The Armor of God - The Miraculous from the Mundane

The Miraculous of the Mundane

Intro -

[reintroduce series]…we have moved from how we are supposed to live now that we have been reborn, to understanding that we are all one. The wall of hostility has been removed so that we can now live at peace with everyone, if we only move in that direction. And now we will look at what the church unified can and should be doing - living out the life of Christ everyday.

So lets turn to and read God’s word for us today...

Ephesians 3:7–19 ESV

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Eph 3:7-

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pray

[sportscenter]

[talk about growing up watching show…explain it briefly]

Sometimes we live out a Sportscenter type of faith...

What is worse is that we use that type of faith as our story - both on social media, and as a shield or front to the world! We act as if our life is a highlight real of the miraculous, sometimes with great intentions, but often as an effort to shield others from seeing the truth of our lives. That we are all flawed, and hurting. And that we all need someone to answer the call of Christ to love us and help us too.

Part of this issue is that the evangelical community, specifically, and Christians more broadly, have for the past 100 years placed an overt emphasis on witnessing.

I am sure that any of you who come from a Baptist background immediately understanding the implications of that word, right? For those that don’t, witnessing is an act of a believer - to some a required act and to others more optional - but it is an act of a believer who presents to a non-believer the truth of the Gospel through some mode or method.

[examples..my favorite - with laboring air quotes - is the fake tip. Fake money that reminds the hard working person serving you that they don’t need money, only Jesus!…while there is truth there, the truth obscures the very invitation of Jesus]

Witnessing, in modern times, has taken on the identity, at least in some circles, as being a highlight reel too.

We amplify those moments in our lives when God’s presence was felt and would have the biggest impact on the nonbeliever. As if God wasn’t there other times! Those times when things don’t seem so miraculous!

We amplify those moments in our lives when God’s presence was felt and would have the biggest impact on the nonbeliever. As if God wasn’t there other times! Those times when things don’t seem so miraculous!

Matthew 15:8 ESV

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

But when we do that - when we act as if our lives are somehow more blessed than others because of God’s blessings and forget to include the mundane moments of life, we end up rightly praise God for the blessings He offers with our lips, while our true witness - our hearts and our lives - tell everyone a different story.

But that’s what we do. We rightly praise God for the blessings He offers with our lips, while our true witness - our lives - tell everyone a different story.

Our hearts aren’t fully in the hands of God. And because of that we offer no real change to this world.

And what we need to understand is that the most powerful witness to Christ for this world, our family, our friends, to see is the regular life lived out by walking with Christ through the mundane.

And don’t get me wrong, we need them to know about Jesus, I just think we are going about it the wrong way.

[noonecareswhatyouknowuntiltheyknowyoucare]

That is why my heart is so sold out on this idea of ministry by example. This way of ministering to this world through our lives so that they better understand what Jesus is all about!

We - everyone here, everyone who claims to follow Jesus, everyone who cries out, “Lord, Lord,” when troubles comes - we must come to grips with the call that rests on all of us. A call to be the example for his world. After all, nobody cares what you know, until they know you care.

And that is why witnessing in the typical evangelical model is rarely successful. You can’t change someone’s heart with words, church. You must change it with a life changed by Christ.

This call that Paul talks about in this text today. The “mystery of Christ,” as he puts it. This idea that God isn’t just the God of some, but of all. And moreover, as Paul explains there in verse 6, we are “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”

The “mystery of Christ,” as he puts it. This idea that God isn’t just the God of some, but of all. And moreover, as Paul explains there in verse 6, we are “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”

And if partakers church, then there is a cost - just as Jesus tells us there is!

Peter even reminds us of that idea when he reminds us that we are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

And if you have received that mercy, then you must care for others, and extend that mercy.

Ephesians 3:8 ESV

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

Eph 3:

I think that is exactly why Paul reminds us that there is a call on each of us - from the most lofty to the most humble - to preach of the unsearchable riches of Christ! And not to preach with words, but with love! Just as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians!

But love isn’t just a feeling, no, it’s more than a feeling. Love - at least the love that God calls us to live out, is tangible. It is active!

