The Secret to Living an Extraordinary Life // How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Part 4

Christianityworks Official Podcast

Have you ever wondered – how to live an extraordinary life? I mean no one wants to live a boring ordinary life. We all want to have some impact in this world. But … how?

The Theory is not Enough

When I finished high school almost 40 years ago now, my grades were good enough to mean I was selected to study medicine at Sydney University. And so I applied for a range of courses at different universities – that’s how it worked back then. You applied for several things that interested you and then, depending on your grades, you had several offers on the table from which you could choose.

One of the things I was accepted for was medicine, but something inside me – well, I just didn’t want to do it, even though my parents wanted me to do it. I mean, what do you really know at aged 17 about what you’d be good at and what you’d enjoy – what you want to spend the rest of your life doing? Nothing! Fortunately though, they left it up to me and being a young lad with a sense of adventure – that desire to spread my wings and fly, I chose a career in the military instead.

Now I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked back on that decision in the years since, and thanked God I didn’t become a doctor. See, I hate the sight of blood, and well, I just couldn’t imagine it! It’s just not me. I chuckle to myself, and every time we talk about the idea of me becoming a doctor, my wife Jacky ends up shrieking with laughter, or rolling her eyes into the back of her head. She knows me better than anyone on the planet, and saying that I would make a good doctor would be like telling me that I could fly to the moon by flapping my arms.

Now, given that I’m a bit of an academic, I wouldn’t have any problem at all with the theory. I’m sure I could cope with all the study and the exams – no problem, but my problem would be when I had to come to stick a needle into someone, or cut them open with a knife and poke around inside them, and then put all the pieces back in the right place and stitch them up again. My problem with being a doctor isn’t the theory; it’s the practice, and that’s the way it is with many of us when it comes right down to living an extraordinary life.

We don’t have any problem whatsoever with the theory. There are plenty of us who want to lead an extraordinary life, and we dream about it, but you don’t plough a field by turning it over in your mind. People who live extraordinary lives are the ones that realise the theory isn’t enough. The people who live extraordinary lives are the ones that get out there in the game, and give it a crack – the ones who are prepared to sacrifice and fail and get up and dust themselves off, and give it another go. And that’s exactly what Jesus taught us about living an extraordinary life. Have a listen. Matthew 7:24:

He said, ‘Look, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it didn’t fall because it had been founded on a rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell, and it was such a great fall.’ Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at His teaching, for He taught them as One having authority, and not as the scribes.

Well, should they have been amazed? All the religious leaders of their day were teaching waffle and theory and how to follow all these rules and laws that didn’t make people’s lives any better at all. In fact, it was making their lives worse. But the stuff Jesus was talking about – sure; it was about the very same God that all the religious leaders were teaching about, but He was teaching stuff that seemed to matter – real stuff; real-life things – things that people could take and do and live by, that would make their lives better and other people’s lives better.

But Jesus was warning them here. He was saying in effect: ‘Sure, you can come along and listen and be wowed by all that you hear, and entertained, and challenged, and that’s great. But if all you do is listen, what good is that going to do you? None! Because when push comes to shove, when the going gets tough, it’s all going to come crashing down round your ears. But, if you actually do the things that I’m telling you, it’ll be like building your life on firm foundations. So don’t just sit there and listen to me; do it!’

Hey, maybe that’s where Nike got their slogan from. And here’s the bit that caps it off for me. When Jesus was done teaching them, what did He do? Did He go back to the office and get out His textbooks and get in some more theory so that He could dish out yet another sermon, yet another theory lesson to the masses? Let’s have a read here at the very next thing that He did after His sermon on that mount. Matthew 8:1:

When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him, and there was a leper who came to Him and knelt before Him, saying: ‘Lord, if You choose, You can make me clean.’

So Jesus stretched out His hand and touched the man, saying: ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him: ‘See that you say nothing to anyone, but go. Show yourself to the priests and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’

See, what was the very next thing Jesus did after His message on doing instead of just listening? He went out and touched the leper. See, it was against the law to touch a leper, but He was so moved by compassion, He reached out and touched the leper, and healed the man.

Now I’m not sure if you’ve heard this saying, but it’s a great one. "A shepherd should never lose the smell of sheep from his clothing". In other words, we should always be hands-on when it comes to living out our faith. We should always be prepared to do our faith, not just believe our faith. With all my heart I believe in Jesus, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to be a theoretician – sit here in a nice, safe, clean, cloistered, albeit boring little radio-studio and just churn out these programmes – dish out the theory. But if there’s one thing that Jesus teaches us, it’s that theory isn’t enough. The theory has to work its way out in practice in our lives. The easiest thing in the world is to nod wisely as we hear Jesus’ words today, but it’s much harder to go and do them.

