Unlikely Heroes

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.”