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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

John Shin

The Little Things

Good morning and happy Sabbath, F and Hope!

It's been a little while since I've seen everyone here.

I don't know how many of you have given messages before, but whenever I am asked to give a message, the thought always occurs to me, what do I have to share with the people of God?

What is it that I have on my heart that's worthwhile having all of your attention here to listen to?

And it's really a humbling prospect because honestly, the majority of the time, I say, I have nothing.

And so I would ask for your prayers as I speak today, that the Lord will put his words in my mouth, that it won't be beyond display, and that if The Lord has some message for you today that the message will strike home to the heart.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for once again giving us this chance to gather as a family in Christ, to talk about the things that really matter, to worship you, to give us your full attention and adoration.

As I give this message this morning, Lord, I first pray that you'll forgive me of my sins, my unworthiness, that you'll put your words in my mouth, and that your message will come through clear.

So these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So 1915, World War I was raging on, and at that time it was only in Europe, so America had not joined the war yet.

And it was maintaining this neutral position, but many Americans at that time supported the German war effort, and there was kind of a battle to win the hearts and minds of Americans on both sides.

So the German high command obviously wanted the Americans to ultimately enter the war on their side.

Heinrich Albert and sent him to America to help with this initiative to win the popular sentiment over to the side of the Germans.

And he was going to work as an assistant to Johann von Bergstorff, who was Germany's ambassador to the United States at that time.

And what they were going to do was that they were going to buy shares in popular newspapers to get them to publish stories that would help sway the public opinion towards entering to war on Germany's side.

So Albert became the money man in this scheme, and Because of his position, he started receiving and sending large quantities of money, and this attracted the attention of the Secret Service, which at that time was tasked with monitoring Germany's clandestine operations in the U.S.

So they started monitoring Heinrich Albert's every move.

On 1 day, July 24, 1915, at about 3.30 in the afternoon, Albert stepped onto a train in Harlem, New York, carrying a briefcase.

And during that train ride, unbeknownst to him, he was being tailed by a Secret Service agent named Frank Burdick.

And during the train ride, Albert fell asleep in the middle of the ride.

And when he awoke, he noticed that his briefcase was missing.

And what happened was when he fell asleep, Frank Burke took that opportunity to steal Albert's briefcase, and it just so happened that the briefcase was chock full of all this evidence showing that Germany was working to buy out the American media.

Finally had concrete evidence that Germany was trying to manipulate the American people.

So The Secret Service accidentally leaked this information to the press, and then the resulting news coverage created a firestorm of outrage in the U.S.

That turned the tide of public opinion against Germany, ultimately causing the United States to join the war on the side of the Allies in 1917.

What might have happened had Heinrich Albert not napped in the train on that fateful day in July 1915?

It might be too far of a stretch to say that that was the decisive moment, but it leaves open the question, could the U.S.

Have been manipulated to join the war on the side of the Germans?

So you could say that potentially 1 man's nap might have changed the course of world history.

You see, time and time again, history has shown us that it's the little things that make a big difference.

In popular culture, we see examples of this all the time.

You see entire careers and reputations that are destroyed by 1 poorly worded public statement.

In this era of cancel culture, we know that's very true.

1 small act of indiscretion committed many years ago can surface to destroy marriages and families.

You see, this idea that small changes can have big consequences is actually formally studied in a field known as chaos theory, but it's popularized in our culture by the term the butterfly effect.

Essentially, This example is a butterfly in Mexico flaps its wings and causes a cascading change in atmospheric events that ultimately results in a tornado in Kansas.

So chaos theory teaches that there is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

So in other words, there is no such thing as a little thing because little things always have big consequences.

The Bible is replete with examples of this as well.

The reason why the sword never left David's house is why.

He made this small decision to keep on looking when he saw Bathsheba on that rooftop.

Daniel's profound impact with the rulers of his day and on world history and even our lives can really be traced back to a simple decision to say no to a single meal.

So today I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you all about the little things in life.

Because the little things are really the big things, aren't they?

I think this is something that is relatively easy for us to grasp intellectually, but difficult to comprehend emotionally, because it's easy for us to acknowledge that the little things are important, but we don't act as if they are.

It says, there are few who realize the influence of the little things of life upon the development of character.

Nothing with which we have to do is really small.

The varied circumstances that we meet day by day are designed to test our faithfulness and to qualify us for greater trusts.

By adherence to the principle in the transactions of ordinary life, the mind becomes accustomed to hold the claims of duty above those of pleasure and inclination.

Minds thus disciplined are not wavering between right and wrong like the reed trembling in the wind.

They are loyal to duty because they have trained themselves to habits of fidelity and truth.

By faithfulness in that which is least, they acquire strength to be faithful in greater matters.

The formation of a noble character is the work of a lifetime, and must be the result of diligent and persevering effort.

You see, friends, the battle for our souls is fought in the seemingly mundane arena of our day-to-day decisions.

It's not the big things that we all prepare for, that we all talk about, that determines our characters.

It's the little things that are not celebrated that escapes our notice, that escapes the attentions of others.

The roads that lead to both heaven and hell are paved with millions of small decisions that push us forward 1 tiny step along the respective path.

And in the scope of 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or even 1 year, our journey may seem imperceptible, and we may not even notice that our small actions are having any effect on our characters.

But the Bible and the laws of life set in motion before time began assure us that they are.

And that's what I want to talk about today, the little things in life.

But before I talk about that, I want to talk to you about something called the flywheel effect.

So imagine a flywheel is a metal disc that rotates and it's used in various mechanical apparatuses.

It's a massive disc mounted horizontally on an axle.

Let's say that it's 30 feet in diameter, it's 2 feet thick, weighs 5, 000 pounds.

Your job is to get the flywheel rotating.

Obviously, you have to push on it to get it rotating.

So you give it the biggest push you've got, barely budges, push again, you push again, and luckily the axle is well greased because it slowly starts to rotate.

Then you keep pushing and as you keep adding more and more pushes, it slowly rotates faster and faster and eventually builds up some speed.

And when it builds up some amount of momentum, now the momentum of the fly wheel compounds with your own efforts so that even though you're pushing at the same strength and rate, it's going faster and faster, and you're getting more and more effect.

So The question is, as the flywheel gets to the point where now it's really spinning fast, what was the 1 push that got the flywheel to spin at its current rate?

I heard the first 1, I heard the last 1, and you are all wrong.

There was no single push that got the flywheel to rotate at its current fast rate.

It was the aggregation of a thousand small pushes that in the collective got the flywheel to where it's at right now.

Each individual push, so small, so seemingly inconsequential, but when taken in the aggregate has a huge effect.

This is analogous to the effect of our small day-to-day decisions.

There is no 1 decision that determines our characters and our destinies.

Rather, it's our decisions in the aggregate that creates the momentum either towards God or away from Him.

So I want to dwell on this concept of momentum.

So imagine what it would take to cause this spinning flywheel to suddenly rotate in the opposite direction.

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The Little Things

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