Extraordinary Request and Ordinary Things in Ordinary Ways in Ordinary Places

Recap: Ordinary Things in Ordinary Ways

In what was really the first half of what is turning out to be a two-part blog post, Extraordinary Request and Ordinary Things in Ordinary Ways, I noted the extraordinary request that we see in Matthew 6:9–10, the beginning of the Lord’s prayer:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

And I noted that this awesome request will come to pass. God’s name will indeed be hallowed in all the earth, his kingdom will come in its fullness, and his will shall certainly be done on earth as it is in heaven (Revelation 21:1–4). I then asked the questions: “What should we do in the meantime? What do we do in anticipation of that day? How do we participate in this glorious, inevitable reality?” The answer, that I suggested Scripture points us to is this: We should do ordinary things in ordinary ways.

We see this clearly in the relatively ordinary prayer requests in Matthew 6:11–13 that follow this initial extraordinary request:

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

In short, I concluded that:

through seemingly ordinary things (active dependence on God for physical and spiritual provision) in seemingly ordinary ways (seeking him in prayer and in the Word, and fighting sin through confession, repentance, forgiving others, and turning from evil), God makes us look more and more like his Son, Jesus. In this way, God works out this extraordinary request that his name would be hallowed, that his kingdom would come, and that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And he will grant it in its fullness at Christ’s return.

Well if this is the ordinary stuff that we are to be doing? Where should we do it? By now you are probably not surprised to learn that it gets even more ordinary. Indeed, God wills that we hallow his name, usher in his coming kingdom and will on earth, by doing ordinary things, in ordinary ways, in ordinary places. Consider one of Paul’s letters.

 

Ordinary Places: The Household of Faith and Your Home

We’ve seen an epic request in the Lord’s Prayer, now consider one of the more epic openings to a book of the Bible. Does it get any more glorious and sweeping than Ephesians? Paul begins with nothing short of Spirit-filled praise in Ephesians 1:3:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…

Paul then goes on to unpack those spiritual blessings in one of the densest and richest sections of Scripture in the Bible. Paul heralds God’s sovereign, predestining love toward those he adopts into his family through his Son, Jesus. Just take a minute to read through Ephesians 1:3–14.

God’s love toward rebels and his sovereign plan of redemption to reverse the curse of sin and death is nothing short of breathtaking—anything but ordinary. To add to the grand content of this letter, Paul closes by exhorting us to “Put on the whole armor of God” in order to be fit for spiritual warfare. Through this gospel armor we are prepared to withstand the devil and fight against “cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:11–12). Cosmic powers? Spiritual forces of evil? Heavenly places? Again, this is anything but ordinary.

With such a divine beginning and supernatural, cosmic end, the middle of this letter must be off the charts! Where would Paul have us live out our predestined identities? Where would he have us wage this warfare? We might be tempted to first think of some place wild and hostile to the gospel. Perhaps in a foreign country on mission or among the unreached? These seem fitting. Indeed, these are certainly places God will call some of us, and I pray he does so more and more for the sake of his name, the advance of the gospel, and the joy of all peoples. As we look in Ephesians, though, we find, sandwiched in between these extraordinary realities, some seemingly very ordinary instructions. Paul instructs us to work out this sovereignly predestined salvation that fits us to wrestle and overcome cosmic, spiritual forces of evil first and foremost in the household of faith and at home.

Paul says, given this awesome predestining love of God, you and I should therefore “walk with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” with all eagerness to maintain the unity God has given in the one body of the church (Ephesians 4:1–4). For us, this works itself out in our local church. That’s it. Be humble, gentle, and patient with one another, and by doing so, you will build the church up in love (Ephesians 4:16). Ordinary things. But, oh, it gets even more ordinary.

Given this cosmic spiritual warfare that we are in the midst of, Paul has this to say: “Wives, submit to you husbands, as to the Lord…Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church…Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 5:22, 25; 6:1). That’s it. As we rush headlong, fully armored, into battle against Satan and his demonic legions, the marching orders Paul gives us are to be Christlike to those in our household—our families. Imperfect husbands and imperfect wives, show Christlike love toward one another through self-sacrifice and humility in order to build one another up in the faith. And, children walk in humility before imperfect parents by obeying them. These are, normal, ordinary things, in ordinary ways, in ordinary places.

 

Conclusion

So, in the first half of this post we saw that God wills to bring about Matthew 6:9–10’s extraordinary request through seemingly ordinary things in seemingly ordinary ways. In such things and ways, God makes us look more and more like his Son, Jesus and ushers in his kingdom. And where will all of this work itself out in our lives? Ordinary places.

God will certainly call many of us to different contexts to live this out. He will sweep some of us up into his call to global missions and plop us down among an unreached people group of a completely different ethnicity and culture. I pray that he does this to more and more of us. But whether near or far, whether on mission in a foreign country or perpetually local, the primary place that God will have us grow in Christlikeness and participate in this awesome, inevitable reality of his coming kingdom will be among fellow believers in the local church and among our own families in our homes. Indeed, it is “through the church” that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). God does this through ordinary things, in ordinary ways, in ordinary places. And again, in the end none of this is very ordinary at all.

All Good Is Because of Jesus

Listen carefully to what our Lord Jesus says:

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39)

That is: If we love anyone in our family more than we love Jesus, we are dishonoring Him; we are therefore not worthy of Him. If we do not deny to ourselves whatever prevents us from following Him closely, we are dishonoring Him by implying that these activities or people or pleasures are more important, more vital for us than He is; we are therefore not worthy of Him. Indeed, Jesus goes on to say that to succeed in everything we put our mind to in this life, but to lose Him, is to lose everything, to lose the only true life, and thus to fail at what is most important; but to give up whatever is necessary to follow Him – even what we think is the way to success, to joy, to fulfillment – is to find true life, what is most fulfilling and joyful.

