February 21, 2016 God’s Use of the Ordinary for the Extraordinary by Pastor Josh Sheldon

God Uses Ordinary Means for Extraordinary Miracles

Well, our text this morning is what was read to you from 2 Kings there, 2 Kings 4, verses 38 -44. As we continue in this series that we started in Elijah some time ago and now continuing through Elisha.

You know, there's an old joke that you may have heard in one form or another, it goes something like this, you may have heard it a little bit differently, but this is basically what it is, is that one day the devil challenges God to a contest, and he's going to contest God in being able to do what God did, he says, well you made things out of dirt and I can make things out of dirt too, I can do what you did.

So God takes up the challenge and gets himself a mound of dirt and he starts to work, creating. And very soon thereafter the devil protests and said, it's not fair, it's not a fair contest, I don't have any dirt, give me some of yours, and God of course says to him, make your own.

As humor goes, that's pretty harmless. But it makes a point that bears on this morning's message. The allusion is of course to Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 in the humorous story where scripture tells us that man was created from the dust of the ground, from material as common as dirt, which is dirt itself, came the pinnacle of creation.

Man, Elisha was one of the most, if not the most prolific miracle workers of all the prophets. Certainly if so, then only until Jesus Christ came. And this morning we come to two miracles that are related to us in the scriptures in very quick succession.

One after the other, the curing of the pot of stew, immediately followed by the feeding of 100 men with those few loaves and some grain, all of which was able to fit into a small backpack, a knapsack.

As I pondered these two miracles, preparing for the preaching, the signals of God's grace and power, these affirmations of Elisha's prophetic authority, it struck me, just as that story I began with, and as Genesis tells us, it struck me how God uses ordinary material to work extraordinary miracles, like using dust to make man, or flour to purify a pot of stew.

And we can think back to how Elisha purified the water at Jericho. Remember, the people of the city came to him and said, this is a pleasant city, it's well situated, it has everything we need, except the water is bad.

And what does Elisha say? He says, bring me a new bowl and put some salt in it. He takes that salt, he pours it into the headwaters, and the water was purified, as the author tells us, as it is to this day.

The water was cleansed. And now here in 2 Kings 4, beginning at 38, we have a handful of flour removing death from a pot. We have bread, just regular bread, not some super divine food falling out of heaven, but barley bread, multiplied by prayer, according to the word of God.

In the next chapter, which Lord willing we will go to in some detail next week, but the next chapter, the disease most dreaded by the ancients, the Israelites and the Gentiles alike, which was leprosy.

That disease is cured simply by the sufferer going into the Jordan River and dipping himself seven times. These ordinary means, muddy water, a handful of salt, a handful of flour, regular bread, with this mundane stuff, God works these extraordinary miracles.

Our extraordinary God uses ordinary means to accomplish his extraordinary purposes in ordinary people. Think about this a moment. You who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you whose faith is in him. Think of all the things that God says he will and he does do through you.

An extraordinary God using ordinary means to accomplish extraordinary purposes in ordinary people. The passage that was read from 1 Corinthians sets the tone as we delve into the text of 2 Kings 4. And there the apostle tells us that God chooses the foolish and the base and the weak and the despised.

The way he gets, what, why does he do that? Because then there's no boasting before God. Because then using someone as mundane, as foolish, as weak, as despised as myself, as you, who can possibly get the glory but God?

Who can possibly get the credit but the Spirit of Christ dwelling in and amongst his people? God uses these ordinary means and he accomplishes extraordinary things through them. His purposes, his will.

Two miracles here in 2 Kings. Using these ordinary, mundane, everyday materials. Curing of the pot of stew and the multiplying of the loaves and the grain. Let's look to this narrative. Let's learn from it what God would have of us here.

Death in the Pot and the Purifying Flour

We have Elisha returning to the prophets of Gilgal which was the starting point of his journey with, his final journey with Elisha as Elisha was turning over everything to his successor Elisha. Gilgal is where those two started.

And Elisha is making the rounds. He's stopping to teach his disciples. He's looking in to see how they're doing. And how they're doing there in Gilgal is, things are hard. Times are tough. There's a famine in the land.

We don't know if it was a famine of epic proportions like the one in Elisha's day. We don't know if it was that or if it was local. Whatever the case, there was famine there for them then at Gilgal. And these students, these disciples of Elisha, they stayed there at their post.

