer
the consequences of purposeful ignorance. Why do you suppose this is true? Is it because rich men are somehow less spiritual than the rest of us? Not at all! It is because of the temptation of wealth. Money tends to incite us all with a kind of inflated self-esteem that says with Nebuchadnezzar, “Look at all that I have done! Look at the wealth that I have acquired by the glory of my majesty! What possible need could I have for God – he ought to be making application to me!” Wealth can easily tempt us into believing that we are great, when we are not. And in fact this kind of temptation is not limited to wealth… Jesus might as well have said, “It is hard for an intellectual to enter the kingdom of heaven… in fact, it’s easier for a camel to get a diploma from Harvard than it is for a worldly wise professor to enter the kingdom of God.” And he would have been right! Think about it: our secular colleges and universities in America are riddled with a kind of toxic godlessness that brooks no dissent. To even speak in positive terms of intelligent design in the average biology department in America is professional suicide. On the University level, the Christian worldview is almost universally condemned as parochial or at least un-intellectual…there is a pervading atmosphere of persecution against Christians - and yet in this environment it is the Christians who are accused of being bigots! What an irony! How can this be? Is it possible that our institutions of higher learning are anti-Christian because Christianity is only for idiots (as they would have us believe)? Is it really true that people of faith are just intellectually challenged, unwilling to seek truth? Hardly! Actually some of the most brilliant people in history have been Christians – people like St. Augustine, and John Calvin and C.S. Lewis were hardly fools. There is a tremendous intellectual case for Christianity. The intellectual pride of academia is nothing more than the natural result of the temptation of IQ – the idea that says, “If I can’t understand it, it can’t be true! Look at the books I have written; look at the lectures I have taught! If I can’t think myself into heaven, if I can’t understand God with my own brainpower then He must not exist. “If God were real, then he would be making application to me!” There is no acknowledgement in that place of a certain reality, the reality that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts or that his ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8). Whenever we trust in our own wisdom or wealth or influence; we exclude God. We trust in what is not trustworthy; we express faith in something that will not last; we are distracted from the real issues of life; the things that really matter. Charles Spurgeon once said, “I expect to be amazed by three things when I first arrive in heaven. I will be delighted by those I find are actually there. I will be shocked to note who isn't there whom I assumed I would see. And then I will be speechless with wonder as I realize that by God's grace I am there!” That is the attitude of a true Christian! If you think you are Great and that God would be lucky to have you on his team, then you are WRONG; the beginning of any relationship with God is an acknowledgement of HIS majesty, not ours; of his adequacy, not ours; of his righteousness, not ours. As Paul says here in 1 Cor 1:31 - "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." NIV But there is another side to this coin. If you think you are great, you are not; but on the other hand, if you think you are WORTHLESS, you are NOT! IN fact, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done; no matter the state of your IQ or the level of funds in your bank account; no matter how much you weigh or how old you are; or how unconventional your beauty might be; you are precious to God… so precious in fact, that he was willing to die for you, for your sins! And he has great plans for your life. The truth is that God loves surprises! He enjoys doing great things with small packages. In fact, one of the most important qualifications for a Christian leader is – not intellectual brilliance, not wealth, not influence, not a glib tongue or fancy speech – but (are you ready for this) HUMILITY, an acknowledgement of our own inadequacy before God. God does great thing with small packages. Take the Example of MOSES in Ex 3. In many ways, Moses was a small package. God went to tremendous lengths to call Moses in a powerful way. He set a bush on fire in the middle of desert – and then didn’t allow the bush to burn up. Even more amazing, God spoke to Moses right out of the burning bush – he called him by NAME. He told him to take off his sandals because the place where he was standing was Holy Ground! And the LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and… and so now I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt." And do you remember Moses’ reply? He didn’t say, “Good for you God, you’ve got your man right here.” Instead, he said, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Moses is standing in the front of a burning bush in the middle of the desert arguing with God… and he is full of excuses. First he says, “Listen God. No one will believe me.” And then when God puts that doubt to rest, I believe the real truth comes out in Chapter 4. Moses says, “Look God, I can’t do it, I am slow of speech and tongue.” Moses was afraid of public speaking… and in a way, you would think that Moses had a point there. Here God was asking Moses to stand up in front of the Pharaoh and a million Israelites and lead them out of Egypt – and this man is afraid of public speaking. It doesn’t sound like a good choice to me. Why didn’t God take applications down at the local Toastmaster’s Club? Why didn’t he choose someone who was smooth of speech and tongue, someone who could persuade the Pharaoh and sweet talk the children of Israel. And the answer is found in 1 Cor 1. God chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise! And this theme is woven throughout scripture. Take the example of Gideon in Judges 6:14-15. When the angel of the Lord came to see him, he was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it away from the Midianites – a tribe that had conquered and continued to terrorize the children of Israel. Threshing – which is separating the wheat from the chaff – was generally done on a windy hillside. The grain was thrown up into the air and the wind would blow away the chaff while the wheat fell to the ground. The problem is that when you thresh on a hillside it sets up a cloud of dust that can be seen for miles. The Midianites would watch for those clouds of dust and as soon as it started they would descend upon the encampment and steal the wheat! And so, in order to the keep the dust down, Gideon was down in a hole in the ground trying to separate the wheat from the chaff one grain at a time; it would be about like trying to vacuum from inside the vacuum bag. It was NOT a sign of strength; believe me. It is ironic that at that very moment in time, an angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior." It’s no wonder that Gideon didn’t believe him! I can just hear him say, “Yeah, right! The mighty warrior of the winepress! If God is with us, why has all this happened to us?” The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" And listen to Gideon’s answer of inadequacy. He says, “Lord, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." NIV Gideon was a small package. You might have thought that God would have chosen a man from the largest clan in Israel, not the least. You would think that he would have looked