Derek Grier - Heart Two Sizes Too Small
Most of us are familiar with the story. If we didn't read the book written by Dr. Seuss, we certainly saw it in the movies or in the cartoons. And just in case, there's somebody in here that doesn't know anything about Mr. Grinch, the main character is again, the Grinch. He's a cave dwelling, bitter creature, with what Dr. Seuss says, "He has a heart, two sizes too small". He lives as a hermit on a cold, snowy Mount Crumpet, which overlooked Whoville, home of the happy and warmhearted Whos. His only companion in life, was his unloved dog named Max. From his cave, the Grinch could hear the Christmas festivities, just him and his loyal dog.
And he listened to what was going on in Whoville, and annoyed by the joy, he devises a wicked scheme to steal everybody's presents, their trees, their food, their gifts, to stop Christmas that year. So what he decided to do, he disguised himself as Santa Claus, and he forces his loyal companion Max, disguised as a reindeer, to drag the sleigh down the mountain towards Whoville. And that night, during one of the burglaries, the Grinch bumped into a little girl named Cindy Lou. And when they meet, he concoction this crafty story about you know, there's something wrong with the tree. I'm here to fix the tree and all that. And he quickly escapes from little Cindy Lou's home.
Then after spending the night stealing stuff from all the houses of Whoville, the Grinch traveled back to the top of Mount Crumpet, intending to dump all of the Christmas trees off the cliff. And as dawn arrived, because he had worked all night, the Grinch expected that all the people of Whoville would be in grief. There would be kids screaming, things, you know being broken, and fingers being pointed. But instead of hearing anger and shouting, he heard joyous Christmas songs from the town in Whoville.
So, as he listened, again, he's about to throw this off the cliff and he's about to destroy everyone's Christmas. He's a little bit puzzled. But then it finally dawns on the Grinch, that maybe Christmas is about more than trees and presents and Santa Claus and all the stuff. And because of their joy, the Grinch actually repents. And then the repentant Grinch, who lived with a heart shrunk two times too small. His heart suddenly grows three sizes, and he returns to the village and he brings back all the stuff he had stolen from the Whos, and he joined them for Christmas.
Today, we are gonna learn about how Jesus taught us how to make sure that our hearts don't grow two sizes too small. So, if you're following with me, open your Bibles to Luke 17:1. You can follow on the screen, if you don't have it on your phone or what have you. Jesus is speaking. "Then He said to the disciples, 'It is impossible.'" Meaning, don't even waste your time dreaming about it. Don't even think that there's any, even the remotest possibility that this might be the case in your life. As Ali said to Sonny Liston, "If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize".
Some things in life are inescapable. Some things are just a part of life. I don't care who you are, you're gonna have to experience them and face them. Jesus said, now, how many of you know, it's God taking on flesh? And if anybody got this right, it's Him. He said, "It's impossible". I don't care how good you are, how many church services you go to. I don't care how many times you read through the Bible. I don't care how many names, how many times you call on that great name, this is Jesus speaking. "It is impossible that no offenses should come". Jesus said, now, we have it on good authority, "It is impossible".
So why are we dreaming, that somehow we are gonna be the exception? That we're gonna live a life where we go to church where no one gets on our nerves? That we get into a marriage that, you know, everything's always hunky dory. We're always just singing, you know, Luther Vandross, everything's always, always good. Why do we think that we supposed to have the first perfect family? "Even Jesus," the Bible says, "was at odds with His brother sometimes". Jesus said, "It is impossible". You are naive, you are kidding yourself, if you think that this will not be true for you.
"It is impossible that no offenses should come". And what He's saying, He's saying is that "People are gonna take the bait, but woe to you, if you're the hook". People are gonna trip you up, but woe to you, if you're the stumbling block. We will all face false counsel. We will all face fake friends. We will all deal with false brethren. Why? Because hurt people, hurt people. That's just what we do. He continues. "But woe," whenever you see the word woe in the Bible, it's talking about something you're gonna live to regret deeply. Actually, the word, woe, I believe it's like, I don't know, it's like a groan. It's a guttural groan.
