Don't despise the day of small beginnings

so I'm gonna go Zakaria on you Zakaria for don't try and turn to it you might never find it not that anybody turns these days we tap don't we we tap tapping is easier than turning when it comes to zechariah zechariah i'm gonna read to you from chapter 4 verse 10 new international version where God said to Zachariah do not despise the day of small things or small beginnings for when the capstone is put in place there will be great rejoicing the context here is that Israel God's people the Jews had been in captivity in Babylon modern-day Iraq for 70 years almost three generations zero Zechariah was one of the first return in exiles and he was a priest he was a leader and God gave him a commission that God nee would be difficult the title of this message is do not despise small beginnings do not despise the days of small beginnings because that's what God knew Zachariah was about to do imagined to be in Zachariah shoes for a moment to sympathize with him so that we're not too harsh on him as a leader needing this to be said to him because he's returning from exile to a Jerusalem that had been destroyed and demolished and burnt by invading Iraqi Syrian army's and so Jerusalem was a mess so returning to their homeland it required a complete rebuilding of the infrastructure of the country literally physically materially imagine being commissioned by God to rebuild the temple to rebuild Jerusalem when you are a returning broke exile you have no money you have no team there's no architects they're all in captivity - there's no tradesmen they are on captivity - there's no trade agreements there's no import relationship that's all stopped because 70 years on all of those all of those building getting things done relationships had gone so to be in his shoes for a moment this was a big ask to be asked to head up the restoration of the temple to rebuild the temple was his commissioning God said to him after God taught him to go ahead and begin that process and by the way as I Korea tap on the shoulder do not despise this time these days of small beginnings now if God told him and God's telling us humans do not despise small beginnings it must be because God knows something about beginnings that we don't what God knows about beginning is that we don't is that beginnings are despicable they are notoriously difficult and would have been for all the reasons I mentioned about Zachariah his beginnings were very complex very difficult as are many of yours today and I want to talk about this because I want to say to any of you that I any kind of beginning at all in your life some of you are beginning a new business you're stepping out risking being an entrepreneur you don't want to work for anyone else you want to work for you that's a big step away from the security and stability of a job and a salary you've decided to go on your own even against advice from your friends and family you've stepped out it's rough it's it's a new beginning it's fragile it's scary some of you are in the beginning of a new relationship and it's fragile and a bit wobbly in the beginnings of a relationship it could be a friendship or a partnership in a business it could be a courtship that may lead to engagement to marriage it's the difficult time beginnings of any kind are fragile and difficult maybe in the beginnings of a new season of your life which isn't a relationship you've just come out of a divorce or come out of a separation and so for you you're in a new beginning when you didn't thought you'd have to have one anymore of that kind you've come out of one relationship and now you're not in a relationship so that is as well its own kind of beginning of a new season have you been on your own more how will you do that some of you out of the beginning beginning of recovery from something you're recovering from a life controlling habit you're recovering from an addiction you're recovering from something in your life that has been damaging and harmful and you now decided I'm gonna set a path to get away from this and it's the early stages of your recovery from something and it's difficult and fragile and unstable that's why God said to him and I think that's why God continues to say to hers as humans you need to be careful that you do not despise the beginnings that you were in of any kind because if you despise beginnings you lose the value of what is hidden in the beginning some of you are new parents like I saw up here this morning so in a beginning of being a parent and that's scary and that's difficult and that sleepless nights and that's stuff you never had to deal with before whatever the kind of beginning here is it strikes me that God is obsessed with beginning small consider how we all started life microscopic I just don't know whether Jesus is rubbing it in and making a point when he chooses to use a mustard seed to make the point that a bigger seeds the mustard seeds some seeds I've studied seed some seeds are as big as a football literally what if he dimensioned to seed that when we googled it 2,000 years later it came like a football and we thought well at least the seed is big enough to look like a beginning a mustard seed doesn't look like the beginning of anything that has any potential at all and so Jesus deliberately uses the metaphor the analogy of this tiny if you've never handled a mustard seed I mean that is a mustard seed on the graphic I showed you but you need to get one between between your thumb and forefinger and realize how tiny and