Introduction

In their book, In His Image, Paul Brand and PhilipYancey describe the problems that people who have been blind from birth have when they can suddenly see. Basic notions of space, motion, and shape are incomprehensible at first. It may require up to four weeks of training for these people to learn to distinguish between round, square, and triangular shapes - things we take for granted. One patient mistook an apple for a key and a loaf of bread for a hand. Another, grasping for some clue to please her teacher, seized on color. She learned that a matchbox was yellow; from then on she called every yellow object a matchbox, whether it was an apple, a banana, or a book jacket.

It takes time for newly sighted people to adjust their vision to fully recognize and understand the world around them. I believe the same is true for those who suddenly gain their spiritual sight. It takes time to gain spiritual understanding. If we were to receive it all at once, we would be overwhelmed and unable to fully appreciate and understand what we had. Spiritual understanding is something that comes little by little.

You may remember that Jesus mentioned this problem when He was about to return to Heaven and leave his apostles to do His work. During the three years of His ministry He had not been able to teach them all they needed to know. In John 16:12-13, He said, "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth…"

Spending three years with Jesus learning all He had to teach must have been like trying to get a drink out of a fire hose! Too much at one time.

I learned to drive before the days of fuel injected engines and can still hear my dad saying, "Don’t give it too much gas! You’ll flood it!" As he taught me to drive, I learned to give it gas very carefully and gradually - little by little.

In Mark 4:33 it also mentions this problem of too much, too fast. Mark says, "And with many such parables He was speaking the word to them as they were able to hear it…" Jesus could only teach them as much as they could assimilate - little by little.

This little by little idea, the idea that the input has to be slowed for adequate assimilation, is a theme of a number of passages of Scripture. As I got into my study for this message, I was surprised to find just how often it showed up.

In this sermon, I want to call your attention to two passages where the little by little principle is clearly stated.Then we’ll go to other places in the Bible where it shows up and see how it applies. The first passage I want you to see is Exodus 23:29-30. It says, "I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land."

The second passage is Deuteronomy 7:22: "And the Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.

When Israel was ready to go into the Promised Land under Joshua, God didn’t allow them to conquer Canaan all at once. It was not to their advantage to do so. If the land were conquered all at once, much of it would grow up and go wild before they had a chance to possess it. Wild animals would move in. So He told them he would give it to them little by little. Though they had been marching for 40 years and some of them probably might misunderstand God’s intent (i.e., why He would not move more quickly and give them all the land He had promised) it is easy for us to see that what He did was for their own benefit.

It is important for us to see that often, this is the way God operates in our lives - little by little. Not understanding it can lead to frustration and discouragement so let me show you some places where this little by little principle occurs.

This little by little principle is often seen

I. In God’s Answers To Our Prayers.

How often do we pray for God to do something in our lives, only to be disappointed when we don’t see His answer right away?

We get so used to getting things instantly in our day that it is hard for us to wait. We aren’t used to waiting. We don’t want to wait for anything. We don’t want to wait on dinner. We don’t want to wait to get the things we want to buy. Fast food, fast cash, and fast living are what we’ve come to expect.

Then we encounter a need that only God can fill and we go to Him in prayer, only to discover that His timing and plan for passing out blessings isn’t the same as ours.

Like Job in Job 30:20, we say, "I cry out to Thee for help, but Thou dost not answer me; I stand up, and Thou dost turn Thy attention against me." Can you hear the frustration in Job’s words? God wasn’t listening to him (or so he thought.) At least God wasn’t answering him.

Of course later in the same book we learn that God had been listening all along. In Job 42:12, we read, "And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning…"

Don’t you think those Israelites trying to drive out some of their enemies of Canaan, only to find them unbeatable, must have wondered about God? "You told us you would give over our enemies into our hands, Lord, so why isn’t this working?"

His delay - this giving them the land little by little, as we have already seen, was for their own good, but that must have been as hard for them to see as it sometimes is for us.

I think, due to this little by little principle, we would do well to ask ourselves a few questions:

	Do I have faith in God when I don’t see immediate answers to my prayers?
	Do I tend to take matters into my own hands when God doesn’t meet my timetable?
	Do I patiently wait or impatiently fret when God delays?

William Graham Scroggie wisely wrote, "The Almighty is working on a great scale and will not be hustled by our peevish impetuosity."

We need to remember that God often answers our prayers little by little and that such delays do not mean He has ceased listening to us or ceased answering our prayers.

Twenty-three years transpired between the time Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers and his brothers came and bowed down before Him as his childhood dreams had predicted. Twenty-three years! I think we can all see that God blessed Joseph’s life immensely, but also that it was little by little.