It seems they're even waiting for Elisha to come knowing he would. I find it very commendable that they didn't run immediately to some other region like Abraham and later Isaac did when they went to Egypt because of famine.

They stayed at the school. They stayed at their post because they knew their master, Elisha, was coming. And he does come. He does come to check in and see how they're doing. They are his disciples. They are his responsibility.

They're distressed there because of the famine. It's not the result of laziness or any particular sin. It's God's providence. It's his sovereignty. And that's why there's a drought. That's why there's famine.

And this is a situation that Elisha finds when he gets there. And his first order of business is to get some food on the table. Isn't that interesting? He walks in. He says, let's put some stew on the table.

Let's get some food going. These men are hungry. And this first detail tells us something. It tells us that there's no food in the house. If there were, it would have been prepared for their master. It would have been ready for him to eat.

But sticking with the simplicity with which we have the scripture, a stew is set to boil and one of the disciples, one of these sons of the prophets, wants to go out and pick some spice, pick some herb to liven it up a bit.

He finds the wild gourd, whatever those are. He slices them up. He puts them in, his contribution to this community meal. And neither he nor his friends knew them for what they actually were. They appeared to be safe.

They must have looked similar to whatever he was actually looking for. But it wasn't what he was looking for. It wasn't exactly what he thought he was taking off that vine, whatever it was. It was a harmful plant disguised to look like the right one.

It's the way a poisonous coral snake looks to the casual observer to be just like the harmless king snake, a mistake that you don't want to make. It was like Satan masquerading as an angel of light or Pharisees looking beautiful on the outside like good and pious men while inwardly they're full of dead men's bones.

This gourd looked right. It looked like what he wanted, the spice that would have helped the stew taste a bit better. But into the pot it goes, everyone looking forward to the flavor they will add to the meal.

And as soon as they taste it, as soon as the spoon reaches their lips, they recognize it for what it is. And they cry out, they say, man of God, there's death in the pot. Which is to say, man of God, there's death in us.

We just ate this stuff and now that it's been seasoned, now that it's infiltrated the whole pot of stew, now we recognize that plant. The disguise has been torn away. There's death in the pot. And master, we just ate some of that.

Well he, Elisha, he acts immediately, he acts decisively, he acts effectively. He tosses some flour in the pot, this mundane everyday stuff he knew would be up in the cupboard shelf if they had shelves then, just get me some flour.

They stir it in, and like the waters of Jericho that moved aside and allowed him to cross on dry land when he came back to Israel, death is moved aside and banished from the stew. The stew is now wholesome.

The prophets can return to their meal. Some commentators you'll read will tell you that death was only a hyperbolic word for this stew tasting awful. Like some disrespectful husband eating something, you're trying to kill me with these eggs or something like that.

No, that's not the case. It's not being like that at all. The word for death is the noun that comes from the verb to die. It means death. What was in the pot was deadly, it was poison. I'll be honest with you and if you want to look at this up and read commentators on what it actually was and what's in the Middle East that could have been that gourd that he put in the pot that he picked that he thought was something else and all those botanical distinctions, if that would help you out to understand this, you may do so.

I got very confused and frankly bored with it. I do know that the prophet didn't pick the gourd knowing it was poison. He thought it was something else, so it looked like what he thought it was. And when it was recognized for what it was, it was deadly.

There was death in the pot, not I'm going to get an upset tummy. Death is in the pot. So we're speaking of a crisis here. Whatever it actually was, again, I would leave that to your studies if that interests you.

I know the important point is it was death. It was going to kill them if they ate it and there was no food other than that to eat because there was famine in the land. So let's be satisfied that either taking the first sip or smelling the stew, whatever happened, however it was, they recognized that what was in there was deadly.

It was the only food in the house. Let's understand that this was truly a miracle, that a spoiled batch of stew wasn't made fresh, but something that was deadly was made nutritious. Elisha has them sit down after he puts the flour in the pot.

He has them sit down. He says, serve it to the people that they may eat. They ate, and our author tells us, and there was nothing harmful in the pot. Can anything have been more ordinary than this? I ask you, can anything have been more ordinary in how Elisha went about this?

A handful of everyday flour tossed into a pot of everyday stew, stir it in, and according to the word of the Lord, this simple act removed death from the pot. A handful of flour, everything's fine. Does it strike you that they actually ate?