pathetic and pitiful and unable to be called a beginning of anything I must have see this and Jesus said if you got faith the size the beginning size of a mustard seed then you can move big things in your life clearly pointing out that faith is about quality not quantity which we've made it about so he's fascinated God is committed to God is pledged to continue to speak to us and lead us through new beginnings and he's warning us and I'm warning you today in whatever beginning you are in because some of you came here today and you are ready to quit not long since you began but in a year you to your three years in and it's so bad it's so tough that you're thinking about quitting and you've come today and the rest of Hillsong and the rest of the network that are gonna hear this I want to say to all of you you are on the verge of quitting and God sent me perhaps to say to you whoa whoa whoa hang on a minute hang on don't think just because beginning is a tough it must mean that God's not with you or God's not in it and what what you what you can't do and good time I watching my clock ain't got time for clapping though I do like it but I am good time so yeah if you if you want to clap and I'll let you go I'll just stop you depending on my clock it but you can't see thank you well I love a bit clapping time later on for a big finish I hope no what you mustn't do in your beginning is you mustn't compare your chapter 1 - someone's chapter 20 so that's not helping you at all some of you that is messing you up because some of you are hanging out with people whose beginning was years ago and now they're established and they're flowing and got momentum you at the beginning you should be hanging out with them because they're doing your heading and they're making easy and effortless and you I saw when you with them you feel so discouraged and you the opposite was supposed to happen because when you compare where you are with where someone else is that you want to be you kind of think I'll never make it I'm just gonna quit now I'll never ever have that and this is the gift this is the gift of small beginnings the gift of small beginnings is it helps you figure you out small beginnings are brilliant because in small beginnings you find out more than you ever will in the middle or the end you're gonna find out in small beginnings who your mates are who your friends are people who stick with you in a beginning are keepers anybody wants to be with you in the middle or the end when now we want to hang out with you now you have money and resources and network and influence and relationship a momentum now you have kudos now we want to hang out with you and be your friends but people that want to be your friends when none of that is going for you people that want to stick with you when you've got nothing to offer them in fact it's a disadvantage for them to stick with you it costs them you it's not that you forget you wallet you have got one you just have any money anymore to go to dinner or treat anybody I got on the movies all of that you've given up because your beginnings are so impatient you are so kind of penny-pinching because that's the stage of life you're at one of my son in-laws decided two years ago to quit his job as a printer and goes and start his own business and he's very creative and so on and so on but a lot of creative people have no brains they're creative and so they think because the creative and have ideas they think a good idea equals a good business and it doesn't always sometimes a good idea is a bad business so my son-in-law and because he heard me preached for years empowering people go for it I'm not gonna not say that to my own family the difference is if I say to my own family go for it go for it I believe in you the difference in my own family is I might finish up paying their mortgage I'm saying so now it's closer to home now saying go for it quitting his job may put my daughter or my grandchildren in hardship because I encouraged their dad and husband to go for it but because I am NOT a fair with a friend and this is not my son Dee persona because this is what I believe in life I said to my son-in-law go for it how can I help you I gave him a gift he said let's call it a business law and as I know let's call it what it is I know I'll never see that money again so let's not let's not pretend you just just have it just keep it so so I gave him a business loan to help to show I was really serious about believing in him a more recently another business loan in you know two three years in but the point is I empowered him I encouraged him and I know he struggled and I know my family have struggled because and some of you are struggling not because of your new beginning but because someone you're attached to took you into a beginning wasn't your idea you're the family you're the friend you're the spouse and so you're struggling even though it wasn't your idea you're struggling because they decided a new beginning and now that's all they're obsessed with now that's all they're dealing with now that's all they want to talk about and you think you know what I can't be around you anymore you were a fun person when you weren't in this stage of life that's why people that stick with you and put up all put with all your drama put it with all your negativity all your fear all your anxiety all your frustration all your anger people that put up with that because they know it's a beginning season and that's what it's doing to you people that stick with you through that I tell