God Uses Ordinary People to Fulfill Extraordinary Promises

Well, last week we talked about what it's like to actually be forgotten versus how it is to feel forgotten. And we recognize that there are definite differences between the two of those. Being forgotten, actually, I get to blame you because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Feeling forgotten is all me. It's when you begin to wrongly evaluate who you are. You feel like you're being overlooked. You feel like you're forgotten. And then you begin to evaluate your value, your quality of life, your own integrity, dignity, value, and worth. And we saw last week that God never overlooks anybody. [00:34:24] (39 seconds)  #NotForgottenByGod

But in the midst of fulfilling what is the single most important event that had happened in human history up to that moment, and certainly up to this moment, we only wait for one more important event, and that's the second coming of Jesus Christ. God chose to demonstrate something more than just his power to fulfill a promise. He demonstrated that in the midst of all this incredible, epic, predictive, prophetic reality, he doesn't forget the individual people. And that in that story, we saw God both fulfill what was prophetic and personal. [00:35:02] (36 seconds)  #PropheticAndPersonal

And it's often thought that it's extraordinary people who do extraordinary things. The truth of the matter is there are no extraordinary people. There was really three extraordinary people, Adam, Eve, and Jesus. Those were the only ones that were extraordinary. Adam made from a pile of dirt. Eve made from the rib of Adam and Christ, who would, with extraordinary realities, enter this world. They are the only three human beings that did not have any male participation in their creation and conception. [00:36:11] (40 seconds)  #OnlyChristExtraordinary

Ordinary people do, however, accomplish extraordinary things. But people don't accomplish extraordinary things because they're extraordinary. No, it's because there's a powerful God who has purposed things to happen on this earth. And while ordinary people can do extraordinary things, that doesn't mean they're extraordinary. And that would be part of the reason Luke would write to an entire audience of people who basically had very little religious heritage, very little, in a way, of experience in Judaism. [00:36:55] (36 seconds)  #ExtraordinaryBecauseOfGod

They were just a group of people who had been saved but hadn't heard the whole story. They didn't know all the details. They didn't know the inside language. They didn't know the secret handshakes and all those things. They just didn't know it. And Luke begins to tell the stories of these people that he personally interviewed. And in the beginning of his gospel, we see what he wants everybody to know is that God didn't do extraordinary things through extraordinary people. He did extraordinary things through ordinary people. [00:37:31] (31 seconds)  #GodUsesTheOrdinary

Last week, we saw that, you know, in the midst of bringing about the single most important event in human history, he chose a woman who was old and well on in her years, who was unable to have children, and a man who himself called himself very old. They were able to conceive and they would give birth to John the Baptist. Two people, probably nobody who read the gospel of Luke, his audience, ever heard their names before. [00:38:02] (27 seconds)  #GodUsesTheUnexpected

Now, today's story, they're going to know this name immediately. But here's the thing. They're going to immediately think, oh, I know this lady. Now, this is one extraordinary woman. And Luke wants to write that, no, she's pretty ordinary. In fact, she's as ordinary as you're ordinary. In fact, God's willing to do almost identical extraordinary things through you that he did through her. [00:38:29] (26 seconds)  #MaryWasOrdinary

And a lot of people, that's not possible. I know. But it is possible. And it isn't because this person was extraordinary that God used them. No. It's actually because they were well beyond ordinary that God used them. So that he could get the glory? Mm-mm. Not at all. He doesn't need to worry about who's going to get the glory. Was it so that this person could get the credit? No, I don't think he's telling us the story for that reason either. I think Luke tells us this story so you, an ordinary person, could realize that God wants to do extraordinary things in you and through you as well. [00:38:56] (34 seconds)  #OrdinaryIsNotLimiting

So today, as Luke tells us a story that's extraordinarily well known, the fulfillment of God's promises are accomplished through ordinary people. You don't have to become anything. You just have to be everything that God created you to be. And you being you, being just an ordinary you, God will use your ordinariness surely to accomplish amazing things. Some people have more extraordinary accomplishments, but they're still just ordinary people who God allowed and blessed to do something extraordinary. [00:39:43] (37 seconds)  #OrdinaryToExtraordinary

