Life is no dress rehearsal. You blink, and it’s gone. So … it makes sense to live an extraordinary life. Okay … but how? Where do you start? How do you turn things around?

Why We Need A Mentor

We’re going to kick off something really exciting today on the program. Over the coming few weeks we’re going to be looking at how to live an absolutely extraordinary life. I mean, we all wish we could. Some people are, some people … well, and some people not so much right? But just stop and think about this for a minute, what if you and I could live a totally outrageously extraordinary life, I mean a life that really impacts other peoples lives for the right reasons, instead of the wrong ones?

A life that people will remember with a fondness and a gratitude, the sort of life that will have people queuing to deliver our eulogy at our funerals. And I know there are one or two people listening to me rabbitting on, thinking to themselves, “Yeah well that would be nice but …” you see there is always the butt.

Well here is my challenge. No if’s, no butts, do you want to live an extraordinary life, yes or no? If the answer is yes then lets have a chat huh? So what stops us from leading and extraordinary life?

We can blame all sorts of things. We can blame our circumstances, we can blame our parents, our DNA, our personality type. The place or family or the time that we were born into and grew up in, the bad things that happened along the way and ok, perhaps just maybe a few of the mistakes we’ve made.

But who we are, the abilities the limitations we’ve been given. How tall we are, the colour of our hair and our skin, how smart we are or aren’t, all of those things are things we just can’t change. I can’t change who I am, you can’t change who you are, but what we can do is make the most of what we’ve been given. The problem is with a lot of the self help rhetoric about the place, a lot of the motivational speakers, a lot of that genre of stuff is they tell you that you can be whoever you want to be; you can do whatever you want to do; you can have whatever you want to have. And my answer to that is … no you can’t! it’s just not true.

I mean, I’d love to be a great artist but I can’t draw or paint for nuts. I’d love to be a great photographer, but I just I just don’t have the eye for it. I’d love to be a basketball player but I’m just too short. I’d love to be … Do you get it? It doesn’t matter how positively I think, how hard I strive or how focused I am, I am never ever, ever going to be tall enough to be a great basketball player. Forget the fact I’m just getting a little old for that now anyway.

So its not about being, doing, or having anything our little heart desires that’s fairy land stuff. Its all about being realistic about who we are, what we’re capable of and saying to ourselves, you know something? I want to make my life count, given the obvious constraints and we all have them even though they’re different. I want my life to count. I want my life to make a positive difference in this world. Because if it’s not, then we’re living a sort of a meaningless existence an unfulfilling existence. I’ll tell you want I think is the biggest reason that most people don’t live lives that count its because we model ourselves on the wrong principles, the wrong beliefs and the wrong behaviours.

We go to school, we learn how to read and write and do arithmetic but they don’t seem to be any formal school to teach us life and how to live. How to be effective, how to be gracious. That bit of leaning, the most important bit of learning when you think about it, is pretty much left to chance in some cultures but not so much in others. And so we pick things up by watching our parents and mimicking them.

Some of that is good, some of it’s not. Which is why bad traits like anger and abuse get handed down from one generation to the next. We watch our teachers, we pick up things in the school yard and on television and on adverting billboards and somehow that all goes in the blender and our pops you. Out pops me. Good, bad and sometimes ugly.

I mean, that’s about it isn’t it? And when you look at it that way, its just a little bit crazy and no wonder we’re not living lives that count, lives that positive difference in this world. We’ve picked up some good habits and lots of bad habits. Some good attitudes but lots of wrong ones too. And the bad stuff we’ve picked up, that stuff you might hear Christians talk about and calling it sin, that bad stuff holds us back from really realising our potential to do good. Our potential to make a difference our potential to experience that satisfaction of using who we are and what we have to help other people.

So what’s the answer? Do we need a classroom and teachers and a curriculum on how to be the best person we can possibly be? You know, maybe. But probably in small doses. In a sense that’s what these programs are about. But you know that old Chinese proverb:

Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.

Its exactly what Jesus does and He still does with his disciples.

Consider those first Twelve Disciples, they hung out with Him for about three and a half years. He taught them, He listened to them, He dealt with some of their wrong attitudes, He admonished them, He encouraged them, and above all He involved them. They got to watch Him to see how He responded and reacted, what He said, when He was kind and gentle, when He was tough as nails, when He protested, when He was silent.

They got to model themselves on Jesus by being involved in His ministry. Now here’s and idea, do you think what if instead of soaking it all up without thinking, what if instead of assimilating selfishness and loneliness and all that stuff from our culture, what if we deliberately followed Jesus around for a while and watched Him and listened to Him and let Him guild us, involve us, teach us, disciple us. Hey, that’d be cool!

Well my friend that is exactly what we’re going to be doing on the program over these next few weeks. See often we’ll take on little things that Jesus said and did and we’ll study it and we’ll learn from it and we’ll move on, but what if we took a look at His life and soaked it in on the basis there is simply no better role model on any planet in any galaxy in any universe than Jesus. What if we looked at some of the really familiar stories perhaps from a different angle, from a slightly different perspective as a student looking to his or her mentor? That’d be cool.

And you know the amazing thing that happens when we do that? Is that all of a sudden Jesus starts involving us in His work. He starts discipling us, He starts teaching us and speaking to us thought what’s going on in our lives. Because this Jesus isn’t dead He’s alive and anyone, anyone who would believe in Him, would follow after Him, to that person He sends His holy spirit to be our counsellor our advocate, our guide, our personal life coach.

Want to know how to live an extraordinary life? Well lets take a look at Jesus.

A Rocky Start In Life

Now there are plenty of people in this world who want to blame the past for where they are today. You may want to say that sounds a bit harsh. You may have had a hard start in life yourself. Perhaps you were born into a very humble household, or you had a difficult family environment, or maybe like my parents you had to select through a war or two. Perhaps you lost your parents when you were really young.

Someone who is listening today may have been abused. Another person may suffer from depression, yet another has gone through divorce. None of those things are pleasant. None of those things are things we’d wish on ourselves or on our worst enemy for that matter.

What is it in your life, what circumstance, what relationship, what start in life did some damage to you along the way, huh? You know in an instant that thing that I’m talking about. So let me ask you this, to what extent are you still using that as an excuse today not to be living an extraordinary life?

We Australian tend to be fairly blunt and direct, so I’m asking you a blunt and direct question … not to ruffle your feathers so much but to force each one of us to face facts. And the fact is, that the majority of people walking around on planet earth today has something in their past that’s ruining their present and robbing them of their future.

Now, lets turn back to Jesus. If you and I could model our lives on Him, if you and I could adopt Him as our life coach and mentor, if we could learn to live a life that looks a whole like Jesus, well man-o-man imagine what a life would that be?

So what are we doing talking about our past, and then about Jesus?
Because this whole thing about the past ruining our lives is one of the greatest scourges and epidemics of our society today. I mean, billions of people are being ruined because people let their past rob them of their present and there future.

What do we learn through Jesus on that? What was His past? What was His start in life? What did that look like and how did He handle it?

