WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.679 Okay, for the month of August we're doing something slightly different, or I'm doing 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:09.679 a different series, a short series of four sermons. 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:15.720 We took a break before the summer from Romans, and we'll go back to Romans in September. 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:20.559 But we're taking a break morning and evening doing something, going through Philippians, 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.039 whistle stop tour of Philippians this evening. 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:26.800 But this morning we're looking at a theme of ordinary Christians. 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:31.240 So today the theme is I am ordinary. 00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:35.719 Next Sunday morning, God willing, it will be I am a spiritual cynic, and then I am a 00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:39.600 spiritual failure, and then I have nothing to offer. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:43.000 Good, bright, encouraging stuff, you know? 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.320 And these are the themes that we're going to look at under the term of being an ordinary 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:48.320 Christian. 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:51.640 Why did I choose this theme? 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:59.000 Well, I guess ultimately because I believe God led me to consider it. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:04.879 But I don't think it's something that's preached about very often in our popes. 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:10.359 These are matters that I battle and struggle with, and so I guess most of us do also. 00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:16.079 And it's something that, passively, I hear a lot from people in their lives, these kind 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:22.640 of issues, paralysis spiritually, guilt, misunderstanding of what it is we possess and 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:30.439 what it means in our lives to be a Christian, and what our expectations are of being a Christian. 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:32.959 I'm just ordinary. 00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:33.959 That's all I am. 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:35.560 I'm plain and ordinary. 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:37.959 And that's what we say so often, isn't it? 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:39.359 You can't expect of me. 00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:41.439 I'm just ordinary. 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:45.079 And I'm just wanting to ask, is that a bad thing? 00:01:45.079 --> 00:01:48.840 Is that a bad thing before God and is it a bad thing spiritually? 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:51.000 What are you wanting to be? 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:54.959 Are you wanting to be extraordinary? 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.840 Are you wanting to be super special? 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:03.200 Do you look at your Christian life and spend your time comparing yourself with others? 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:04.200 Badly. 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:05.640 I'm not like them. 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:06.879 I'm not as good as them. 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:08.400 I can't be like them. 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:10.759 I fail in what I am. 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:15.759 Or do we sometimes use the ordinariness as an excuse for behaving badly? 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:18.679 Well, I'm just an ordinary Christian. 00:02:18.679 --> 00:02:22.679 You can't expect me to be holy or separate or different. 00:02:22.679 --> 00:02:30.399 Maybe we grade people into ordinary and extraordinary or plain and simple and then important and 00:02:30.399 --> 00:02:32.399 significant. 00:02:32.399 --> 00:02:36.680 Maybe particularly in this age and generation of the internet where we were constantly bombarded 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:43.960 with amazing Christians and amazing spiritual leaders. 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:49.319 It could be that we use it to deny our responsibility or a genuine feeling of inadequacy. 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:54.640 I'll probably be coming back to that in and out of this series because that's no bad 00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:56.040 thing, is it? 00:02:56.040 --> 00:03:00.960 It's no bad thing to have a genuine sense of inadequacy depending on what we do with 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:03.159 it, depending on where we take it. 00:03:03.159 --> 00:03:08.919 And really that's what the direction that I would look to be going in through Scripture 00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:10.639 over these few weeks. 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:15.639 And I want to say today, God is happy with ordinary. 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.120 God is happy with ordinary. 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:26.000 And I want to use the example of Peter and John to defend that thesis that God is happy 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:27.000 with ordinary. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:33.439 We're told that in the chapter that we read and we recognize that in what they say in 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:34.439 verse 13. 00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:39.960 Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John after this great miracle that they performed, 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:45.439 they were astonished and they recognized, sorry, and perceived that they were uneducated 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:47.599 common men. 