Permit me to dream for a moment. Imagine if Leonardo DiCaprio got saved. Then he could star in a Christian remake of the movie “Titanic”, and when he stood at the front of the boat and said, “I’m the king of the world!”, Rose would say, “No you’re not, Jesus is.” Then he would repent of sins right there on the Titanic and start an on-boat evangelistic ministry called “Big Boat, Bigger God”. Then, when he died at the end of the movie it wouldn’t be nearly as sad, because he would be in heaven.
Millions would probably see the movie, especially if it was in 3D, leading to a worldwide revival and the spread of the gospel. Maybe DiCaprio and Kirk Cameron would team up to make a couple of movies. Maybe Steven Spielberg would get saved through DiCaprio’s influence. Who knows.
Do you ever wonder why stuff like this doesn’t happen more often? Why don’t more celebrities and shakers and movers get saved? 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 gives us some insight into this:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
God doesn’t gravitate toward the people that the world gravitates toward. He gravitates toward the weak, the lowly, the ordinary, and the unimpressive. He calls those whom the world ignores. If God primarily saved rich, powerful, and beautiful people, those people might have some reason to boast before God. But God saves unimpressive, weak people, so that there might not be any boasting in his presence. And when God saves these people and uses them to spread the gospel, it demonstrates the power of God, not the power of the people.
D.A. Carson described the Corinthian church as, “…a low class operation with a few sophisticated exceptions.” I find that quote to be very encouraging, because it pretty much describes my church too. We are a low class church, with me at the head of the pack. Sure, we have a few exceptions. We have couple doctors, a few professors, and a few folks with lots of money. But not many. Our worship team is not overly impressive either. No one is going to think that they accidentally walked into a U2 concert when they come to our church. Our preaching isn’t anything to boast about either. We strive to do our best, but we’re not like Piper or Driscoll.
But God likes to work through ordinary, unimpressive people. God likes to use worship teams that occasionally train wreck and miss transitions. God likes to use ordinary preachers. God loves to use ordinary church members to do extraordinary things.
So I love my ordinary, low-class church. We’re just a bunch of weak people that love Jesus, and I love seeing God work through us. When we succeed as a church, it certainly won’t be because of our brilliance or influence. It will be because we serve a mighty God who does great things through weak people.