They said, Master, oh man of God, there's death in the pot. We can't eat this. He throws it in the hand. Now, you've got to think of this for yourself. I don't know what poison to bring as an example in our modern day, but if you recognize that you ate it, and I came to your house, and I threw in some flour, stirred it in, said, now you can eat, would you believe me?

Would you take it? I should think not. But these men, these disciples of Elisha who had seen him work, who were confident of God working in and through him, they took his command as coming from the Lord.

Didn't Elisha say that? According to the word of the Lord. It's given to us in such a straightforward and simple manner. We have to understand that when they were told to, they simply sat down and dished out the stew and they ate it without hesitation.

Now, there's a couple things in play here. For one thing, they are very confident in their master, Elisha. He was well known as Elisha's successor, and it is by then known that he's no replacement prophet.

He's like, okay, well, Elisha's gone, I guess Elisha will do. He is truly continuing the work of Elisha in the power of God, according to the spirit of Elisha. He had every bit the stature of the man he succeeded.

Kings and widows seek him out, and both are well rewarded for having done so. The dead by Elisha are raised to life as they had been by Elisha, and nourishment is miraculously provided by Elisha as it was by Elisha.

This is a man worth trusting. When he says, eat, you can count on the food being safe, and these men simply ate confidence. But the other thing to understand is that they knew who was working through this prophet.

They weren't being man-fearers or man-respecters or anything like that, because they knew it was God working through him. And Elisha didn't say, I declared the pot to be safe. Elisha didn't say, according to my word you may eat.

He said, according to the word of the Lord. A man who, when he claimed to be speaking for the Lord and acting on his behalf in accordance with his will, did miracles, which these men saw. This is the same Elisha who struck the Jordan with the mantle of Elisha, and the waters parted for him, who brought the Shunammite's son back to life.

That's the Elisha that they followed, not because of the man, but because of the God working in and through him. This is what they knew, that God was working through Elisha. As the Shunammite said, he's a holy man of God, and when he says the God has purified the pot, it's a word to be trusted and obeyed, as it was, because it was a word from the Lord himself.

And this puts me in mind of Peter's vision, where in Acts chapter 10, the Lord Jesus shows him all sorts of animals, and he says, arise, kill, and eat. And of course, Peter tries to decline. He says, no, I've never eaten anything unclean, Lord, nothing like that has ever passed by my lips.

And they go through this three times, and the Lord rebukes him, and says, what God has cleansed, you must not call common, must not call common. And the next thing he hears is the command to go to the house of the Gentile, the unclean one, if you will, Cornelius, and he's told to go there, doubting nothing.

The prophets at Gilgal are in much the same situation. Elisha said to eat, and eat they did. Their confidence in Elisha was commendable. Their faith in God, though, their faith in God is what was at its core.

There's something else going on here that we need to see. The land is plagued with famine. There was a famine in the land, something God had promised to prevent for his people when they were faithful, when they were obedient to him.

He said, this will not happen. I will send you the rain in its time. Your crops will grow. Your trees will give forth olive oil and fruit and such. I will bless you as you obey me, he had said. And here, there's famine.

It's quite the opposite. It's very much like in 1 Kings 17, when Elisha was at Zarephath. While the drought raged against the crops all around, there at the widow's residence, though, there was food. In Gilgal, there's famine.

Again, all the people suffering, but here, in this school, this school of prophets, these disciples of Elisha, where the word of God attended with Elisha, there, there's food. There, they're being nourished.

There, they're being blessed. The prophets, presumably their families, are all being fed by the hand of the God. Through the prophets, while all around there's suffering. Why do I bring this up? It reminds me of during the time of Exodus, when in the land of Goshen, Israel was spared many of Egypt's plagues, though they were right in the middle of them.

I think especially at the time that there was darkness all around, it was so darkness that men chewed on their tongues, it was so bad. And yet, in Goshen, in the Israelites' homes, there was light. So the Lord made a difference between the livestock of the Egyptians and the livestock of Israel.

Egypt was given darkness, Israel had light. There are many troubles that come upon us, are there not? As we, as Christians, journey through this life, we have many troubles, trials, tribulations, even as Jesus said we would.

When there is need to glorify God by persevering in trial and persecution, Lord willing, we shall. Lord willing, His Spirit will see us through as He promises. But then for His purposes, for His glory, sometimes He protects us from things that are common to the rest.

