Amy C Walters

John’s Birth – Luke 1:57-66

After months of angelic and Spirit-inspired messages going to just a handful of people, now the news of John’s miraculous birth spreads far and wide. The impact may have started small, but God multiplies it.

A few posts ago (in Big News, Small Audience), we noted that all of the messages that have happened so far in the book of Luke, have come to just very small audiences.

Think of Zechariah and his meeting with the angel. It was just the two of them. And in fact, Zechariah couldn’t even tell anybody about it. He was able to sign and signal and maybe even write down about his experience. But the message came just to him.

Or take Mary and her visit with the angel. Again, just the two of them, the angel delivering the message just to Mary. And then the wrestling with “who can I share this with? Who’s gonna believe me?” 

Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, and then the Holy Spirit comes upon Elizabeth, and she speaks about how Mary is the mother of her Lord. Again, an incredible message that must have been divinely delivered for her to say those things, and yet it’s just for those two ladies.

So all of these miraculous messages have come to very small audiences, just a couple of people.

And then we get to this week’s story. And we see so many more people now getting the message.

We see neighbors and relatives excited and rejoicing with Elizabeth. And then at the end of the story, when Zechariah writes on the tablet, “his name is John,” and they all wonder about it. Then his mouth is opened, his tongue is loosed, and he speaks.

And then we see that fear comes upon all of the neighbors, and all of these things are talked about through all the Hill Country of Judea, and all who hear it lay them up in their hearts and wonder about them.

All, all, all, all.

We have gone from messages to just a few people to suddenly now this message is spreading far and wide like wildfire.

Now, Luke the author is using some hyperbole here to make his point. He’s exaggerating intentionally to draw our attention to it. So probably not every single person in the whole Hill Country of Judea heard about it, is talking about it. But Luke is saying, look, this message didn’t stay isolated.

This message took off, where women at wells were talking about it, and shepherds in the fields were talking about it, and families around the table were talking about it.

This message spread far and wide, and there was a lot of excitement and curiosity around it. And it’s cool to see that it wasn’t just a curiosity, about this couple and what’s going on with them. People’s attention is drawn to what God is doing. They wonder, “what then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with John.”

So they see God’s hand in it, and it piques their curiosity. “What is going on here? What’s going to happen from here?”

We go from a message to a few people, a very important message, that then takes on a life of its own and spreads far and wide and gets tons of attention because God is a multiplier. He may start with something small, but then it takes off and multiplies and amplifies and spreads to so many more people.

We see this concept over and over in Scripture–God taking something really small and making something big with it.

And that is exciting because you and I are probably involved in some pretty small things. Maybe there’s a ministry that you’ve started or that you’re participating in, and it’s just not got all the attention that you wanted it to. Maybe there’s just a few people that are a part of it. And yet, through your faithfulness in these small things with this small group, God can multiply that and make the impact far more than you could imagine.

Maybe you’re a stay-at-home mom with your kiddos, and you’re feeling like you’re not having the impact that you would have wanted. And yet, your investment in their lives, your discipleship of those little ones, can one day be multiplied. God’s going to take them and cultivate them and send them out into the world, into the community, into their schools. And they are going to spread that message, and it is going to multiply from the intentional discipleship that you do just with those few kiddos.

My husband is a pastor of discipleship. And when he first moved from youth ministry into this new discipleship ministry, he felt a lot of pressure to really show that this ministry was going to be effective and was going to reach a lot of people. There was pressure to get a lot of people involved and drum up a lot of excitement and invite as many people as possible to participate.

But he had some very wise counsel that said, no, start small. Start with just a couple of people that you can really invest in who will catch the vision for this discipleship and they will take it and continue to grow it.

And so he listened to that advice. He started with just a couple of guys and they met regularly. And then those guys, when the program was finished, went out and gathered their own groups and started the process over again. And those people went out and got more people.

And so within a few years, there were many groups across the church with intentional discipleship pouring into each other’s lives.

And we were seeing people take steps of faith that we had never seen before. We saw timid and quiet and shy people stepping into leadership roles in churches and doing incredible things. We saw groups reaching out into the community and sharing the gospel far and wide.

And it was so exciting, and it all started with just a couple of people. It started small, but God multiplied it.

As someone starting a podcast, I have to preach this message to myself and remind myself of this key truth, that God is the multiplier. Because I really want this podcast to do well. I want so many of you listening to it and finding joy in it and engaging with it.

But I need to remind myself that God is the multiplier, that I need to be faithful with this small thing, and if he wills, he will make it grow. If it’s something that he desires and honors him and is part of his plan, he’s going to multiply it and spread the impact far beyond what I will ever know.

Maybe you have started a new spiritual habit, a Bible study or scripture memorization, prayer time, and you’re just not seeing the impact on your life that you were hoping it would have. But remember, sometimes these things have to start small. Be faithful in those little things, and God will multiply that impact. It may take some time, but God is faithful to do that, and that’s what he is good at, taking the little that we have and growing it and amplifying it.