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We are small. We’ve only “officially” been meeting for worship for about two months now. We meet in an elementary school cafeteria, and barely fill it halfway. We don’t have a ton of resources because we can’t afford them. We can’t really dress the room up a ton because we have little to do that with. We don’t have fancy lights or multiple screens and high production to wow people with – and let’s face it: people want to be wowed.

Are you wowed by what you experience at Community of Hope? When we have visitors on Easter, what do you think they will be wowed by?

The fact is that many people will be looking for an experience that, frankly, we can’t deliver – and maybe that’s a good thing, because we (and I do mean “we” as in “all of us”) can show them something bigger than what they’re expecting.

Matthew writes about a conversation that Jesus was having with some people about John the Baptist. John created quite a stir when he showed up. For one thing, he wore camel hair and ate bugs. For another, he was a a prophet like the Old Testament prophets, something that nobody had seen for over 400 years. Some people were even saying that Elijah himself had returned. Others were saying that he was demon possessed. Lots of people wanted to go see and hear the spectacle of John the baptist, and would journey out into the desert where John lived to see him, to go see the show. He was reality TV before TV.

Jesus was talking to some people and said

“What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed blown by the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes? Of course not. Those who wear fine clothes live in palaces. So why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes….”

People were going to find out what the hype was all about. They wanted to see him, to hear him, to figure out for themselves what he was. Jesus acknowledged this, and continued…

“Yes, and I tell you, John is more than a prophet….I tell you the truth, John the Baptist is greater than any other person ever born….”

…but then came the punchline, a statement so staggering that surely most of the people there must have found it unbelievable:

“…but even the least important in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.”

“Wait, what?” Okay, I’ll repeat that:

“Even the least important person in the kingdom of heaven” – and that includes everyone of us who have been brought by Jesus into His kingdom – “is greater than John the Baptist,” who in turn was greater than any other person yet born.”

A mathematician would write it like this:

You and I > John the Baptist > Any person ever born up until then

(including Moses, Abraham, etc.)

Do you find this unbelievable? Maybe you do believe it, but you reduce what Jesus was actually saying in order to make it believable. If so, for your sake and for the sake of the kingdom, stop it. Stop your unbelief. Stop diminishing what God has given to you. Stop cheating yourself as well as the people around you who are desperately looking for something. You were made to be a vessel through which God displays all of His attributes to a world that desperately needs Him.

You, person reading this, if you have been bought by Jesus and have surrendered to Him, you have something even better than being able to talk to Jesus face to face like John did. You have something better than a degree from seminary. You have something better than eloquence or raw talent or ravishing good looks. You have the Holy Spirit, God Himself, not just with you but in you. Not figuratively but actually. The God who spoke the universe into being, who parted the Red Sea, the God who is love, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, that God is in you.

So stop looking to be wowed by human ability (which can be pretty impressive). Stop settling for crumbs when you are offered a feast. Stop focusing on your own abilities or perceived lack of ability and start trusting in the ability of the God who resides in you. Don’t just trust in a mental way, but in a way that takes real, concrete action.

People want to be wowed, and when we look for that in something else, we’re really misplacing a desire to be wowed by God. Jesus says that you can show people what they’ve really been looking for all along.

Yes, you are small, just like Community of Hope is small, but you, and we, are inhabited by a really, really big, powerful, merciful, and loving God. Show people what He is like.