Well I guess that most people know the story, Jesus had a rather rocky start in this world. Mary fell pregnant out of wedlock … according to her the Holy spirit did it. Well, yeah right, who would believe that?! Then they had a long painful journey in her last weeks of pregnancy from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea, then to top it off the travel agent lost their hotel booking and they had to bunk outside in a shed with the sheep and the goats and the cows. Where the very first breath of air that the little baby Jesus took was filled with a stench of cow dung and sheep urine.

But there was something else in His past. Something much worst than that that could have left a horrible mental scar and marred him and hamstrung him for life. Have a listen to this Mathew chapter 2, starting at verse 13:

Now after they’d left an angel of the Lord appear to Joseph in a dream and said ‘Get up, take the child and his Mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.’ So Joseph got up and took the child and his Mother by night and went to Egypt and remained there until death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken about through the Lord through the profit, out of Egypt I have called my son.

When Herod saw he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated! He sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under according to the time that he had learnt from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the profit Jeremiah that a voice was heard in Ramah. Wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled because they are no more.

So there you have it. Infant genocide. Ethnic cleansing. All on account of Jesus. You don’t think he knew about that when He was growing up? You don’t’ think people blamed him? You don’t think this played on His mind and tore at His heart? You don’t think that this one thing could have totally derailed Him from living his extraordinary life?

See we don’t often think about this, but this was in Jesus’ past. This was on Jesus heart. This could have completely robbed him of His extraordinary life! But instead He declared, let us go onto the neighbouring towns so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came to do. Jesus was totally focused on His mission, on what God had sent Him to do.

Now, I’m no physiologist, but I have friends who are. From them I know how complex and difficult it can be to let go of things in your past, things that are holding you back. Hey, and not just from the physiologist, I know from my own experience how difficult it can be to let go of the past. So here are my three essentials for letting go. For stopping the past from ruining your present and robbing you from a future.

First, decide to change. When I went through a major loss in my life, there was a time a mourning and grief, hey, that’s natural that’s normal. But there comes a point when you just have to decide that the status quo isn’t an option. It is time to move on. It is time to lay a hold of the extraordinary life that God has planned for you. Some people today need to hear that and they need to take that decision today.

The second essential is, believing what God says and He says that if anyone is in Chris they are a completely new creation, all of the old things have past away. Look, everything, and I mean everything is new. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17. In other words, your faith in Jesus according to God is meant to set you completely free from the past. Now that’s worth believing.

And thirdly, for those people who have hurt me, for those people who have caused the loss in the first place … can I tell you that was the single most important thing for me. I’ve prayed constantly and I still do, that the Lord will bless them and they too would find Jesus. Praying for your enemies, blessing those who curse you, is what Jesus taught us to do. And now, I’m starting to live out that extraordinary life that God planed for me. So how about you? Jesus didn’t let the past hold him back, and neither should we. Its time for you to live that extraordinary life that He planned for you.

A Life Of Submission

Well what’s the next thing that we discover by looking at Jesus about living an extraordinary life, well you may not like it but here it is. Jesus submitted to authority. Ah, yuck really!? You see, we Australians in particular are known around the world for our lack of respect for authority, its kind of in the DNA of our culture to flaunt it, to rebel against it, to poke fun at it.

A good friend of mine, in fact he is my mentor Graeme, he was an officer in the Australian Army during the Vietnam War and the lads the Aussies that were over there, they decided that tonight was going to be party night. No particular reason, they just decided they wanted to let their hair down and have a good night. So the Australian’s being Australians the soldiers decided to declare that day would be a celebration of Ho Chi Mien’s birthday.

It’s not that politically correct, but if you’re an Australian you’ll smile, you’ll get it. It taps right into this innate desire we have as we would say to ‘take the Mickey’ out of things. Ho Chi Mien was of course the head of the North Vietnamese independence movement who our lads and the Americans and the South Vietnamese were fighting against.

So they drove around to the different units, declaring that today was Ho Chi Mien’s birthday, but (and Graeme loves telling this story) when they arrived at the American’s unit and rather loudly and boisterously as we Australian’s do, announced Ho Chi Mien’s birthday party was happening tonight back at the Australian compound, well, there was a blank look on the America’s face, they just didn’t get the humour. What planet are these Australians on?

Why was there such a disconnect? Because by and large, American’s are a patriotic bunch. They believe in truth and justice and the American way sorry to borrow that from Superman. And they respect their leaders, even though they disagree with them which they can do and do do in their democracy but they tend to respect authority in a way that Australian’s don’t.

But whichever culture we come from, however much we do naturally respect authority deep down I mean really deep down most of us struggle with authority from time to time. You see authority is always fine until to disagree with a person in authority. I mean its fine having a boss at work, until you want to go in this direction when she wants to go in that direction and so we have our little silent protest. We resist, we pout, we undermine, we backstab and sometimes it breaks out into open warfare. Does that sound vaguely familiar?

Because our base position is “I’m right and she’s wrong”. I mean I’m always right, it’s my way or the highway. Now we have a problem.
We struggle, we complain, we become de-motivated, so what can Jesus’ life teach us about the importance authority in living out an extraordinary life? Well here’s a little vignette, a short segment of Jesus life on this Earth and it speaks into this very thing. Have a listen. Mathew chapter 3, beginning at verse 13:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptised by him. John would have prevented him by saying, ‘Hang on I need to be baptised by you, and you’re coming to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so for now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ So John consented.

Now these days, we kind of understand what baptism is. It’s an outward sign of that we’ve died to self and that we’ve risen to Christ. It’s a public expression or our faith in Jesus. But back then the only people who were baptised where proselytes. These were people who weren’t born as Israelites – God’s chosen nation – but who subsequently put their faith in the God of Israel. It was a sign that even though they weren’t Jewish by birth, they had become one of God’s people through faith in Him and that they would, wait for this, they would obey the Law of Moses. That was the key. And the reason that John the Baptist had been out in the wilderness baptising Jews was a sign of repentance of turning away from their sins and going back to God, submitting to back under the Law of God. Get it?

So John was right to protest. “Hang on Jesus, what are you doing? You’re the Messiah, You’re Him! What am I doing baptising you for crying out loud? If anything, it should be the other way around.” And Jesus answered, “Let it be so for now. For it is proper in this way to fulfil all righteousness.” And Jesus had come to die for us, the perfect sacrifice, so that you and I could become the perfect righteousness of God. So that you and I when we put our faith in Jesus, have a complete perfect and forever right standing before God.

Why did Jesus submit to John’s baptism, the baptism of repentance, even though as the one man who had never ever, ever sinned He had nothing to repent from? This is why. Because this was the single most public, most visible thing that He could do to declare His submission to God through the Law of Moses. He wanted the world to know that He, although He was the son of God, although He had never once sinned, fully submitted, fully placed himself under the authority of the Word of God. It was the very first step He took in His public ministry. So how did His Dad in Heaven react? What was God’s response? Mathew chapter 3, beginning at verse 16:

And when Jesus had been baptised, just as He came up from the water, suddenly the Heavens were opened up to Him and He saw the spirit of God descending down upon him like a Dove and alighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

What an endorsement. I mean, imagine for a minute that you and I were to live for that? For God’s endorsement. To please Him, to delight him by putting our lives under His mighty hand. By heading His voice. By loving Him. By obeying him. Imagine if that’s the first thing that we did, the very first thing before stepping out into what God has planned for us?

