Out Of The Ordinary

by

Ken Legg

Every time God performs an extraordinary thing He works through ordinary people. He does so for a reason, i.e. that His grace might be magnified. The extraordinary shines best against a backdrop of the ordinary. When God does amazing things through us we, and others, are so conscious that it has nothing to do with us that He gets all the glory!

Paul said, We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Cor.4:7). The word excellence means that which excels or goes beyond the ordinary, i.e. the extraordinary. God deposits the potential for doing the extraordinary in human vessels, clay pots that have been baked in the sun (and some are only half-baked!)

No Superstars In The Kingdom Of God

Some churches pursue famous Christian personalities, such as sports stars, actors, singers, etc., and pay them handsome fees to share their testimonies, believing that their notoriety will impress the unsaved, resulting in salvation. Their logic seems to be, Look who we ve got on our side! Now do you want to become a Christian?

How different to the way Paul viewed things! For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence (1 Cor.1:26-29). We could paraphrase these words this way: God says, I don t do champions; I don t do superstars; I just do ordinary people.

In the kingdom of God there are no extraordinary people, only an extraordinary God who does extraordinary things through ordinary people. The way into the extraordinary is through the ordinary. God uses ordinary people.

Abraham Lincoln once said, God must have loved the plain people because He made so many of them.

One of the things I love about the Bible is that its characters are never portrayed as anything other plain, ordinary people. Oliver Cromwell, when having his portrait painted, asked that he be painted exactly as he was, warts and all . That s how the Bible presents its characters – warts and all! They were people who were painfully aware of the reality that: In me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing (Rom.7:18). Yet God used them in amazing ways.

The Snare Of Success

The problem is that when an extraordinary God does extraordinary things through ordinary people, those ordinary people sometimes start believing they are extraordinary! A bishop, who obviously thought he was someone special, was once invited to speak at a local church. Hardly anyone turned out, so during the service he said to the vicar, Didn t you tell your people I was coming to speak today? The vicar replied, No. But obviously the word got out!

James said, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours (Jas.5:17). I often wondered why he chose Elijah as an example of a man who was just ordinary. Why not Moses, or David, or Joshua, etc? Then I discovered that Elijah actually thought he was different. After his heroic confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, he expected a landslide of Israelites back to their God, beginning at the top with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. But when Jezebel put out a warrant for his arrest he ran for his life. When he could run no more he said to God, Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers! (1 Kings 19:4). Obviously, before this he thought he was superior to others.

Jesus Was An Ordinary Person

Jesus was just an ordinary person. Don t get me wrong, Jesus always has been, is, and always will be God. Yet on earth He didn t live as God but as a man, a very ordinary man. He did not draw crowds because of His physique, charisma or charm. We read in the Bible, He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He lived every moment in total dependence upon the extraordinary working of His Father through Him. He freely admitted His inability to originate any miraculous work or life-changing truth. His words and works came from the Father. He said, Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son does in like manner (Jn.5:19). Every day He presented His humanity to the Father as a vehicle through which God s life could be poured. Every extraordinary thing Jesus did came out of the ordinary. It is in this way that we are to imitate Christ.

Feel comfortable with your weaknesses. Feel comfortable about being ordinary. Because the way into the extraordinary is through the ordinary.

Ken Legg is pastor of New Beginnings Christian Church on the Gold Coast of Australia. He has authored several books, including This Is The Life! (How To Establish Your Heart In The Grace Of God), It’s Not What You Eat That’s Making You Sick But What’s Eating You, etc. You can sign up for Ken’s free ezine, Grace Roots, on his website at http://www.small-groups-ministry.com/Bible-Studies.html

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Out Of The Ordinary