you these people are keeper so so one of the gifts of new beginnings is you find out who your friends are and in life that's really important because friendship is overrated the way some people talk about it re friends are people that are there when it costs them to be there and they should have left a long time ago like the rest of them did but they see something in you others don't so small beginnings are despised abow but wherever you despise can't bless you wherever you despise whoever you despise becomes of no value to you we nullify the value of something in life that we go through if we despised it away from us despising anything making something despicable in your eyes gives you this separation from it and you stand off it because you take that stance toward it or towards someone and so God's saying to him and saying to us through him do not make the mistake of losing the preciousness of losing the miracle that's hidden inside beginnings by despising away because of the dis come of the beginnings because the the loneliness of a beginning the isolation of a beginning this the three steps forward two back of a beginning the long in us the sleepless nights the prescription medication all of that the beginnings have an effect on you physically beginnings affect your biology the knowledge affect your finances they affect you as a person and now you're becoming affected in so many ways by the pressure and the fear and the agony of a new beginning but consider consider the preciousness the hiddenness the brilliance the miracle the genius the secrets that nobody stays long enough in a beginning to find out statistically I'm told that startups like my son-in-law startups in business entrepreneurial startups ninety percent on 95 percent of them don't make it beyond five years why because beginnings are so brutal that's why people think it's gonna be easier than it is and you can't forecast what might come your way that changes the ballgame changes the rules and now you're set back when you thought it was off sometimes you beginners like my son-in-law sometimes you think it a way to go it's great then a bill comes in the mail that you didn't anticipate because these are not the bills people get that work for someone else now you dream to do that yourself is different because now you're not just you're not just you know you know that's why I should be careful when people said you look your cakes your cakes are the most delicious things I've ever tasted you should open a cake shop no you should not because within a year you will hit the site of cakes and you will be so fed up with staff health and safety rules regulations water shortage you'll be so fed up with paying rent paying a mortgage dealing with contractors dealing with businesses dealing with delivery systems you'll be so worn out because that's not that was not what you wanted to do you just wanted to bake cakes you loved baking cakes I love baking cakes I'm a creative I'm a creative cake baking person but I hate my life don't even talk to me about cakes I hate my own cakes uh-huh because she made the mistake of thinking your friends say go for it go for it oh hang on a minute there's a lot more to the eye than starting a business and so some things you're involved in in this room today and all across the network that will hear this later on the network we speak into this morning the campuses listen some of the beginnings you are involved in honestly we desperately and I don't mean the church I mean humanity we need you to stay with it some of the things you're in the beginning of they're gonna become amazing in the difference they're gonna make to people's lives not just your life to other people's lives and if you if you are part of the 95 percent that don't make it we'll never know we will never know what it could have been the world will never know what we could have had through you so I need to come and be your beginnings coach today I need to come and say hey don't quit would you would you would you just go another day would you give it another week this week this week when you were you had a plan this week somebody got a plan this week to shut it down would you just rethink it what would today make you rethink shutting it down would you go under the weekend and let's pray something happens this week that gives you a little nudge to say no no it's okay keep going I'm gonna pray that for you this week I'm gonna pray that this week something happens that you know it's completely supernatural that's God's Way of saying I got your back [Applause] you small beginnings a tough look at Moses's beginnings whoa look at Joseph's beginnings whoa look at Jesus's beginnings whoa you know one of the blessings of small beginnings is you you learn to be less choosy than you are when you've got stuff some of you are way too choosy because you can be but when you're in a small beginning and people and resources are in short supply you just glad have help from anywhere at one time he would choose you who you'd get help from because you could afford to be picky now you're so desperate you got have anybody looking you in the eye and smiling at you and helping you and that's the gift of small beginnings small beginnings make you a better human you stop being stuck-up and snobby and thinking well I wouldn't talk to those people now you'll talk to anybody I don't want to pick up onto them now you'll pick up onto anybody because you feel lonely and looking for help and someone to believe in you and throw a crumb of belief and a