Just imagine the impact our lives would have? Its not such a bad start to have an extraordinary life.

There’s an old proverb – never put things off until tomorrow, that you can do today. Jesus was a master at that. In just three and a half years, He turned the world completely upside down.

A Team Player

Other people can be such a pain in the neck, have you noticed that? I don’t mean you I mean other people. It’s always those other people isn‘t it? Its never you its never me we always blame someone else. They’re the one that’s being difficult; they’re the one that’s got it so wrong again! We’re so full of ourselves aren’t we?

We imagine you and I, that we’re indispensable, that no one else can do it as well as you and I can. If you want a job done right, you just have to do it yourself, and to some extent that is true other people are a pain in the neck sometimes and deep down we’ll even admit that sometimes … ahh yeah ok, sometimes, yeah sometimes it is me. Sometimes it is you, and all the more reason then just do it then yourself! It’s so much easier without the other people and ok you don’t get quite as much done but there are far fewer headaches.

Now we don’t think like that all the time, but working with other people while it can be rewarding it can also be challenging, we’re looking this week at how to live an extraordinary life. We’re doing that by following Jesus around a bit like one of those twelve disciples, and watching Him, listening to Him, learning from Him, about how He lived His extraordinary life.

On our last program we saw that the very first thing He did in His public ministry was to submit to God through baptism. One of the next things He did was to build a team. He was baptised, He suffered in the wilderness and then He began proclaiming the Good News: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

Well that’s all well and good, but the reason that there was no telly evangelists back then is that there were no tellies, there was no newspapers, there was no radio, there was no T.V, no internet, no mass medium of any sort. In fact, there weren’t even sound systems or bull horns to speak to a large crowd! Nothing. Just Jesus, this carpenters son from Nazareth, the self styled Messiah who’d come to save the world. His ministry was about walking the dusty highways and byways of first century Israel and building a following. That was the reality and to do that He needed some help.

So here it is, here is what He did. Mathew chapter 4, beginning at verse 18:

As He walked by the sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers Simon who is also called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting their nets into the sea for they were fishermen. And He said to them, look follow me and I’ll make you fishers of people. Immediately they left their nets and they followed Him. As He went from there He saw two other brothers James the son of Zeberdee and his brother John in the boat with their father Zeberdee mending their nets. And He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed Jesus.

Now this was totally extraordinary in two regards. Firstly the rabbi went and called His followers, generally this was completely the other way around. You see some Rabbi’s were just a bit more prestigious than others, so young men only men, would try and climb the social ladder by following the highest pegged Rabbi in the social scale that they possibly could.

So it’s a bit like trying to get into Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard to study a PHD. They’re far more prestigious establishments than where I studied, you have to apply lots do only a few get in. That’s how it was with the most recognised of Rabbi’s. Whole families would caught them to try and leverage their social network to try and get their sons in as follows, as disciples – that’s what they were called – of the most prestigious Rabbi, because that would advance their prospects.

First extraordinary thing about Jesus team building approach was that He called disciples to follow Him, instead of the other way around where the disciples applied for kind of like an apprenticeship with him. And secondly, He went for fishermen to start with. Salt of the earth guys to be sure but very working class, very down the social order, very well … you know, fishermen. Smelly, not that educated, certainly not that well regarded and they came not from Judea, not from Jerusalem but from Galilee like Jesus. Really?!

You can just see how the religious establishment in Jerusalem the chaps, the chaps trust, would have looked down their nose at these uneducated bumpkins. I caught the bus the other day and ran into a man who I’d known years before so I sat next to him and for the next 20 minutes or so he told me about all the important people he’d been having dinner with, he was just about to head off to the US to attend Harvard, he’d just had this well known Politian stay at his place … it went on and on and on. He didn’t ask me about me, once! So I didn’t offer.

Sometimes I think that we think that a team if you’re going to have one at all has to be full of classy people: people who have their act together. People who are well known, well regarded, people who are rung or three above us on the social ladder. A few rungs higher, so that by associating with them we can climb up a bit further, but not too far away that they’re out of reach.

Sometimes I think that we think that we have to go and chase after people and grovel to them and follow them, surround ourselves with winners not losers. Jesus turned that whole thing completely on its head. He didn’t have people grovel to Him, He went and chose His team. He surrounded Himself with real salt of the earth people, almost deliberately picking the anti-establishment team. Tax collectors to sinners, the lot of them!

See Jesus didn’t go out there and pick the obviously “A” Team, He built an “A” Team. And what makes the Jesus model of team selection and team building so amazing is that this rag tag team of uneducated bumpkins founded what we today call the church, to which a couple of billion people still belong two thousand years on!

Now that’s an extraordinary life. Did having those twelve disciples have it’s moments? Absolutely! Remember once His disciples failed to heal a boy and Jesus exclaimed “how long must I be with this faithless and perverse generation?” sure it was frustrating! Sure these twelve guys required Jesus to pour Himself into them, Sure one of them even betrayed him. But Jesus life was made all the more extraordinary by this down to earth heart desire to part off to lead to disciple a team, no matter what it cost Him.

His life lives on still today through the Church all because He was passionate about the team, passionate about a community. Sounds like the makings of an extraordinary life doesn’t it? What do you think?

A Job to Do

Now not only was Jesus a team player, but He was focused. He new He had a job to do, and that’s what we’re going to look at next. A great part of that was preaching and teaching. So, how do you kick off a career as a preacher? That was the challenge for Jesus. He was an absolute unknown. He was poor, not rich. He came from rural not very upmarket Nazareth, not from religion central Jerusalem. He was a carpenter, not a highly qualified Rabbi. He had all those rumours of an illegitimate birth hanging over His head from His childhood. And then there was the stigma of Herod killing all those innocent children under two, because of Jesus.

See Jesus had a lot to contend with, and He had three and a half years to tell the world the Good News, to build a team that would go on to become the foundation the church for several millennia and to die and to rise again for you and me.

Now, when you think about it that’s a pretty tall order and a pretty short period of time. So how do you go about from being an unknown to becoming a respected teacher? Well oddly enough in my own little way, that’s something of a journey I’ve been on and I can tell ya … it ain’t easy! It involves a lot of hard work and a lot, I mean, a tonne of help and anointing and provision and empowerment by God. So let’s have a look at how Jesus went about it. Mathew chapter 4, beginning at verse 17:

From that time Jesus began to proclaim ‘Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!’ Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So His fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought to Him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases, and pains and demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics He cured them all! And great crowds followed Him from Galilee to the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and even from beyond the Jordan.

So, how does Jesus do it? Well to put it bluntly, He hit’s the road. He puts himself out there. He starts to proclaim to declare to preach what was he preaching, what was he declaring? Anyone who’s a Christian would have heard these words over and over again so that won’t be anything new. “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

But to the people listening, what He was preaching and proclaiming and heralding and saying and exhorting was outrageously radical! Here they were in this back water of the Roman Empire, this nowheresville if I can call it that, miles and light-years away from the seat of power in Rome. These people where less than pawns in the emporia’s chess game I mean had it suited him he could have whipped them all out and turned their precious farm land into a car park and a shopping mall! I mean that was the reality.

