Unlimited Grace

Guest (Male): What does it mean for us? But God’s glory compels us to look within our lives and to believe, even when we have counted ourselves out, when we think what we are doing is nondescript and not making a point, faceless and forgotten, but God is yet using it. God is using the obscure for amazing things.

So glad you joined us for today’s Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today’s lesson, Pastor Bryan shares a message from a well-known passage in Luke. As Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem to waving branches and shouts of praise, we also see how God uses obscure, unnamed people to usher in a glorious arrival of the King.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit UnlimitedGrace.com. And while you’re there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell, Holiness by Grace. Let’s hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, The People of No Names.

Bryan Chapell: Father, thank you for the many who have served us already this day. But take our minds and our hearts to the great servant King who rode in humility to perform a work of saving, even saving us by the offering of himself. They put palm branches and cloaks before him because they had nothing else.

But he had all of glory and laid it down for us. Help us to celebrate and praise and humble ourselves for him that we might truly be those who can say, "Hosanna in the highest, for our Savior has saved us." We pray this to you in the name of our King, Jesus. Amen. Please be seated.

Who would have thought that two obscure California kids named Steve would come up with an idea for connecting a keyboard to a TV? And one selling his VW bus and the other his Hewlett-Packard calculator to raise money would launch one of the most powerful companies in the world named Apple.

And who would have thought that an obscure college dropout would have the savvy and the moxy to turn an idea about a digital social directory into a social media phenomena that has such power now that it not only makes him a billionaire in his youth but apparently has the ability to turn the tide of national elections and to be a weapon of opposing political parties and nations and angry grandmothers?

And who would have thought that an obscure online bookseller named Amazon and a going-out-of-business DVD rental service named Netflix would ultimately have more power and funds and popularity than the global market of all the movies that Hollywood can produce?

And who would have thought that an obscure five-letter MeToo hashtag on a social service that a year ago only allowed 140 characters, that that little hashtag would have enough power to humble powerful figures in Hollywood and Washington and government and business and church?

And who would have thought that an obscure, dead Syrian boy washed up on the shores of a Turkish resort would awaken the world to a refugee crisis that it had long ignored, though it was the largest human crisis in the history of the world ignored by us until that moment?

And who would have thought that an obscure, itinerant Jewish rabbi riding a donkey into a desert town 2,000 years ago would save the world as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, opening the doors of heaven to our souls for eternity? The message of the moment and the message of eternity is simply: don’t count out the obscure. You may end up counting on them more than you ever imagined.

It is a simple message we celebrate over and over again, even though we are tempted to believe that the only ones that we should honor, the only ones to recognize are the rich and famous and powerful because they call the shots. But just every now and then, we are reminded God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak to humble the strong, the 16th seed to shock the number ones, the praise of children to herald a king.

The message against all odds on this Sunday is that God can use the obscure to bring glory to himself. And for everyone who thinks they don’t count or couldn’t count, it is the message and the Sunday for us. After all, what is so plain is that obscure people, the ones who don’t seem to count, the ones who have no names, are the very ones who are used for the glory of God at the greatest moment of Jesus on earth for human recognition.

What happens? We know the account so much that we don’t see what’s missing. What does not occur in the account that we read over and over again, year after year on Palm Sunday? There are no names. Not a one. In all the listing of all the people, there are no names. Verse 29: he sends two people ahead of him, the disciples, to collect the donkey, but there are no names of who they are.

Verse 33: the donkey owners question just as Jesus predicted they will, but they are not named, nor, by the way, is the donkey named. Verse 36: as a pauper’s red carpet, the cloaks of disciples are spread on the road, but they are not named. Verse 37: the whole multitude of disciples begins to praise him, cut branches, spread them on the road, but despite the crowd and the multitude, there are no names.

Verse 39: the religious leaders object. "Rabbi, how dare your people praise you as the King? Tell them to stop." But despite the notoriousness of their rebuke, no names. Foe, friend, crowd blend into kind of a faceless, nameless backdrop to underscore only one person gets the spotlight in this account.