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:52.879 Ordinary is another translation of that word, they were astonished, they recognized that 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:55.319 they had been with Jesus. 00:03:55.319 --> 00:04:01.199 The disciples, Peter and John here particularly, they weren't special people. 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:06.959 They weren't extraordinarily gifted in their lives. 00:04:06.959 --> 00:04:10.280 They hadn't even been educated in any formal sense. 00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:12.879 They were fishermen. 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:13.879 That's what they did. 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:15.240 They were fishermen. 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:17.759 They were manual laborers. 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:19.680 They were ordinary people. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:23.639 They didn't have spectacular gifts. 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:29.759 And at many levels, the Bible is a most ordinary book. 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:37.599 Now, don't quote me on that, because it's also the Word of God and therefore it's extraordinary. 00:04:37.599 --> 00:04:44.240 But what I mean by that is that it is full of ordinary people, people who are failed 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:52.680 and fallen and paradoxically used by God, confusingly dull people, ordinary people. 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:56.639 You know, it's at that level of ordinary books about everyday life. 00:04:56.639 --> 00:05:02.160 There are some amazingly plain and ordinary things in the Bible. 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:08.280 The pages of the Bible are full of details that would never make the history books of 00:05:08.280 --> 00:05:09.280 this world. 00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:15.680 They would never make the biographies of important, significant, famous people. 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:21.000 Peter and John exemplifies believers in their ordinariness in many ways. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:26.800 The problem so often in the times of the New Testament and also in our own times is both 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:31.160 comparison and expectation. 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:37.319 So that we spend a lot of our times comparing ourselves to what's around us and what we 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:42.560 see in the church and maybe what we think is in the Word. 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.279 And that verse 13, it talks about them being uneducated or common men. 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:54.319 The word that we are given there is idiotes, the word that we unfortunately get idiots 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:55.319 from. 00:05:55.319 --> 00:06:00.239 But they weren't idiots, but that is the corruption of the English that has come to us. 00:06:00.239 --> 00:06:04.519 Common is what it means really, ordinary, unlearned. 00:06:04.519 --> 00:06:09.359 And it would be, it's a word that would have been used particularly in comparison with 00:06:09.359 --> 00:06:10.359 other people. 00:06:10.359 --> 00:06:17.239 Oh, compared with these people who are educated, compared with these people who are professionals, 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:24.000 or who are gifted, I'm ordinary, I am un-gifted, I am amateur, I'm a layperson. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:29.560 And so it was a comparative word, and very often we use that also in our Christian lives. 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:34.960 We compare ourselves with others, and we come to the conclusion we are just very ordinary. 00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:41.600 God has not stopped at our door when we were born and poured out lots of gifts on us. 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:45.280 He bypassed us at that stage. 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:51.079 And also I think it is to do with expectation, extraordinary expectation. 00:06:51.079 --> 00:06:52.079 Un... 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:58.799 What's the word I'm looking for there? 00:06:58.799 --> 00:07:03.000 Expectation that is not biblical, I can't think of the unword. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.439 It's been in holiday, brain stops working. 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:15.759 But an expectation that doesn't come from the word, but that we have laid on ourselves 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:17.439 the kind of people we should be. 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:21.079 We should be people who are Christians, who are God's power, who have got the Holy Spirit. 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:22.600 We should change the world. 00:07:22.600 --> 00:07:26.920 We should be able to do like these apostles, miracles. 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:27.920 We... 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:29.600 Destiny's a big word today, isn't it? 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:32.519 I actually hate that word. 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:33.519 And I was gonna... 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:36.720 I was hoping to say that it's not a word that's in the Bible. 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:37.720 It's not biblical word. 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:39.880 Well, it's not a theological word, I don't think. 00:07:39.880 --> 00:07:43.040 But it is in the Bible, but in a different way. 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:50.720 It usually refers to your end, the destiny, the end you have. 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:53.880 I think today it's used a lot of, you know, fulfill your life. 00:07:53.880 --> 00:07:58.200 You can never be complete unless you meet your destiny, as if it's some kind of thing 00:07:58.200 --> 00:08:02.160 that you can miss by taking a wrong turning. 