They’d been living this same subsistence life, just surviving boring insignificant little lives somehow believing that somehow because they were God’s chosen people, maybe one day He’d send another King like David to set them free or if not when they died they might go to a better life although the Sadducees who were the religious leaders and the social elites, they didn’t believe that. So who could be certain that if you were one of those poor uneducated farmers, or carpenters living there in bumpkins-ville Galilee and along comes this lunatic. Okay He was a very articulate lunatic and He starts crying out Repent! Just like that John the Baptist guy and look what happened to him! I mean, they chopped his head off!

Repent. What does that mean? it means change your mind. It means turn around, it means stop living the way you’re living. When you think about it that’s just what the prophets of old had been telling Gods chosen people but other than perhaps John the Baptist, God hadn’t sent one of them for 300-400 years! “Repent! The Kingdom of God has come near.”

Hang on a minute. God’s in the temple over there in Jerusalem how could He possibly come near to us in Galilee? I mean only the high priest gets to go into the Holy of Holies and then only once a year and that’s a big deal on the Yom Kippur on the Day of Atonement. How can the Kingdom of God possibly have come near to us? Here in Galilee? Impossible. This was an outrageous message and yet they listened. He got their attention. He was pulling massive crowds. Why? Because not only was He proclaiming good albeit unsettling and confusing news, He was healing every disease so they brought their sick and lame from far and wide.

See the thing that got Him noticed was the power of God. God’s anointing on His ministry. Without that there’s no way He could have done what He did, and certainly not in such a short period of time – three and a half years – so what are you and I learn about Jesus, something that made His life extraordinary? He left the confines of His safe little carpenters shop in Nazareth, He hit the dusty road and went and did what God had called Him to do and what God had anointed Him to do. Was it safe? No! It got Him killed in fact. He always knew that’s how it would turn out. But He did it anyway. I saw a great Tweet the other day and it said this:

Many Christians worship on the alter of safety before they ask, ‘is this the will of God?’ They’ll ask, ‘is it safe?’

You and I aren’t called to precisely what Jesus was called to do in precisely the same way and yet in our own ways according to the gifts and the abilities and the resources that God’s given us, according to the place He’s put us in, we’re called to do exactly that. To get out of the safe comfort zone our own comfortable little carpenters shop whatever that is, and hit the track Jack, and go and tell people about Jesus.

And maybe you’re a builder or an accountant or a cleaner or a counsellor or a web developer or what are you? Well we’re using that. You and I are called to get out into this dangerous place and go and tell people the Good News. Not necessarily as preachers, perhaps a service as encouragers, as people who pull along side someone and proclaim Christ not with our mouths necessarily but with our hearts, with our hands, and with our lives.

What sort of life would Jesus have lived had He stayed silent in the confines of the carpenters shop in Nazareth, extraordinary? I don’t think so.

Gift Based Ministry

Over these past few programs we’ve seen that Jesus overcame His past which involved a pretty rocky start in life, we’ve seen that He drew a lot of His power from that fact that He humbled Himself and submitted Himself to His father in Heaven. We’ve seen that despite the initial cost to Him, He was a real team player and it’s the team He built that ended up impacting this world. And we saw how focused He was on mission and objectives. Some great insights there, if you missed any of them I’ll share with you at the end of today’s program how you can catch them again online.

But we’re going to finish off today’s message with an observation about how Jesus used His gifts to have an impact, because today in particular we’re seeing how He went about getting the job done, being that team player being focused on His mission and right now as we’re about to see, by using His gifts and abilities in the most extraordinary way. Lets pick up the story again, Mathew chapter 4, verses 23 – 25:

Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people so His fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought to Him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases, and pains and demoniacs and epileptics and paralytics, and he cured them. Great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis Jerusalem, Judea and from even beyond the Jordan.

Now you’re sitting there thinking, well, I don’t have the power to heal people, I don’t have the power to cast out demons, if I did I guess great crowds would follow me too! But I don’t, so they won’t. So Berni, what are you banging on about here? Am I right? Sure I am! We all think that. But let me tell you what I think are the two most powerful, most powerful words in that passage. And they’re not the words about curing every disease, every sickness; they’re not about His fame spreading or great crowds following Him. You want to know what I think the two most powerful words in the passage are? I think that they’re the first two words … “Jesus went”.

And the reason they’re so powerful is that unless He’d gone, unless He’d gotten up off the sofa, left His comfortable safe little carpenters shop and gone out throughout Galilee which by the way was the immediate surrounding area or region in which He lived, then none of what He did would have been done! And none of what He achieved would have been achieved! None of these people would have been healed, God wouldn’t’ have revealed Himself and it’s pretty certain you and I today, 2000 years on wouldn’t be talking about this Jesus. Would you agree?

It all happened because Jesus went. And would you please notice the other thing about this with me, He didn’t go to some far flung remote impossible place to start with. He didn’t’ even go up to Jerusalem in the beginning, He started in His own home region. Sometimes I think, that we think that in order to do something worthwhile for God we kind of have to set sail and go to the farthest place on this Earth.

Now sure, some people are called to do just that and we call them Missionaries but far more people are called to use their gifts, their gifts and abilities that God’s given them right in the place where they live, where they work where they socialise. It’s about just taking whatever we have in our hands and using it to benefit others.

I know some people who sit there and say, “Well how come God doesn’t use me to have an impact in other peoples lives?’ In my experience is that God is always up to something and if we’re not involved its probably a whole bunch more about us not going that God not doing.

There’s a great guy who works in Christian media in the UK is name is David Letterhue. He’s just one of those good guys, recently he tweets this:

The winds of God are always blowing, but you need to set the sails.

It’s about hoisting our sails, its about throwing our hat in the ring, its about getting up off the sofa and going and just using what we have to hand. It can be as simple as knowing that your neighbours just out of hospital and fronting up with a meal and taking it over to their house. It can be as simple as offering to have a cup of coffee with someone at work who’s looking a bit down and distracted.

Ok maybe, God hasn’t’ given us the gift of healing the way He did to Jesus, but when we take stock of the gifts and abilities and natural strengths and motivations and resources that we actually do have, we start to realise how much God really has given us.

I was sharing this story of the ministry of Christianity Works, this ministry that I work in producing these very radio programs with a group of business people just the other day. It’s an amazing story, from nothing to a weekly audience of around, well, over 10 million. They were impressed. Hey I’m totally gob smacked every time I think about it or tell people about it! But my point to them is always this: we have a massive team let me see … eight people world wide, a whole organisation plus a handful of dedicated volunteers. None of us, none of us is anything very special at all!

We just got together, we just each threw out our gifts in the ring, our abilities and our resources, we just believe that God was calling us and there’s something. We took some financial leaps of faith I have to tell you, other people might call them risks, and off we went. Did we have a strategic plan? … oh well I guess … but we never imagined that God would do what He’s done. We never dreamed for a moment that we’d be sharing the Good News of Jesus with so many people around the globe. The numbers and all the glory and the impact belong to God, because He did it, He’s still doing it, not us. We just kind of figured that if Jesus went, well maybe we could follow along after Him? Maybe we could step out of our comfort zones and go too?

So let me ask you, in your life, right where you live and where you work today, what are the opportunities, who are the people that you can go to with a helping hand? With your natural abilities and motivations and make a positive impact in their lives?

