Are You Great, or just Ordinary?

Are You Great, or just Ordinary?  by Kelly Durant 3-1012

John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

Great men are those who forgot themselves and they lift everyone else to be great!

Here in John 3 we see that John the Baptist was the most influential man of His time. He was truly great, but when He knew Jesus had started his ministry, he said, He must increase but I must decrease!

Let’s look at John as a humble preacher with a little church with only a few disciples, but what made John great above all the wealth and numbers of the churches of the Jews of his day? He was a humble man that lived a sincere holy life and everyone respected his authority.

He was really the only one that mattered as the people saw he was the only hope for them to learn how to be clean of their sins; he taught to repent by doing a symbolic ritual but this Baptism served the purpose to impress that anyone could have a new start with God, God is always ready to make you clean and new and someone great!

Today we will continue learning how to change but you have to be willing to change how you think and how you treat others. I want everyone here to be great, and not just ordinary!

But the first lesson here that John shows us is that in order to ever be somebody, we have to be willing to become nobody just as John shows. In the Christian faith and in the Salvation Army we must learn to humble ourselves and let Jesus work in us, let Jesus increase I our life and we must suppress our own selves, we must decrease!

(19)Mark Twain, the famous writer , said to Keep away from people who try to belittle you, Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great! That is my role, and it is the same role as Jesus’ to help you to be great, to be someone extraordinary.

The first lesson of greatness is surrender, you allow Jesus to be great through you and that is by your humility.

The next lesson is that great men are servants. In the Word we find

Gal 5:13-14  …but by love serve one another.

14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Reflect on these quotes:

- The measure of a man’s greatness is not in how many servants he has, but in how many people he serves.

- There are no great men except those that have rendered service to mankind.

-  Most great men and women are not perfectly rounded in their personalities, but are instead people whose one driving enthusiasm is so great it makes their faults seem insignificant.

If you want to know about a great servants I wish you could read the history of the founders of the Salvation Army, William and & Catherine Booth.

They were people that forgot so much about their selves in service to others that they made History! And we are still making history!

You cannot be a person who says, I will make myself great. It doesn’t work that way. The great people make others great! The Salvation Army only had been in existence for a little over 30 years or so when William Booth died in London in 1912, but his greatness made history. When he died that day became like a national holiday because all the traffic in London had to stop because close to a million people went to his funeral!

He always claimed that His passion was to win souls for Jesus Christ but what made the difference? We can compare Him to John the Baptist, he was just a poor man with a poor little group that were nobodies the difference was in the great way he served others. He would take a soul, a vagabond, an alcoholic from off the streets, a person that every body, even the person them selves, had given up on, and he would clean them up physically, feed them and then clean their spirits with the Word of God and put a uniform on them and give them a reason to live! Our reason to live is to win souls!

William Booth was like a John the Baptist in his day because the big wealthy churches of England in the late 1800’s were not reaching the humble and the lost just as the religious leaders were ineffective in Jesus day.

They were making everyone feel small so they could make their selves appear great. They had the opposite plan of God. God’s plan is to lift up the weak and humble and put down the exalted. Beware of churches that seek to intimidate you and show off their own so called greatness.

Luke 14:11

11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Jesus expressed that our greatness is displayed in our service but we serve Jesus not because we are His servants, like slaves, but we serve Him and others because He is our friend.

 John 15:15-16

15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Those that are great in God’s eyes are those that serve Him and the humanity He created in a way that He has prepared them for.

Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England during WWII inspired his people to never give up in the fight to resist their evil Nazi enemy, and despite getting their city bombed to death by the Germans they were great and fought. We are in a spiritual war against evil just as in a world war. He said that,  “The price of greatness is responsibility.”

I want the Soldiers and members of the  Corps to be great people! I know we will be great only when each one of us puts our focus, not on ourselves, but on Jesus! He must increase but we must decrease!

It was the Lord who exalted William Booth to be a great man that everyone loved and honored and it is the Lord that will exalt you if you let Him change you!

Change implies becoming more humble, more like Jesus, becoming more a servant to others and winning souls to the Lord. How many of you have ever asked the Lord to make you humble?

How many have ever prayed, Lord make me a servant, make me a soul winner for you? Have you prayed make me nothing Lord so you can be everything in me?