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:07.640 I've missed my destiny and I can't... there's nothing left to live for. 00:08:07.640 --> 00:08:16.520 But drama and excitement and moving mountains, I think we can often misapply God's promises 00:08:16.520 --> 00:08:18.760 and what God means for us to be. 00:08:18.760 --> 00:08:25.640 I'm not decrying these things that have come on to say, but we're looking at being ordinary. 00:08:25.640 --> 00:08:26.640 And I think... 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:32.000 I know I am ordinary, and I suspect most of you think you're ordinary people as well. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.559 What matters? 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:39.440 What is it that matters in our very ordinariness today, in your life and in mine? 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.080 Well, it's exactly the same as here. 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.600 It's exactly the same. 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:50.440 And it may be that you are extraordinary as a person. 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:54.360 I'm not sure you may be extraordinary, but I'm not really speaking to you if you are. 00:08:54.360 --> 00:08:55.360 Well, I am. 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:59.080 I'm sure God will use you if you're extraordinary or if you're ordinary. 00:08:59.080 --> 00:09:03.680 But it doesn't really matter because what does matter is the same for both. 00:09:03.680 --> 00:09:10.680 If you're exceptionally gifted, if you're one in a million in terms of your position 00:09:10.680 --> 00:09:14.960 in this world or if you just feel you're very ordinary, what matters is just the same. 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:21.600 Verse 13, it was noted, it was recognized that they had been with Jesus. 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:25.920 That's what's incredibly important here in the lives of Peter and John. 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:31.679 They were people, ordinary people, and it was noted that they had been with Jesus. 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:33.719 That is what set them apart. 00:09:33.719 --> 00:09:35.719 It wasn't anything else. 00:09:35.719 --> 00:09:38.799 It wasn't anything grand that was this, that they had been with Jesus. 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:42.399 These were disciples who were living, I believe, one day at a time. 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:47.039 There's no evidence that they had some great plan of destiny for themselves, that they had 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:52.439 a master plan that they were on page one of and that they knew right to the end of the 00:09:52.439 --> 00:09:53.439 book. 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:58.240 I doubt very much they felt that they were world changers at that point, even though they 00:09:58.240 --> 00:09:59.640 became world changers. 00:09:59.640 --> 00:10:03.880 I think it's much more likely that they faced death every day. 00:10:03.880 --> 00:10:10.160 It was much more likely that they had no idea of what lay ahead. 00:10:10.160 --> 00:10:12.480 They recognized that they were outsiders. 00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:15.480 In many ways, they were exiles. 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:16.480 They were nobodies. 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:23.399 They lived a day at a time, but they lived a day at a time in the company of the Lord 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:24.399 Jesus Christ. 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:25.600 They had been with Jesus. 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:26.920 That was their reputation. 00:10:26.920 --> 00:10:28.360 That was what set them apart. 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:33.279 That's what stuck, and that was what was thought provoking to those who saw what they were 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:34.960 doing. 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:38.720 And the result of that in their lives was a Christ-centered confidence. 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:45.639 See, I want us to move beyond just ordinaryness and recognize where being in Jesus' company 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:46.639 takes us. 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:53.080 There was a boldness and a courage, a freedom of speech and a conviction that we see in them. 00:10:53.080 --> 00:10:56.679 We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:58.199 They are being in Christ's company. 00:10:58.199 --> 00:11:04.799 This resurrected Savior made a huge difference to their ordinary lives because they couldn't 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:11.220 stop living with conviction of knowing this living God. 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:13.039 And that's what matters in our lives. 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:20.360 It's a very simple message, and it's a very glorious message, is that we too, I think, 00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:24.279 it's absolutely right for us, in many ways, to live one day at a time. 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:28.599 You may feel your life is dull because you have no master plan, no vision to share, no 00:11:28.599 --> 00:11:31.439 longing for greatness. 00:11:31.439 --> 00:11:32.559 We're not apostles. 00:11:32.559 --> 00:11:33.879 We're not founders of the church. 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:39.319 Yet we share this ordinariness with them, and I think it's okay for us to be ordinary, 00:11:39.320 --> 00:11:45.879 to have a dull job, not always to be smiling on Instagram, not to be influential by our 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:46.879 own estimation. 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:54.240 It's okay not to have any letters after our name, to fail, to not invent something incredible. 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:59.120 It's okay not to stem the tide of secularism within Scotland or in Edinburgh, to stand 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:04.840 up and change the world with regard to injustice and immorality. 