Sometimes these four walls, if you will, do not allow in the trials and the troubles that others suffer through. Not to spare us, but to glorify Himself. And sometimes He works this way, as in Goshen when they did not suffer through the plagues.

And here at Gilgal, surrounded by famine, where the prophets and their families are now eating this bowl of stew. No, we are not immune to the common evils of the world, but by God's Spirit we are sustained and we are helped through them so that we, on the one hand, glorify God by extolling His goodness and His power.

This is Ephesians 1 .19, where Paul is speaking of the power that God worked in Christ to resurrect Him from the dead. That same power, Ephesians 1 .19 says, He works toward you who believe. The prepositions are crucial.

In Christ, toward us, but it's the same power. The power that resurrected Christ from the dead. God works toward His people, that we might glorify Him, that we might be that light on the hill, that people would look to us, see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

The other thing, we're taught in this life more about God by the trials we go through than we might otherwise have known. We can recite God's Word, and this is good and right, for God's Word has an efficacy of its own.

It has a power all of its own, apart from the human instrument that the Lord uses to declare it. We can fearlessly tell others, thus says the Lord. We know our scriptures, don't we? And we can say that, this is what God says about this or that or whatever situation is.

And God's Word has the power. The power is in the God who sends the Word. But when we add to our recitation of the Word, our own testimony of our trust in Christ, our deliverance by Him, this adds no power to the Word.

What can be added to what God has already done? But it does lend a certain authenticity, a grittiness, a reality to what we claim of God. It allows us to say with Job, I know my Redeemer lives. Let's put the emphasis on that.

I know my Redeemer lives. And someone might look and say, how do you know? Because of His deliverance. Because of the pot of stew that came onto my table when I had nothing to do but to pray to God and ask, to plead with Him for my needs.

I know my Redeemer lives. He's delivered me from evil. He's rescued me from death, even when it was I of my own accord sometimes who added the death to the pot, who put the gourd in. Now think about this for a moment.

Think about our lives as this pot of stew. And what we go out into the world, outside the walls here in Gilgal, was the walls of that seminary where Elisha was. He went out to gather something from the world and bring it in.

Think of our lives as that pot of stew. Think of these four walls as being in that seminary, if you will, at Gilgal. The world will yell something to us. We're outside there. The world yells out, I want a divorce.

I want a divorce. Saints pray against this death in the pot, and the Lord moves a man to repent and return home. Who gets the glory for that? Ordinary people like you and me, trying to throw some flour into the pot if I can allegorize it just a bit.

Well, not just a bit, but completely. And God moves, removes death in the pot, and a man might repent and return to his family. We've seen God get the glory that way. The world screams for the death of an inconvenient child.

And God's people fall and beg God to change a mother's mind. Is it not God who gets credit for that handful of death-defying flour that gets tossed in by His grace? I think of this prophet going out and picking something with which he wanted to do good, a spice to add to the pot so that the men could eat and enjoy their food just a bit more because of what he would add to it.

I think of us going out in the world and bringing to ourselves these gourds. Think of that wrongful click on that mouse. Think of that wayward drift of the eye. Think of every murderous use of the tongue.

Are these not all death that are getting added to the pot, and where do they come from? Lord willing, not from here. Lord willing, not from any reading of the Scripture, not any sensible reading of it.

We go outside and gather it up ourselves, do we not? And we add it ourselves, do we not? And is it not God, because of His mercy, because of His kindness, because of Jesus Christ, is it not He who tosses that handful of flour into the pot when He hears our confession, when our broken heart repents before Him, when our prayers reach to the throne of God, and as 1 John 1 promises, He forgives?

Is that not flour being tossed in the pot? Sometimes these gourds are gathered innocently enough. The world has enough schemes to trap the most wary of its prey. That's why Peter says, be vigilant. He doesn't mean right now, this moment.

He means always be vigilant. For your adversary, the devil, seeks those whom he may devour. He's a roaring lion, seeking to chew us up, to knock us off the path. The world has schemes, traps, snares all over.

But then God will not allow us to proceed without some warning. God will not lead us into temptation. I mean, in the Lord's Prayer, where we beseech God's help according to the pattern given to us by His Son, don't we ask for this very thing?