1 John 3:18 ESV

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Love is action. Love is truth. Love - the true call of the believer - is something that cannot be pulled off with words, but with actions.

But what kind of actions? Surely Paul isn’t telling us that to preach the Gospel we must be great - or that we need to be rich enough to effect great change, or famous enough to speak to the masses! No, that couldn’t really be any further from the truth - in fact you can infer from this text that it is quite the opposite!

But even in his newfound life of simplicity he makes this bold claim that I couldn’t get out of my head all week.

Ephesians 3:9 ESV

and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things,

Ephesians 3:9–10 ESV

and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

[read…his call was to…]

It isn’t the rulers, or famous people that tell us the glory of Christ! It is the mundane! The regular people! Their regular lives that speak to the glory and wisdom of God!

Church, if you believe that the Bible is alive; if you believe that scripture is intended to reveal God’s truth to all people throughout all time, then you must understand that those verses were meant to fall on your ears, and moreover, we directly meant for you!

That is your call, too.

We must all “bring to light,” the plan and mystery of God. And we do that, through our lives, so that the church might become for everyone a piece of armor. It might become for us all an outlet for the wisdom of God, and because of that, we might change this world!

I listen, I don’t care who you are, you can do it. No matter what this world tells you. All it takes is a moment. Just one tiny moment. To be in the right place at the right time - living the right life - a life that displays all that Christ calls us to, to make a huge impact on this world.

I don’t care who you are, you can do it. All it takes is a moment. Just one tiny moment. To be in the right place at the right time - living the right life - a life that displays all that Christ calls us to, to make a huge impact on this world.

Now I don’t mean you become perfect - far from it! But I do mean that the greater majority of your life will become dependent on the precepts and ways of Christ! And when that happens, you will change this world!

[picofpeoplewhochangedhistory]

I can prove it to you right now.

I want you to play along. Take this seriously. Think back on your life. Think back on all those moments where your future hung by a thread, or your life, or job, or marriage - whatever. Think back over the course of all you existence, and remind yourselves of those people who invested in you. To whom you mattered greatly. People who stood in the gap with and for you. So for the next 10 seconds, picture that person, and that difference, in your mind.

[keep time]

Church, you were the reason they were born.

Making a difference in your life, passing that torch of Christ forward, that is why they existed - at least in some part! And understand that there are people out in this world - people who were just like you and me - who are waiting for that gift from God to stand in the gap and bring with them the love of Christ that they so desperately need!

To be the example. To love in the face of hate and difficulty. To be faithful when all others fall away. To look beyond simple mistakes, or arguments, or differences, and see the truth - that we are all one, unified in Christ and made for each other! And further, we were made to make an impact on this world!

[picofgandolf]

And I want to share with you, if I can a story about that.

Most of you know that I put in Easter eggs in every sermon. Little things that remind us of something - either a movie, or a song, or a show. Last week it was Chevy Chase from SNL, and there have been a couple today as well. But this one I can’t hide. I can’t hide it because it changed my life when I first read it.

When I started High school I was a boy without a home. We had moved twice in the three years before that year, and would move again in another year. All told I moved 8 times before I went into the Army, and 6 times between 3rd and 11th grade. I was always struggling for connections and for stability. So I never really had time to know who I was.

And when high school came, my body still hadn’t had time either. I was less than five feet tall - shorter than Kate. I was very skinny…shocker right? But most shocking, is that I had zero confidence. In fact, I had so little that I wouldn’t even look you in the eye if we were talking. I walked staring at the floor a few feet in front of me. I wouldn’t read in front of people or stand in front of the class. I was detached from everything and everyone. As I tell the kids I help at Hallyburton, I was them. I was one step away from no future.

But in my life there were people, who were no doubt born to bring this lost child back to life, people who saw the hope in me. People who gave me their time, who nurtured our relationships. Who wanted nothing more than to see me changed. Not fixed. Not successful. Not just like them. Just to see me become the version of me they could see!

One of them was my English teacher. [break tension if necessary] He was quite possibly the coolest teacher ever. He was Irish. He loved U2. He essentially looked just like Bono, and wore sleeveless shirts and ripped jeans every day.

He was everything I wanted to be. And church, he cared about me.

