Hebrews 11:23(NKJV) 23By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
We are looking at the idea that every Christian has the opportunity to be extraordinary. This word simply means beyond what is ordinary. People want to believe their life will be something more than just the humdrum or every day. In our culture, we have satisfied this desire with celebrities. We have become voyeurs of the extraordinary when the Lord wants to give us extraordinary lives of our own.
Yesterday we looked at John 10:10. In this verse, we have a promise that Jesus came to give us something called “abundant life.” One of the definitions of abundant life was extraordinary life. In this same verse, we read that the thief came to steal that life from us. The devil wants to steal the extraordinary from your life and make you an ordinary person.
What are the ingredients of an extraordinary life? I want to spend a few moments looking at an extraordinary person. His name was Moses. In today’s verse, we find that he had an extraordinary beginning. He was born at a time when the Egyptians had become so frightened by the numbers of Hebrews in their midst that they ordered every male child born to be immediately killed. We find in Hebrews 11 that Moses parents hid him from this decree by faith. They saw that the child was beautiful. I believe we could say that they understood that he was extraordinary.
Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses. He had the best education. He was trained in all the ways of the Egyptians. He was a warrior and probably a statesman. Since he had the advantages of the royal house, I am sure he was healthy. He had the best food and athletic training. In today’s world, he would have been a celebrity. He was young, handsome, privileged and well known. If anyone seemed to be in a position to be a deliverer of Israel it was Moses. In every way, he was outwardly extraordinary.
In Exodus 2:11-15 we read that “when Moses was grown” he went out and saw that plight of the Hebrew people. We do not know when Moses understood that they were also his people, but the bible says Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew who was “one of his brethren.”
In response, this extraordinary specimen of a man kills the Egyptian and buries him in the sand. Sometime later Moses sees a Hebrew beating another Hebrew. He tries to intervene, but the one who was doing the beating said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” At that moment, Moses knew that he was in trouble. Nothing that made him outwardly extraordinary in Egyptian society could help him and he fled into the desert.
If we were judging Moses by our standards of what is extraordinary, we would say he has lost his window of opportunity. He cannot possibly become Israel’s deliverer. He is no longer famous he is infamous. He has lost all his “connections.” He finds himself on the “backside” of the desert. He marries a local girl and becomes a shepherd for his father’s sheep. It strikes me that he did not seem to have his own flock of sheep. He is working for his father-in-law. What could be more ordinary than that?
He does not stay there a short time. He spends 40 years in this humble, ordinary situation. He uses up the years that we would think he could have the strength to do something great. He is eighty years old and seems to have no future. Surely he will die an ordinary man with nothing extraordinary credited to his name. We know that is not Moses’ story.
God was doing something with Moses out there in the desert. He was taking a man who was outwardly extraordinary and cleansing from him what really made him very ordinary. To the natural eye, the old Moses was special, but to God it was what made him seem special that disqualified him from being extraordinary. In the desert, he learned faithfulness. He learned humility. He learned the value of work. He learned to depend on others. He learned how to love a wife and family. He learned respect for people. In the desert, he developed into a candidate for the extraordinary. He only lacked one more thing.
One day in the midst of his ordinary life, he saw a sight that he could not explain. He saw a bush that seemed to burn but was not being consumed by the fire. The next moments in Moses life will determine if he will return to being ordinary or become extraordinary.
Exodus 3:3(NKJV) 3Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
At that moment, Moses had a choice. He could choose to turn aside from his will and his current level of experience and see what God wanted to show him or he could ignore the voice of God and continue as he was. He had become a candidate for the extraordinary, but now he must choose to be extraordinary. It was time for him to fulfill the call of God on his life.
We know the rest of the story. What Moses could not do with what made him extraordinary in the eyes of man he was able to do with the extraordinary power of God. To the world, he was now a humble shepherd, but to God he was the extraordinary deliverer of Israel. What made him extraordinary now? He had spent forty years developing the character of God and the qualities that God considers extraordinary. He then accepted the call of God, which was the final step to becoming a truly extraordinary person.
Moses changed the world and altered history. He did not do this by being the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He did not do it with the best education or physical training. He did not do it with natural gifts. God may use any or all of these things in our lives. However, Moses changed history by yielding to the extraordinary dealings of God. He changed his world because he submitted to what seemed to be very ordinary circumstances.
The ordinary life he was living built in him the character he needed to fulfill his destiny in God. Finally, God revealed that destiny to him and it was up to him to choose obedience. When he did, nothing could keep him from becoming one of the most extraordinary people in history.
Do you want to be extraordinary? You already have an advantage over Moses. He lived in the time before the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In that time, the Holy Spirit would come upon people to help them do great things. If you are born again, the Holy Spirit lives in you. You have the extraordinary One on the inside. However, you must be willing to let what may seem ordinary work in you the character necessary to be extraordinary.
You must also have a call upon your life. Some think that a call of God is reserved for the special people of the church. We know that those in fulltime ministry are “called.” However, we are all called of God. We are all called to be witnesses to the world. We are all called to make disciples. We are all called to heal the sick and raise the dead. We are all called to be salt and light to the world. You can read about your call in Mark 16 and Matthew 28.
You are already extraordinary because of the great salvation that you have received in Jesus. Now all you need to do is choose to walk in the extraordinary life God has given you. You may never be famous. The world may never know what you have done, but God will and in the end that will be enough.
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