Honey, We've Shrunk the Lord!

 

In the 1980's, Walt Disney Productions made a movie. In this movie a man, who was sort of a scientist, was doing all these experiments in his garage. One day while he was working on one of his experiments he shrunk the kids.  The kids went form being their regular size down to being the size of ant.  He realized that he had made a mistake and quickly ran to tell his wife, "Honey, I shrunk the kids." 

 

Text:  Ephesians 4:13  "till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:" 

 

God's purpose for the five-fold ministry is to make us the way God wants us to be.  First of all, notice what it says, "till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."  He wants us to come into unity, then understand the knowledge of the Son of God, then to be made complete, adult, grown-up unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  I believe that because we think that it is such a monumental task and there is no way that it is going to happen to me, in order for us to look like Christ we have had to shrink Christ down to our size.  God's plan for us is to grow us up, to be Sons and Daughters of the Most High God.  Sons and Daughters who have authority.  Sons and Daughters who will act like Kings Kids.  But because we haven't experienced that and because we don't have the knowledge of the Son of God, we have had to shrink God down in order to make the Word of God look good.  We don't see what God tells us that we ought to be seeing, because we did not see what Jesus did, and what the disciples did and what the early church did.  We don't very often see what is happening in Toronto or Brownsville or China, Africa or South America. Since we don't see the power of God we have had to shrink Gd down.  We have had to think, maybe God doesn't do miracles anymore; maybe that went out with the first century; maybe that was just so He could get the church established, or maybe the power of the Holy Ghost has been diminished somehow, afterall it has been two thousand years and a lot of people have been drawing on that power; maybe the power of the Spirit of God has gone down.  Since we don't experience it the way the Word of God tells it, then we have to make our experience fit the Word of God.  In order to do that we have to make God small. 

 

He wants to grow us up to His size and because we refuse and don't want to do what it takes we have to shrink Him down to our size.  Jesus went about everywhere doing good and everytime He preached once He was done, sometimes before, He laid hands on the sick and they recovered.  We read a Scripture last Sunday morning, "and forget not all His benefits who forgives all our iniquities, and heals all of our diseases"(Ps 103:3).  Some of us think that we are so bad that God can't forgive us.  You ain't so bad!!!  We're not as bad as we think we are besides your badness or goodness doesn't matter.  We think that people are bad so they are not going to make it.  No!  People don't know Jesus, so therefore, they are not going to make it.  If you're so good and you think that you're just going to make it on your own then you are going to be very surprised. 

 

J. B. Phillips, the Scottish translator of the NT, The Phillips Version, wrote another little book, "Your God is too Small."  What we have done is shrunk God down to size.  When we pray we don't really expect much, therefore we don't really get much.  When we witness we don't expect somebody to get saved, so they don't.  We have shrunk God down so much that we only take Him to church with us at designated times.

 

Look at where Jesus went.  He went to the synagogue on Sunday and went for the hour of prayer, but the rest of the time He was out amongst the people.  Where did Paul go? Out into the market place. Where did Phillip go? He went out to where the people were. We've shrunk God down to size and say, "I couldn't pray for someone outside the Church, afterall what would happen if nothing did happen."  Not anymore than what is happening now because nothing seems to be happening. 

 

I was reading a book this week about a man that was assigned to jury duty.  He was a Christian man.  Before he left the house for the jury duty he prayed, "Lord, let me be an influence for you today." In the jury pool, he saw a man in a wheelchair.  During one of the breaks he went over to the man in the wheelchair and began talking with him.  He discovered that he was a Christian as well, and he told him that he would like to pray for him so he could walk.  He grabbed ahold of his hands and began to pray, once he was done praying, he told him to get up.  The man in the wheelchair said, "What happens if I fall."  He responded, "What happens if you don't."  He got up out of the wheelchair and God made him whole, just like that.  They had to call a recess because people were being touched by the Holy Spirit and were getting saved and filled with the Holy Spirit right there int he middle of the court room.  Why?  Because one man dared not to shrink God down to his size. 

