Introduction
- Is it just me or do you ever feel not good enough?
- Do you ever feel like maybe you weren’t brought here to do something extraordinary?
- That you were designed to live an ordinary life?
- Just an ordinary person living an ordinary life; nothing fancy?
- I feel that way sometimes.
The Enemy
- Let me tell you something before I get started.
- 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be careful, watch out for attacks from the Devil your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour.”
- There are three things that the devil loves to do to people from the day they are born until the day they die.
1) He wants to STEAL your JOY
- He wants to make you the most miserable person you can be.
- He wants you to loose sight of the happiness that God had planned for you before you were even born.
2) He wants to KILL your WITNESS
- What does that mean?
- He wants to make you ineffective today.
- You’re a Christian and you want to live for God but you are scared and when someone asks you about Jesus, you don’t know what to say.
- He kills your ability and sensitivity to witness.
3) He wants to DESTROY your LIFE
- This is easy for the enemy.
- The enemy, the devil, will do anything to make your life a “living hell.”
- It’s easy for him because most of us let him do it.
- Matthew 7:13-14 says, “You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small and the road is narrow and only a few ever find it.”
Ice Cream and Butter
- The thing about this is that the world offers a pretty picture.
- But that’s all it is, a picture. And image of a false truth.
Let me give you an example:
- Say you love ice cream. You are so obsessed. *Kind of like Melissa and me with the show Lost.
- Imagine that you love ice cream so much that instead of wanting a normal car when you grow up, you want an Ice Cream Truck.
- And you don’t want a normal house; you want an Ice Cream Palace.
- You don’t want a normal bike; you want an ice cream bike.
- You get the picture right.
- But what the enemy does, what the world does, they say, “Hey, I have a nice bowl of your favorite ice cream.”
- You’re all excited because you love ice cream, so you grab the bowl and take a HUGE bite.
- But it’s not ice cream…its butter.
- The enemy wants to kill, steal and destroy your life.
- 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “Satan, the god of this evil world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe, so they’re unable to see the glorious light of the good news that is shining upon them.”
- That’s his goal.
- HE WANTS YOU TO FEEL ORDINARY!
UNLIKELY HEROES – Play Video*
Extraordinary
- One of my favorite stories is that of Jonathon and his armor-bearer.
- Most armor-bearers were in their early teens, like many of you here.
- Their job was just like it sounds; to carry the weight of the soldier’s armor and to assist whenever he needed it.
- Without telling anyone, Jonathon gets this hair to go and fight this massive army all by himself. Well, he decides to take his armor-bearer along too.
- Long story short, he wants his right hand man to come and assist him in fighting these massive soldiers.
- The soldiers, by the way, we’re most likely ruthless.
- It wouldn’t faze them to kill young children, to steal women from their husbands or to make grown men their slaves.
- They were ruthless, strong barbaric men who you didn’t want to mess with.
- So Jonathon wanted to take them on and his armor-bearer said back to him.
- 1 Samuel 14:7 says, "Do all that you have in mind," his armor-bearer said. "Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul."
- “Jonathan said, "Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us. If they say to us, ’Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, ’Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the LORD has given them into our hands." So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. "Look!" said the Philistines. "The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in." The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, "Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson." So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Climb up after me; the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel." Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre. Then panic struck the whole army—those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties—and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God. Saul’s lookouts at Gibeah in Benjamin saw the army melting away in all directions.”
- The thing that I love about this story isn’t the fact that they won the battle scattered the opposing army.
- It’s that a simply young Ordinary man did an Extraordinary thing.
- It’s one of my favorite stories because you know that this young armor-bearer was scared have to death but he did it anyway.
- You can be extraordinary.
- You don’t have to stay ordinary.
- God says, “I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
- God has plans to move you from an ordinary live to an extraordinary life.
- There are some things that you need to do to make this happen. God has it for you, you need it reach for it.
How do we move from ordinary to extraordinary?
1. Put God First
- It’s a choice.
- It requires action. We can’t physically put God first.
- We must make a choice to put Him first before our own wishes and desires. When we wake up and when we go to bed.
- When we are in need of a difficult decision, we must ask God, put Him first.
- Ephesians 3:19-20 says, “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.”
- When we put God first, He is then able to accomplish extraordinary things in us.
2) Claim It
- I’m sick of hearing Christian people do the “woe is me.”
- “I’m a Christian and I need to be sad and live in this pathetic state of life.”
- God has called us to live lives full of prosperity, joy, happiness, love, patience, strength.
- You name anything positive and God has called us a life to it.
- Christians also think that they can’t be successful.
Richard and Shawnna
- There is a couple that went to our church in Iowa; great and amazing couple.
- They were also very successful.
- But they also gave about 1/3 of the entire tithes in the in whole church combined.
- They are living extraordinary lives.
- It’s not all about money. Because they give most of it away.
- It’s about being blessed.
- Claim an extraordinary life.
3) Enable the Holy Spirit
- The Bible calls the Holy Spirit a Helper.
- Why would He be called the Helper if He didn’t help?
- Open your life up to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
- Galatians 5:22-23, “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.”
- There is an endless supply of help that the Holy Spirit wants to give you.
- He wants you to live extraordinarily.
Closing
- Without raising your hands, how many of you in here believe that you are living an ordinary life?
- Remember, when we are living ordinary lives, it gives the devil a perfect opportunity to kill, steal and destroy our lives.
- He looks for times when you are weak.
- He looks for times when you don’t put God first.
- He looks for times when you don’t enable the Holy Spirit in your life.
- God wants to rescue you from an ordinary life and move you into an extraordinary one.
- How many of you in here want to live extraordinary lives?
Prayer
