God Uses Ordinary People For Extraordinary Tasks

GOD USES ORDINARY PEOPLE FOR EXTRAORDINARY TASKS

Preached at Shiloh Baptist Church

Waukegan, Illinois

On 21 March 2009

For Mission Emphasis Day

Too GOD be the Glory...

- I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

- Oh magnify the LORD with me and let us exalt his name together.

- O Taste and see the goodness of the LORD

- Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

- Ok you missed your cue, let everything that has breath, if you got breath in your body, if GOD woke you up this morning ... started you on your way, then you have reason to give GOD praise.

- Why ... because this may be the last chance, your last opportunity to say thank you unto the LORD, so give GOD some praise on this day

- Why ... because this is the day that the LORD has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it.

I greet you this morning in the matchless name of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Darlene Hill and the General Mission Board for this opportunity to share with you on this special day...

Also want to thank my mentor, my friend, my Pastor for his leadership and for agreeing to allow me to speak to you this morning... and I like to thank each one of you in advance for not falling asleep on me ...

So, let us examine our text Mark 14

(v.1) After two days was the feast of the Passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.

(v.2) But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.

(v.3) And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

(v.4) And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

(v.5) For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

(v.6) And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

(v.7) For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

(v.8) She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

(v.9) Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

Subject: GOD Uses Ordinary People to do Extraordinary Tasks

- GOD Uses Ordinary People for Extraordinary Tasks

- GOD Uses everyday people for Extra-ordinary purpose

- GOD Uses common folks, poor folks, the plain Jane(s) of the world, average folk

- The folk that everybody said wasn’t gonna amount to anything ...

- Yes ... GOD uses them to do some stuff, that will blow your mind.

Yes ... GOD uses regular, run of the mill kind of folk to do the unexpected, the astonishing ... and what some people think is bizarre, but yet, these are the folk that GOD uses, and I want to let somebody know that there is no task too small or too great for GOD to use you.

Well let’s paint the picture, in our text; Jesus is on His way to die for our sins (repeat)

Walk with me...

(v.1) Notice the timing ... only GOD could have ordained this. Our text tells us that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away.

Well ... what does that have to do with anything? Well, I will simply tell you that they are important and if it wasn’t it would not be mentioned here. So, let me help you. You see, both of these festivals had their origins in the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. (cf. Exodus 12)

Let me help you, lets deal with them one at a time ... you see, the weeklong Feast of the Unleavened Bread was reminiscent of GOD’s instruction to the Jews in Exodus 12:19 that they were to clean out their house and remove all traces of leaven (yeast) in preparation for the extraordinary thing that GOD was about to do in their lives.

Why this requirement, well, not sure if you knew this ... but in the Bible Leaven is symbolic of sin. So GOD tell them to get it out, cus just a little bit could spread and cause sin to rise and grow out of control in their lives. So this yearly festival called for a ruthless cleansing of life and home, whereby the Israelites had to remove any possible evidence of compromise with sin.