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- [00:00]
Pastor Robert Madu
So glad that your face is in the place. We have a word here at Social Dallas that we've shaped our year around. That word is planted. Planted. And we believe that we're flourishing because we stay planted into the house of God. And that's not a random word. It comes straight out of scripture. Psalms 92, verses 13 through 15. We have declared this verse every single Sunday of 2025. We're gonna do it again today. How many of you gotta memorize? How many gotta memorize? Come on. How many are still working on it? All right, got time. You got time. Even though the year is halfway over. But come on, let's read it together with uplifted voices. Psalm 92, verses 13 through 15. 1, 2, 3. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age. They shall be fresh and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Y' all sound good at 12:45. Sound real good. I believe that whenever you stay planted, God has a way of strategically placing people around you to help you stay planted. In the same way, the enemy has people that will try to get you to walk away. God knows that sometimes the greatest gift that you need, he'll put it in another person. And you're about to hear from a voice who is a gift to my wife and I, who is a gift to this church, I believe helps this church stay planted because of his integrity, because of his consistency, because of his faithfulness. And that is none other than Pastor Josh, who's gonna be bringing the word today. He's about to come out, but I wanna. I just wanna take a moment and just honor the gift that he is. I will never forget being on stage and Pastor Josh was playing the guitar. He wouldn't even pass it. Well, he was Pastor Josh, but I just didn't know he was Pastor Josh. I just thought he was guitar player Josh. He's playing the guitar. And I'll never forget, the Holy Spirit just whispered to me, he's trustworthy. He's trustworthy, and that's exactly what he is. And I wanna honor the man of God that he is. He has a word for this house. Y' all need to lean in. Get ready. He's got the greatest voice. We call him the Voice, too. He's Pastor Josh, P.J. or the voice. And he's got a word for us today. Come on, Social fam. Put your hands together as Pastor Josh Comes to bring the word of God. Come on, y' all can do better than that. Let's go.
- [02:40]
Pastor Josh
Well, I am excited to be with you here this morning, Social. But I never want to miss the opportunity to publicly just honor our pastors. My pastors, Pastor Robert and Pastor Taylor Madu. I was reflecting as I was preparing for the message and always try to think thoroughly through how I want to honor them. And as I was preparing for this, I began to reflect on the impact of their yes. And having the privilege and honor of serving on their staff. I have a really close up view to some of the things that happened and all of the salvations and the baptisms and the lives that are healed and the chains that are broken and the families that are restored. And when I think about them, I think that all of this is in the wake of their yes. And all the things that they've laid down, all of the times that they said yes to God when it hurt. And I honor them this morning for everything that they have done and the place and the space that they have created for all of us within their yes. So I love y' all so much. Come on, help me honor our amazing lead pastors, Pastor Robert and Pastor Taylor Madhu. Just so, so incredibly grateful for them. Not only the pastors they are, but the husband, the wife, the mother and the father. Just the amazing people that they are is so inspirational to me and my family, and I will just never not thank God for who they are and how they've impacted us. So love y' all so, so much. One more time. Yes. Thank you so much. Come on. That was. That was a good cue to hit right there. And to my social family, I just want to say I love y' all so, so much. Myself and my wife. Pastor Keenan, give it up for Pastor ke. You're looking at her cross to bear right now, and it's not easy. Come on, somebody. Us and our two kids, our amazing Emma and Noah. They serve in social. Kids, they attend the four, five, six. Y' all are our home for us. You're family for us. We love you so much. We are so honored and grateful to get to do this thing called church and life with each and every one of you. So I just wanted to say that before I get started, I love you, Social Dallas. We're so grateful that God planted us here in this house. Amen. And because I love our pastors and I love y' all, I am so grateful and honored to get to bring the word this morning. So I'm gonna Ask you to turn with me to Second Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 7. And whether you have a physical Bible or you have an app, some of y' all are just staring. I think you're waiting for it to come up on the screen, and that's okay. But if you don't have a Bible in the room today, that probably tells me either you're new to Social Dallas or you're new to this faith walk. And if that's something the case, we have an amazing area that we would love to direct you out to. Pastors mentioned it earlier. It's called the connect area. And we have a Bible for you. We would love to just resource you and walk along this journey with you, truly, because it's not just about showing up on Sundays. It's about coming and connecting to the house of the Lord. Amen. That should have been more than enough time for you to get to Second Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 7. If you have it, say amen. And I'm not giving another option because you had enough time. So we're gonna read says this. It says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay. Somebody say jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. I love how the message version says it. Let's read this. It says, if you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious message around in unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. Somebody say ordinary? That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. Let me pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Today we speak over ourselves and our lives that it is good ground, Father, that as you begin to broadcast the seed of your word, that it would land on this good soil and that it would yield a crop some 30, 60 and 100 fold this morning. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see. Lord God, what you're speaking to your people this morning in Jesus name. And everybody said amen.