We say, and lead us not into temptation. God would no more ignore this cry from our heart than He would ignore His only begotten Son who told us to pray that. It's James who tells us to take ownership for most of the poison that goes into our pot.

Does he not? He doesn't allow us to say, the devil made me do it. He says, no, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.

God doesn't do it. He does purify. He does remove the death that we add. But we need to be responsible for this. Do we go out in the world and pick these gourds, some of them ignorantly? The devil masquerading as an angel of light, just looking so good.

The snake that was so attractive to Eve. Often you read of him as being beautiful and colorful and just something that would bring you to him. Do we not have the scripture to warn us? To look through and identify the gourd for what it is and to know to get away?

Do we not have the Spirit of God to remind us of all things whatsoever Jesus Christ told us and commanded us? No, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm tempted by God. God is not tempted, nor does He tempt us.

It's we who do it. We go out in this world with devils filled and we gather. Sometimes we're deceived. Sometimes we know our hand is extended to death, but we go to it anyway. We pick it off the branch, we toss it in the pot, and then as the body rejects the harmful plant, so are spirits stirred up by God's Spirit.

Finally, they recoil at what we've just fed into our own soul. Putting death in the pot. We've all been there. We've all done this. We've all gone to that vine and grabbed the wrong thing. What to do?

Where to go? Man of God, there's death in the pot. What do we say? On this side of the cross, what do we say? Son of God, there's death in the pot. Oh Lord Jesus, look what I have done. Look what I have added.

We go to Jesus. He died because of that gourd. He suffered for our voluntary concession to that poison. He forgives us for not looking first to his word for warning and why do we not? We know we can be forgiven.

We don't want to be presumptuous about saying, well, I can do this because God will forgive me. It's so easy. It's not easy. Forgiveness came by way of the cross. Let your mind set on that for a moment.

It was not easy. You cannot take it lightly. Why do we not look first to the word of God? Why do we not halt ourselves? Call a brother or sister, pray. Now, often because we don't want to be warned. I mean, often because we've decided that we're going to ignore whatever admonition came anyway.

He said, man of God, there is death in the pot. Man of God, help us. There's death in the pot. At least they were able to recognize it. The great tragedy is that very few do. We're born by nature, children of wrath, and on our own, we're quite happy to stay there.

But by the mercy of God, by his spirit, regenerating souls, that's where we would all be. Children of wrath, doing the deeds of our father, the devil, following in ways that are against the ways of God.

We just don't see the death in the pot. But God does. And God acts. And only God can act. He warns. He sends his word by his prophets. He sends his word by his apostles. He sends his word to you by preachers like me and countless others in this land.

This Sunday, begging people to hear Christ in his word and most profoundly declaring the word of Christ. He has in these last days spoken to us by his son, Jesus. And by all these means, he warns us of this death in the pot.

Paul asks in Romans 6 .21, what fruit did you have in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. I mean, when we go outside and we go to the vine and we're starting to pick and we're going to spice up our lives with something, stop and think, is this thing, this gourd that we're going to put in the pot, is that one of those things of which if we just stop and think about it for a moment, one of those things of which we are now ashamed, one of the things for which we've repented before, is this something for which Christ died on the cross?

John 5 .16, there is sin leading to death. Genesis 2 .17, on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Many more, but the point is made. There's death in the pot. If only you will see it and pray to God to remove it.

You have eaten the stew. You have swallowed death without even realizing it. Sin is death. Sin kills. Sin removes us from God's presence. Sin brings wrath. Sin brings eternal condemnation. Death in the pot and how removed?

By repentance. By fleeing to the cross of Christ. By recognizing that what is in that pot you've eaten, you put in there voluntarily and willingly and eaten it knowing what it is. And yet God's spirit can move, can regenerate a soul, can give a new heart so you can look and say, I've done wrong.

I knew what I was doing. God, please forgive me. God, because of your son Jesus Christ and his suffering on the cross, grant me repentance that I may know forgiveness. But cry out to God, confess that the gourd is yours, that you put it there.

And even though it may have been ignorant, once you tasted it, you kept it there, preferring that momentary pleasure of sin that so easily crowded out your conscience, but doing it willingly. Cry to God to remove it.

The promise of scripture is that he shall. Ephesians 2 .1, Paul says, and you who are dead in trespass and sins. The wages of sin is death. I think it ties perfectly to what we're seeing here in 2 Kings 4.

