Click here to read Luke 3 on BibleGateway.com
Plagiarism alert: Today’s lesson steals unashamedly from other Bible teachers, so you may already be familiar with the particular point we make today, but it’s so good it bears repeating on the off-chance you haven’t heard this before. Plus, it’s always good to refresh ourselves regarding the awesome parts of the Word.
MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER PART OF THE DESERT
The passage under discussion today is Luke 3 verses 1-2. As we talked about yesterday, Luke often uses rulers to date his narrative, so he begins chapter 3 with a list of powerful leaders including the Roman governor (Pilate), three kings (Herod, Philip and Lysanias), and religious officials (Anna and Caiaphas) before declaring that the Word of the Lord came to John.
Notice the irony here? It was not to the superpower (Rome), the local aristocracy (the tetrarchs), or the religious leadership that God came. He came instead to a wandering hermit living in the desert. It wasn’t the pastors of the megachurch in Jerusalem that God worked through, but rather the lonely guy living out in the middle of Podunkoplis.
YOU HAVE CHOSEN…WISELY
Sometimes we think that God will not use us because we have nothing to offer. We may not be rich, or smart, or good-looking, or hygienic, and so we assume that God will choose others before us. And yet God seems to delight it working through people who are not the traditional models of authority.
The whole history of the Old Testament is populated with people on the lower end of the awesome-o-meter. He chose Jacob as Isaac’s heir even though he was the 2nd son and a cheat; He chose Moses as his spokesman despite his alleged stuttering problem and his bad habit of burying Egyptians in the sand; He chose a lying, childless, 100-year-old nomad as the Father of His people. The Bible is full of examples of God working through less than obvious candidates for positions of leadership.
You never know who God might choose to be a major part of His plan. It could be the pastor of the little church with 15 people. It could be the garbageman who works 10-hour days covered in other people’s material blessings. It could be the homemaker who rarely leaves the house. When God is involved, the next great leader could be anyone.
Maybe you.