Let me leave you with this thought: Theoreticians aren’t the ones who end up living extraordinary lives; it’s the practitioners who do. Who’s the great sportsman – the one who teaches the players, or the one who picks up the ball and runs with it? Who’s the great teacher – the one who stays in the classroom, or the one who pulls alongside the student on the journey in his life? At some point, if we want to live extraordinary lives, we have to go and live them. We have to go and do them. For some of us, it’s time to stop listening, and it’s time to start doing.

Powered by Faith

In your life, let me ask you: Where do you get the sort of power that keeps you going, despite some of the difficulties and the obstacles that you face? Do you have that sort of power? Well, no, me neither – well, that’s not quite true. Of course, in and of myself I don’t have that sort of power, but when from time to time things get beyond me, I do know where to go to get it. Sound interesting? Well, let’s take a look.

In this razzmatazzy kind of world in which we live, we’re supposed to have our own power. We’re supposed to be strong and self-sufficient. We’re supposed to be quick and smart and clever and all that stuff. That’s the theory, and I guess in part, I’d agree with that. We should grow; we should mature; we should use the strengths and the abilities we’ve been given, but I don’t care even if your name is Hercules, there are going to be times when the job before us is way, way, way beyond us. So, then in that place, where do you get that power – the power to live an absolutely extraordinary life? Well, let’s take a look.

The question is, what are you powered by? Here’s what Jesus has to say on the subject because of course in our journey of discovering how to live an extraordinary life over these last few episodes, we’ve been following Him around through the account of His life in the gospel of Matthew to discover how it was that He lived His extraordinary life, and here’s what Jesus has to say about power and where to get it. Matthew 8:5:

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, appealing to Him, saying: ‘Lord, my servant’s lying at home paralysed and in terrible distress.’

And Jesus said to Him: ‘I’ll come and cure him.’

But the centurion answered: ‘Lord, I’m not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes, and to another ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this’, and the slave does it.’

When Jesus heard him, He was amazed, and He said to all those who were following Him: ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and they’ll eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion, Jesus said: 'Go. Let it be done for you according to your faith’, and the servant was healed in that very hour.

Now here was this centurion, a Roman soldier of the Italian cohort. He was faced with a problem that was way, way, way beyond him. His servant was sick, and obviously this servant meant a lot to him. What to do? No fancy emergency clinics back in those days; none of the advances in medicine that we take for granted these days as yet existed. Yet he’s heard about this miracle-man Jesus, and in his simple mind, he decided that Jesus must have the power.

But how to lay hold of that power? Well, get up and go and see Him! With a bit of luck, being a centurion, you’d get through the crowd to ask Jesus if He could help. But how does the centurion ask? Let’s take another look (verse 8):

The centurion answered: ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes. I say to another, ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this’ and the slave does it.’

The centurion sets out the simple soldier’s logic of his faith in Jesus. He explains his reason for putting his trust in Jesus, and Jesus is totally blown away by this man’s faith, and the moment this faith is expressed, it releases power. See, the centurion in and of himself didn’t have the power to heal the servant, but he knew where to get it, and how to get it – by placing his trust in Jesus. See, is that it? Is that the end of the story? Well, not really.

Of course, the centurion received what he asked for by faith, but interestingly, Jesus also received what He asked for by faith. It seems that Jesus actually practised what He preached, which is a pretty refreshing change when you think about it. Matthew 8:23:

When Jesus got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great the boat was being swamped by the waves, but Jesus was asleep. So they woke Him and they said: ‘Lord, save us! We’re perishing!’

And He said to them: ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then He got up and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was dead calm.

They were amazed, saying: ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the seas obey Him?’

Well I’ll tell you what sort of a man He was – He was a man of faith. He rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith, and then in faith He stilled the storm. Remember, Jesus had laid all His power aside to become a man. Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, but also the Son of Man! He had, in and of Himself, the same power as you and I do. What He relied on to do the extraordinary things that He did was God’s power by faith, and as a result, He was able to still the storm; to feed the five thousand; to heal the sick; to raise the dead – by faith.

Now, I try my hardest in my life. I marshal all my abilities and strengths whenever I’m faced with something I can’t manage, because I kind of figure that I should be capable of doing these things, but there are plenty of times I’m called to do things that are actually way beyond me. I was sitting preparing this particular message at the international airport in Dubai, on my way from Delhi in India to Nairobi in Kenya. I’d just been to India to grow the reach and the impact of these very same radio-messages there, and now I was heading off to Africa to do the same on that continent.

I can’t tell you how often I’m on these trips, and I sit there and I look around and I think to myself: "Who do I think I am? What am I doing here? I mean, Dubai, for crying out loud! I can’t make a difference in all these countries. These are all so foreign to me. I don’t belong here", and then I remember the centurion – his simple logic. To him it was patently obvious that Jesus could do what he asked of Him, and then I remember Jesus who by faith stilled the storm, through the power of God Himself.