So exactly what are you waiting for?

Jesus didn’t do things by half measures. His compassion wasn’t ordinary, everyday compassion. It was radical compassion. His power wasn’t religious power. It was God’s awesome power.

Radical Compassion

I have a confession to make. I’m not naturally a compassionate person. How about you? Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about people deeply. I do, but I’m not naturally compassionate.

So, what’s compassion? My dictionary tells me that compassion is a sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering or misfortunes of others. It’s derived from an old middle-English word, that comes from an even older French word, that’s derived from an even older Ecclesiastical Latin word, that means ‘to suffer with’. In other words, to feel someone else’s pain, and then to act on that, and to do something about it.

I’m pretty good at the second part – acting on it and doing something about it. I’m not always that good at the first part – actually feeling someone else’s pain. Why? Because of the way I’m wired on the inside; because of my motivations and my personality-type. Read Romans chapter 12 in the New Testament, and you’ll find several motivational giftings. Some of them involve a lot of compassion, and others don’t. A leader who’s too compassionate just won’t get anything done. On the other hand, people involved in caring for others – well, they’re naturally good at feeling someone else’s pain, which is why we absolutely love people like that.

So, why am I telling you this? Because today we’re continuing our look at what it means to lead an extraordinary life by looking at how Jesus lived His life, and one of the things He had in His makeup (we see it quite clearly on a number of occasions) is compassion. And I guess, as we take a look at this side of Jesus, I just wanted to make the point that just because we don’t all have compassion naturally wired into our DNA doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t show it from time to time. Have a listen to one of the compassionate things that Jesus did. Matthew 8:1:

When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him. And there was a leper who came and knelt before Him, saying: ‘Lord, if You choose, You can make me clean.

He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying: ‘I do choose. Be clean.’ Immediately the leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him: ‘See that you say nothing to anyone, but go. Show yourself to the priests, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’

Great crowds followed Jesus. He was a celebrity, a megastar, doing what I do, preaching the gospel. Often I’m dealing with crowds, whether here through the radio, or when I’m speaking at a church or an event, and as someone who’s naturally wired with not a huge amount of compassion, can I tell you how safe and how easy that is? Speaking in front of people, you’re detached. You rely on the fact that as the guy upfront, you are separated from the crowd, and that could easily have been the attitude that Jesus took. “I’ll stick away from the messy individuals with all those problems and pains that are going to inconvenience Me, and I’ll just preach to the big crowds.”

We all have our ways of isolating ourselves from the pains and the problems of difficult people. Some live in gated communities. Some have stopped attending churches. We withdraw and we try to make ourselves comfortable, but Jesus met the leper – the leper who was smelly with open, pussy wounds; the leper whom others reviled, and whom God’s own Law segregated from mainstream society. And when the leper said to Jesus: “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean”, Jesus did the one thing that no one had done since this man started exhibiting the signs of leprosy. Jesus reached out, and touched him. Touching the leper – now that’s compassion.

That speaks of the value that Jesus placed on this one man in his isolation and pain and suffering. In fact, Mark’s gospel account tells us that Jesus was moved with compassion, and that that’s what caused Him to reach out and touch this outcast. And the sense of the original Greek word translated into the English word compassion was that it was a deep, gut-reaction. It was something that Jesus felt in the core of His very being, and it was that feeling (literally the feeling of suffering with that leper in His heart, in His belly, in His gut) that caused Jesus to reach out, to touch him, and to heal him.

One of the reasons often we don’t suffer with people is that we’re too busy. When I think about who I am – because I’m a driven, outcome-focused, delivery-oriented kind of guy – time is at a premium for me. Now don’t get me wrong. In the mix of things, we need people like that, just as we need people who are nowhere near as time-focused, but who have buckets of compassion in their hearts. And what I’ve noticed is that when I slow down and just focus on the individual at hand, when I take the time to understand them and what they’re going through, I too can experience that sense of compassion, just like the next person.

It’s the speed at which we move sometimes that stops us from feeling and showing compassion. See, I want to skip right over the feeling bit, and the showing bit, to the doing bit. “What can I do to help this person?” That’s my natural desire, and there’s a 50-50 chance that you’re like that too, but often that’s not what they need. The biggest thing that someone who’s suffering needs is someone to stop and to be moved and impacted by their suffering. Sometimes just to understand them – to listen to them – to be with them.

I remember at a time in my life when I was suffering the biggest thing I’ve ever suffered in my 50-something years on this earth, there were some people who wept with me. That’s in fact the most powerful thing anyone’s ever done with me or for me. A truly extraordinary person is someone who shows compassion, whether or not it comes naturally.

Truth is, if we’ll just slow down a bit, take the foot off the accelerator a bit, we’re all capable of suffering with someone. We’re all capable of feeling their pain. We’re all capable of showing them that we feel their pain, and that will be one of the most transformative experiences of their lives. I can tell you that because I’ve had to learn it – because it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m still learning it, and I’ll be learning it until the day I breathe my last breath.

That leper – I mean, I’m sure that he was absolutely over-the-moon at being healed. In fact, we know he was. Mark tells us he went racing round showing people what Jesus had done, even though Jesus had expressly asked him not to. This guy was completely, totally over-the-moon, and why wouldn’t you be? I would be; you would be. But I’m absolutely certain that in the days, weeks, months, and even years that followed, as he sat quietly by the fire in the evening at home, remembering that day in his life when Jesus reached out and touched him, that it’s the love and compassion that Jesus showed him that would bring tears to his eyes. What do you think?

Compassion is one of the things that sets a person apart. Compassion is one of the things that enables an ordinary person like you and me to live an extraordinary life. Compassion, in this day and age, truly is extraordinary.

Radical Power

I wonder what the word power means to you. There’s electrical power, there’s political power, and then – then there’s another type of power. It’s a power that’s completely set apart from any other power that you and I know about, think about, or have ever experienced, and that power is the power of God. Why is it different? Because it’s greater than any power that you and I can ever experience anywhere else.

Think of the immense power in a lightning bolt. It’s so powerful, it’s seriously scary. Well, all the power in every lightning bolt that has ever bolted down since the dawn of time is just a drop in the ocean compared to the power of God. And we’re going to talk about that power right now, because it’s that very power that is the key to leading an extraordinary life.

When I was young, I learned the harder you work, the longer you work, the faster you work, the more you’ll get done, the more items you’ll be able to tick off your to-do list, and the more impact you’ll be able to have in the lives of other people. But quite a few years ago, God convicted me to in fact pray more and do less. Let me say that again. Pray more and do less.

Recently on the programme, I mentioned a young woman at my church – Lucy, who was convicted through one of the posts on my blog to do just that. And do you know what she reported? She said, “Wow! The things I do just have so much more impact now.” After just a month, she said: “I’m having all these conversations with my friends about Jesus and one by one, they’re coming to faith.” I just smile to myself, because that’s exactly what I found when I decided to pray more and to do less.

And do you know why it is that when we pray more and do less, we get more done? It’s because prayer unleashes the power of God, and it’s the power of God that makes for an extraordinary life on this earth because the power of God is so much greater than anything we can ever begin to imagine.