 

What we are basically saying is, "God you can come Sunday morning."  Then seeing that most of us don't make it Sunday night or Wednesday night, we figure that God will not be there anyway.  We've shrunk Him down.  The reality of it is, the Word of God tells us things and we just simply do not believe thme. When people were healed in Jesus' ministry He said, "Your faith has made you whole."  We think that the reason people were healed in Jesus' ministry is because He was God. WRONG!!  If you look at Philippians 2 you'll find out that Jesus emptied Himself of being God and took on the form of a man and came down here as a servant.  Now a servant has to have a master.  Jesus said, "I don't do anything on my own accord, I only do what my Father tells me to do."

 

Don't tell me that reason why everyone that came to Jesus got healed because Jesus was God.  The reason why everyone was healed is because Jesus believed that they would be and so they were.  The reason why people are not healed today is because we don't pray for them and when we do we don't expect much to happen, so nothing happens. Here are just a few Scriptures from the Word of God that tell us who we are as Sons & Daughters of the Most Hight God. (I could read to you all of the Scriptures but we would be here until 6pm tonight, so I will just give you enough so that you will get the idea). 

 

Psalm 23:1 - "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."  Do you know that most of God's people are in want today!  Do you know why?  They don't believe the Word of God, so they have shrunk God down to their size.  James tells us the same thing in chapter 1, only he takes a little bit of a different way to get to the part where "The Lord is my shepherd..."  He says, (vs2) "My brethern, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of you faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."  What most Christians do when they get into rough circumstances, is they moan and groan and complain and don't come to church and don't pay their tithes and they don't want anything to do with God because God was suppose to take care of them. "Count it all JOY when you fall into diverse temptations."

Why? Because if we submit ourselves to God and believe that God is who He says He is, there is a cycle that is going to happen and we are going to get from beingin diverse temptations to being entire, wanting nothing.  When the enemy comes against you say, "Praise God! Hallelujah!  I must be doing something right, because if I wasn't doing something for God the devil wouldn't be bothering with me."  Rejoice!  Be like Paul and Silas in the midnight hour, wondering what they were going to do.  They didn't moan and groan and complain, they sang praises to Him.  That is God's kind of person, He is going to grow you up.  Why do you think you go through things?  It is to get you to grow up.  But because we don't want to go through the tough stuff, we shrink God down. "I can do all!!" 

If I ask most Christians if they were a man or a mouse, they would ask if I had any cheese.  Why?  Because we do not believe that we are men and women of God and we don't believe that God is who He says He is.  I can do it!  Why?  Because God said so.  I'm not doing it in my strength, I'm doing it in His.  When I pray for someone and they get completely healed, I'm not a healer, God is, but when I pray I expect something to happen.  I've seen God take a person who was so full of cancer that according to the doctors he had only two weeks to live and heal him.  God is as big as He says He is!!!! AMEN!!!!

 

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)  We don't believe that either.  If we took the Bible and ripped out what we don't believe, we would not have much of a bible left.  You might say you believe but then James would say, "Show me." (James 2:14-26)  "If you believe then prove it to me."  James didn't shrink God down, NO, he allowed God to grow him up.  There are a lot of churches today where I would have been ushered out of their building, because they don't believe in God today.  They don't believe God heals, that went out years ago.  They don't believe God baptizes int he Holy Ghost anymore and if He does it is according to what they think, not according to what God says.  When I read the Word of God and it says that they were baptized in the Holy Ghost then they spoke in tongues, I believe it.  In Acts 10, Peter took some Jews along with him and he was preaching at Cornelius' house and while he was yet preaching, they got saved and were filled with the Holy Ghost.  Peter didn't shrink God down.

 

Luke 10:19 - "Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you."  There is another Scripture that we really don't believe.  We say, "Let's face it the devil is powerful."  No, he is a defeated foe, his goose has already been cooked at Calvary, and he and his demons know it.  "Have you come torment us before our time?"  They know what their end result is going to be, an eternal torment.  What did Jesus say when the devil tempted Him? "IT IS WRITTEN!"  What do we do when the enemy comes after us?  Most of us worry and complain.   GROW UP!!  Do what Jesus did--READ IT, devil!!  Tell him, "You use to get me but not anymore.  I have decided to come into unity with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, I've been learning the knowledge of the Son of God, I'm starting to grow up.  What I use to do as a kid, I don't do anymore because I am grown-up." 

