There’s no doubt the world is unsettled, that it is troubled. Nation rises against nation, our leaders make decisions we don’t always understand, and collectively we are divided, digging trenches around ideas and beliefs, so much so that we begin to see anyone who disagrees with us as a stranger or worse an enemy.
All of this, taken in small doses can be overwhelming, but thanks to an endless news cycle, we get this all the time, and its impact on our hearts and minds can be crushing. Without meaning to, we wear these troubles on our shoulders bringing them into our day-to-day. We might feel helpless, not knowing what to do. How can a person, or even a community have an impact on national and global events? How do we weather this tumult? How do we share the good news?
We remember that we don’t need to wear the weight of the world on our shoulders because we have a savior who’s already doing so, who promised both that we would certainly face tribulation and trials in the world, we could take heart because he has overcome the world. Like King Nebuchadnezzar, who after spending seven years living like a wild animal, eating grass like a donkey, lifted his eyes to the heavens and found his reasoning restored by God, we can do the same, and the path forward becomes clear.
The title of today’s message is The Common Stuff of ordinary life, and it is through steady practice of the “common stuff” that we can fulfill work God laid out for us and share the Gospel. This morning we are going to get into 1) what the common stuff is; 2) why it’s important; 3) and how we can put this into practice.
Let’s start with context. This concept of the common stuff of ordinary life comes from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, In the June 15 devotional, Chambers writes “No man is born either naturally or supernaturally with character, he has to make character. Nor are we born with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us. We are not meant to be illuminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. The great insurance in spiritual life is that we will look for big things to do.”
So the common stuff is about character, about habit, that which we do on a daily basis. And we don’t just have this, we have to work at it. Peter— in his letter to the elect resident aliens, or exiles scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia—encourages them to supplement various elements of character.
A supplement is something that bolsters, enhances, or completes when added. He begins with Faith because that is the foundation. Faith in Christ is the starting point, but he says we must supplement our faith with virtue or moral excellence or right living, and that needs to be supplemented with knowledge. In order to have virtue, you have to have knowledge of what it means to be virtuous. You have to supplement knowledge with self-control; there needs to be discipline to have knowledge, we have to work at it; Self-control is supplemented with steadfastness or diligence…we have to keep at it, to build the habit. Steadfastness is supplemented with godliness. Being devout. I suppose this means that if we are focused on Christ, if he is our aim, then we have something to be steadfast for. Godliness is supplemented with brotherly affection. Here Peter is referring to the deep affection that exists between fellow believers, a shared spiritual family. genuine care, support, service. Godliness is possible when you are surrounded by a family of believers expressing the same devotion. And brotherly affection is supplemented with love which Christ told them, tells us is the greatest commandment—love of God, and love of neighbor.
Peter’s instructions tell us how to do the common stuff of ordinary life, what it consists of, but what does this look like?
Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. This is the story of George Bailey and his community of Bedford Falls. We don’t know who he is at the beginning of the film. We just scenes of the town, and various voiceovers of people praying for a man named George Bailey. We then move to a shot of stars and are privy to a conversation between angels, and we learn that an angel named Clarence is being sent to save George Bailey, to stop him from making a terrible, terrible mistake. But in order to help George he needs to learn about him, and so Clarence and us the audience are taken on a tour of George Bailey’s life.
We learn early on that George has plans and dreams to do BIG things, wants to leave Bedford Falls, travel the world, design buildings, bridges, monuments to greatness. But this is not the path that unfolds before him. Despite attempting to seize upon opportunities to leave, there’s always something that comes up that keeps George in Bedford falls. After his father passes, George is put in charge of the family’s Building and Loan business, barely making ends meet. He lives in an old house with his wife, Mary, and their children. His childhood friend, Sam, left town to strike it rich in plastics; his brother, Harry got to go to college, got married, took a job in her father’s business, became a war hero.
In George’s eyes, everyone is doing better than him, is a success. When a financial error (money goes missing) threatens jail time and ruin, George contemplates ending his life because he thinks he’s worth more dead than he is alive. His attempt is thwarted by an intervening guarding angel, Clarence, who becomes George’s guide on a journey through what life would be like had George Bailey never existed. Through a harrowing journey, George discovers there were pivotal moments where his absence led to tragedy:
- His brother Harry drowned as a boy because George wasn’t there to save him; this in turn led to the deaths of soldiers during WWII because Harry wasn’t there to save them.
- George wasn’t around to stop the druggist Mr. Growers from accidentally poisoning a child.
- He wasn’t there to keep the Building & Loan running so people couldn’t afford to buy a good home.
- Bedford Falls became Potterville, a seedy town full of bars, gambling, night clubs and mean, cynical people.
- His Uncle Billy ended up in an asylum
- Mother Bailey ran a boarding house, becoming a suspicious, hardened woman
- Violet, a woman with a crush on George, made poor decisions to try and earn money.
- Mary never married, and there is no Bailey family.
