Don’t Despise the Little Things

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Scott Dunford
“It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth.” Mark 4:31  

America is the land of the Big Gulp, the Big Mac, and the Big Leagues. We are programed to believe that bigger is better. This philosophy carries over into the church. The teacher with the big platform must be better, the church with the big building must be doing something right, and the pastor with the big congregation must be holier. 

Of course there is nothing about being small that makes something more noble either. I’ve been in more than one pastors gathering where the small church pastors criticized the growth of another ministry with the complaint that “we would be that big too if we just compromised the gospel like that church.” 

The point of Christ’s parable is not that big is bad and small is good, but rather that appearances can be deceiving. God is the one who grows his Kingdom. What begins as something small will grow in ways that we don’t expect or look for. God’s values and principles of success don’t match the values and principles of this world. 

 Compare the growth of weeds to the growth of oak trees. With minimal effort weeds will take over your yard in weeks. Weeds as high as your waist with shallow root systems grow up quickly and easily. Oak trees on the other hand take years to grow from a seed to a foot in hight. Over time however the oak takes root, its trunk gets thicker and its branches stretch to the sky. 

In 10 years the oak will stand tall–10-15 feet tall. It will give shade from the sun, food for the animals, and a perch for the birds. But what about the weeds? By the end of at the summer they are scorched and dead. We pull them up by their roots and throw them in the compost bin or the fire. 

There are two ways to build our lives. We can build our lives on the world’s philosophy of self improvement, pleasure, self reliance or we can build our lives on obedience to Christ, denial of self, and Spirit empowered love. Jesus compared following him to taking up a cross. It seems contradictory to to think that the way to life is to take up the instrument of sacrificial death, but that is exactly what Jesus calls us to. “He that would gain his life must lose it.”

There are two ways to build a church. Either God builds it, or we do. We can preach what people want to hear, sings songs they want to listen to, create activities that they want to engage in and if you do all that with creativity and skill you can grow a church pretty fast. God’s way is both harder and easier. It is harder because it involves preaching and teaching his Word even when it’s out of fashion or offensive. It means we think about what is pleasing and honoring to God in our worship, not simply what we enjoy, and it involves the faithful adherence to what God calls us to, not on what fits our appetite in the moment. But it is also so much easier. It is easier because it is on God to bring the fruit and not on you and me. It is on God to use his Word to transform lives. It is on God to take the faithful proclamation of the gospel and save sinners. It is on God do the hard work of sanctification in our lives as we grow holier and more conformed to the likeness of Christ. God grows the church and God gets the glory. 

Fads come and go. What was all the rage yesterday makes the youth of today cringe. “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.” Let’s build something to last. 
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About Scott Dunford

Pastor of Western Hills Church in San Mateo Californian and co-host of The Missions Podcast.
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