In 1980 Olympic gold was won by the US team of twenty unlikely players. The coach by-stepped the usual procedure of allowing a aboard of advisers take part in the picking process. Some of the top hockey players of the time were scratched, the reason – he did not want any self-centered, showboats trying to win the game alone.
In 2 Samuel 23 there is a list of David’s mighty men, thirty-seven in all, who were nothing short of supernatural in their ability to kill the enemies of the Lord. The greatest of them killed 800 soldiers at one time, by hand to hand combat.
The truly odd thing about the story is how it all began. “So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s household heard of it, they went down there to him. Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Now there were about four hundred men with him.” (1 Samuel 22:1, 2)
There are movers and shakers, educated and overachievers, and men that are capable of making things happen. More than not they are men trained in their field of expertise. However, when God wanted to put together a kingdom that would be a type of the kingdom that was to come; He called the distressed, indebted, and the discontent. Such men do not seem like a dream team by today’s standards.
The men that Jesus chose to be the foundation of the Church were fishermen, a thug, a terrorist, and men we know nothing about. Jesus chose the nobodies of this world. Down throughout history there have been scholarly men like Jonathan Edwards and Martin Luther, to be sure. However, they have been very few and far between. The masses of followers that have been like a quiet army moving over the landscape and wining victories in the name of Jesus Christ have been nobodies. They have been nobodies in the sight of men but being made into the image Christ by God.
In this age of education, diploma’s, PhD’s, personalities, and the lime light, let us not forget that it is not those whom men applaud that matter most, but those whom God makes into the men He wants them to be.
“For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called : but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)