- [07:07]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Y' all can be seated.
- [07:07]
Pastor Josh
Give your neighbor a high five on the way down. If we're still doing high fives in 20, 25. So this scripture, and I often notice this in my life, whenever God begins to work on my heart or reveal something to me or point out an area that I need to change or think differently on. I noticed that he often points out scripture and it can come through conversation. It might have been the verse of the day or in a song or a sermon that I've heard, but that scripture will just begin to stir in my spirit. And this is one that has been in my spirit for some time now. And every time I read it, that we have treasure in this jar, in these jars of clay, I am almost forced into a visceral reaction and taken right back to my childhood. I grew up in. In Southern California. Any California natives in the house? Texans, don't get nervous. We're not invading. We just want to be a part of the good land, okay? But I grew up in California in a large Hispanic family. I had a lot of aunts and uncles, a lot of cousins. And I don't know if it's the same here for Hispanic families as it is there, but it almost felt mandatory that you had to have tons and tons of clay pots and clay jars on hand. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but my fixation with these clay pots was not the way that they looked or the way that they felt, but it was the way that they sounded when you broke them. So I don't know how it happened. I must have bumped over one. But immediately when I heard the noise, there's just something different about the way that a clay jar or a clay pot shatters. I spent the rest of my childhood trying to secretly find ways to break these pots because I love the noise that they make. But judge me. This was pre Christ. I was a child. Put your judgment back in your pocket, okay? But there was one clay jar in my house that I would never, ever dream about breaking. It was this clay water jug that my grandma brought from Mexico, and she passed it on to one of my aunts. And every time that I would draw water from this clay pot, there was something about it. There was something about the flower flavoring of the clay and the water that would add this flavor that became one of the instant things that I connect back to my childhood. Even right now, as I'm describing it, I can think about the flavor of the water when it would come out of that jar. Don't look at me crazy. I would put this clay jar against any Stanley in the room this morning, okay? This flavor that was associated with this drink came out of this jar. And when I think about that scripture that says that we have treasure hidden in this jar of clay, right? I think about that jar, that beloved jar from my childhood that my grandma passed down to my auntie. And if I had to choose a word to describe that jar, if I had to put my finger on one thing that I could use to describe what that jar looked like, it would be ordinary. It was just an ordinary jar. There was nothing ornate about it. There was nothing interesting about it. But something about what would happen when you would put ordinary water into that ordinary jar created an experience, experience for me that would mark my childhood. There was nothing special about it on the outside, but there was something special that would happen on the inside of it. But if I'm being honest, social Dallas, the thing that I have always struggled with in my life is the ordinary. And that's what I want to talk to you about today, is the space that lives between extraordinary moments in my life. And I may be like you have always felt like I extended excel in the extraordinary. Now, I'm not only talking about extraordinary highs. I'm also talking about extraordinary lows. I have walked with the Lord for long enough. I have been through enough things in my life. Me and PK have walked through some very hard things in our lives. And I feel like through all of those storms that we have weathered, God has taught us how to buckle down. God has taught us how to look to the hills from whence our help comes from. God has taught us how to hunker down and fast and pray. And there's something different about my life that happens when I get into these extraordinary lows. I all of a sudden feel like I become a different person, and my prayer life is different. And when I spend time with God, it's different. And when I fast and when I pray, it's different. When I look at scripture, it's different. God has taught me how to excel in these moments of extraordinary low. And like anybody in the room, it's pretty easy to excel in the extraordinary highs. When the prayers get answered, when the good things come through, when the check is in the mail. But if I'm being completely honest, the place that I have struggled the most is the space in between the extraordinary highs and the extraordinary lows. And that's what I'm referring to this morning as the ordinary. And to give you some examples and insight of what that might look like to me, the ordinary is what happens after you finally get the house that you've prayed for, right? It's the moments that come before or after something extraordinary happens in your life. You finally get the house that you've been praying for, but all of a sudden, you gotta mow the lawn and you gotta paint the fence, right? It's the moments after you finally have met the person