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:14.560 Change that world on our own, yet by God's grace, we can be those who have been in Jesus 00:12:14.560 --> 00:12:19.320 company, and that changes everything. 00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:22.800 To be in Jesus' company, I'm going to hammer two things this year. 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:28.800 I'm sorry for those who are visiting with us, that I'm hammering gently and with grace 00:12:28.800 --> 00:12:32.040 and love, our own people, because I'm hammering myself. 00:12:32.039 --> 00:12:35.799 There'll be two things that I'm going to say quite a lot, I think, this year, from 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:37.319 the semester onwards. 00:12:37.319 --> 00:12:43.000 One is the spiritual disciplines, the importance of the spiritual disciplines in our lives, 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:49.719 encouraging all of us to spend more time in the company of Jesus as individuals, as people. 00:12:49.719 --> 00:12:54.000 We try and do lots as a church and lots in community, and we can do this together, of 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.959 course, and that's hugely important. 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:02.639 But to be people who recognize the importance and the significance of praying and being in 00:13:02.639 --> 00:13:10.639 the Word, and of knowing and understanding His company, living, that takes us to the 00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:12.759 place where we're living out grace. 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:18.600 So the spiritual disciplines, it sounds quite formal and it sounds quite dictatorial, but 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:23.120 a better way of putting it might be your walk with Jesus. 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:28.279 Your walk, you know, that walk with you, the way of life that you have, it's more about, 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:30.639 more than just about Bible reading and prayer. 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:36.799 It's having this being with Jesus and knowing Jesus in our life and in our lifestyle and 00:13:36.799 --> 00:13:43.200 in our decisions and in all that we are, so that you're not simply dependent on church 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:51.279 company or church formal activities or anything other than that relationship that you have 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:56.639 as an ordinary believer and as I have with the living God, it's the key to everything. 00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:00.679 That quiet, unassumed relationship with God. 00:14:00.679 --> 00:14:06.439 Think about it in this world as a principle, you know, with amazingly gifted people even, 00:14:06.439 --> 00:14:13.799 say like Andy Murray as a tennis player, a Scotsman, a hip supporter, and think of great 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:17.620 athletes or great musicians or great people. 00:14:17.620 --> 00:14:22.360 We see them up front and we see their gifts, we can never be like that, but we forget the 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:28.879 huge amount of time and practice that they consistently, relentlessly put in in the background 00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:35.879 into the developing their gift, the graft behind the grace that they've been given. 00:14:35.879 --> 00:14:40.360 And we're not saying that the graft is what earns us favor with God, or is a justification 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:47.600 by works, but rather it's the graft that develops and grows the grace of salvation in our lives. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:53.840 A relationship that needs to be nurtured, developed and protected, like every relationship, 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:54.840 isn't it? 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:58.519 It needs that development and protection. 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:02.879 Jesus company, they'd been with Jesus one day at a time. 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:07.680 We see that routine, routine is very important, I think, in our spiritual, ordinary spiritual 00:15:07.680 --> 00:15:10.000 lives, even in our extraordinary ones. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.480 You see it with Daniel, you see it with Jesus himself, you see it with the disciples, with 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.399 the drawing to pray, finding a place, going to worship. 00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:24.519 You say, I'm not good at routine, I'm a kind of, I'm a free spirit, I'm not so good with 00:15:24.519 --> 00:15:25.519 routine. 00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:29.000 And I'm saying, well, you can do it. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.440 You may be a free spirit, but I guarantee you brush your teeth every day. 00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:38.159 I guarantee you eat every day and I guarantee we sleep every day and we probably check social 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:43.480 media every day, because we get into routines of the things that are important and significant 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:44.480 to us. 00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:49.000 And I'm saying that in our ordinariness, may it be that we take Jesus Christ into that 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:56.200 routine every single day of our lives and get to know Him, because He accepts us in our 00:15:56.200 --> 00:15:57.200 ordinariness. 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:02.039 He loves us and He loves to hear about us and He embraces us. 00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:06.840 And He isn't phased by our plainness or by our lack of gifts. 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:11.320 He never tires of hearing our complaints and our doubts and our fears and our rejoicing 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:17.840 and our worship, because He is beautiful and He is God. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.160 I guarantee in our lives that we're either in one way or in another, and maybe spiritually 00:16:22.160 --> 00:16:24.960 we're either in a routine or in a rut. 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:26.400 I think there's a difference. 00:16:26.400 --> 00:16:28.480 Only one of them is good. 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:36.440 We can be in a rut of bad ordinariness, where we leave God out and we have no time for God 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:37.440 in our routine. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:45.040 It's a sinful rut. can we change that rut to a routine that includes relationship with 00:16:45.040 --> 00:16:50.920 God and speaks to Him and plugs into that relationship with Him? 00:16:50.920 --> 00:17:04.080 Because both routine and a rut have consequences in our lives as to our reputation as believers. 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:09.240 So being Jesus' company in the spiritual disciplines, and that brings me to saying that I think 00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:18.240 I'm going to say a lot today, or in the next while, is just the impossibility of grace. 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:20.159 The disciples were very ordinary. 00:17:20.159 --> 00:17:27.359 They lived, they did lots of impossible things, literally, even in this chapter that we've 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:29.279 read or the chapter before. 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.439 And from day one, it must have seemed like an absolute impossibility to them. 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.360 But we are fishermen. 00:17:35.360 --> 00:17:37.200 How could we do this? 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:39.759 How can we live our lives as believers? 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:42.640 Nobody believes what we're saying. 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:45.600 How can we fulfill the Great Commission? 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:48.640 And I think that's a great place for us to be. 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:53.720 From day one of our Christian lives to recognize it as an impossibility, we're nobody's. 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:57.320 We may not have any particular gifts or abilities. 00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:05.439 And we see the secular waves coming in on us, and we feel, how can God be honored, and 00:18:05.439 --> 00:18:09.439 how can people be saved? 00:18:09.439 --> 00:18:12.279 And we find great impossibilities. 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:13.279 That's good. 00:18:13.279 --> 00:18:17.399 I think that's a great place to be, because it drives us back to the God for whom nothing 00:18:17.399 --> 00:18:18.679 is impossible. 00:18:18.679 --> 00:18:24.039 If your Christian life is manageable, if you've got it all sussed, and if you don't really 00:18:24.039 --> 00:18:28.399 need God on a day-to-day basis, well, I know the truth and I understand the gospel, and 00:18:28.399 --> 00:18:33.639 I remember my catechisms and whatever it might be, then we've misunderstood. 00:18:33.639 --> 00:18:39.839 We should be coming to Jesus Christ on a daily basis saying, I can't do this. 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:41.359 I can't be a Christian. 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:43.920 I can be a Christian among people. 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:45.960 I can look like a Christian. 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:50.359 I can even act like a Christian, but I can't be one. 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:55.279 You're maybe not asked to raise people from the dead or do the great miracle that the 00:18:55.279 --> 00:19:00.079 disciple did, but today, as Christians, we're faced with impossibilities. 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:05.599 You're asked today, and I'm asked today to love God, to love my neighbor and my fellow 00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:08.559 Christian, to love my enemy. 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.839 I'm called to be transformed from the inside out. 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:15.319 I'm called to holiness and patience and kindness. 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:17.159 I'm called to believe. 00:19:17.159 --> 00:19:19.079 It's all impossible. 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:24.399 We can't do it unless we're dependent on the living God without that daily reliance on 00:19:24.399 --> 00:19:30.279 Christ so we become people who know Him and know who He is and know what He promises and 00:19:30.279 --> 00:19:36.960 know His great love and know that in our absolute ordinariness, He accepts and empowers us to 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.439 live our lives. 00:19:39.439 --> 00:19:46.359 The more we're in His company, I think the more beautiful He becomes and He becomes the 00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:53.079 object of our faith rather than living our lives in a certain way. 00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:56.199 Mary had it right, didn't she, when she was at the feet of Jesus? 00:19:56.199 --> 00:20:00.319 He didn't rebuke her for that in His wisdom. 00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.959 It matters more than anything. 00:20:03.959 --> 00:20:10.439 That's not a call to spiritual laziness, or is it a call to say we don't need to do anything, 00:20:10.439 --> 00:20:13.159 but just be in that secret place. 00:20:13.159 --> 00:20:15.319 But rather, it's the paradox. 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:24.679 It's the foundation place for being great Christians, part of a great church. 00:20:24.679 --> 00:20:31.480 And it's where we will see great things flow from our ordinariness because we're relying 00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:35.039 on the extraordinary one who is the living God. 00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:42.799 So it's being in Christ's company, and that then briefly, that gives us Christ's confidence. 