See, for Jesus, it wasn’t complicated. For the centurion, it wasn’t complicated – not for the Christ, not for the soldier. Faith is faith – simple, sweet, pure, and it’s that childlike faith that lays hold of the awesome power of God to do the extraordinary things – the things that are way beyond the natural – the supernatural. Looking for the power to do the extraordinary things? Looking for the power to live an extraordinary life? Well, I know exactly where you can get it.

Tough Choices

Now, in these last 4 episodes of the programme, we’ve only managed to get to Matthew chapter 8, out of 28 chapters, so we’re going to cheat somewhat by jumping forward to the end of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life and times to see, in part, how it ended.

A lot of what our lives end up being worth has to do with the decisions that we make. We all make many decisions every day – dozens of them. Sometimes we make really lousy decisions and other times, we make good decisions. So, I’d like to look at perhaps the single-most important decision that’s ever been taken in the history of humanity – the decision that Jesus took all alone, late at night, in a dark, lonely, scary place. They’re the hardest decisions to take, don’t you think – the dark ones, the lonely ones? And this was one of the hardest decisions that anyone will ever take, and also, the most important one. Matthew 26:36:

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples: ‘Sit here while I go over there, and pray.’ He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then He said to them: ‘I’m so deeply grieved, even unto death. Remain here, and stay awake with Me.’

And going a little farther, He threw Himself on the ground and prayed: ‘My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me, yet not what I want, but what You want.’ Then He came to His disciples and He found them sleeping and He said to Peter: ‘So, couldn’t you stay awake with Me for just one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into a time of trial. The spirit indeed is willing, but your flesh is weak.’

Again, He went away for the second time and prayed. ‘My Father, if this cannot pass from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.’

Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to the disciples and He said to them: ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’

Now this, of course, was the decision of laying His life down for you and me, so put yourself in His shoes, and imagine being there deciding whether or not you’re going to die for someone else, and not just die; suffer – not a quick, painless injection, as awful as that would be – not even the electric chair; certainly some pain there, but over pretty quickly ... Wouldn’t that just be awful? But Jesus knew He was going to suffer for hours – the best part of a day, around 17 hours. Trial after trial, 5 of them in all; beating after beating, thorns driven into His skull, nails driven into His hands and feet, hanging there by those nails in excruciating pain for hours, until finally He didn’t have the strength to breathe.

That’s how you died when you were crucified; you’re suffocated. He actually lost the strength to breathe, hanging there by those nails, and so you died of lack of oxygen. All the while those nails tore at your wrist and your Achilles tendon – your whole bodyweight being taken on those 4 painful points. And so here Jesus is, hoping that His friends would support Him, but they fall asleep. Can you believe that? They actually fell asleep, and He’s sweating blood in His most crucial hour, and He prays and He prays ‘Dad, if only You can take this whole thing away from me!’

I’m sure there are a whole bunch of other things that passed between God the Father and God the Son in that dark, lonely, fearful place on that night. He was grieved – deeply grieved – greatly agitated. Why wouldn’t He have been, with all that lay ahead? He was dying to pay for my sin and yours, so that we could be forgiven. He threw Himself on the ground and prayed: ‘Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want, but what You want’, and that’s the key to the most important decision ever made in all of history. No, He didn’t want to die; but even in this dark place, He said to His Father in heaven: ‘Yet not what I want, but what You want.’

Right there in that yes is where the ordinary becomes absolutely extraordinary. Jesus made a decision to submit His life – literally His very life – to the will of God His Father, and that changed the course of history.

There are going to be times in both our lives – in your life and in my life – where we have one of those Gethsemane decisions to make, and they’re never easy. They’re always huge. I look back on a few in my life and I never, ever want to have to go through them again, but how we decide at that point has everything to do with the sort of life that we end up leading. If we’re prepared to lose it all for God, then that’s extraordinary!

So many people want to hang onto their lives, and when we cling onto the things that we want in life, that makes for an ordinary life. When we’re prepared to lay it all on the line, when we’re prepared to go with the outcome that God has for us, even when it deeply grieves and agitates us, as was the case with Jesus, that’s where true greatness lies.

Most of us will never be called physically to lay down our lives for God. Some will, but most won’t, and yet Jesus called His followers to take up their cross every day and follow Him, because there are much smaller Gethsemane decisions to be made each and every day in submitting our lives to God, so that we may live. "If any man would save his life, then he’ll lose it. But the one who loses it for My sake", said Jesus, "Will save it."

Weird – that last bit, but what He’s saying is that when we try to hang onto everything for ourselves, that’s what makes for an ordinary life, and eventually, an ordinary life comes to an end, but the one who lays down their lives for Jesus will live an extraordinary life, and that’s a life that goes on for ever and ever and ever. Amen.