This is when betrothals were happening in that day. She'd get betrothed, which is a legal engagement. You can only end it by divorce. And so basically, the only thing that hasn't happened is the wedding ceremony. So you got a 13-year-old girl. We really don't even get her name yet. She's so ordinary. And she's ordinarily pledged to a man, just like all teenage girls would have been pledged to a man. This guy's name is Joseph. Now, he does have a little something going for him. He's a descendant of David. And as I read that prophecy for you, you now realize why that was so important. [00:43:32] (39 seconds)  #OrdinaryGirlChosen

I mean, this is a pretty sleepy town, a pretty small town. They're pretty typical. And to be a female virgin, you are about as powerless as you could possibly be. You couldn't own property. You couldn't live outside your dad's home. So it's about as ordinary as you get. So when you see the first couple of verses, I think the natural question would be, So why is she highly favored? Well, that's the question. There's no possible explanation other than the heart of God. God, he chose to favor her. [00:44:46] (47 seconds)  #ChosenFromOrdinary

What puts her in a position to do extraordinary things is not that she was extraordinary. She was unbelievably ordinary, painfully ordinary. And where she came from and where she lived and how she was raised and who she was marrying, none of that mattered. There was only one thing that mattered. God said she was highly favored. All because God chose to move into a very ordinary girl's life and do something very extraordinary. [00:45:33] (31 seconds)  #FavoredYetOrdinary

And you and I have to climb into both phases of that. Part of the cosmic reality for you is that this is God finally beginning the process of fulfilling the long-awaited promise of a Savior coming to die for your sins, to raise himself back to life so that you and I could spend eternity with God. No question about that. But there's a personal side to this as well. That you matter and that God is going in an epic moment, like the single most important moment in human history up until the second coming. He's using extraordinarily ordinary people to accomplish that. [00:46:47] (42 seconds)  #YouMatterGodsPlan

So what could God not do in and through you? And anything he chooses to do in you and through you is extraordinary. Because it's he who is the extra to your ordinary that makes it mind-blowing. It doesn't have to be that you will give birth to Messiah. In fact, truth be known, every single solitary follower of Jesus Christ is much like Mary. You are pregnant with opportunity. [00:47:29] (35 seconds)  #PregnantWithOpportunity

You can birth Christ in the life of a lost person. You, through gentleness, companionship, community, relationship, by proclaiming the gospel, you literally can birth Christ in someone. You're pregnant with the potential to alter an individual's eternity. That's why I'm never afraid to ask people to give to what God's doing. Because that's part of our capacity to give to birth Christ again anew as a person is born again in Christ Jesus the Lord. [00:48:05] (42 seconds)  #BirthChristInOthers

Ordinary people in ordinary places experience the extraordinary fulfillment of God's ancient promises. The long-awaited king that would come to fulfill the covenant promise of God that David, you shall always have a king on the throne. Always. Now have they always had one? No. The kingdom got split. They got out of the monarchy. And now we're awaiting that fulfillment. And here it comes. [00:48:46] (31 seconds)  #OrdinaryPlacesExtraordinaryPromises

Now, in the first time we see it, you are highly favored. It's only used twice in all of scripture. See the Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6 in here. It's the bestowing of something irrationally wonderful upon a human being purely because of the grace of God. But Mary found favor with God. And to find favor, this is a verb. This is an active verb. She actively pursued the right way to live. She pursued the favor of God and she found it. [00:50:05] (35 seconds)  #PursueGodsFavor

And guess what happens when you look for God's favor? You find it. And she found it. You have found the favor of God. God, so what are we doing? You think about the whole pursuit of being ordinary is to simply do the things that God has called you and I to do for as long as we have to do it in order for God to finally show up and do what only he can do. [00:51:23] (27 seconds)  #FindGodsFavor

The reason, now, while virginity is a beautiful thing to offer your husbands without question, and God has that expectation for all people, the purpose of this being so significant was so that there was no doubt that there was no man involved in the conception of Christ. For then he would have been of the seed of Adam. And if he was the seed of Adam, he would have been born dead in his trespasses. So God had to do the extraordinary so that this child would not have the genes of Adam coursing through his veins. That's why the virgin birth matters deeply. [00:57:53] (38 seconds)  #VirginBirthMatters

And isn't it powerful that the whole way that God took the substance of what could be in Genesis chapter 1, when God had darkness over the surface of the earth and the matter didn't fully yet matter the way it could completely matter until what happened, the Spirit of God descended. When the Spirit of God descended, God spoke. He cast and planted his seed into the matter. And through the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, light erupted. And that's the same thing happening. [00:58:53] (37 seconds)  #SpiritBringsLife