for a man who had enough moxie to thresh in the open air, a REAL mighty warrior; a graduate of East Point – whatever they called their military academy! But you see, God chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise! And it happened in the person of Gideon. But there is more. Take the example of Isaiah in Isaiah 6. It seems that in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah had an amazing vision, he caught a glimpse of heaven. He saw the Lord seated on a throne. He saw angels flying around him calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." This must be a popular song in heaven –John heard basically the same thing six centuries later on the Isle of Patmos. But in Isaiah the sound system was so good, that the voices of these angels shook the doorposts and thresholds of the temple and the room was filled with smoke. This was truly an emergent church service. But do you know what Isaiah did in that moment? He cried out, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” Isaiah was saying, “I’m a sinner. I am an unrighteous man. I’m not even worthy to see God! Isaiah was a small package, an admitted sinner – but God chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise! This is his modus operandi; this is how he does things – and it is a trend that continues right on into the New Testament. Take the example of Peter. As Jesus was going through the horrible indignity of a trial and facing death by crucifixion, Peter was out in the courtyard of the temple denying that he even knew him. And yet Peter became the Leader of the Church. God does great thing with small packages. Or take the example of Paul. Paul had been in the business of persecuting Christians. He had hunted them from house to house like animals, dragging them off to prison. Paul was a sinner’s sinner. And yet in his grace, Jesus called Paul on the Damascus road. – and changed his life. Listen to the way that Paul describes himself in Eph 3:8. He says, “Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” God chose a foolish and obstinate man for one of the most important missions in the history of the world! It’s an amazing story. God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. This is not an anomaly. It has always been his way, and it continues right up until now. In fact, Jesus taught this truth to his disciples on a regular basis. He had to, because they continually had it exactly backwards. You can read about it in Luke 9:46-48. An argument had started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Sounds like Jr. High! But the disciples were forever jockeying for position; vying against one another for the best spot the table; trying out (in a sense) for Prime Minister in the coming Kingdom; acting out the opposite of the wisdom of Paul in 1 Cor 1. But listen to how Jesus handles it in verses 47 and 48. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all — he is the greatest." NIV You see, right from the lips of Jesus himself… good things come in small packages! Do you see the implications for those of us who believe? The truth is that you (yes, YOU!) have been CHOSEN to CHANGE the world! It doesn’t matter if you are as tongue tied as Moses; or as timid as Gideon or as unclean as Isaiah or as pathetic as Peter in the temple courts; God has chosen you to Change the World. In fact, you are uniquely suited to affect your corner of the world, your circle of acquaintances, your sphere of influence, in a way that no one else on earth could ever do… for God! The truth is that your life – your changed life – as modeled in front of your friends and family is far more powerful than any sermon that may be preached from this pulpit or any other. You have the opportunity to show God to this world. I love the story I read this past week about a little girl who was working away in her art class at school. And as the teacher circulated around the class, she stopped at the little girl’s desk and asked her what she was drawing. And the girl said, “I’m drawing God!” The teacher paused for a moment and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.” Without missing a beat or even looking up from her drawing, the little girl said, “They will in a minute.” Really though, this IS the power of your life. No one knows what God looks like – but still he has ordained you and me to show this world his face; he has called US to be his hands and his voice; he has called each of us individually to paint a picture of his Grace. After the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Joni Eareckson Tada was invited to be a part of the Christian counseling team that worked with the victims. Joni is a quadriplegic. And as Joni tells it she will never forget how it happened. She was required to go to the American Red Cross center to be cleared in and credentialed. And as she wheeled through the door, a tall, officious looking woman in a white lab coat caught sight of her and said, “My, are we glad to see you!” Joni (looking at here wheelchair) wondered about the question and asked, “Why?” And the woman responded, “When people walk up to you in your wheelchair and see your smile, it speaks volumes. It assures them that they can handle their crisis too. We need more people like you to help us here.” And immediately Joni got this picture in her mind. Wouldn’t it be great, on any given Sunday morning to see people with white canes or wheelchairs or walkers come through the doors of our churches? And wouldn’t it be great if we all turned around in ours seats and exclaimed, “My, are we glad to see you here! We need more people like you here in our church!” But the truth is that we do need people, imperfect people, people with flaws like yours and mine in our churches – because this is how we relate to this world. We need addicts and invalids; we need the tongue-tied and the timid. We need people with pasts to show us the hope of the future; we need acknowledged sinners; to help us into meaningful righteousness and the forgiveness of God. We need the weak and the nothing to show the world the amazing power of the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives. And I want to say to all of us here. Don’t sell yourselves short. Don’t imagine yourself to be an appendix in the Body of Christ. Don’t be content to sit in the pew and hear others preach. Don’t just read other people’s books about God or to listen to other people’s music. Your life is intended to be a song and a testimony for God and an act of worship. In the Christian economy, it is the tortoise who beats the hare; it is the lame man who wins the marathon; it is the pauper who is the richest of all. There is nothing remarkable about a great orator giving a good speech – but there is something life-changing about a sinner gathering enough courage to speak of the grace of God. There would be nothing remarkable at all about Bill Gates giving a million dollars to a worthy cause. But there is something extraordinary about a poor man or woman giving sacrificially of themselves because of their faith in God. The truth is that God wants to do amazing things through you and through me – if we will only allow him to do it; if only we will set aside the illusion that we are either great in our own strength or worthless in his. It has been said that God uses broken things. Broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever. It is true! God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are. He chose you and me – and seeks to do great things through agency of our lives… if we will only let him. "My grace is sufficient for you,” says Jesus in 2 Cor 12:9, “… for my power is made perfect in weakness." |