Now, engaging that power is something that Jesus didn’t seem to have a problem doing; He just did it. You and I, of course, will say: “Yeah, sure, right. What do you expect? He’s the Son of God, of course He had all the power. That’s Him; I’m just me.” But let’s take a look at how Jesus tapped into that power – the power of God to do extraordinary things. Matthew 8:5:

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, appealing to Him, saying: ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed in terrible distress.’

And Jesus said to him: ‘Look, I’ll come and cure him.’

But the centurion answered: ‘Lord, I’m not worthy to have You come in under my roof, but just speak the word, and I know that my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes. I say to the other, ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this’ and the slave does it.’

When Jesus heard him, He was amazed, and He said to those following Him: ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from the east and west, and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion, Jesus said: ‘Go. Let it be done for you according to your faith’, and the servant was healed that very hour.

Let me ask you something. Was there any uncertainty in Jesus’ mind about the power that God had given to Him? Apparently not. He just did what came before Him, and what came before Him that day was a man of faith. Importantly not one of God’s chosen people – not a Jew, but a Roman officer – one of those whose job it was to occupy and to oppress God’s chosen people, but he was a man with faith. In fact, it was faith so great that Jesus marvelled at it:

I tell you, many will come from the east and west, and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And it was this faith that caused the power of God to flow through Jesus and on into this centurion’s servant who, by the way, was nowhere to be seen! Remote-control distance healing. Pretty amazing stuff! No wonder Jesus marvelled at this man’s faith.

By way of sharp contrast, when Jesus was in His hometown of Nazareth, He was able to perform very few miracles indeed. Why? Well, let’s have a look. Mark 6:3:

Because they took offence at Jesus and didn’t believe in Him, He did hardly any deeds of power there.

In fact, Mark 6:6 says He was amazed at their unbelief. I love that. With the centurion, Jesus marvelled at his faith. But here, with God’s own people, He was amazed at their unbelief! In His own hometown.

It seems to me that one of the keys to an extraordinary life is extraordinary faith. Let me say that again. One of the keys to an extraordinary life is extraordinary faith – faith that goes against reason, in the miracle-working power of Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus never turned anyone away who came to ask Him to perform them a miracle – to pour the power of God out upon their lives. Not one.

Why do we walk around in the miry clay – feet heavy, shoulders hunched, when we have access to the indescribable power of God to get His will done on this earth? Question for you today: Would you rather that Jesus marvelled at your extraordinary faith in Him, or at your extraordinary unbelief in Him? Well, would you rather He walked away pinching Himself to make sure that the faith He’d just seen in you was for real, or that He walked away shaking His head, wondering: “How could you display such manifest unbelief in this Jesus you confess to believe?”

There are so many things in this life that we can’t do – so many mountains we can’t move. There are so many things Jesus calls us to do in His name that, for some reason, we think we have to do in our power. Sure, life’s full of mundane; full of challenges; full of hardships, but life is also full of the power of God, and it seems to me that the difference between the extraordinary and the ordinary is a bit like the difference between the centurion and one of those locals in Nazareth.

It’s Time to Go

We are such masters of self-delusion, you and I. Come on, we are – well at least I am, and I know for a fact that so often the church is too. Take Jesus’ great commission to His disciples.

‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given unto Me,’ says Jesus. ‘Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And remember, I’ll be with you wherever you go, even unto the end of the age’.

Matthew 28 – the very last thing Jesus said to His disciples.

Notice what He told them to do. He told them to go – “Go on, get out there, get amongst them, this is what I’ve called you to do.” And here we are, two thousand years on, building massive cathedrals – still sitting in our pews, expecting them to come to us. Now that’s a little unfair. So many of God’s people and God’s ministries and God’s churches are out there amongst it – going, just like Jesus told them to.

Jesus didn’t invite us to build a country club. He called us to go out into the world and be His hands and His feet, scarred as they are, and His voice and His heart of compassion to a lost and hurting world – to the parents of that little boy in the soccer club whose marriage is on the brink; to the guy who sits on the bench in the mall alone each day, a bit on the nose, in need of a good wash.

When I was at Bible-college, I was required to go and spend two semesters with a ministry, doing practical field training. The ministry I went to as a raw, wet-behind-the-ears seminary student was Christianityworks – the very same ministry I’m involved in today. It makes me speechless to think, at a time when I knew so little, I was already writing and producing radio-programmes that would be heard by rather a lot of people.

What was the principal of the college thinking? What were my lecturers thinking and come on, what was Jesus thinking, unleashing me in my ignorance to preach the gospel? Scary thought. Surely I needed to graduate first. Surely I needed to become a much deeper theologian first. Surely, there had to be something more – well, I wonder.

Not long into His public ministry, Jesus sent His disciples out to do some field ministry training. He sent them off completely without Him, and without anything much else either, it would seem. These guys were just fishermen and tax-collectors – seriously uneducated, unqualified, unreligious dudes, with absolutely no qualifications to do what Jesus was calling them to do. I seriously wonder sometimes if Jesus really knows what He’s up to. I mean, come on! Really! Have a listen to this. Matthew 6:6:

Then He went out among the villages teaching. He called the Twelve and began to send them two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff – no bread; no bag; no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them: ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you or they refuse to hear you, as you leave shake the dust off your sandals as a testimony against them.’ So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, anointed people with oil who were sick, and cured them.

Now just stop and imagine that that had been you that Jesus sent out like a sheep to slaughter. He gives you the authority to cast out demons. You’ve known Him for … mmm … 5 minutes at this point. Are you feeling confident? ‘Oh and by the way, don’t take any food or money or a change of clothes, ‘cos you won’t need them.’ What, is He dead-set crazy – this Jesus? Maybe He’s on the same stuff as John the Baptist, that lunatic in the wilderness, was on not so long ago.

Do you see how easy it is for us to think in conventional terms? Do you see how easy it is for us to sit in comfortable pews, in a comfortable church-building, and complain about the air-conditioning that’s not working properly? See, to us, conventional equals comfortable. Conventional equals convenient. Conventional is all about enjoying the experience. In any case, we’re not that qualified yet. We need to sit in those safe, comfortable pews just a little bit longer, before we get our hands too dirty.

Let me tell you something, friend (and this is for me as much as it is for you) if we’re someone who believes in Jesus, then Jesus has given us the authority to cast out demons. He has given us the authority to minister in His love, in His compassion, in His power, to those around us. And not only has He commissioned us, He’s commanded us to go!

Conventional wisdom says that I should never have been allowed to go out back then when I was so green, and tell people about Jesus, but that’s what led me on to doing what I’m involved in now, that reaches far wider – to many more people than I ever, ever could have imagined back then. ‘Cos when God calls us, when God commissions us, His power flows around us and through us to achieve what He always planned to achieve.

It was the same with those early disciples. Conventional wisdom says they should never have been sent out there on their own, but they weren’t on their own. The power and the presence of Christ was with them and around them, and ahead of them and behind them, through the presence of the Holy Spirit. And as a result, they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, they anointed many with oil who were sick, and cured them.

You know what I get out of this? Greatness is just about going. Just get up and go – go where Jesus calls you to go. Go where Jesus leads you to go. Just take the first few steps, as whacky and as weird as it may seem to you, because when He gives us the authority to do what He’s called us to do, watch out! His authority gives us the power to prevail in what He’s called us to do.