And he changed my life. Through him, and countless others, I started to become a more whole person. A more complete picture of who I needed to be. One of those things he offered was not only confidence that I had a purpose and could make an impact on this world, he gave me a love an author who would - through his portrayal of characters intended to symbolize the Christ story - make a huge impact on me for Christ.

And the one moment I will never forget on my first read through that book was this one. A moment when the “Mosaic” figure of the story, Gandalf, is confessing his hope in a small - seemingly insignificant - person. Someone with whom I could directly relate.

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”

[picofpeoplehelpingpeople]

Church we need people. Ordinary people. People going through their daily motions. People living life like everyone else. But in the midst of that life, church, people who love everyone they see, and look for opportunities to pull the miraculous from the mundane!

To take a moment to ask how someone is doing. To give some money to the beggar, and even more, to kneel and speak with them! To smile at every child! To stop caring more for your own comfort and sensibilities and start understanding that this world is full of people who just want to be loved! Even if they are acting contrary to that!

Every moment we have is an opportunity to witness to this world the very power of God! Not some great magical power that will hold the evil of this world at bay! No! God has the greatest weapon there could ever be to do that! A weapon so powerful that it can replicate itself again and again! It can spread from one person to another like a fire, and in it’s path, all hate, all evil, all those things that run counter to the very spirit of God - they all melt away!

Those everyday deeds. Those small acts of love and kindness. Love in action. They are the very thing that opens the door for the hope of Christ! That is what keeps the darkness at bay! Small acts of kindness and love - the very Grace of God - alive in your heart and lived out in your life!

And what is more, church, the more we live that out, the more it spreads, the less we have to fear! If you would just see that the greatest witness for this world is your example, you would fear less, you would worry less. You would finally see the miraculous in the mundane! And when you see it, they all see it.

Ephesians 3:17–19 ESV

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Eph 3:17-19

But you can’t do this alone.

I don’t find it at all ironic that this message from Paul - a message of unity with one another - comes with the tag ending offered here. A message of unity with God.

You see, if you just try to live a good life, you will fall short. You will crack. Those things you do every day will turn from being for others, to being for self. But when you finally feel the love of Christ - a love that passes all understanding - you become empowered for all good works, as scripture tells us.

The best example for this I can offer us is marriage, or more broadly relationships. You can try all you might to do those big things - those hugely romantic gestures; vacations, rings, houses, cars - but if you are just doing that and not trying to do those mundane things. The everyday things that prove out the love you have for your partner, you will fail. You will fail, because when you are rooted and grounded in love, you want to change your reality to better match your partner. In other words, if you love someone, and want to serve someone, you will do things that will benefit that person. Not just big things, but little things.

The every day things.

You kiss them every morning. You tell them you love them. Maybe you wash dishes or do laundry or mow the grass. But you team with them. More importantly - in fact most importantly - you think of them every day.

You remind yourself, in those moments when life is awful, and you just can’t take them anymore, of their best qualities. You fill yourself with thoughts of those moments when the whole world revolved around just the two of you. You remember that look in their eyes when you know how much they love. you. Every single day, you fill yourself with those thoughts, because to not do it, is to loose the miracle of the mundane.

You loose the power of the regular, and before you know it, irregular thoughts arise.

But when you do it, you become a unified force of God’s love - you cleave to one another and become one flesh.

Ephesians 3:19 ESV

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And it is the same with faith. To benefit from this armor, you must be rooted and grounded in it. Every single day, you must make it a point to pray. To walk with God. To read the Bible, even if only for a minute. To think about things through His eyes, and to experience life with Him as your partner!

And when you do all those mundane things, you will realize that those tiny little moments begin to add up! And then you start to see the height and the width and the breadth and length of the love of God! You start to see the miraculous in the mundane, and when that happens, you become filled with all the fullness of God!

And when you are filled, church, you will be a witness for God, filling others in this world so that they will be able to live in light of the Grace that calls us all.

Oh you can do it. You can change this world. You were born for it church.

The question is, will you do it? Will you take up the vision of our Savior. The vision that sees the miracle in the mundane. Will you look at the world through His eyes, or your own.

[Invitation]