And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. — Luke 1:14-15
I love to ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. The younger the kids are, the more spectacular their answers. They want to be astronauts or professional baseball players, the president of the United States or a musical artist famous enough to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl. They want to be race car drivers or own a restaurant. If the kids are hungry at the time of being asked this question, then, they’ll dream of working in a candy shop or McDonalds.
This desire to dream of doing something great with our lives seems to be wired into our DNA by the Creator. We naturally dream big and imagine ourselves doing something very important with our lives.
I certainly had my share of dreams of greatness. When I was about five years old I was going to grow up to be something like Joe Mannix. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Mannix was a tv show that ran from 1967-1975 about a cool detective that was always getting in fights. But then at about seven, during the time of the Winter Olympics, I wanted to become a gymnast. Then I discovered baseball! And baseball cards. My new ambition was to play professional baseball and to have my picture on a bubble gum card. After watching Rocky—like a hundred times!—My dream switched to being a professional boxer. Then it was electric guitar as a teen. My dream was to go on tour and make millions of dollars playing to arena-sized crowds. And, of course, to create music videos that would be seen on MTV in between Take On Meby a-ha and Time After Time by Cindi Lauper.
Reality hits
I’m sure you’ve had your crazy dreams too so don’t laugh so hard at mine. It didn’t take long, however, for my lofty dreams to collide hard with reality. As a young adult, I started realizing how many talented musicians are out there, and I started realizing I’m not that good. I worked a series of minimum wage jobs and started wondering if I even had what it takes to support myself. I went to five different colleges starting with Syracuse University and finally at a small Bible college called Zion. I did okay in school but my dreams got smaller and smaller. In my 20’s I landed a full-time job as an assistant manager of a donut shop. My dreaming had hit such a low point that I was just happy to be making money.
Dreaming big spiritually
The same thing happens to us spiritually. We become born again, and like children, we dream of being great in the sight of the Lord. We read the Scriptures and see men and women doing great exploits for God and we are inspired. Our favorite verses are these:
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.— Ephesians 3:20
The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. — Daniel 11:32
We believe that we will do the “greater works” that Jesus promised, and we feel a sense of destiny and purpose burning in us like fire. We hear the call to touch nations! To go into all the world and spread the Gospel. Missionaries come to the church who have led thousands to Christ, and inside we feel, “I can do that!” We read of people who prayed for revival and saw God pour His glory out. And we just know that God can use us in that same way in our generation.
Dreams fade
But then, something happens. Reality hits. We spend our time working and changing diapers and doing yard work. We are busy doing a million things, none of which seem like the great exploits of mighty men and women of God. Dreams fade. We start realizing that our sin has many layers. We start feeling insufficient to even do any kind of ministry for God. We develop a mind of mediocrity that settles into just being good and faithful. We are told that we shouldn’t seek great things for ourselves, which we interpret as we should be content with being unnoticed ugly little mushrooms in the great garden of the Lord’s kingdom.
Sometimes what really eats away at our ability to dream is the criticisms of people. This applies to life in general but also in the church. People view us a certain way and it’s almost like we can’t push out of the small box they put us in. They view us as nice but nominal Christians. They don’t consider us very spiritual and certainly not a powerful man or woman of God. So we kind of get stuck wearing the lame Christian hat that others think suits us well. We wonder if that’s simply what we were destined to be.
Who told you this?
Who told you this? Who told you that your destiny is to be ordinary? Who told you that being great in the sight of the Lord is not something you’ll ever attain! Who told you that your dreams of spiritual greatness are sinful and that you should just humbly accept being a person of little influence in the world? Who told you these things?
This persuasion is not from him who calls you. — Galatians 5:8
Listen, many of our childhood dreams are ridiculous, and we needed to grow out of them and be more realistic about things. It’s part of maturity to recognize that we are not furnished by God to be an astronaut or professional boxer. It’s actually a good thing to let go of silly unrealistic childhood dreams and figure out what we are actually good at—as opposed to what we wish we were good at.
But it is not a good thing at all to let our spiritual dreams fade. You may not have been born for greatness in the art or sports or political world. You may not have been born destined to be the next Steve Jobs. But you were born to be great in the sight of God.
Called to greatness!
Nowhere in Scripture do we get the idea that we should settle for being small spiritually. Maybe in life and vocation we are ordinary. Perhaps our role in society is not heroic or even something admired. Maybe you just provide a needed service and there are no five years olds dreaming of doing what you do one day. That’s fine and the Lord often calls Christians to very ordinary professions (like taking care of sheep). But don’t think that your ordinary vocation means you should be ordinary spiritually—you were born for greatness my friend! In God’s kingdom, He doesn’t call some of us to be great and others to be average. No!
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. — Philippians 3:14-15
Now, it’s true that some parts of the Body of Christ are more visible than other parts. In other words, some of us are recognized more because we are out front maybe as pastors or leaders. Greatness in the sight of God has nothing to do with being visible and recognized by people. There will be people we meet in the next life who lived and died in relative obscurity but who are deemed great in the sight of the Lord.
I’m not capable
Some of you believe that maybe what I’m saying is true about your potential for greatness but deep down you feel utterly incapable. You feel like you just don’t have it in you to be great spiritually. Maybe because you aren’t that motivated or disciplined. You aren’t the kind of person that really gets things done. You don’t have that type A personality. You aren’t very gifted. You can’t sing, can’t preach, can’t lead. You don’t have much of an intellectual capacity or social skill.
But none of these things matter. Stay with me now—to be great in the sight of the Lord does not require any of the things that are required to be great in the sight of people. You know what people consider great: beauty, hard work, brilliance, social grace, charisma, talent. You could be in the bottom 1% in all of these, but it does not change your destiny for greatness in the sight of the Lord.
Upside down kingdom
Remember, my friends, we serve a God who flips everything upside down. The way we achieve greatness in the world is not how we achieve greatness in the sight of God. To achieve greatness in the world we have to be gifted and extremely motivated. We need exceptional willpower. We need to be what we call “overachievers.” We need to be driven to succeed. And we may even need to step on some people as we climb the ladder to the top!
Greatness in the sight of God is achieved in a completely different way. And listen! It’s a way that makes the ground level for all. The path to spiritual greatness is paved by weakness, tears and dependence on God. Greatness is achieved by coming to God and admitting our needs. God isn’t looking for us to be strong, disciplined, competent overachievers. He wants us to just put Him first, and cling to Him incessantly. We don’t even have to be good at this, but just take on an attitude of constantly throwing ourselves at His mercy.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. — 1 Corinthians 1:26-28
Behind the curtain
What we often don’t realize about those who are great in the sight of the Lord is that behind the scenes they are broken, weak people who cling desperately to the Lord moment by moment. Many of them would not be great if they were not in Christ. These are people who, in high school, were the least likely person to be voted to be the most likely person to succeed. But spiritual greatness in God’s sight is something that the weak, the poor, the broken can achieve because these are the very things that the Lord can turn into something great in His eyes. Selah.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10