CrossLife Church- Pflugerville, TX

4 Big Things and Jesus

Why do you stop for gas at Bucee’s (for non-Texans, these are the world’s largest convenience stores) when the little Exxon station is a lot easier? 

Why do you pay $85 for a concert ticket when you can watch a few good songs on YouTube?

Why take a Disney cruise with the kids when they can binge the Disney channel at home? 

One word: bigness. And where you have bigness you have, well, more. More discoveries and delights. More options and opportunities. More stimuli and, well, usually more spending (especially at Bucee’s, they get me every time, I think I’m just stopping to fill up and empty out, and then walk out with an armload of Beaver Nuggets, beef jerky and a big soda). 

At CrossLife in our Starting Point welcome sessions for new people, I talk about the Big 3 and then we discuss differences. The Big 3 are the biggest and best spiritual habits for connecting to Jesus and living a more fulfilling life. 

They are: 1) Personal Bible reading, meditation and prayer, 2) small group Bible study in LifeGroups, and 3) worship on Sundays. Why do you need worship on Sundays when you can sing praises to Jesus while doing dishes at home? 

Bigness. Here, you worship Jesus more. You wear a cross on your necklace but that’s nothing compared to the cross in our worship center! The music is live, the community is real and you have a personal relationship with a pastor you can trust to take you deeper into faith and the Bible.

If you are not in worship, you are worshiping Jesus less. If you are in worship, you are worshiping Jesus more. 

As much as a central location for Christians to gather is important today, it was even more important for believers during Jesus’ time. They didn’t have YouTube, podcasts or copies of the Bible available on Amazon. 

That’s why God told King Solomon to build the temple in 1,000 BC. About 500 years later it was destroyed by the Babylonians but then rebuilt. About 500 years later, before Jesus was born, King Herod renovated and massively expanded the temple. So he built bigness, just in time for Jesus’ life and ministry.

King Herod’s expansion of the temple was massive. He increased the size of the temple mount platform to 40 acres (25 football fields). He employed 10,000 men along with Roman craftsmen, and it took approximately 10 years to build. The small size limestone building blocks he quarried weigh 2 to 5 tons, the big ones ten times that. The temple contains what might be the largest one-piece quarried stone in history: 41 feet long, 11 feet high, and weighing 370 tons. That’s bigness!

But why? Herod had his political and egotistical reasons, but God had bigger and better ones: so the bigness could attract big attention for his big grace, his big love, and the big gift he gives the world in his Son Jesus.

How big is Jesus? How big is he to you? How big are his promises? His mission? Jesus, referring to himself as Savior, says it all, “I tell you that something greater than the temple is here” (Matthew 12:6). 

PRAYER: Sometimes, Jesus, I actually think that I’m bigger than you are. I have bigger ideas and solutions. But even my big accomplishments are tiny compared to the bigness of your grace and promises. In faith, I concede. You are greater, and I’m glad. Amen.

FOR YOUR KIDS: Talk to your kids about The Big 3, and what makes worship so big, while all 3 are important in their own way. Then take them to church every Sunday!