Let’s Roll: Unexpected Availability

April 14, 2024   /   Cross Pointe Church

Let’s Roll! Unexpected Availability – Sermon Notes Pastor Brad Myers

Ordinary People doing Extraordinary Things April 14, 2024

Today: Unexpected Availability

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (TLB)

Notice among yourselves, dear brothers, that few of you who follow Christ have big names or power or wealth. 27 Instead, God has deliberately chosen to use ideas the world considers foolish and of little worth in order to shame those people considered by the world as wise and great. 28 He has chosen a plan despised by the world, counted as nothing at all, and used it to bring down to nothing those the world considers great, 29 so that no one anywhere can ever brag in the presence of God.

  • “in order to” God’s plan is using your availability.
Q) Does skill matter to God?

Thought: God doesn’t care about your ability, but only your availability. If you prove your dependability, He will increase your capability.

Q) Who are some of the extraordinary people in the Bible?
  • Moses: God specifically chose Moses to lead the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to salvation in the Promised Land.
  • Elijah: Prophet
    • Used to oppose a wicked king and bring revival to the land.
    • Elijah’s life was filled with turmoil. At times he was bold and decisive, and at other times fearful and tentative.
    • He demonstrates victory and defeat, followed by recovery. Elijah knew both the power of God and the depths of depression.

James 5:17 (CEB)

Elijah was a person just like us. When he earnestly prayed that it wouldn’t rain, no rain fell for three and a half years.

  • King David:
    • Man after God’s own heart.
    • Slew the giant Goliath.
    • Anointed King of Israel as a teenager.
    • David arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle so he could marry his wife, Bathsheba.
    • God promised David a descendant to rule on the throne forever. That everlasting king is Jesus, the Messiah, and Son of David.
  • John the Baptist:
    • The first prophet called by God since Malachi 400 years earlier. 
    • Born of elderly parents who had never been able to have children.
    • Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John in the River Jordan. 
    • He was the precursor for the modern-day evangelist.
  • Abraham:
    • The father of many nations.
    • Aside from Moses, no OT character is mentioned more in the NT than Abraham.
    • God tested his faith to sacrifice his son Isaac.
  • Paul:
    • “Far from an ordinary man”
    • Given the opportunity to do extraordinary things for the kingdom of God.
    • Originally a hater of Christians later becomes “The Apostle of Grace.”
    • Meets Jesus on the road to Damascus.
    • Many missionary journeys where he wrote 2/3 of the NT.

Paul’s life summed up

Philippians 1:21 (NIV)

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

So many other extraordinary people

  • Samuel, Esther, Ruth, Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John: All the Disciples,

Q. What was extraordinary about them?

A. They all did amazing things!!

  • Not because they were extraordinary.
  • They were people just like you and me.

 

Q. What did all these ordinary people have in common? Not just God!

A. They all were available to God and as a result, they did extraordinary, unexpected things!

 

Unexpected Availability!!

  • Making yourself available not knowing where you’re being sent or what you’re expected to do.
  • We have people like that here today! House & Online

Other people see where God is working, and they make them themselves available and join in with that work.

Other people only make themselves available if they know they outcome of where they’re being sent or what they’re asked to do.

Others claim to be available to God but are actually just dragging God with them to where they think He should be working.

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Thought: There is a work waiting for you to avail yourself to which God will make extraordinary with unexpected results!

Problem is we sometime don’t believe

Thought: When you think nothing significant can happen through you, that speaks more about your unbelief in God than about your natural abilities.

  • Many people with gifted abilities fail.
  • Many people with limited giftings succeed.

But God Says

Job 8:7 (CEB)

Although your former state was ordinary, your future will be extraordinary.

  • Again, in the middle between ordinary and extraordinary is where Jesus is!

Thought: It may not always what you want it to be; but it’s what God needs it to be.

We have to understand

Thought: We are God’s vessel to get it done and He will move us for His purpose if we make yourself available!

One of the most amazing and yet challenging scriptures.

Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

  • We fail to realize the opportunities before us.

Thought: God is saying His ability is beyond my ability to ask or even imagine what it could be like for God’s power to flow through me.

Chances are you have been limiting God?

  • We don’t intend on limiting God, but we tend to look at ourselves as not anyone special, or smart enough, etc.

Thought: If you have achieved everything in your life by your own ability then you have yet to tap into God’s supernatural ability for you. God wants your availability for something bigger way above what your own natural ability requires.

Story: Deliverance from Egypt- Moses

  • Experienced signs and wonder but died short of what God had for them.
  • “Promise Land!” It was theirs by faith!
  • They couldn’t see beyond their natural ability to get there.

Psalm 78:41 (NKJV)
Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. God wanted to do more than they would let Him do. He wanted to bring them into the promised land –in one year! Israel said the nations in that land are mightier than we are, that was true in the natural. God wanted them to trust Him and keep moving forward. Instead they instantly limited God.

Heb. 4:2

The Word preached did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it.

  • Your availability tends to be at the same level as your faith.

Saying: “That Was Unexpected

  • I didn’t believe that would happen. (possible but not probable)
  • I didn’t think that could happen: Impossible!
  • Your availability mirrors your faith.

Isaiah 6:8 (NIV)

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? (God sends someone) And who will go (who’s willing?) for us?” And I said, Here am I. Send me!(I’m available for the unexpected!)

  • God always uses those who say, “Here I am God, send me!” – I’m Available.
  • Opportunities, the miraculous, and empowering always starts with Availability.

 

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