of your dreams and you had the wedding of your dreams, and you had the honeymoon of your dreams. But then you get back to real life, and you have to figure out which way the toilet paper's gonna roll in their house. Right. It's gotta be the front. I'm just telling you right now, it has to be the front. Our prayer team will be available if you roll it down the back. Okay. It's the moments after you finally get the job and the promotion and the office that you've been praying for. But then you roll up on Monday and the mundane is still there. It's the moments after you finally have the miracle child, but you continue to have the sleepless nights and the dirty diapers. The ordinary has been where my struggle has lasted for most of my life. And if you're in my situation, I would say that it's not all my fault. I'm not trying to relieve the responsibility. But I would say I have also been a product of my environment. I grew up when I first got saved. I was 12 years old, and I was in a church full of Texans and Okies. Hey. Oh. God knew where I was headed, right? And I heard every fiery message from my early preachers about Noah and the Ark. I heard about Joseph in the coat of many colors. I heard about Moses and the burning bush and Moses declaring the ten plagues before Pharaoh and Moses parting the Red Sea. I heard about Joshua and the walls of Jericho, how they did the Jericho march and the walls came falling down. I heard about Elijah calling down fire on Mount Carmel. I heard all about Daniel and the lion's den. And I understood why those early days and those early preachers were preaching messages like that. Because there was a need for exhortation in the church. There was a need to spiritually encourage the body of Christ to go out and make a change for the kingdom of God. But what I'm telling you this morning is that there was an unintended consequence in my life. When I heard those stories. I began to look constantly to the horizon of my life for the next extraordinary thing that would happen. I began to constantly long and look for the moment when something greater, something better, something bigger would happen. I began to long for more than just ordinary. And I believed and hoped that God would deliver me from my ordinary life into an extraordinary life. I had a deep desire for significance. And it's not just common to me. It is common to human beings. If you read the studies, every culture throughout all of the world has a few basic fears that continually come up. And the fear of insignificance is one of them. For almost every single culture, it's the fear that you will be born and die and no one will ever know that you were even there. And maybe that's not you in the room today. Maybe you don't have a desire for significance, but maybe you have been fighting every single day, from day to day to week to week, from month to month, from year to year, from venue to venue, have been fighting just to make it through the day, this ordinary existence. And you are just praying for the moment when they will get to the good part. When you'll get to the part of life that becomes so extraordinary that you no longer lack. It will be so extraordinary. You're no longer lonely or depressed. You're no longer feeling like you're just floating through life, that all of a sudden things will get easy. But the trouble with either one of those lines of thinking, or any other line of thinking that will lead you to long for the extraordinary, is that it can cause you to operate from a spirit of ambition rather than the spirit of God. And maybe you're in the room today and you're wondering, wait, I thought ambition was a good thing. I'm not talking about drive. I'm not talking about the motivation to excel at something. What I'm talking about is a spirit of ambition that is any unsanctified dream, vision, goal, or aspiration for your life. And what do I mean by unsanctified? I mean this. Any dream, vision, goal, or aspiration that places you at the center instead of Christ. I feel like the enemy has caught on to the fact that we are in this space where we long for these things. Because now, anytime that you open up social media, you are opening up, literally a highlight reel of everybody else's best and most extraordinary moments. You're looking at someone who's finally bought their 10th house, and you're not even on your first yet. You're looking at the person who is traveling in Europe and going around the world and traveling, and you haven't even gotten out of the city limits yet. You are constantly faced with how ordinary your life is. See, ambition can cause you to build platforms instead of altars. They look similar. A platform and an altar look very similar. They're both elevated spaces and they're both meant to raise something up. But the question this morning has to be asked, what are you elevating? Is it self or is it sacrifice? Because here's the reality. Anything that places you on that platform, anything that raises you up, is ambition. And it is not the spirit of God in your life. Because you have to remember what 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7 says, that we have treasure in this jar of clay, that the surpassing power would belong to God and not to us. We have to remember that the platforms and the altars that are in our lives are meant to elevate Christ within us and not us. It was never meant to place the jar on the altar. It was meant to have