At the horror of all this, Clarence tells George he’s been given a gift, getting to see what life would be like without him, and tells George he really does have a wonderful life (title of the film). Back to reality. George has a new outlook, thankful for a life he’d never fully appreciated. This is the scene in which we see George running through the center of a snowy Bedford Falls, screaming “Merry Christmas,” (you old building and loan). He returns home to find men there to arrest him, but before that can happen, nearly the whole town troops through the house to donate money to make up for the shortfall. “I heard George Bailey was in trouble, and I came to help.” We see one final note from Clarence as the whole town sings “Aud Lang Syne”
- Dear George, Remember no man is a failure who has friends.
This reframes what it means to succeed. George was certain he had failed in life. There were no buildings, no bridges, no travel, but he had built something bigger: a family, a community, a wonderful life. He was doing the common stuff of ordinary life.
We don’t get the benefit of a guardian angel showing us the impact we’ve had on people’s lives, but by committing to the steady daily common stuff, we can trust the impact is there.
2) The Why the Common Stuff of ordinary life is Important
Peter writes, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”
Without the common stuff of ordinary life, we are ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, as Oswald Chamber puts it: if we are the common stuff of ordinary life we exhibit the marvel of the grace of God.
We don’t do this for our own glory but for God’s glory. In being the common stuff of ordinary life we fulfill (or try to) our God-given vocation of being image bearers for Him, standing at the intersection of Heaven and earth posting back to Him, directing all glory and adoration to Him.
Peter calls this our “Calling and Election,” what we are meant to do. See George Bailey had it all planned out, what he was going to do to make his mark on the world, and was convinced that was the only way to do it. But God had other plans for Him. “For I now the plans I have for you, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:11). We need to trust in what God wants for us, for His world. And we need to understand that it is the boring, old, regular CONSISTENT words and deeds that matter. What Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction.”
In his sermon on the mount, Jesus makes reference to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and on the one hand he’s doing this to speak to how much God cares for us and that we don’t need to worry, that we will be provided for. On the other hand, he’s also pointing out that lilies and birds, respectively also fulfill what they are called and elected to do. They flower and they bird every day without fail. They are what God calls them to be. They never try to bloom more beautiful than they can, nor fly faster/higher or sing sweeter than what they already can. They don’t wait hold back until they feel inspired; they just are. And this is what God wants from us. If we wait around for inspiration, for the big moments and chances, we may end up waiting for a very long time, and this amounts to being ineffective and unfruitful with knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Author SD Smith who wrote the children’s books series, The Green Ember, describes his vocation of writing as an ordinary calling rooted in love and service, and when it comes to writing he says he never waits for the muse to strike, but just gets started and expects the muse to catch up. And this is what God expects from us.
Oswald Chambers writes, “There are times when there is not illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God’s way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God.” Learn to live in the drudgery. Get started. Put in the work.
3) How to put the common stuff of ordinary life into practice
I think we look to mundanity in our lives. How is ordinary of our lives illuminating Christ for those we encounter on a daily basis? This became clear
One of my favorite authors is a MN fellow by the name of Leif Enger, and his most recent novel, I Cheerfully Refuse, takes place on Lake Superior in the near future in which the residents of these fictional towns, including our narrator, support one another through small actions in a world slipping slowly into dysfunction and dystopia. Of his book, Enger said he wanted to show the “largeness of the small,” which to me is the common stuff of ordinary life. In a recent interview, Russell and Moore and Leif Enger were discussing evangelism in the post-pandemic 21st century, and at one point, Enger was discussing a shift in his thinking, and said he’d rather bring a neighbor a loaf of bread than to share the gospel with them, to evangelize. I was struck by this statement, because to me bringing your neighbor a loaf of bread is sharing the Gospel. I realize he was speaking about literally sharing the gospel, but that image of baking a loaf of bread and sharing it with a neighbor is the good news. Because what begins with a loaf of bread can become something so much more.
Think of the Gospel story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. People were listening to Jesus speak and grew hungry, but there just wasn’t enough money to buy enough food to feed that many people. The young man provided two fish and five loaves—what he had for his lunch. What he had to eat he gave to Christ and Christ turned around and transformed five loaves and the two fish into enough food to feed 5,000 plus. I think at times when it comes to living out our faith, we feel like we need to do the equivalent of providing enough food to feed 5,000 people, when the thing that we can do in our day-to-day life that has the most impact is providing a single lunch. We are not the Divine. We are not meant to be illuminated. We are pointing back to that which shines and the way that we do that is by sharing our sometimes proverbial, sometimes literal lunch. That is what we have control over. Remember all of the chaos and tumult I mentioned at the beginning? We don’t have control over large-scale events but what can we do in our day-to-day life? We talk about the largeness of the small and the small that we can do is to buy lunch.
So be what you are called and elected to be, my friends, which is the common stuff of ordinary life, because in doing so, we exhibit the marvel of the Grace of God. Amen.
We now enter a time of prayer. On our prayer list today we have:
- Gene Stoeckel Healing from surgery
- Scott Leistman — eye healing
- Myla Tolmie recovery from Faith Fest —
Purdy Good 