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:52.359 These were men who had become bold and who had become courageous, and it was astonishing. 00:20:52.359 --> 00:21:01.720 They couldn't stop talking about this Savior and doing good works in His name. 00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:08.720 Therefore the call is just to live your ordinary Christian life and let the confidence of that 00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:10.799 transform who you are and who I am. 00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:13.079 It changes our priorities. 00:21:13.079 --> 00:21:17.440 The disciples in their ordinariness chose to obey God, not men. 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:22.480 It could have meant their death, but they chose to obey God. 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:25.799 And it was just plain obedience. 00:21:25.799 --> 00:21:32.039 And it gave them that Christ confidence, a willingness to share that relational reality 00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:36.879 of knowing this Christ who was risen and who had transformed their lives. 00:21:36.879 --> 00:21:38.680 They just needed to pass that on. 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:46.279 And if people, other people can't see it, there was an infectiousness about what they 00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:47.279 were doing. 00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:54.160 And who knows, therefore I will say where that leads to in our ordinary lives. 00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:57.279 What good we will do for Him. 00:21:57.279 --> 00:22:00.039 And it might not be recognized by anyone. 00:22:00.039 --> 00:22:01.560 It might not be recognized by the world. 00:22:01.560 --> 00:22:03.799 We might not get plaques with our name on them. 00:22:03.799 --> 00:22:09.799 We might not get a statue on Princess Street or whatever else where they used to put statues 00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:12.119 of great Christian men. 00:22:12.119 --> 00:22:15.079 Probably not be too long before they haul them down. 00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:16.919 But we might not get any of that. 00:22:16.919 --> 00:22:18.559 We might not get any recognition. 00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:23.599 Nobody might notice what we do, but God will, and it will change. 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:27.960 It will be what changes people's lives undoubtedly. 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:36.920 I sincerely believe, in God's word, that if we are an army of ordinary Christians living 00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:45.079 ordinary lives in the company of Jesus as it's modelled here by Peter and John, then 00:22:45.079 --> 00:22:54.759 that we will know a revolution of grace in our own lives and in the life of the church 00:22:54.759 --> 00:23:01.559 and in the life of the city, because the gates of hell will not prevail against it. 00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:03.480 Because that is what we are called to do. 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:05.599 There is a cost. 00:23:05.599 --> 00:23:10.960 There's a cost for you, and there's a cost for me in my life. 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:18.359 You willing to have the reputation of belonging to Jesus and not use your ordinariness as 00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:25.479 an excuse for being in a rut rather than in a routine. 00:23:25.479 --> 00:23:34.799 May it be that we find ourselves in the routine of being in Christ's company which transforms 00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:43.519 us rather than being in a rut of unbelief and of separation from Him, because that from 00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:51.079 day one has been what Satan wants to do, to keep us from Jesus Christ, to make us turn 00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:57.799 the other way, whether it be religiously or irreligiously, turning away from the only 00:23:57.799 --> 00:23:59.720 one who can redeem us. 00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:06.519 And the sacrament is a reminder to us of our need daily for the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:07.519 Amen. 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:13.279 Let's bow our heads briefly in prayer. 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:17.639 Another God we ask and pray that you would take your word and bless it to us. 00:24:17.639 --> 00:24:23.240 We do feel cursed sometimes by ordinariness. 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:30.279 And we know even with sometimes the best of motives, we do use it as an excuse to hide 00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:36.879 behind, to leave the work of the gospel to those we regard as extraordinary and that 00:24:36.879 --> 00:24:42.000 we can't be used, but yet help us to look through the Bible characters today, maybe 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:47.920 at some point in this afternoon and see how plain, how fallen and how failed so often they 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:51.440 were, but they were chosen. 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:56.519 And they were redeemed and they were dependent. 00:24:56.519 --> 00:25:00.119 Help us to be people who have the reputation of being with Jesus. 00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:08.680 And that Lord of course means that we are those who will share Him in just from our 00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:10.960 own experience in our lives. 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:11.960 Help us to do that. 00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:12.960 Help us to know how to do that. 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:15.480 Help us to learn how to do that more and more. 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:20.120 And bless us as we come to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. 00:25:20.120 --> 00:25:24.160 May it be a means of grace to our spiritual lives. 00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:42.160 Amen.