There are many comfortable, suburban, pew-sitting Christians, who will live out their very ordinary existence in that church. Then, there are those crazy disciples who dare to go – who dare to accept the authority given to them; who dare to live out a truly extraordinary life.

Have you ever wondered – how to live an extraordinary life? I mean no one wants to live a boring ordinary life. We all want to have some impact in this world. But … how?

The Theory is not Enough

When I finished high school almost 40 years ago now, my grades were good enough to mean I was selected to study medicine at Sydney University. And so I applied for a range of courses at different universities – that’s how it worked back then. You applied for several things that interested you and then, depending on your grades, you had several offers on the table from which you could choose.

One of the things I was accepted for was medicine, but something inside me – well, I just didn’t want to do it, even though my parents wanted me to do it. I mean, what do you really know at aged 17 about what you’d be good at and what you’d enjoy – what you want to spend the rest of your life doing? Nothing! Fortunately though, they left it up to me and being a young lad with a sense of adventure – that desire to spread my wings and fly, I chose a career in the military instead.

Now I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked back on that decision in the years since, and thanked God I didn’t become a doctor. See, I hate the sight of blood, and well, I just couldn’t imagine it! It’s just not me. I chuckle to myself, and every time we talk about the idea of me becoming a doctor, my wife Jacky ends up shrieking with laughter, or rolling her eyes into the back of her head. She knows me better than anyone on the planet, and saying that I would make a good doctor would be like telling me that I could fly to the moon by flapping my arms.

Now, given that I’m a bit of an academic, I wouldn’t have any problem at all with the theory. I’m sure I could cope with all the study and the exams – no problem, but my problem would be when I had to come to stick a needle into someone, or cut them open with a knife and poke around inside them, and then put all the pieces back in the right place and stitch them up again. My problem with being a doctor isn’t the theory; it’s the practice, and that’s the way it is with many of us when it comes right down to living an extraordinary life.

We don’t have any problem whatsoever with the theory. There are plenty of us who want to lead an extraordinary life, and we dream about it, but you don’t plough a field by turning it over in your mind. People who live extraordinary lives are the ones that realise the theory isn’t enough. The people who live extraordinary lives are the ones that get out there in the game, and give it a crack – the ones who are prepared to sacrifice and fail and get up and dust themselves off, and give it another go. And that’s exactly what Jesus taught us about living an extraordinary life. Have a listen. Matthew 7:24:

He said, ‘Look, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it didn’t fall because it had been founded on a rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell, and it was such a great fall.’ Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at His teaching, for He taught them as One having authority, and not as the scribes.

Well, should they have been amazed? All the religious leaders of their day were teaching waffle and theory and how to follow all these rules and laws that didn’t make people’s lives any better at all. In fact, it was making their lives worse. But the stuff Jesus was talking about – sure; it was about the very same God that all the religious leaders were teaching about, but He was teaching stuff that seemed to matter – real stuff; real-life things – things that people could take and do and live by, that would make their lives better and other people’s lives better.

But Jesus was warning them here. He was saying in effect: ‘Sure, you can come along and listen and be wowed by all that you hear, and entertained, and challenged, and that’s great. But if all you do is listen, what good is that going to do you? None! Because when push comes to shove, when the going gets tough, it’s all going to come crashing down round your ears. But, if you actually do the things that I’m telling you, it’ll be like building your life on firm foundations. So don’t just sit there and listen to me; do it!’

Hey, maybe that’s where Nike got their slogan from. And here’s the bit that caps it off for me. When Jesus was done teaching them, what did He do? Did He go back to the office and get out His textbooks and get in some more theory so that He could dish out yet another sermon, yet another theory lesson to the masses? Let’s have a read here at the very next thing that He did after His sermon on that mount. Matthew 8:1:

When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him, and there was a leper who came to Him and knelt before Him, saying: ‘Lord, if You choose, You can make me clean.’

So Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the man, saying: ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him: ‘See that you say nothing to anyone, but go. Show yourself to the priests and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’

See, what was the very next thing Jesus did after His message on doing instead of just listening? He went out and touched the leper. See, it was against the law to touch a leper, but He was so moved by compassion, He reached out and touched the leper, and healed the man.

Now I’m not sure if you’ve heard this saying, but it’s a great one. “A shepherd should never lose the smell of sheep from his clothing”. In other words, we should always be hands-on when it comes to living out our faith. We should always be prepared to do our faith, not just believe our faith. With all my heart I believe in Jesus, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to be a theoretician – sit here in a nice, safe, clean, cloistered, albeit boring little radio-studio and just churn out these programmes – dish out the theory. But if there’s one thing that Jesus teaches us, it’s that theory isn’t enough. The theory has to work its way out in practice in our lives. The easiest thing in the world is to nod wisely as we hear Jesus’ words today, but it’s much harder to go and do them.

Let me leave you with this thought: Theoreticians aren’t the ones who end up living extraordinary lives; it’s the practitioners who do. Who’s the great sportsman – the one who teaches the players, or the one who picks up the ball and runs with it? Who’s the great teacher – the one who stays in the classroom, or the one who pulls alongside the student on the journey in his life? At some point, if we want to live extraordinary lives, we have to go and live them. We have to go and do them. For some of us, it’s time to stop listening, and it’s time to start doing.

Powered by Faith

In your life, let me ask you: Where do you get the sort of power that keeps you going, despite some of the difficulties and the obstacles that you face? Do you have that sort of power? Well, no, me neither – well, that’s not quite true. Of course, in and of myself I don’t have that sort of power, but when from time to time things get beyond me, I do know where to go to get it. Sound interesting? Well, let’s take a look.

In this razzmatazzy kind of world in which we live, we’re supposed to have our own power. We’re supposed to be strong and self-sufficient. We’re supposed to be quick and smart and clever and all that stuff. That’s the theory, and I guess in part, I’d agree with that. We should grow; we should mature; we should use the strengths and the abilities we’ve been given, but I don’t care even if your name is Hercules, there are going to be times when the job before us is way, way, way beyond us. So, then in that place, where do you get that power – the power to live an absolutely extraordinary life? Well, let’s take a look.

The question is, what are you powered by? Here’s what Jesus has to say on the subject because of course in our journey of discovering how to live an extraordinary life over these last few episodes, we’ve been following Him around through the account of His life in the gospel of Matthew to discover how it was that He lived His extraordinary life, and here’s what Jesus has to say about power and where to get it. Matthew 8:5:

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, appealing to Him, saying: ‘Lord, my servant’s lying at home paralysed and in terrible distress.’

And Jesus said to Him: ‘I’ll come and cure him.’

But the centurion answered: ‘Lord, I’m not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes, and to another ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this’, and the slave does it.’

When Jesus heard him, He was amazed, and He said to all those who were following Him: ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and they’ll eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion, Jesus said: ‘Go. Let it be done for you according to your faith’, and the servant was healed in that very hour.

Now here was this centurion, a Roman soldier of the Italian cohort. He was faced with a problem that was way, way, way beyond him. His servant was sick, and obviously this servant meant a lot to him. What to do? No fancy emergency clinics back in those days; none of the advances in medicine that we take for granted these days as yet existed. Yet he’s heard about this miracle-man Jesus, and in his simple mind, he decided that Jesus must have the power.