And curiously, even he is not named in this account. The name that seems to occur is in verse 38. The people say, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord." That’s as close as we get. But he’s not even named Jesus here, as though his earthly name is put aside and he is recognized as the name of the Lord, Kyrios, the New Testament word for Jehovah.

It is his title. It is his right of claim upon this earth. He is the King. He is the King. He is the Lord. That is his name. As though anything of earth has to be put aside so that we will see the majesty and the glory and the dignity of the one King, the one God, the one Savior who comes.

And yet as exclusive as the spotlight is on the glory that Jesus alone is to receive as Lord, it is remarkably meant to be encouraging to us. For what you begin to recognize is that everybody, though nameless, faceless, forgotten by history, is being used in this moment to bring glory to the Lord.

The world may forget Luke, the historian, the journalist of the time who named names so much, you might seem to think, well, it’s just as though he’s forgotten. But what you recognize is the people who are not named are nonetheless being used for the glory of God. And it’s almost as though they are fading into the background to be even more effective in showing who he is and what he will accomplish.

It’s their obscurity that is actually being used for greater glory than they can imagine. God is using them to make sure the world sees it is Jesus who gets the glory, and their obscurity does not stop that. In fact, their apparent obscurity just underscores even more who he really is.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. God instructs us in his word to be holy as he is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as he is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us.

In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness. Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God’s mercy.

Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God, as Pastor Bryan’s encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of his holiness your soul’s deepest delight.

You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to UnlimitedGrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That’s 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today’s Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: The people who are not named are nonetheless being used for the glory of God. And it’s almost as though they are fading into the background to be even more effective in showing who he is and what he will accomplish. It’s their obscurity that is actually being used for greater glory than they can imagine.

God is using them to make sure the world sees it is Jesus who gets the glory, and their obscurity does not stop that. In fact, their apparent obscurity just underscores even more who he really is. There are no little people. There are no useless people. Even the forgotten have purpose here for the glory of God.

What difference does it make? Mark Clark, who is founding pastor of Village Church in Vancouver and the author of a book some of you will know called The Problem of God, a pastor who is willing to handle the tough questions of skeptics of a younger generation who wonder how could there possibly be a God with the troubles and difficulties and ills of the world, and his answer with such compassion and care that a generation is listening again even to the God who has problems.

But he talks about what changed his life, the obscure things that coordinated in such a way that he began to be used by God for such a profound reason. He writes of his own history: "My father was a classic deadbeat dad. He couldn’t hold down a job. He divided his time between drinking and yelling at football games on the TV. He died of lung cancer when I was 15. There were only 18 people at his funeral. And yet from that obscure and useless apparent background, God was changing him."

"When I was 17," he said, "I met a former drug dealer at my school who had become a follower of Jesus because I’d been starting to sell drugs myself. I was intrigued by his life, his questions, his passion for God. He was like a disciple putting his cloaks on the road for Jesus. Whatever it took, he would make Jesus known. I met him in woodworking class, and there he challenged me to examine my doubts, to read the Bible, to pray, to think about what I believed about life and about God."

"And in that crucible of the death of a deadbeat dad, of drug dealing, and a woodworking class, I knew either I would lose the small amount of faith I had or it would explode in my heart and change me forever." Just the most incidental, obscure, nondescript, "don't count" things being used by God to coordinate into the life and the heart of a pastor who would be a voice for a doubting generation to turn them to God. "The darkness exploded," he said, "it changed me." And as it began to change me, countless others have been changed.

I think what it means for us that God could use a woodworking class, a deadbeat dad, the Sunday school class forgotten until the moment of God’s bringing it to life again. What does it mean for us? But God’s glory compels us to look within our lives and to believe, even when we have counted ourselves out, when we think what we are doing is nondescript and not making a point, faceless and forgotten, but God is yet using it. God is using the obscure for amazing things.

