Be small

 

Last week before I preached on the virgin birth I struggled to think how to best apply this wonderful truth.  It was actually only just before the service that I realised that this is a call to ‘be small’.  The second person of the Trinity, who has enjoyed the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit for all eternity, and has been the subject of angels’ praise, becomes an embryo in a virgin’s womb.  What a picture of choosing to become small!

The creator of this universe enters his creation through a fallopian tube.  He becomes a baby born in a backwater of the Roman Empire, with no beauty that we should be drawn to him, belonging to a poor family, having his parenthood questioned, being misunderstood and despised, opposed and mocked, and having his naked body spat upon as he is crucified on a Roman cross—a death so humiliating that it could not be mentioned in polite company.

He did it to demonstrate the goodness of God.  He did it for us.  He did it in love. 

Now he calls us to follow this example and make ourselves small.

1.       The way of smallness is the way of grace

Jesus was one of those men who was good with children.  He was safe and pure.  He was welcoming and warm.  Children were drawn to him.  Parents brought their infants to him that he might bless them.  The disciples thought that this was wasting Jesus’ time.  You see, in those days people did not idolise children.  Children were considered insignificant people.  Jesus teaches that, ‘to such as these belongs the kingdom of God’ (Luke 18:16). 

What is it about the infants that teaches us about entering God’s kingdom?  Helplessness.  Helpless dependence (Kent Hughes).  ‘No child can survive its early years without the help of others.’  No child can boast of great achievements.  No child can offer to pay their way.  Every child needs the protection of someone.

The way of smallness is the way of grace.  It lives in helpless dependence.  It gladly sings, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’  It trusts in the truth that God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to his loving kindness.  We continue to acknowledge our failing as we pray ‘forgive us our trespasses every day’.  In fact, daily confessing our sins should fill us with both humility and gratitude as we acknowledge how we fall and rejoice in the fact that his mercy is renewed every day.

Some of you will know the name Billy Graham.  He was one of the greatest people of the twentieth century.  Billy Graham entered the kingdom of God not be because he had personally preached the gospel to more people than anyone in history; not be because he remained impeccable in his finances when so many have failed; not be because he remained a faithful husband; and not because he was humble and kind.  Billy Graham entered the kingdom because he came to Christ as a helpless child (adapted from Hughes).  He acknowledged the great evil that he saw in his heart and trusted the mercy of our gracious saviour.

I am reading a book on the Nuremburg trials.  This was the trial after World War Two of some of the leading Nazis.  These men were among the worst human beings that have ever walked this earth.  Yet a chaplain was commissioned to share the gospel with them.  That chaplain could speak of a mercy in God that is greater than the worst of human sin.  Some of those war criminals denied that they had done anything wrong.  They claimed that their consciences were clear before God.  Some of those war criminals admitted their guilt and came to Christ like children, admitting their helpless dependence, and they were welcomed into God’s kingdom.

The same grace that saved a sinful man like Billy Graham saves sinful war criminals.  None are so good that they are not in desperate need of grace, God’s grace is sufficient for those who see ourselves as the worst of sinners.  The grace that saved us is the grace that we depend on him every day as we bring him our daily sins and remember he ready mercy   

2.      The way of smallness is the way of gratitude

My friend Brenda is a lecturer in Maynooth University.  She did her doctorate on the mental health effects of gratitude. 

She told me that gratitude influences mental health through increasing the levels of happiness (positive emotions and life satisfaction), and reducing stress, depression and anxiety levels.  It has a protective effect, in the fact that it strengthens us to face future stressful events.  It improves our relationships with other people.  Consciously practicing gratitude changes your brain activity, and even improves your physical health.  By pausing to say thank you, you strengthen neural pathways and make it easier to see the good in life.  Over time it will become a healthy habit.  It even improves the quality and duration of your sleep.  She pointed out that in order to benefit most you must not only seek to feel thankful but express thankfulness.  When you feel thankful for someone, you should actually thank them.

It is a gracious command of God when we are told to ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures for ever’ (Psalm 107:1).  Like all of his commands this is for his glory and our welfare. 

I would add another benefit to Brenda’s list of good things gratitude does for us.  Gratitude should keep us small.  We thank God as people who are helplessly dependent on God.  We thank him for his daily mercies remembering that we do not deserve them.  We thank God for his people remembering that though our Christian brothers and sisters he is fulfilling his promise to place the lonely in families.  We thank him for his love knowing that he loves us infinitely more than we love him.  We thank God for the cross where Jesus took the punishment our guilt deserves.  We thank him that he has been with us in past storms and will be with us as we pass through future fires.

Can we be boastful and thankful at the same time, I am not sure?  The way of smallness is the way of gratitude.      

3.      The way of smallness is the way of glory

Jesus repeatedly tells us not to draw attention to ourselves, and yet he also says that we are to not to hide our light under a bushel.  How do these two things fit together?  Maybe the answer is found in thinking about what shining for Jesus looks like.  Shining our light is about making ourselves small not big.

Shining our light involves genuine humility, a virtue that was not valued in the ancient world.  We rejoice in what Jesus has done for us for more than in anything we have done for him.  We acknowledge that he is changing us in ways that we were helpless to change ourselves.  He has enabled us to will and act for his good purposes.  We serve not in our own power but with the grace of God in us.  Maybe we could say that our light is to shine like a floodlight that casts it glow on the beauty and work of Christ.

In this life we may be looked down on for our faith in God.  In some countries Christians endure rejection and violent opposition.  But Christians focus on Jesus who endured the shame of the cross looking ahead to the glory that he would experience when he sat down at the right-hand side of God.  We look forward to when they will share Christ’s glory.  That glory will be rooted in our smallness. ‘God has poured out his love on us so that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 2:7).  For all eternity people will marvel at the fact that God has brought insignificant and failed people like us into his kingdom!

Conclusion

The creator of this world becoming an embryo in a virgin is such a picture of God embracing smallness.  But how are we at living small? 

What about when someone criticises us?  I remember listening to someone hotly criticise me, and while it was a little unfair and very unpleasant, I was also aware of the fact that I am a far more sinful person than even they were saying.  I took their criticism badly, but how much better I might have taken it is I was glad to be small.  No-one can knock you off your high horse if you are already bowed in the posture of humility.

How are we about asking for help?  Are you ready to admit your struggles?  Do you think it honours God when you pretend that your family has got it together?  Do you think that it is beneath you to open up and ask people to pray for you?  Only weak people would go to the prayer room after church, but only weak people understand the grace of God.

In a world of self-made men and independent women, where children are driven to pursue excellence and success, let your light shine as you follow one who entered our world as an embryo in a virgin’s womb, and who would set his face towards a shame-filled cross, where he would die in love for us and now is seated in glory.  Let us be small to the glory of God!