crumb of investment and a crumb of helpfulness in your direction and that's the other gift of small beginnings because small beginnings are humbling and some of us need to be humbled because it's hard to be humble when you step into much you know when the Bible teaches in the parable of the talents that that that God God rewarded them that the master in the parable of the talents he said he rewarded them because those that were faithful with little he said shall be given more so that they can be faithful with much those that are faithful in little will be faithful in much why because it's not hard to be faithful with much that's easy so God's not looking for faithful with much it's are you faithful in little because if you're faithful in little the chances are more will come to you but if you're not faithful with little and despised been asked to do that if you despised been happy to be faithful with little the chances are much will never come for you because if you are ungrateful and unkind and negative and depressed and confrontational and aggressive in little guess what you won't change when you get much you know money doesn't change mean people people that get money that will mean when they had none are just more mean with more money money doesn't change your personalities and change your character so beginnings are massive beginnings are essential something brilliant is going on in beginnings and God wants us to know that so that we don't despise ourselves away from something that is let us come to completely change you as a person to make you better human so I got a hold you are gonna hold you for a few moments in this beginning that you are terrified about and thinking God can't be in maybe I should quit I've always been fascinated by what Jesus said in the book of Revelation revelation when he said it himself I am the Alpha and the Omega he said on the beginning and on the end seems a strange thing for someone to say who doesn't have beginnings and endings think about it omniscient omnipotence omnipresence is immune from process so God doesn't have beginnings and endings we do that's why in that's why in the beginning in Genesis God created beginnings and endings he created morning and night and days and weeks and months not for God's benefit he doesn't need that does immune from time he's outside of time so God created parameters and borders and timescales so that we with seasons and so on could navigate our lives so for Jesus to say I am the Alpha the beginning and I am the Omega the end strikes me something's going on here that is not easily seen on the surface of what he said what I've come to realize about what he meant was that Jesus God in your life is both the Alpha and the Omega at the same time in other words God in your life is not the Alpha today the beginning then years later he becomes this book end of an Omega in your life and in between God just waits to see what happens that is going to be the Omega of because God doesn't wait for anything nothing ever occurred to God God is not stuck somewhere waiting for information he doesn't have God is not at the beginning hoping it turns out well for you what many of you don't realize and we'll help you here with the beginning is that when God wrote the book of your life and Psalm 139 says all the days of your life written into God's a book before one came to be my God writes the book of your life if the book of your life has a thousand pages God never starts with page one he starts with page 1000 so God writes your life from the end backwards so when God enters your present when God enters your life today as it were he never enters your life from the past God only ever enters your life from the future which is why walking with God can be so irritating because God enters your life from completion so what you're crying about now and wanting ministry and prayer for and deliverance for a miracle for now what you crying about now and believe your life is over God knows a week from now you'll be laughing about it I know a week from now the very thing you're begging him for intervention Oh Lord speak now you blind Lord are you deaf me help me help me help me help me God knows a week from now you'll be laughing telling him it's a funny story because it's because it's Sunday and you're in here you depress you're terrified you thinking acquitting what you don't know is Wednesday you got a phone call now the phone call Wednesday is a game-changer now God isn't waiting for Wednesday God's been in Wednesday so God knows Wednesday all changes but here's here's the annoying thing about God he doesn't tell you ah how unkind is that God is very naughty sometimes God is very naughty I've told him it's not making a difference but I told him would help Lord if you would give us a heads up the Wednesday is coming God doesn't tell you about Wednesday because he wants to know how you're gonna be in your small beginning and if if to be better in your beginning you need to know about Wednesday you're not gonna make it you've got a flourish not knowing about Wednesday you've got to do well on Sunday not just do well on Wednesday when it turns around you've got to do well before it turns around that's what makes you a better person a bigger person a better human so I know we'd like it to come sooner but God enters your life from completion that's why God talks to you about things that haven't happened yet and you're like well hang on a minute God that's not where I'm living that's not where I am so so he's the he is the Omega of