I think of what it means for the couple of families who go to the most populous nation in the world and are recognized by no one to rescue damaged children from orphanages and to bring them here to hear the message of salvation in Jesus Christ and recognize that where those children have been claimed, no one recognizes them at all.

They are totally nondescript, and yet God is using those families powerfully, you as a church to witness to children now for a generation who will be raised in this church to hear the word of God and souls to be affected eternally by what the world will say is just obscure, not noticed, not seeming to make any difference.

I think of those of you who name the name of Jesus in neighborhood Bible clubs and school gatherings for children who would not otherwise hear the name of Jesus and whose hearts and families and souls and futures are being changed. For those of you who minister in tutoring classes just for the sake of Christ’s name, for those who would otherwise be only disadvantaged and know the oppression of want and racism and hurt in this society.

And yet here are people totally unnoticed by the world who are changing the eternities of young people. I think of the teachers in our congregation who know of troubled children and say to parents, "I will take the troubled child. He can come to my class." And the world doesn’t notice and the school wonders what’s strange about you that you would want the troubled children in your class. And profoundly you believe that God can use the obscure for glory.

Those of you who stop by on the way here to pick up a homebound senior who can’t make it to church anymore and bring them here to glorify God and just be part of our ministry of bringing the message of Christ to the nations. And the world will call it nothing, and maybe no one will recognize what you have done this day or day after day. And yet God sees and hearts are changed and the witness of the church is changed.

There are things that we can’t even begin to imagine that God is orchestrating and putting together by the obscure, by the unknown, by the long-forgotten. Just a few weeks ago, I got a letter from friends in France and they said, "Would you pray for our team in Marseille because there are three neighborhoods that we are trying to reach and we’re going to have a prayer walk going through the neighborhoods of the city of Marseille? And we’re just praying that God would find some means to open hearts to what is in some ways the most secular nation in the world."

Pray, okay, shoot that little prayer up as I’m reading the letter and kind of forget about it then. And then this last week, watch on the news as again France is shocked by a terrorist attack and even the national news, the international news say that people in France are beginning to consider, reconsider the secularism that has hardened their nation against terror. I think, just a little prayer walk, just people praying for those souls. Does it work that prayer can affect things in this way?

Kevin and I are teaching in Florida this past week. The last day that we are there, a man reaches out and takes my hand and he says, "I’m a pastor. I’ve been a pastor in Mexico in a town named Guadalajara. And I understand that you’re the pastor of the church that sends young people to our town in the summers. I want you to know that they are good people and that I have been encouraged to continue ministry because of what your young people have done in our town."

Wait, we don’t know what’s happening so far away. We can’t see it. We don’t understand it. We send them off with our prayers and just kind of matter-of-fact, this is what we do as a church. And here is God orchestrating the pieces, taking the young people and the prayers and the work of a church in Peoria, Illinois, and reaching to a church in Guadalajara and encouraging the heart of a pastor there for a generation of young people in a college town there for the purposes that God intends for eternity.

We count out the obscure, and God is counting on us to believe that he can use the obscurest for his greatest glory. I’m so glad you chose to spend some of your valuable time studying the scriptures with me today. If God has spoken to you about an issue, a problem, or situation you’re dealing with and you’d like to ask him to help you get things straightened out, I’d like to pray with you right now for his guidance.

Heavenly Father, your understanding of this world is beyond what I can imagine, and your love for me more than I can fathom. So I come seeking your wisdom and trusting your heart. I turn this concern over to you and I entrust it to you. Please show me the path that I should take by guiding me with your word. Help me to take the next right step and then trust you to do as you know is best. For then we shall be truly blessed. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Guest (Male): That’s Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you’ve been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, you can find a collection of valuable resources at UnlimitedGrace.com. When you visit, you will find today’s message and many others from Pastor Bryan. Also, be sure to request a copy of Dr. Chapell’s book, Holiness by Grace.

We’ll send you this book right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Once again, go to UnlimitedGrace.com or you can give by calling 844-41-GRACE. That’s 844-414-7223. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by his unlimited grace.

This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.