Christ be elevated. But I grew up in that space of desiring for God to do something amazing. And it caused me to constantly be looking for the next great thing. See, ambition causes you to forsake what God is doing in the here and now and fantasize and idolize what he might do in the extraordinary. But what you don't often realize is that the ordinary is much more connected to the extraordinary than you might realize. Look at the story of David and Goliath. This is one of the most recognized stories in all of scripture, if not the most recognized. It literally is so iconic it has transcended religious spaces and it had used the world over as a illustration when an underdog faces overwhelming odds. The story goes like this, and many of you probably know it. The Israelites are facing off against the Philistines. They're in the Valley of Allah, and the Israelites are on one side and the Philistines are on another. And all of a sudden, from the Philistine ranks, a enormous man, a giant, crosses the field and goes into the center of the valley and begins to mock not only the armies, not only the king, but he begins to mock God. And this sets the stage for this famous story of David and Goliath. But at the moment, David is yet not on the scene. But have you ever asked yourself, how did David get to the battlefield that day? I wanna take a look at 1st Samuel, chapter 17, verses 17 through 18, it says this. And Jesse said to David, his son, take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain and take these 10 loaves and carry them quickly to your brother's camp. Also, take these 10 cheeses. Don't forget the cheese. You can never forget the cheese. Take these 10 cheeses to the commander of their thousands. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them. See, I had been so fixated on the extraordinary. I'd been so focused on David the giant, so that I completely missed David the doordash delivery guy. I had been so fixated on the great exploits of the Bible that it caused me to completely gloss over the ordinary things that God would use to get David to the Battlefield. That day, his dad said to him, take this grain, take this bread, and take this cheese to the battlefield. Something so ordinary was David's vehicle into the extraordinary. But I completely bought into the giant slayer mindset. Back when I was a kid, when I first heard that story. If any merch came out that had Giant Slayer on it, I had it right. If there was a T shirt, giant Slayer, I got it. If there was a skull cap, Giant Slayer, I got it. If there's a leather cuff that said Giant Slayer, I got it. The fashion was weird back then, I'll give you that. Okay. But the reality was, I saw myself like that, and I viewed life through that perspective of being a giant slayer. But there's a saying that goes, and I think it's applicable here, if you are a hammer, then everything becomes a nail. And if you are a giant slayer, then everything becomes a giant. Now, all of a sudden, when I have financial troubles, it's a giant that needs to be slayed. All of a sudden, when there are people talking about me, it's a giant that needs to be slayed. All of a sudden, when I'm not getting the promotion that I have seen myself deemed that I am worthy of, my boss becomes a giant that has to be slayed. But there's a question in all of this that has to be asked. Is it that your boss is a giant that needs to be slayed? Or is it that you didn't carry the grain, the bread, and the cheese? Well, is it that there's a giant.
- [22:19]
Pastor Taylor Madu
That has to be slayed that's standing.
- [22:20]
Pastor Josh
In your way between you and your dreams for your future? Or is it that you are not stewarding the ordinary? Well, is it that there's a giant that needs to be slayed when people are talking about you? Or do you have character flaws that you have not yet addressed? Is it that you have financial troubles in your life and that there's a giant attacking your finances? Or is it that you don't have a budget and you're bad with money? See, when you approach life from that giant slayer perspective, when you look only toward the extraordinary life in life, you completely ignore the fact that there is an ordinary that needs to be stewarded. I'm trying to tell you this morning that if you embrace what God does in the ordinary, then no one can label you as insignificant. This is good news for people in the room because you've been walking around.
- [23:14]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Feeling like, what is my life even work?
- [23:17]
Pastor Josh
Does it even matter when I serve here at Social Dallas.
- [23:20]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Does it even matter when I make my kids lunch?
- [23:23]
Pastor Josh
Does it even matter when I'm a.
- [23:24]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Good husband or a good wife? But I'm trying to tell you this morning that if you allow God to work in your ordinary, then no one can put you in the corner, no one can put you in a box.
- [23:35]
Pastor Josh
No one can label you as insignificant. And if they try to put a.
- [23:39]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Description on you that doesn't match, you better tell them to leave room in the description field, because God is with you in the ordinary. I'm trying to tell you that nothing that you do can be deemed as insignificant when God is with you in the ordinary.