And what He's saying, He's saying, "Payday may not come every week, but it's coming". It says, "Woe to him through whom they do come"! The scary part of living, is that apart from God's grace we will all eventually have the life we deserve. You see, the Grinch was lonely, because at some point he became mean. This didn't just happen to him. You see, no one enjoys being around a bitter person for very long. You see, at some point, something happened to the Grinch that he just would not let go of. But as I say often, unforgiveness is like drinking the poison and then wishing the other person dies.
Jesus continues. He said, "It would be better for him if a millstone," a round stone weighing at least 100 pounds or so, used typically to grind grain, and typically, a donkey or a horse, and sometimes even a person would push that millstone. He said, "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck," watch this, "and he were thrown into the sea". How many of y'all think that sounds just a little bit gangster? Just a little bit gangster?
You see, Jesus was saying that it would be better for you to wrap three cinder bricks around your neck and for you to jump into the Potomac River, than cross Him on this point. So what made the kind, the even tempered, compassionate Jesus start talking about death by drowning? Watch this. "Then that he should offend one of these little ones". What got Jesus so upset? The little ones. Those that were looking like a child looks to his or her father for protection. Those that, with childlike eyes look up to God to defend them, to fight their battles, to preserve them. Those silly people who sing songs like, the eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me.
People who humble themself before God, are the most dangerous people you will ever, ever mess with. In verse three, He said, "Take heed to yourselves". It seems like He's changing the subject, 'cause right? Initially, He's talking about His enemies. But what had probably happened, is the disciples, I'll tell it the way I want. The disciples started high fiving each other, as Jesus was preaching. Yeah, God's gonna get you if you mess with me. Yeah, that's the type of preaching I've been looking for. Yeah Jesus, You need to call down some fire. I need to see some more thunder flex.
Why You letting these people get away with what they getting away with Lord? Lord, I was waiting for that messiah to rise up, that would starting knocking people down and dropping people off bridges, and drowning them in the sea. So, Jesus immediately, when they got all excited, had to pop their balloon, by reminding them, that not only will others need to be forgiven, but the disciples themselves will need to forgive and be forgiven too. So He continues. He says, "If your brother sins against you, rebuke him".
Now, when someone sins against you, Jesus is, I don't know, some Christians are just weird. They think, if you pretend it's not so, it's gonna go away. No, the reality is, it's just gonna get worse. Jesus is saying, "When someone harms you, you're not to pretend like it's not so". We're not gonna walk around pretending it didn't. I know people want that of me as their pastor. Come and pretend that that didn't just happen to you. And they think that's leadership. No! Leadership is not pretending. It's dealing with this issue.
Now, Jesus is not saying that we need to keep, you know, a record of all the tiny petty things that people do to us, but He's talking about when someone harms you in a significant way, we must speak the truth in love, but with the purpose of restoring that relationship. You see, we must be bold. We must be uncompromising and fearless and address the wrong. But make sure every step of the way, you never tire.
Jesus said, "If he repents, forgive him". Now, in Judaism, if you forgave three times, it was commendable, it was honorable. But Jesus continues, He says, "And if he sins against you seven times in a day". Now, this is a whole lot of sinning, because you know, if we sleep eight hours, it's only 16 waking hours. This means every couple hours this person has done something to you reprehensible. I mean apologize, not the next day, I mean a couple hours later. Then he apolo a couple hours. I mean, this is some serious, serious stuff, and it sounded impossible to the disciples. I'm like, yeah. They're like, "Who can love God this much"?