You who are dead in trespass and sins, he, God the Father, he made alive in Christ Jesus. In him, by repentance and faith, is life. In him, death is brought to death. In him, it is removed from the pot.

Repent. Repent and believe the gospel of God's forgiveness. Be saved. Be saved. 2 Timothy 1 .10 says, but now this has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

The Barley Loaves and the Temple-Like Provision

To our narrative, next, a man comes from Baal, Shileshah, a neighboring town or village. The name's a bit obscure. Baal means Lord or Master. Shileshah has to do somehow with threes. Something like the Lord over the threes is where he came from.

He comes, he makes an offering of first fruits in the form of 20 barley loaves and some new grain, a whole knapsack full of all this. If you recall back in verses 8 through 37 of this chapter, which I preached a few weeks back, I made a connection between the upper room in Shunem and the temple.

And now a distinctly temple and priestly offering is brought here to the prophets, to Elisha. And they're standing in the middle of the temple standing in there for the Levites, offered to God through Elisha and to the Levites by way of these prophets.

And when he comes, there's 100 men assembled, undoubtedly with their families. And again, the distinction is made between those safely enclosed at this sort of satellite temple and those outside. Outside is death still.

Inside, death is vanquished. Outside is starvation. Inside is bounty. This miracle of increasing that knapsack full of loaves for 100 men and their families is obviously a lot like Jesus feeding the 5 ,000.

In both cases, it is those who came to hear the word of God who were fed. In both, there is some left over. In both, they are in command and Elisha and Jesus saying when the meal is to be served. The difference in the number of people really is not very important.

The important difference between the two is that Elisha spoke for God while Jesus Christ spoke as God. Elisha would say, thus says the Lord, Jesus could say, but I say to you. We've seen this principle at work before.

It's really very simple. God more than rules, he overrules. That, in fact, is the very nature of a miracle. The cleansing of the water of Jericho some weeks back, the purifying of this pot of stew, the multiplying of the barley loaves.

It's the very nature of a miracle, God overruling. There was death in the pot. Whoever ate of it would die. God said otherwise. He overruled the fatal gourd with a handful of faith in the form of flour.

The Levitical offering was not enough to feed very many, but God overruled that fact and decreed that all would be fed with some left over. And what are we to learn from all this? What do we learn from this history in 2 Kings chapter four as we study the life and the ministry and the works of Elisha?

Think back to where we started this morning. My little humorous anecdote about God creating man from something as common as dirt. Now, it's not very flattering for us or reconcilable to evolution, but that's what it says in scripture.

Think of our text this morning, how Elisha used these ordinary things, a mantle when he split the waters of Jericho, some salt in a bowl, a handful of flour to accomplish what? Miracles. This ordinary, mundane, everyday stuff just right off the shelf, what did God do with it?

Miracles. Cleansed the waters of Jericho. Removed certain death from the pot so the men could eat. Multiplied the loaves so their families could eat. Miracles. With just this everyday stuff. Why is that?

We've said it before already in this message. We need to say it again. We need to understand this. It's so that God gets all the glory. It's so there will be no boasting before him. It's so that when we stand before God, we will know that God did it all and we added nothing.

Simply instruments through whom he chose to work. You see, it's not the thing used. It's he who uses the thing that matters. God doesn't need a bowl of organic matter to create life. He can do it from dirt, just plain old dirt.

Not very complimentary for us, but that's what the scripture says. Our extraordinary God does what he does often if not usually with the most mundane and ordinary of stuff. Again, dirt, salt, flour. Think of King Hezekiah and that boil that was gonna kill him.

Just a poultice of figs. God does what he does with just the most mundane, unlikely stuff. Like you. Or like me. Or like any other person. You're speaking of the God of the universe. He who is perfectly holy, perfectly righteous, perfectly just, all-powerful, omniscient.

That God who sent his son Jesus Christ that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That God working through gunk like you and me. I wanna read again that passage from 1 Corinthians.

God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen.

And the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. And here's the reason for all that. Why does God use fools like me, weak people like you, base things like all of us? That no flesh should glory in his presence but of him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us the wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.

Not in our magnificence, not in our accomplishments, in the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ and no other. Let him be our glory. Paul goes on. And I, brethren, when I came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

For I determined to know nothing among you except Christ Jesus and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.