- [23:59]
Pastor Josh
So David steps onto this battlefield through ordinary means, and he walks out onto the field, and he picks up five smooth stones. And I'm telling you, I've read this story backwards and forwards all my life because I was a giant slayer. But it has never made sense to me why God had him pick up five smooth stones. Because if it's me and I'm David and all I've got is a sling and a bunch of stones, I am going early 2000s. I'm going jagged Edge, baby.
- [24:34]
Pastor Taylor Madu
I am picking the most dangerous rock.
- [24:37]
Pastor Josh
That I can pick up because I.
- [24:39]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Want to make sure when I sling this rock into old boy's head that he's coming down for sure.
- [24:46]
Pastor Josh
But instead, God has him choose five smooth stones. Do you know how long it takes for stones to get smoothed out? It can take decades or it can take centuries, depending on the material that they're made up from. It can take decades of them in the same river, around the same rocks, under the same flow, under the same current.
- [25:10]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Do you know what that sounds a lot like?
- [25:12]
Pastor Josh
It sounds like being planted in the.
- [25:14]
Pastor Taylor Madu
House of the Lord so that we can flourish in the courts of our God. It sounds like not picking up whenever something doesn't go my way. It sounds like recognizing that I may not like everything that happens, but I'm called to this house. I'm called to this city. I'm called to this marriage. I'm called to this job. I'm planted in the house of the Lord.
- [25:40]
Pastor Josh
So God has David pick up these ordinary stones. But just so you know, David is also an ordinary boy. He's an ordinary shepherd. You want to know how I know how ordinary David is? When the prophet of God comes to Jesse, David's dad's house to select the king, he doesn't even include David in the lineup. How ordinary do you have to be that your dad's like, nah, it's not him for sure. There's absolutely no way, not that guy. How ordinary do you have to be that a person who's supposed to love you and see you and just innately believe in you, right, automatically dismisses you, doesn't even invite you to the party? But what I've come to realize as I've reread the Bible through this perspective of God working through the ordinary, is.
- [26:27]
Pastor Taylor Madu
That God often places ordinary objects in.
- [26:30]
Pastor Josh
The hands of ordinary people to begin to do extraordinary things.
- [26:35]
Pastor Taylor Madu
God often uses objects that no one would suspect. He uses people that no one would.
- [26:41]
Pastor Josh
Suspect to do extraordinary things so that.
- [26:44]
Pastor Taylor Madu
They do not get the glory. The Bible says in Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse seven, and I'm gonna keep saying it, that we have this treasure in jars of clay so that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
- [27:00]
Pastor Josh
I'm telling you this morning that if you feel ordinary, you are not disqualified from the extraordinary. I'm trying to tell you that if this morning, if you look at yourself.
- [27:10]
Pastor Taylor Madu
As someone that's got nothing special about.
- [27:12]
Pastor Josh
Them and that your life is agonizingly ordinary, if you steward that morning, well.
- [27:17]
Pastor Taylor Madu
God will take his extra and he will put it on your ordinary and it will become extraordinary.
- [27:27]
Pastor Josh
So David slings these smooth stones into the head of the giant and the giant comes down. If David was anything other than ordinary, people would have thought that it was David that brought the giant down. If the stones were anything other than smooth, people could have thought that it was the stones that brought the giant down. But God uses these ordinary things so that when we look back and we read it, we in our lives are encouraged that God is able and available to use ordinary people like me and you to accomplish great things. I love it because if you look at Jesus first miracle, it happens in a completely ordinary setting. He could have chosen anything to be his first miracle. And it's often important to look at the first of something. Jesus first miracle was at a wedding. And I know you had the wedding of the century, I know Vogue was there, I know it was incredible. But Your wedding was one of any 5,000 weddings happening on any given day in the country. Getting married is a very ordinary part of life. And I like to think of the fact that Jesus is there not stiff necked, but he's there celebrating with the bride and the groom. He's dancing the celebratory dances, he's singing the celebratory songs. And all of a sudden a very ordinary issue happens and they run out of. They run out of wine. And for most people, if you run out of wine, the party's over. I'll see you guys next week. But in this situation, Jesus opts to do something miraculous in the midst of the ordinary. He asked for three servants, ordinary men, to get three ordinary jars and to fill them up with ordinary water. And all of a sudden, in the midst of ordinary, ordinary and ordinary, something extraordinary occurs. And the best wine they had ever tasted winds up being drawn from those pots. If the pots were anything other than ordinary, people could have thought that there was a magic on those pots. If the servants were anything other than ordinary, people could have thought that they had something to do with it. And even Jesus himself looked ordinary from the outside. If you don't believe me, look at Isaiah 53, verse 2. It says this. He has no stately form or majestic splendor. That we would look at him. Jesus, creator of the universe, fully God, fully man, put himself not only in human flesh, but in ordinary human flesh, so that we wouldn't look at his appearance.