But how to lay hold of that power? Well, get up and go and see Him! With a bit of luck, being a centurion, you’d get through the crowd to ask Jesus if He could help. But how does the centurion ask? Let’s take another look (verse 8):

The centurion answered: ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes. I say to another, ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this’ and the slave does it.’

The centurion sets out the simple soldier’s logic of his faith in Jesus. He explains his reason for putting his trust in Jesus, and Jesus is totally blown away by this man’s faith, and the moment this faith is expressed, it releases power. See, the centurion in and of himself didn’t have the power to heal the servant, but he knew where to get it, and how to get it – by placing his trust in Jesus. See, is that it? Is that the end of the story? Well, not really.

Of course, the centurion received what he asked for by faith, but interestingly, Jesus also received what He asked for by faith. It seems that Jesus actually practised what He preached, which is a pretty refreshing change when you think about it. Matthew 8:23:

When Jesus got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great the boat was being swamped by the waves, but Jesus was asleep. So they woke Him and they said: ‘Lord, save us! We’re perishing!’

And He said to them: ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then He got up and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was dead calm.

They were amazed, saying: ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the seas obey Him?’

Well I’ll tell you what sort of a man He was – He was a man of faith. He rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith, and then in faith He stilled the storm. Remember, Jesus had laid all His power aside to become a man. Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, but also the Son of Man! He had, in and of Himself, the same power as you and I do. What He relied on to do the extraordinary things that He did was God’s power by faith, and as a result, He was able to still the storm; to feed the five thousand; to heal the sick; to raise the dead – by faith.

Now, I try my hardest in my life. I marshal all my abilities and strengths whenever I’m faced with something I can’t manage, because I kind of figure that I should be capable of doing these things, but there are plenty of times I’m called to do things that are actually way beyond me. I was sitting preparing this particular message at the international airport in Dubai, on my way from Delhi in India to Nairobi in Kenya. I’d just been to India to grow the reach and the impact of these very same radio-messages there, and now I was heading off to Africa to do the same on that continent.

I can’t tell you how often I’m on these trips, and I sit there and I look around and I think to myself: “Who do I think I am? What am I doing here? I mean, Dubai, for crying out loud! I can’t make a difference in all these countries. These are all so foreign to me. I don’t belong here”, and then I remember the centurion – his simple logic. To him it was patently obvious that Jesus could do what he asked of Him, and then I remember Jesus who by faith stilled the storm, through the power of God Himself.

See, for Jesus, it wasn’t complicated. For the centurion, it wasn’t complicated – not for the Christ, not for the soldier. Faith is faith – simple, sweet, pure, and it’s that childlike faith that lays hold of the awesome power of God to do the extraordinary things – the things that are way beyond the natural – the supernatural. Looking for the power to do the extraordinary things? Looking for the power to live an extraordinary life? Well, I know exactly where you can get it.

Tough Choices

Now, in these last 4 episodes of the programme, we’ve only managed to get to Matthew chapter 8, out of 28 chapters, so we’re going to cheat somewhat by jumping forward to the end of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life and times to see, in part, how it ended.

A lot of what our lives end up being worth has to do with the decisions that we make. We all make many decisions every day – dozens of them. Sometimes we make really lousy decisions and other times, we make good decisions. So, I’d like to look at perhaps the single-most important decision that’s ever been taken in the history of humanity – the decision that Jesus took all alone, late at night, in a dark, lonely, scary place. They’re the hardest decisions to take, don’t you think – the dark ones, the lonely ones? And this was one of the hardest decisions that anyone will ever take, and also, the most important one. Matthew 26:36:

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here while I go over there, and pray.’ He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then He said to them: ‘I’m so deeply grieved, even unto death. Remain here, and stay awake with Me.’

And going a little farther, He threw Himself on the ground and prayed: ‘My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me, yet not what I want, but what You want.’ Then He came to His disciples and He found them sleeping and He said to Peter: ‘So, couldn’t you stay awake with Me for just one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into a time of trial. The spirit indeed is willing, but your flesh is weak.’

Again, He went away for the second time and prayed. ‘My Father, if this cannot pass from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.’

Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to the disciples and He said to them: ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’

Now this, of course, was the decision of laying His life down for you and me, so put yourself in His shoes, and imagine being there deciding whether or not you’re going to die for someone else, and not just die; suffer – not a quick, painless injection, as awful as that would be – not even the electric chair; certainly some pain there, but over pretty quickly … Wouldn’t that just be awful? But Jesus knew He was going to suffer for hours – the best part of a day, around 17 hours. Trial after trial, 5 of them in all; beating after beating, thorns driven into His skull, nails driven into His hands and feet, hanging there by those nails in excruciating pain for hours, until finally He didn’t have the strength to breathe.

That’s how you died when you were crucified; you’re suffocated. He actually lost the strength to breathe, hanging there by those nails, and so you died of lack of oxygen. All the while those nails tore at your wrist and your Achilles tendon – your whole bodyweight being taken on those 4 painful points. And so here Jesus is, hoping that His friends would support Him, but they fall asleep. Can you believe that? They actually fell asleep, and He’s sweating blood in His most crucial hour, and He prays and He prays ‘Dad, if only You can take this whole thing away from me!’

I’m sure there are a whole bunch of other things that passed between God the Father and God the Son in that dark, lonely, fearful place on that night. He was grieved – deeply grieved – greatly agitated. Why wouldn’t He have been, with all that lay ahead? He was dying to pay for my sin and yours, so that we could be forgiven. He threw Himself on the ground and prayed: ‘Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want, but what You want’, and that’s the key to the most important decision ever made in all of history. No, He didn’t want to die; but even in this dark place, He said to His Father in heaven: ‘Yet not what I want, but what You want.’

Right there in that yes is where the ordinary becomes absolutely extraordinary. Jesus made a decision to submit His life – literally His very life – to the will of God His Father, and that changed the course of history.

There are going to be times in both our lives – in your life and in my life – where we have one of those Gethsemane decisions to make, and they’re never easy. They’re always huge. I look back on a few in my life and I never, ever want to have to go through them again, but how we decide at that point has everything to do with the sort of life that we end up leading. If we’re prepared to lose it all for God, then that’s extraordinary!

So many people want to hang onto their lives, and when we cling onto the things that we want in life, that makes for an ordinary life. When we’re prepared to lay it all on the line, when we’re prepared to go with the outcome that God has for us, even when it deeply grieves and agitates us, as was the case with Jesus, that’s where true greatness lies.

Most of us will never be called physically to lay down our lives for God. Some will, but most won’t, and yet Jesus called His followers to take up their cross every day and follow Him, because there are much smaller Gethsemane decisions to be made each and every day in submitting our lives to God, so that we may live. “If any man would save his life, then he’ll lose it. But the one who loses it for My sake”, said Jesus, “Will save it.”

Weird – that last bit, but what He’s saying is that when we try to hang onto everything for ourselves, that’s what makes for an ordinary life, and eventually, an ordinary life comes to an end, but the one who lays down their lives for Jesus will live an extraordinary life, and that’s a life that goes on for ever and ever and ever. Amen.