In the world of social media people are seeking to make a quick name for themselves. To put up a few videos and immediately skyrocket to the fame of influencers. In Gospel ministry people want the shortest route to the highest office. It’s no wonder that soon we see them giving themselves countless titles; bishop, apostle, prophetess. We want to be great, to do great things and do them quickly. We want stories written about our influence. Songs composed about our intellect. And empires built on our legacy. We want to be extraordinary. But have you ever considered the biblical path? Though we tend to imagine our Christian heritage as a path of heroes more often than not we see ordinary men with an extraordinary God. We see weak disciples with a mighty Saviour. We see ordinary men like Philip used mightily by the powerful Holy Spirit, Acts 8. We see very unlikely men turned into God’s messengers for the nations like Saul, Acts 9:15. Our God is the God of the ordinary.
Because God is powerful and mighty he doesn’t need the powerful and mighty. He looks for ordinary men who are willing to listen and obey. The powerful and the mighty so oftenly have their path cut out for themselves. Such men he must first overcome with his mighty power as he did the apostle Paul. And because he’s the powerful God changing men is still child’s play for him. He turns the hearts of kings and wields his enemies to his cause. He did that with the powerful empires of Assyria and Babylon. But more oftenly he shows his mighty power through the weak and the ordinary. He goes for uneducated fishermen as the agents to reach the world. You and I would have picked the scholars in the temple but Jesus chose the weak for the great work of turning the world upside down with the Gospel. You’d think Jesus would be born in the palace or at least the high priest’s house but he’s born to a poor family in a manger. You expect him to start out his ministry immediately and skyrocket to fame but no, he has about thirty years of ordinary life.
It seems to me there’s a biblical signature that everyone who achieved great things was an ordinary man with an extraordinary God. David is a nobody until God calls him to be king while foregoing his mighty brothers, 1 Samuel 16. Solomon is the last person deserving to be King. He’s the son of an adulterer and murderer. He’s a nobody until God chooses to accomplish his will in him. He’s a weak ordinary man whom God grants powerful godly wisdom. Jeremiah is not the man you expect to be a great prophet. In our standards today he’d be years away from someone worth listening to. He would some years to hang around the mighty men of God. But no, God uses a child to speak to his people. It is the ordinary that God uses to accomplish his will. The world goes for the extraordinary; for the most bright man in the room, for the strongest man and for the most powerful candidate. But the most powerful God tends to go for the weakest, the most unlikely and the most ordinary. Why? Because as Paul tells us, his power is made manifest in our weaknesses, see 2 Cor 12:9.
Perhaps we need to stop trying to be great and try pursuing the great God instead. Maybe we don’t need to be the greatest pastor, Christian influencer and missionary after all. Our pursuit for greatness can very easily obscure God’s greatness. As John the Baptist said, we must decrease so that he may increase, John 3:30. We rarely see the might of God if we are mighty men in our own thinking. Mostly we will see our great doing with a bit of luck from God. But if we consider ourselves weak, as we truly are, and look to the powerful God then we will truly serve and worship him. We cannot worship until we are brought to our knees. We cannot serve him until we understand that being a gatekeeper in his house is worth more than a thousand titles. The great commission will not be fulfilled by great men. Such will actually tend to establish their names and empires. No, the great commission will be fulfilled by ordinary men and women who God uses in extraordinary ways. What we need are ordinary men who are willing to listen and obey the call of the extraordinary God.
A life in time to Preach 