- [30:14]
Pastor Taylor Madu
No one would be drawn to his.
- [30:15]
Pastor Josh
External appearance, but they would recognize.
- [30:18]
Pastor Taylor Madu
You know, some scholars assumed that the reason why people rejected Jesus as the.
- [30:23]
Pastor Josh
Messiah was because he looked so ordinary. He puts himself in this ordinary skin because he constantly pointed back to the Father. He wanted you to know.
- [30:37]
Pastor Taylor Madu
It's nothing to do with the way that I look. It's the Father who sent me. It's not what you see on the outside.
- [30:44]
Pastor Josh
It's what is on the inside.
- [30:45]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Inside, that we have a treasure hidden in jars of clay. That the surpassing power belongs to the Father and not to what you see on the outside.
- [30:57]
Pastor Josh
I want to tell you a true story that I think illustrates this so well. It was May 1, a quiet and unremarkable day to most. But for one woman, it was the day that she had made a fool, final, devastating decision. She had lost her job. She and her kids were staying with her aunt, living in that fragile space between hope and survival. And somewhere along the way, the weight of everything had convinced her of a lie. That the world would be better off without her, that her kids would be better off without her, and that even God had turned his face away from her. She didn't scream. She didn't post a goodbye. She didn't post about it on Instagram. She just simply decided that tomorrow, May 2, will be my last day on earth. May 2 rolls around and she wakes up. Not because she has renewed hope or that she's changed her mind, but because she's Made peace with it. She decides to spend one last day with the people that she loved. Her children, her mother and her sister. They went to the mall. They laughed. They took pictures. The kind of day you would never suspect was a goodbye. And then something small, almost forgettable. As she returned to her car, there was a pamphlet from a church that she didn't attend under the windshield wiper. And she grasped it and she thought to herself, God is good. But she was still resolved in her decision. And later on that evening, as she arrived home and time was drawing near, she checked her phone. She didn't expect anything but what she found. There was a text message. A notification was waiting from her that she did not expect and one she didn't even remember asking for. Weeks before, she had submitted a prayer request, a silent, desperate cry for help. But she had long since forgotten that she sent it. But God didn't. The message was from someone on the social Dallas prayer team named Dingwell, part of a prayer team that she barely remember reaching out to. And it was the message of life. Not poetic encouragement, not cliche, but words that pierced through her darkness and despair like a crack in the light with crack in the wall with sunlight coming through.
- [33:24]
Pastor Taylor Madu
She realized in that moment from a simple, ordinary text message from a simple, ordinary person, that God was not done with her, that he had not given up on her. He had been working all along through a stranger's message, through a piece of paper on a windshield, through people who were praying when she couldn't. That message saved her life. And today she tells the story without shame, but boldly, she says this. She saved my life. Y' all saved my life. God saved my life. It's clear to me now more than ever that God is good. Keep that text message forever and I will never forget what y' all did for me and my family. God bless y' all.
- [34:13]
Pastor Josh
Simple, ordinary objects in the hands of ordinary people that God uses in an extraordinary way. I save my title for the end and it's this. It is extraordinary. Not extraordinary, but extraordinary. Because when I recognize that God is.
- [34:39]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Willing, faithful and able to move in my ordinary, I want to get real extra about my ordinary. I want to get real extraordinary about.
- [34:48]
Pastor Josh
The day to day.
- [34:49]
Pastor Taylor Madu
I want to get real extra about my prayer time. I want to get real extra about my time with my kids. I want to get real extra about my 9 to 5. Because I recognize that when I steward my ordinary well, that nothing that I do is insignificant. Because when God is with me in the insignificant, he can do extraordinary things.