your life God is standing at the end of your life when you're still back here in your beginning so there's no middle for God you just you just rinsed them down both together what I mean about that is this if God is the end of your life at the same time that he's in your beginning if God is in all your endings and there's many endings there's many as many omegas in life than many alphas okay no just talking about the day you're born the day you die there are many alphas and omegas throughout your life some of them with very small gaps between them some of them with longer time gaps so if God if God is knows your Omega and is in your alpha so if God is fully aware of how this all pans out in your beginning then what I want to say to you is all of your omegas all of your endings are implicitly embedded in your alphas with me all of your outcomes are already built into your beginnings in other words so in your beginning God is getting you ready for an outcome you don't know about so God is working in and through you for an Omega moment that's coming but he knows is coming you don't so in your alpha God is getting you ready through the things you despise for an outcome that you would love to know about but if you did you would rush and despise and try and step away from the classroom called despising that you have to stay in for a while before you graduate some of you trying to jump the class and fast-track it there's no fast track at this airport you got a line up with the rest of them and wait I'm being patient and be grumpy and nothing's gonna move for you nobody cares about you complaining because that's what beginnings are like nobody cares you're on your own you gotta cut it out and gods saying if you can survive this if you get through this then I know I know there's an Omega I know I know the outcome now give you an example you're okay I got a couple of minutes lord help me um I need a drink G&T the drink of Champions so let's let's go for David as an example so david small beginning was very disposable he's hated by his parents is hated by his brothers he's despised so much he shoved out of the way when the coronation is taking place don't even invite David he's either isn't no-hoper he's a teenager one of the ideas about daily by the way is that the reason he was despised too is because he was illegitimate and he speaks about in the sounds so the suggestion is that David there was born outside of wedlock because his dad had a relationship with some other woman and he was born to this other woman and he was hated he was the runt of the litter hated by his family and some say not only that it stood out because David Lee was a ginger seriously because the authorized bill the authorized Bible says that when when Goliath saw David he saw the II was ruddy meaning read so maybe Davy was a ginger uh all you persecuted Ginger's high five huh you have superpowers David was one of your people so now we all want to be ginger because he the man so consider David rejected outcast hated despised goes to the battle taking cheese sandwiches for his brothers this all he's doing just an errand goes to the Battlefront while he's there Goliath steps up he hears Goliath shouting threats shows an interest in solving the problem his brothers say who do you think you are use your brother sibling thing shutting him down who do you think you are you don't military you know a soldier you've got no courage you know in the Army you're a kid get out of here you're embarrassing us is what they said to him David it says ignore them turn to talk to someone else which is what you should do when people do that just turn to talk to someone else who's not who is not blind about you because they're so familiar with you familiarity is a massive blind spot they see nothing in you because they've known you too long like I said earlier so Debbie turns to someone else these soldiers anyway David's David's openness about Goliath gets him in front of Saul the king so Saul says well you know if you determined to do this he said so it'd be okay you know I was just kidding for sheep and a bear and lion came and I took him on by myself now you know so Saul coulda said will show me the footage can you verify that no but David's saying I think that the same God they help me with that will happen II with this guy is how we put it together his head because because the we God guides your life by the way is by deja vu for you to know whether it's God or not look for whether or not what's happening strikes a chord with something that happened previous in your life God's guidance often or was more to DejaVu than anything you've thought about if something seems to be strangely familiar to some of the season of your life in which makes you just feel strangely ready and open to this it's probably gonna be god that's so Debbie thought bear lion Goliath different challenge but kind of same God same thing I'm feeling inside that I felt about them that I feel about him so Saul said okay here's the deal here's my armor but my armor on going my armor give you a chance now you got to know Saul giving David his armor was not because Saul wanted him to succeed Saul was a nasty person Saul had a filthy heart and no King no king wants a teenager to upstage them none of none of the Navy SEALs in Saul's army would face Goliath including soul so you don't want a kid especially a ginger you know what a kid going out and taking down Goliath he's embarrassing so don't ever think that Saul's trying to help him what Saul's trying to do is