"Great Things Take a Long Time to Grow." I saw that quote and immediately thought of our church and the people in it. We have so many new and young Christians that are taking their first steps. It is wonderful to see them grow. "Rome wasn't built in a day" as they say. Whoever they are.
I am reading the "minor" prophets near the end of the Old Testament and Zechariah chapter four really stuck out at me.
Zechariah and Zerubbabel were just two of the exiles from Babylon who were allowed to go home to Jerusalem and they found their city and the Temple, God's house on Earth, in ruins.
It was a mountain of rubble.
I think of the pile of rubble from the attacks on the World Trade Center and remember how long it took for the countless workers to clear it. At one point it was an estimated two years of clean up that they were looking at. At first it seemed that there would never be recovery from such a disaster.
That is how it looked to Zerubbabel, who was the one who would lay the foundations for the rebuilt temple. You can imagine the daunting task that was before him.
Now it seems that the natural thing to do would get the best workers and come up with the best human plan and buckle down and start the work.
But God said the only way to turn the mountain of rubble into a temple was not going to get done that way.
This is what God said: "It is not by force nor by human strength, but by Spirit, says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. Nothing, not even this mountain of rubble, will stand in Zerubbabel's way, it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place the people will shout: "May God bless it! May God bless it!"
Through God's Spirit the Temple would be built. It is not through human spirit and might that the Temple of God can be built but by God's Spirit alone.
I love how the Amplified Bible puts it: "What are you, O great mountain of obstacles? Before Zerubbabel who will rebuild the Temple you will become an insignificant plain!" (Exclamation point mine)
Now when you start rebuilding something for God, that is currently a mountain of rubble, it can get pretty discouraging pretty fast.
Not only is there a pile of rubble a hundred feet high in front of you but there are also people around us who put up obstacles.
The naysayers. The ones who see a situation only with human eyes.
They walk by sight and not by faith.
This is the majority of humanity. They see a situation and say things like, "That's impossible! Look at all that rubble. You will never rebuild." And what they say has a profound effect on our hearts. We can start to lose the vision that we had to do the hard thing and we are tempted to give in and then give up.
But as Zerubbabel picked up his plumb line and his tool belt and the doubts came flying at him, his prophet friend Zechariah gave him this word of truth from God:
"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the tools in your hand."
In others words, "Yes, you are just starting to rebuild and yes, it is going to take some time but do not despise these small beginnings of this great project--God is thrilled just to see the work begin and to see the tools in your hand!
As CS Lewis said, "God is pleased even with our stumbles."
He knows that the task at hand is massive. He is the God of small beginnings. Look at Peter. An uneducated fisherman. Everyone around probably said, "Peter? You chose him to be the leader of the disciples?" God is pleased just to see someone pick up a hammer and begin the work of rebuilding their lives.
God says "Here's the deal. You give me your weakness and I will give you my Spirit and with me being your guide, your keeper, your counselor, your instructor, and your strength we will build this Temple to the glory of God."
As John Piper says, "We get the help and God gets the glory."
We can't build something spiritual with human might and skill. It has to be the Spirit of God that does it through us. As we pick up the tools to start building someone's life that is currently a heap of rubble so they can have a new life with God at the centre, we have to remember this will be done by the Spirit and the grace of God and not on our own.
When we start a new church or a new ministry out of the rubble of an old one we cry out to God to do the work by His Spirit because He's got this! I haven't got it. You don't have what it takes.
But Jesus does.
Jesus gave his life to rebuild the Temple of God. He knew that human lives that were destroyed by sin and were lying there in heaps of rubble would be rebuilt by His sacrifice and then infused by His Spirit and become people who would have the Living God living in them and then they would change the world.
All He asks is that we, by His Spirit, follow Him, pick up our tools and work with God to build His temple. Do not discount a small beginning in your life or the lives of others or in a small church or a new mission that God has begun. God rejoices just to see the tool in your hand.
Nuff said.
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