- [35:13]
Pastor Josh
I am so grateful for the ordinary. You can stand with me. I'm so grateful for the ordinary because we are here today because of the ordinary. Because one day a long time ago, someone took an ordinary seed and it was planted in an ordinary field. And if you've ever planted a seed, you would know that it looks very ordinary on the surface, but what's happening below the surface is there is a tree. There is a seed of a tree that is growing and it bursts up through the ground and it becomes a sapling until one day it grows and.
- [35:53]
Pastor Taylor Madu
It becomes a giant oak tree. Then all of a sudden, in that ordinary field with an ordinary day, an ordinary man came and he cut that ordinary tree down. Then all of a sudden, ordinary hands milled that ordinary tree into an ordinary cross. And an ordinary. A seemingly ordinary man was hung upon that seemingly ordinary cross. And it changed the history of the world. I'm telling you today that if you've ever felt ordinary, if you've ever fel. Life is just the ordinary. God will move in that space and he'll do things that you never thought could be done. God moves and dwells and lives and breathes in the ordinary.
- [36:44]
Pastor Josh
This message, like most messages that. That are priests or that God works on in my heart, it hit me first. And I want to tell you that I lived in a place and it wasn't hyperbole to say that I have often looked to what is next. I get so focused on the extraordinary. But I want to pray for people in this room this morning. That you might be in that same space that you feel like life is just humdrum, like it's just day to day, week to week, that you don't know what the ordinary is capable of. This morning. But I want to pray for that group of people this morning. If you're with me, me. I want to pray for us that God would give us eyes to see and ears to hear how he is moving in and through our ordinary. So if you're in the room this morning and ask you, would you just raise your hand? I want to pray for you. I want to pray for us. There's hands going up all over the room. I want to pray for us because I believe that as we begin to embrace what God does in the ordinary, we will begin to see those extraordinary things that we hope for. You can put your hands down. It's so important to know this. It's not either or. It's not extraordinary or ordinary. It's both. But when we begin to overemphasize one or the other. That's when we get out of balance. So let me pray for us. Father, we thank you so much for everyone in this place today, Lord God that would raise their hand and say God, I need your help to see you in the ordinary. I need your help to see you in the face of my kids. I need your help to see you in the cold co workers or in the spaces that you'll take me to. I need your help to see me in my everyday to see you in my everyday and what you're doing. Would you open my eyes God? Would you help me to see Lord your word says that there was those who once were blind but now can see. Would you remove the scales from our eyes Lord God that we can embrace, that we can steward well what you're doing in the ordinary in Jesus name and everybody said amen. I want to pray for one more group of people and then I'm done. Some of you in the room this morning, I can sense that you were listening to this message and you have no clue whether or not that you have this treasure in this jar of clay. You love what you heard, you're excited about it, but you also don't know if you qualify. And this morning I want to tell you that the only qualification for having a treasure implanted in your jar of clay is faith in Jesus. Amen. So if you're in this room this morning, I want to give you a space and a place to respond. I want everyone to keep their eyes open. I know it's risky, it feels dangerous, but the reason I want people to see the hands go up is because they are your family. They're the people that are going to come alongside you and walk this thing out with you. So if you're in the room this morning and you know that you need that treasure inside of your ordinary life, would you just slip your hand right up? Would you be so bold? It always takes one. Thank you sis. I see you. Come on. There's hands going.
- [39:47]
Pastor Taylor Madu
Come on. Social people are making the decision to go from death to life this morning. Can we celebrate the decision? Can we celebrate the boldness?
- [39:58]
Pastor Josh
Thank you. Thank you. God is going to put his treasure inside of you and that treasure is going to begin to come out. People are going to tell you, I don't know what you're doing different, I don't know if it's your skin care, I don't know if you've taken up golf as a spa. I don't know what it is. There's something different about you and that you're gonna tell them I have a treasure in this jar of clay. Amen. We're gonna pray together as a family. Everyone, bow your heads with me. We are gonna pray this together. Father, thank you so much for sending your son Jesus to die on a cross for my sins. I receive your grace. I receive your forgiveness. I receive your mercy. And I thank you for this treasure that you're hiding in this jar of clay. Help me to steward the ordinary. Help me to steward my everyday. I give you all these things in the name of your son, Jesus. And everybody said, amen.