God has a history of using people who appear, feel, or seem unremarkable in order to fulfill his purposes on earth. Abraham was a nobody in a foreign land. Joseph was the second-youngest son. Gideon was a nobody from an insignificant family in an insignificant tribe. King David was the youngest son. And we see this most clearly in the Lord Jesus. He was born in scandal. He was the son, as it was supposed, of the carpenter. He was brought up in a backwater and nobody expected anything good to come from there.
The pastor and author, Zack Eswine writes:
The sign of God’s fame lay in the aroma of cattle and hay—the placenta of new birth, the cries and warmth of ordinary life.
The beauty of the story of Jesus’ life is this. Jesus did not step down from glory into what we would call glory. Though he was God, he stepped down into humility and lived in obscurity for thirty years. He called to himself fishermen and tax collectors. He called ordinary people.
After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, these ordinary people would go on to spread the gospel. The church grew. There was one big burst of growth at Pentecost, but after that?
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)
Day by day, ordinary Christians would gather together in their homes. They would attend the temple. They would break bread and pray. They were taught. And day by day, the Lord added to their number. Why? Because, from the beginning, God has chosen to work day by day through ordinary people who have been united to the One who is most extraordinary: to God himself.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Co 12:12–13)
Today’s encouragement for you is this: if you belong to Jesus then you have a role in his church to do ministry. Jesus saved you when he did and where he did for a reason. He did this so that you would do the good works which he prepared beforehand, that you would walk in them. In God’s church, you are valued and you are needed.
In your prayers, you are serving God’s kingdom. When you listen as someone pours out their heart, you are serving God’s kingdom. When you speak good and true things about what God has done for you, you are serving God’s kingdom.
When you live quietly, minding your own affairs, working with your hands, you are bearing witness to the world about what Jesus has done (1 Thess. 4:11-12).