Forty years passed between the time that Moses heard his people cry out for help in the mud pits of Egypt and God finally sent him into the courts of Pharaoh.

Yes, sometimes God works spectacularly to answer our prayers on the spot, and we just love it. I just love it! But probably more often, He works little by little.

This principle also occurs

II. In Gaining Wisdom and Maturity.

James said in James 1:5, "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

The promise of wisdom is there in the Bible, for sure. What we don’t find in this verse is a timetable. That’s because wisdom, like a plant, grows almost imperceptibly, day by day, and only in those who seek it.

Sometimes I hate to admit it, but my generation is about the dumbest generation to ever come along in the history of this nation. (Sorry to the rest of you Baby Boomers for being so blunt.) Yes, we have access to advanced learning tools like computers and libraries on CD-ROM. We can land men on the moon, clone sheep, and grow hair on bald heads, but many of us cannot keep families together, cannot stay out of bankruptcy, and gobble Prozac and Paxil by the bucketful because we are such poor managers of our lives. We believe that when we are eighteen years old, we are adults, even though most of us cannot make it on our own at that point.

The absurdity of our view of adulthood and maturity is also seen in what we call "adult language."

You’ve no doubt seen ads from time to time with these words on them: "Warning: This program contains adult language. Viewer discretion advised." Adult language? Let me tell you some adult language. You don’t even need to plug your ears for this. Ready? Here goes! Character! Integrity! Commitment! Forgiveness! Sacrifice! Determination! Moral Values! That, my friends, is adult language. What many people call adult language today is made up of words that come from a lazy, filthy, foul, undisciplined, immature tongue! We have it all turned around.

What we need today, in large amount, is wisdom. But we’ve bought a bill-of-goods that says knowledge will suffice. It isn’t hard to understand why. Knowledge can be gained rather quickly. Wisdom grows little by little. Wisdom is more than knowledge. Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge to life and make it work. It comes from experience and time.

Maturity, the companion of wisdom isn’t held in high regard today, either. This generation worships youth and indiscretion. Maturity is devalued. Just watch someone stand up for decency and common sense. The chorus or response you will here will not be praise, but criticism. He’ll be called "old" and "outdated." Do you see the disdain for things that take time?

Ann Landers reduced this issue of maturity to a few practical examples. She said, "Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it, and to hear an injustice without wanting to get even."

Someone else said that, instead, many people are like wheelbarrows - they have to be pushed all the time and are easily upset.

Wisdom and maturity come little by little.

We see the principle also

III. In Gaining Wealth.

Here is an important one to understand! You teenagers, especially, listen up.

Proverbs 28:20 says, "A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished."

Proverbs 20:21 says, "An inheritance gained hurriedly at the beginning, will not be blessed in the end."

Proverbs 28:22 says, "A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth, and does not know that want will come upon him."

It is so easy to get caught in the debt trap! All it takes is for your desire for instant gratification to get ahead of your earning power. Add a little envy and a few slick commercials and you’re in. Everything around us is aimed at making that happen.

We see someone else get a new car or new furniture or a new house, and we conclude that since they are no better than we are, we deserve it, too. So out comes the plastic, or we go to the bank or loan institution and pretty soon, we’ve got that new thing, too. Then the bills start coming in.

Kathi and I bought our very first new car while we were ministering in California. We drove junkers for the first 11 years of our marriage, and finally we were able to afford something a little better. It wasn’t much - a little Datsun station wagon, but it was new and it was ours and we were proud of it. (You may remember that we still had it when we first moved to Oregon.)

About the same time we bought that car, I taught and baptized couple who had been married for one year. They had a child, hers, from a previous marriage. One of their big problems was that their income didn’t meet their outgo, so I began to help them get on a budget. They were doing pretty well until we bought that new car. The very next week, they went down and signed a contract for their own new car. When I asked them why they blew the budget, they told me that if I deserved a new car, certainly they did, too. It wasn’t fair, they said, that I should get a new car and they should drive a junker. (Never mind that it took us eleven years to get there. Within 6 months, they were divorced and left the church. The money pressure they were under was one of the factors that brought their demise.

Wealth is best gained little by little, as we can afford it.

We see the little by little principle also at work

IV. In Gaining Honor and Prestige.

We read in 1 Peter 5:6, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time…"

All of us would like to be honored among others. We’d like to make a contribution that others recognize and appreciate. We’d like to make our mark on life. We’d like to make a difference. It is entirely possible (and right) for that to happen.

