Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

Luke 20 v 41-44 “Then Jesus said to them, “Why is it said that the Messiah is the son of David? ⁴² David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand ⁴³ until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ⁴⁴ David calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”

Recently I have started hearing comments that I hadn’t heard since some of the major moves of the Holy Spirit in the world over the last 3 decades. Things like, ‘That can’t be God!’ ‘I don’t think it is a proper conversion!’ ‘She’s not a true Christian’ ‘Time will tell, let’s wait and see, don’t get involved just yet, the jury is out.’

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!

Are we so fixed in a certain position of belief or behaviour that we cannot embrace anything new that God may want to be taking us into? Do we rubbish the new and say it cannot be God (because it doesn’t fit what we know to be true) or dilute it so that it submits to what is our experience and firmly held position. I know a couple of ministers who were once asked to leave a church denomination “if you cannot control this Holy Spirit”. Their overseer seeing a move of the Holy Spirit in their services could not accept it as such because his belief, behaviour and experience was too small for anything new. He was overseeing but he wasn’t seeing what they were seeing. The reason was the ‘small’ in his life was ‘big’ to him and anything new would always be subservient to it. He had not seen that the ‘small’ (his belief and practice) contained a prophetic ‘big’ (the desire of God to pour out His presence) which wanted to come.

This is what is going on in these verses.

The Pharisees were standing looking smug at the put-down that Jesus had given the Sadducees regarding the age of the resurrection to come. Jesus turns back to them and in a superb understanding of the Scriptures tells them they are as blind as the Sadducees because they don’t understand even what is standing in front of them, the age of the Messiah. He does this by asking his own question.

King David was no doubt the Jews greatest king. The prayed and longed for the day of David again. An age when the Davidic Kingdom would be restored. When they would finally defeat their enemies, rule as a strong nation and people of God again and above all rebuild the Temple. They had their hopes set on the future but their eyes were in the past. The son of David, the Messiah, would come and restore the years the locusts had eaten. Their Messiah was an earthly king, descended from David, coming to do earthly things that will bring about the golden age for them.

They had missed it. They had not seen the messages throughout the Old Testament that the Messiah would be God in flesh. He would not be an earthly king but is the King of all Kings.

Jesus using Psalm 110 asks, how can David refer to the one to come as Lord (their Messiah) if he is also known as the son of David (therefore inferior)? No father calls his son ‘Lord’ so why did David do this?

Jesus is revealing that he is more than human. He is not just the son of David which everyone knew as his genealogy but that He is Lord, He is Divine.

Let me re-write the Psalm like this: David writes, “God said to my Christ, “Sit at my right hand …” or “God said to David’s Lord (Jesus)”.

David was prophesying of the Christ to come. He knew He would be Divine.

Jesus asks the question and the answer lies within that question. He knew who he was and chose the last few days before his crucifixion to reveal it.

David knew. The one who they base their very foundation of hope for the future on knew more than they know. He saw what is standing right in front of them but who they do not see.

Their ‘big’ (David) was actually ‘small’ and the son, the Messiah and who was actually standing in front of them (their ‘small’) was indeed ‘big’.

And the position of Christ indicates His authority and His power.
The Bible refers to the right hand as a place of refuge and protection. A place where blessing is declared. A place of intercession. Where authority over all powers is established.
And where is Jesus? At the right hand. Therefore, Jesus is God.

For us, what is still to emerge regarding His authority and power? How will He bless again? What will victory look like for the Church?

Let us not miss a visitation from God whether in someone’s conversion or a renewal of the Church or a turning around of sectors of society simply because it doesn’t fit. For what we hold to in our belief and practices contains seeds of truth that all things are possible. Our big may just be too small to handle the big that is coming. Retired Church leaders can be a blessing or a burden to present leaders. Seasoned Church members who have seen it all and got the t-shirt can form a resitance that will thwart any army. It is possible to be living in what you have intereceded for all your life, a move of God, yet not be experiencing it.

Don’t make the past and your present too perfect and too big because if you do everything that comes your way will be far too small!!