The Significance of the Insignificant... Often, we overlook certain things as being unimportance, worthless, useless and totally insignificant! Such things are thrown away or left to rot away in the waste bin of life. These are things that are regarded as of no value or significance to us again! And, as I was meditating on what we would share together this morning, my attention was drawn to different stories of those things that were dump away because they were thought to be inconsequential by their owner but which however proved to be fatal decisions of life and death! Now, before I share examples from the Bible, permit me to share a story told by Professor Toyin Falola in an autobiography, The Mouth is Sweeter than Salt. He told the story of a senior colleague in Ife, OAU, who moved to a new office but left scores of “waste” papers in the former office to be occupied by Mr. Falola. According to the story, Mr. Falola kept going to the man to come and move his papers especially the ones that may be “valuable” among the presumed worthless papers but the man insisted that the papers were no longer useful to him. He then went ahead to dispose the papers through one of the cleaners...A day or so after Mr. Falola disposed the worthless papers, the Professor rushed in sweating profusely demanding to have the “worthless” papers back...brothers, he left all his certificates among the insignificant papers that have now gone for “good”! ...it was Naaman, [2 Kings 5:1ff] the mighty army general of Syria who had such a small slave girl in his house who would later prove very useful to his healing. Naaman and his wife must have been very kind to this insignificant girl that the girl voiced out her wish for Naaman healing – for Naaman had a terrible skin disease...even when Naaman was enraged because of the “insensitivity” of the Prophet to his status; the slave girl went to him and counselled him to do what the prophet recommended! [v13]. Well, the rest is history: Naaman was healed, his shame taken away through the instrumentality of a minor slave girl in the house! While Naaman was mindful of a slave girl, somebody, an Amalekites, abandoned his own slave boy to die and rot away in the open field in 1 Samuel 30:11-17. The slave boy was found by David’s men who gave him food and revived him. The boy, the “insignificant” boy that was left to die proved a fatal mistake for his master and his company of raiders who were killed by David and his men as the boy led them to the hideout of his master and company! I am very sure you can still remember how a “mere” stone was used by the then insignificant [minor] David to kill the mighty Goliath! Nobody gave him a chance. He was just a minor who had not been tested in any war. He was not a warrior! Probably that was why he chose stones instead of arrows and bows or a sword and a shield! But as insignificant as he and his weapon was, he got the job done: Goliath fell down flat! Let me come to the Lord Jesus. He was born in a manger. In fact, by Aristotle’s theory of Nobility and Heroism, he was far from being a candidate of anything significant or valuable. He was just a commoner in whose blood there is no “nobility”! Of course, that was one of the reasons the Jews rejected him as the Messiah! Speaking of how insignificant we would take Jesus, Isaiah prophesied: Isa 53:2 The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. 3 He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. 4 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried-- our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. 5 But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. 6 Were all like sheep whove wandered off and gotten lost. Weve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything weve done wrong, on him, on him. 7 He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didnt say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. 8 Justice miscarried, and he was led off-- and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. 9 They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though hed never hurt a soul or said one word that wasnt true. 10 Still, its what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that hed see life come from it--life, life, and more life. And GODs plan will deeply prosper through him [MSG]. Many still did not accept these accurate prophetic declarations about Jesus Christ till date! To them, it is worthless and useless! Just as the two fishes and the five loaves did not make any sense to Philip and Andrew [John 6:5-9] when they considered the numbers of men who would need be fed beside women and children! The preaching of the gospel is insignificant to some people: the scholars, thinkers, philosophers, today’s Pharisees and Sadducees! The religious...as it is written: 1Cor 1:18 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out[MSG]. So, it is written: 1Pe 2:6 Therefore also it is contained in the Scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner Stone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him shall never be ashamed. May our eyes be opened to see the significance of what Jesus Christ did for us today and ever more in all its true senses
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:43:47 +0000