In most cases, however, there are no shortcuts. In most cases, if we do not want to lose our godly heritage in the process, we have to depend upon God’s timing. You see, honor and respect must be earned and they come "at the proper time."

Have you noticed that it is getting harder and harder to find genuine heroes today? Increasingly it is more difficult to find the excellent role models that used to challenge us all to noble behavior. Today celebrities have replaced heroes.

The difference between a hero and a celebrity is the difference between a General Douglas MacArthur and a Dennis Rodman. A Dr. Jonas Salk (who gave the world the Polio vaccine) and a John McEnroe who gained his notoriety by throwing chairs at officials on the tennis court.

Celebrity status can be gained overnight if you have the right connections. It takes no sacrifice, no noble aspirations, and no depth of character. Indeed, it seems that no depth of character is nearly a requirement! Consequently, people today, especially young people, are inclined to skip the issues of character and commitment which come little by little and at the proper time and opt for what they think is the quick route - the celebrity route. Everybody is trying to draw attention to his/her misdeeds and our society suffers.

The shallowness of character present in so many celebrities is not hard to spot. Just this past week, Tim Allen ("Tim the Toolman Taylor" of the TV sitcom, "Home Improvement" that is highly billed as a family show) was arrested for drunk driving. He was driving his Ferrari 70 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone. The irony of that is that Mr. Allen’s own father was killed by a drunk driver some years back. It wasn’t the "Toolman’s" first indiscretion, either. In 1978 he served 28 months in prison for selling cocaine. The winsome, family oriented, funny guy on the tube apparently isn’t that way at all in real life - or at least he hasn’t been in the past.

Proverbs 26:1 says, "Like snow in summer and like rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool."

Yet we pass honor out to such people all the time. Certainly Tim Allen and other celebrities like him can change and clean up their act and I would be the last one not to leave the door open for such effort on their part. Perhaps some of them will change. But in the meantime, their foolish actions drag us all down more and more.

We need some real heroes today. Could you possibly be one of them? If so, you must realize that true honor and prestige (not celebrity status) are granted little by little.

Finally, the little by little principle is seen

V. In Our Appreciation of Heaven.

As a new Christian, I puzzled at that old song, "Sweeter As the Years God By." I didn’t understand. As I watched people grapple with the ravages of old age and the disappointments of life, I thought, "That song writer must have been crazy when he wrote that song. Things don’t get sweeter as the years go by. They get worse."

Like the physician's wife who said, "My husband gave one of my friends so many iron tablets that the only time she feels really good is when she faces magnetic north!"

Or the guy that said, "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in abject horror like his passengers."

Then there is the one that goes, "Childhood is when you make funny faces in the mirror. Middle age is when the mirror gets even."

The truth is, getting older isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered what the songwriter was talking about. He wasn’t talking about this life getting sweeter. He was talking about the anticipation of our heavenly inheritance getting sweeter. Indeed, it is the infirmities of approaching age that make it so.

We’re all the same. In the cockiness of youth, we laugh at all the geezers around us. We have no idea what’s in store for us - that we’ll be there soon enough. Then there is that first notice that things are slipping. Next we notice they have slipped. Then we slow down and things begin to malfunction. Eventually we have about as many aches as we have moving parts. We’ve reached what Solomon called "the evil days when we say we have no delight in them."

No, it isn’t our physical condition that gets sweeter. It’s what happens to our hope as our physical condition deteriorates. We transfer our hope to heaven. The poet, Edmund Waller, put it this way:

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made.
Stronger by weakness; wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.

Our appreciation of heaven grows little by little. I hope some of you are beginning to realize that.

Conclusion

I came across an interesting story recently about President Calvin Coolidge. Once he invited some friends from Vermont to dine at the White House. (This was back in the days before presidents used the White House as a bed-and-breakfast to earn money for their political party.) The visitors were worried about their table manners, and there wasn’t time to brush up, so they decided to do the only thing available to them at this late hour. They would do everything their host did. All went well until coffee was served. Coolidge poured his into the saucer. The guests did the same. The President added sugar and cream. So did the visitors. Then Coolidge leaned over and placed his saucer on the floor for the cat.

Perhaps in closing, I should add that manners are gained little by little!

Watch for this little by little principle to show up in your life. Learn about it and expect to see it,

	In the way God sometimes answers prayers.
	In the gaining of wisdom and maturity.
	As you accumulate wealth.
	As you seek honor and acceptance.
	As life goes by and you see your appreciation of heaven grow.

Proverbs 21:5 says, "Steady plodding brings prosperity, hasty speculation brings poverty." Indeed it does. Remember that most things come little by little.