this Saul watch this carefully Saul wants him to fail but wants to be seen to have been helping him while he failed if you fail in my armor at least people will say we'll look how Saul tried to help him no no he knew we'd die he hoped he'd die but I want to be seen to have believed in him by a token armor I gave him that's what's going on so David said no thanks I'll just go and stick with listen now I go and stick with what I learned in my alphas in my small beginnings in that wilderness in my small beginnings in that wilderness I learned something now what are you learned in the small beginnings get the band back up here gives people hope we finished hang on a few moments y'all okay so years in that wilderness what you got to do all day few sheep hardly very how they much concentration needed not a high maintenance job what did he do for years he wrote songs and did this all day slinging stone all day all day years it tells us in Scripture that once people came to join David's army that was so good left or right with a sling and a stone they could hit a human hair the accuracy with the sling of the stone was like a sniper rifle in these people's hands so years years in this hated despised isolated life in the wilderness on his own years what do you do this never knowing that this is what you'll need when this happens years later with this guy called Goliath I've heard preachers say don't play to learn I'm not done yet I'm out your way in a minute however preachers say the Holy Spirit left on the stone and guided it to Goliath's forehead no the Holy Spirit didn't need to do that Hollis we need to help David David was a crack forensic shot he didn't do the whole spirit to get on the stone David knew you're going down sucker that's why I said to him you're going down and Goliath despised him and shouted at him not knowing David had no intention at all of hand-to-hand combat he knew he wouldn't win so David introduces a new form of warfare Goliath never saw coming because the boys got no weapons Soga lines thinking the boys not even army should ridiculous so he said you come to me with a stick this is ridiculous him not knowing that this stick this sling in stone in this alpha beginning in that alpha was the Omega God had planned for him at the same time as God said start here don't despise it don't hate it just keep doing that all day every day all day now he gets the Goliath Dave he's like ah this is what that was about all those years I thought I'm hated I'm not loved I'm ginger all these years I was despised I wonder what that was about cuz I can do it with either hand now I get to this guy to put his armor on me that's gonna kill me get the armor off me everybody said it'll make sense it's crazy it's suicide don't do it he'll take you out he's a warrior he's nine foot tall it's okay watch this one thing the army will support what in the world is that kid doing boom boom all that happened in front of Goliath God knew was happening in his alpha and if he despised his small beginnings when he got here get about to practice and I gonna tell you I gotta finish I gotta tell you preparation which you get time to do in beginnings you don't get to prepare so much in the middle you're too busy preparation in beginnings when nobody's calling you you know anyone's phone book no friends no opportunity you're on your own small beginnings it's lonely in that time of on your own in your own company learn to figure out why am I here what am i growing in what am i developing and what I becoming good at because somewhere that's gonna come into its own few months or years from now and you will be so glad that you didn't despise yourself away from this whatever this is for you whatever this is a metaphor for for you this seemingly pointless wasteful time that you're spending you becoming brilliant at something that you don't know God is already in the Omega of that and you can get to a place somewhere in your future where what you thought was a waste of time and you could have despised away from you you're gonna get to a place where you think that's what that was and you're gonna say excuse me I'm ready excuse me I can do that excuse me I think I'm ready to and you're gonna step up people gonna say what who are you then they're gonna hear you see you like you see some kid on South Africa's Got Talent we just spent years in the bedroom and then gets on stage like then they realise all of those lonely years now we realize that this or make a moment on stage this will make a moment on history stage with David all of that was in the Alpha because he is the Alpha and the Omega in your life at the same time all your endings are in your beginnings all your omegas are in your office and God knows that so don't despise the day of small beginnings because God is getting you ready in your alpha for your Omega let's stand here to come on [Music]

Channel: Paul Scanlon

Views: 9,119

Rating: 4.8850574 out of 5

Keywords: joseph prince, Communicator, Christianity, personal development, joyce meyer, small beginnings, Communication, CEO, Preaching, the mentorship group, erwin mcmanus, Entrepreneur, joel olsteen, Paul Scanlon, mentoring, steven furtick, bethel, simon sinek, oprah winfrey, jentzen franklin, Leadership, judah smith, charlotte gambill, bob goff, phil pringle, brene brown, Hillsong, Pastor, carl lentz, Masterclass, Education, brian houston, seth godin, tedx, coaching, td jakes, Preacher

Id: liS7WV0BXJk

Length: 36min 54sec (2214 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 03 2018