The God who stressed out His arms high and wide. The more people, the more problems. Why? Because we can't help but take ourselves everywhere we go. We got issues. And then when my issues join your issues, we compound the issues. And then we have a third party coming together with our, then we get someone on the phone with another set of issues. Wherever you got people, you're gonna have issues and problems. So Jesus said, here's the antidote. "And if seven times in a day he or she returns you saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive them".
What He was saying is, if enemies that ought to be thrown in the Potomac, repent, and God accepts them, how much more should you and I accept a repentant brother or sister? You see, there's no love without forgiveness, and no forgiveness without love. Every time we refuse to forgive, not only does our heart shrink two sizes, but our life shrinks. You see, our life shrinks or expands in direct proportion to one's courage to let things go. And if you can't forgive, you will eventually have a very, very small circle of friends.
Well, you say, "Why am I so lonely"? Why haven't you let go? 'Cause you start with, you know, this bushel bat, you know, big old group of friends, but then they do something, then they do something. Then you X them out, X them out, X them out. Then before you know it, you're down to you. And then it's just the family that desires to torture themself by visiting you in the holidays. But even then, even then. Our capacity to forgive is actually our capacity to maintain relationship, because all of us are broken. All of us do stuff.
Now, please do not mishear me, because people mishear me and do dangerous things. Now, we are to love people unconditionally, but we're not to trust people unconditionally. That's important. But if we're gonna continue in relationship, I don't have to trust you to love you. In fact, I don't have to trust you to really kind of enjoy and appreciate what God's done in your life and who you are. Let's keep going. Verse five, I'm moving slowly. "And when the disciples heard this, they said, 'Man, this is a tall order.' They said, 'Lord, increase our faith.'"
The disciples immediately knew that they were incapable of measuring up to such a tall order. You see, forgiveness is so much easier to receive, than the give. You see, you would expect Jesus to say, "Well, you know what? You know, it's gonna be easy. No problem". Jesus never promises that forgiveness will be easy. In fact, forgiveness is some of the hardest stuff you will ever do in life. Gandhi reflected, he said, "The weak cannot forgive, because it's only a quality of the strong".
And forgiveness will take your measure as a person. Forgiveness will take your measure as a man or a woman. You don't have to be big to be bitter. There's a whole lot of small people angry and upset. It takes a big heart, a gracious heart to be hung on the cross and yet say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". So the Lord said, they were like, "Increase our faith". And God's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't need more faith. If you just have the basic faith".
You see, the problem wasn't the size of their faith, but the genuineness of their faith. You see, it doesn't take a whole lot of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb, just the authentic stuff. And the Bible says that actually, "Faith can move mountains". The Bible said that, "When Peter walked on the water," He said, "O you have little faith. Why'd you doubt"? Meaning, it didn't take a lot of faith, just genuine faith, for Peter to walk on a stormy ocean.
So, if the Bible says that "He's given us faith that can move mountains," don't be surprised if every now and then God hands you a shovel. I'm preaching better than you saying amen. He said, "If you have faith as a mustard seed". Jesus used something that everyone was aware of, agriculture and farming, to explain and describe the forgiveness process. And if you think forgiveness is just sort of a high moment and it's done, you're missing it.
Forgiveness, for the typical human being is a process. And He explains that. He says, "Now, if you have faith like a seed". And a seed does nothing until it's sown. A mustard seed, we know from from other Scriptures, it starts off as one of the smallest of all seeds. And it starts off as the smallest of all seeds, but it also grows into one of the largest garden plants.
So, when we first decide to forgive, that decision almost feels futile against all the hurt, all the pain, all the anger. And then we have this little bitty decision that, I mean, compared to the mountain, I mean, we've been meditating on this for days. We've gone over and over and over and over it. I mean, this big thing in our heart and mind. And we think that, you know, how is this little bitty, you know, decision to let go gonna ever rise up to the level of what somebody did to you, somebody did to me? But here's the deal. If that little seed, that little decision is kept kept alive, over time, it will grow. And it will only be a matter of time, before it becomes one of the biggest and best decisions of your life.