Note first: If Jesus said these words and was not Immanuel, God with us, God in the flesh, He was not a great teacher or even an admirable man; these are the sort of words that cult leaders say to their followers. But if He was who He claimed to be, then these words point us to our greatest joy, our greatest good.

Second: Think of what Jesus is saying about family, and about all other good things in this life:

  • Family is a great gift. We are to honor our fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12). We are to rejoice in our children, seeing them as gifts from God (Psalm 127:3-4).
  • Fulfillment in life is a great gift (John 10:7-10).
  • Accomplishment is a great gift (Proverbs 3:5-6).
  • Riches and honor and health are all gifts (1 Chronicles 29:12).
  • The ability to work hard is a great gift (Deuteronomy 8:18).

So if all of these come from God, what is the problem with loving them?

The problem is seeing them as something other than what they are, gifts. We don’t earn them. We don’t deserve them. We don’t create them. They are granted to us by a gracious God “who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). And He grants them to us – to all humanity – only because of Jesus.

Why only because of Jesus? Because God would have been perfectly righteous to have ended the human race with the first disobedience of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17). There would have been no more grace, no more gifts to men. But because He planned to crush the head of the serpent via Jesus, the descendant of the woman (Genesis 3:17), because He planned to send forth His Son in the fullness of time for the redemption and adoption of His people (Galatians 4:4-5), and because the redemption through Jesus would redound to the praise of His glorious grace (Ephesians 1:3-14), He spared them, instituted His Great Plan, and for millennia has granted undeserved gifts to all of mankind. Apart from Jesus, therefore, we have none of these gifts.

But Jesus is not only the source of all these good gifts, the reason we have any good – He Himself is far and away the greatest good.

Thus, while family is a great gift, Jesus is both the Brother par excellence (Romans 8:29) and the true Husband that every good marriage points to (Ephesians 5:25-32). While accomplishment and honor are great gifts, Jesus defines the greatest accomplishment and grants the only honor worth having (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

So, when we see Jesus for Who He is, we find that in Him we have unspeakable joy (1 Peter 1:8) – joy that is found nowhere else. Therefore, thank Him continually for His gifts – and gladly give them all up if that’s necessary to follow close to Him.

Let the Little Children Come to Me

Then children were brought to [Jesus] that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matthew 19:13-15)

In Sunday’s sermon on Matthew 19:13-30, we considered these opening verses primarily for how they help us to answer the question posed by the rich young ruler: “What good deed must I do to inherit eternal life?” If the kingdom of heaven belongs “to such,” to those who approach Jesus like children, then the question is completely wrongheaded.

But this vignette also informs our understanding of the place of children in the life of the church. Consider these five simple implications:

1)     Children need to come to Jesus.

2)     We can hinder them from coming.

Scripture uses children as negative as well as positive examples (see Matthew 11:16 and Ephesians 4:14). So in Matthew 19, Jesus is not saying children are perfectly innocent and pure.

Thus, these first two implications go together. Hindering children from coming to Jesus is serious – serious enough for Jesus to rebuke His disciples. Children need Jesus – and are hurt when we keep them from coming to Him.

How do we do this? Obviously, when we fail to teach them anything about Him and fail to bring them to settings where they can learn about Him. But we also hinder them when we mouth Christian faith and then are, on the one hand, harsh and domineering, or on the other hand, overly permissive, abdicating our responsibility to discipline. We also hinder them when we go to church and proclaim Christ, and then come home and fail to live out those truths.

3)     Instead, we must help them to come to hear about the Kingdom and to come to Him.

In Matthew 19, those bringing the children want Jesus to lay His hands on them and pray for them. They helped the children to come where they might be blessed by Him. That is our responsibility – as parents, certainly, but also as other adults within the church body. We other adults do this both through encouraging and assisting parents, and by ministering to the children ourselves.

4)     Ministry to children is much more than child care.

It is easy for churches to fall into the error of thinking, “This teaching is so important for the adults! We need to get the children somewhere else so their parents can listen without interruption and profit from what they hear.” While parents may at times need help caring for their children, the children also need to hear about Jesus, about Scripture, about God’s plan of redemption: About creation, fall, the cross, the resurrection, and Jesus’ return. We can hinder children from coming to Jesus by treating them as obstacles to their parents’ faith, rather than as those who, like their parents’, need to hear these great truths.

So we put a high value on work with children, formally in nursery and Sunday School, and informally interacting after church and in homes, living out the Gospel, speaking the Gospel, displaying the love of Christ, teaching the love of the Father.

5)     We value having children in our worship services.

In corporate worship, we come together to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son. Worship is acting and thinking and feeling in a way that brings glory to God, as we value Christ more than all the world has to offer. Our children benefit from participating in such corporate worship, seeing their parents and other adults who love them expressing joy in Christ and deepening their joy in Christ. Indeed, might excluding them from that setting actually hinder their coming to Jesus?

In addition, we communicate an important truth when families in corporate worship sing together, read Scripture together, pray together, and respond to the preached Word together: The Gospel is for everyone. A young child benefits from hearing the Gospel in its simplicity; the most seasoned believer who has read the entire Bible 100 times benefits from hearing the same Gospel in its complexity. A two-year-old can understand the essence of the Gospel; the most brilliant scholar can never plumb the depths of God’s revelation. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33).

So please pray, thanking God for the children of Desiring God Community Church, and ask yourself: How can I spur on these little ones to love and good works? How can I help them to know Jesus and to love Him? Have I done anything, even inadvertently, that hinders their coming to Him?

So may the God of encouragement grant us to live in such harmony with one another as we follow our Savior that all of us together, young and old, with one voice, may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.