 

I believe that God is a powerful as His Word declares that He is and I want to see it.  Don't quit praying for someone if you prayed once and they did not get healed.  What does the Word say, "Ask and yea shall receive."  (Matt 7:7)

 

Since we haven't seen the power of God working the way it ought to we don't think that it does work anymore so we don't have faith.  Something along the way has happened to hearing the Word of God and having it become faith in us.  "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." (Rom 10:17)  We start out with God's Word then we get to the hearing of God Word and between that  and the action of faith something should happen.  Does your experience line up with the Word of God?  Once the disciples were baptized in the Holy Ghost all of them that were brought to the disciples were healed. They grew-up. 

 

Is Jesus here today?  Is He?  Some of you are not so sure, maybe you have shrunk Jesus down so much you don't think He shows up anymore.  "Wherever two or three are gathered in My name...."  Jesus said, "Wherever God's people are lifting up My name, I am there."  Wherever God's people are singing and shouting and dancing and running and jumping and whatever else you want to do in the name of the Lord. Many people would say, "Wait a minute pastor, you have to do things decently and in order."  Yes, that's true, that is what it says, but you and I don't get to say what is decent and in order.  God does.  Since we don't like that, we have shrunk God down so He fits what makes us comfortable.  God is saying, "It is time for you to decide that you need some new wine skins.  Because I'm going to move and when I do, if you put Me in that old wine skin of yours with your tradition, with you having cut Me down to size, you have shrunk Me down so much, that when I get into you I am going to burst you wide open."

 

You are going to blow because you don't think God can work that way.  That is what happens in revivals. Do you know why revivals stop?  Because people say God can't do it that way.  God can do whatever He wants.  Once we experience something with God, we think that is how God is going to do it everytime.  No!  He is going to do it the way He want to go it.  And since He wants to grow you up to His size He is going to use various ways to do that.  Last time you might have been slain in the Spirit and laying on the floor for a couple of hours.  Don't be a flopper.  I know some people that if I just look at them cross-eyed they will end up ont he floor, all because that is how God use to meet them.  God wants to grow them up from that.  That doesn't mean that you will never get slain in the Spirit again but maybe He wants you to get plain old "drunk in the Spirit."  God can do what He wants, it is time you quit putting limits on God and quit shrinking Him down.  There were some people here last week that got a touch from God, I guess they didn't want too much because they didn't come back this week.  Afterall, let's not get fanatical.  All a fanatic is, is someone that loves Jesus more than you do and is not bothered by the way he worships.  Whne King David's wife got after him about his worship, David just said, "You ain't seen nothing yet baby.  I can get way more foolish than that." 

 

The word "halal" means to act clamerously foolish and have a party.  God is not ashamed of that, but because we are prim and proper we seem to think that He is ashamed.  We may be prim and proper at church, but if you see us at a ball game and the ref makes a wrong call we are all over him.  If you can do that at the ball game friday night, you can do it in church Sunday morning.  It only bothers those of you that are not free from your pride yet, those who have boxed God in and tole Him, "God if you are going to come into our church this is the way you have to come."  God is saying, "Excuse me I don't take orders from anyone, I'll go to some church that wants me to show up and I can do what I want." 

 

It's time to take the clamps off God.  It is time to start taking God with us everywhere we go.  It is time that when we are in the local stores, that if we see a need, we minister to it.  It's time we started making an impact for God.  When you do into the stores if you are there for a purpose, if you are saved and filled with the Holy Ghost this is what you need to do:  Don't just go and pick the items you need.  Walk around a bit.  Walk up and down the aisles, pray, "Lord, there are people here that need ministering to, there are a lot of unsaved people here.  I need to minister to somebody today, help me." 

 

If we are going to make an impact we need to take Jesus out there with us, that is what Jesus did.  Are we suppose to be Christ like or what?  We've shrunk God down so much that He can't heal a cold hardly.  We seem to have more faith in medicine than we do in God.  Here is some medicine from God's Word:  "I am the God that healeth thee."  He took 39 stripes upon His back so you and I could be made absolutely whole.  You ought to expect good things to happen.  We need to expect good things to happen.