Can God Use Me?

It's natural for us to compare ourselves to other when we start to question our usefulness to God because others around us. The more gifted, it's easy to become discouraged today on Truth for Life. We learn how God can use our weaknesses for the unique role he has planned for us. Here's Alastair back like us to turn to one verse in second Corinthians chapter 4. The question is on my heart tonight is a simple question.

What you may have asked from time to time you may have asked that recently and the question is, can God use me and God use me. I'm assuming tonight that you have come to faith in Jesus Christ, that you understood the message of the gospel that you've calm and repentant faith and laid hold upon Christ Massey for salvation that you know yourself to be a member of the body of Christ that you are desirous of progressing in the things of faith and as you've taken those steps, whether short or long weather over a short or long period of time. One of the areas accusation that you're faced that has come from the evil one is this God can use him.

God can use her God can use them. But God can use you and so fierce is the accusation many times that we find ourselves capitulating to such a statement and wondering whether God really can use a the emphasis in that kind of introspection focuses far more upon ourselves than ever.

It dies upon God, and that compounds the problem. So tonight I wanted merely to address this question in simple and yet I hold helpful terms in a world of reassurance to any of us who are wondering whether God is a place for is a tall, I do assure you, in the words of the hymn that there is a work for Jesus, that none but you can do.

God did not make you like the person next to you with distinct purpose. He made you as you are.

He has redeemed you knowing who you are and he wants now to take his truth and baptize it if you like your personality albeit your personality renewed in the image of the Lord Jesus, but he has a distinct place and a unique purpose and special pleasures for you, just you now the reason that we might say that with such confidence is because when God takes his heavenly treasure, namely the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has chosen to do with it what we don't do with Ashley treasure he is chosen to take the treasure of the gospel and instead of putting it in treasurers, which are apparently and obviously to society very very special. He is putting it in jars that are often where and are ordinary. We see this in the lives of the apostles and is accepted for 13 whereafter the apostles have gone out in the part of the spirit and administered in the word and the miraculous power the people said that they were amazed by it all and the knowledge of them. Why because they were unlimited and they were ignorant men.

They were in their schooling and the thing that Mark them out was that they had been with Jesus. It wasn't the container that the people notice but it was the jewel within the container.

It wasn't the natural ability of the man, but it was the supernatural ability of God revealed through them and so when Paul writes to the Corinthians in his second letter and his ministry has been questioned and challenged his apostolic authority has been called into question. He says you know I could list my credentials before you buy the great wonder is this that God has put his treasure and old clay pots and deliberately so that the power might be seem to belong to God and not to the earthenware jars to which Paul referred where common as dirt.

They wear dark they were fragile.

They were to not pay any if you like in the bazaars of the day they were of little use and they were discarded easily and he uses that very word that phraseology to describe himself to describe the life of the believer not to denigrate us as individuals but to give us our rightful sense of who we are and so tonight for some of us we look at our life's and we compare ourselves inevitably with other people and we look around and we've got lots of people that we wish we would like. We wish we were quiet people. If we talk a lot we wish we could talk more if we are quiet people and if we quantify ourselves on the basis of people around us, we can often be horribly discouraged, let me say it again, God made you the way you are to use you as you are filled and empowered by the spirit of God.

He does not want you to be like the person next to you once you to be like Jesus.

And so tonight as I think of this. It's precisely our frailty is precisely our finiteness is precisely our weakness, which makes is usable in the hands of God. That's what Paul says when he writes in the 12th chapter of the same letter about the nine first, he says.

So when I am weak, then I am strong. Therefore, I will delight in my weakness because when I'm aware of my weakness Christ power rests upon me finding says everyone. If that's the case, give me an illustration for which illustration would you like I mean, would you like the illustration of Peter with a big mouthy to one food out and put the other fluted would we want to use illustration of Philip who was almost 3 in stemming through the whole of the Bible want to use the illustration of Moses. Moses says I've got a brother is a fabulous speaker. If only you get if you only set your purposes on in, he's your man and God says to Moses, major mouth, Moses.

If I major mouth will fill your mouth, and with the things that I want to speak. We could go through the whole of the Bible and one directed against Jeremiah says hey, I'm no good. I'm only a child causes don't say you're only a child. When I take you up.

I can do wonderful things with the person is the greatest encouragement to me of them all is Timothy young man, a pastor ministering in an age similar to our own an age of moral and doctrinal confusion. A young man who had a heritage that went back through his mother and through his grandmother, a young man who had been placed in ministry and when he looked at himself and he looked at the task, and we looked at the challenge he said to himself.

I am not for this. I don't need this. I don't want this. It's nothing that I and if you like that I more disqualifications in the life of Timothy than there are qualifications. Let me give you Timothy's disqualifications for ministry and see if any of his are any of yours first disqualification for Timothy to be used by God in ministry was that he was physically not a very fit individual. Where do we get that from first Timothy chapter 5 and verse 23 Paul writes to him, and he says stop drinking only water and use a little wine because of your stomach. We all know we had a bad stomach but we forget the next phrase and all your frequent illnesses.

So Timothy was always getting sick. He was the kind of kid I was always getting a note from his mother saying please excuse Timothy's absence from school as such and such is wrong with it.

He was the kind of person who, if interviewed by a modern mission reorganization would probably be sidelined because of his physical condition. He was perhaps very very frail to remember a modern missionary just like that. Often one that comes immediately to mind is Hudson Taylor Hudson Taylor was hardly in school after the age of 11. After the age of 11 he was a disaster. He wasn't fit he wasn't strong. He was a poor child in many ways Jenny told his mom and dad when he was 51 Natick TI want to be a missionary in China. One day mom and he wants and a missionary doctor that some of us are here tonight and one of our greatest alibis for usefulness is our physical condition. Officers are bad back or if only I could sit or if only I could stand or if only I could walk.

If only I could run the Lord knows all about what we can do what we can do about physical impairment is no detriment to the fulfillment of his purposes if he sets his hand upon our life.

That was his first disqualification.

His second disqualification was that he wasn't only physically weak but he was naturally timid. He was not the kind of young man who was immediately in charge of a situation. He was not the kind of individual went into a room and to control, but rather he was diffident. Paul writes his first letter to the church at Corinth in first Corinthians 1610 he says when Timothy comes to see you put in my disease. You don't send word ahead to put somebody at the Rees unless they are by nature ill at ease and less of the kind of person finds it difficult to go. Some of us are just like that, and we've excused our involvement in ministry because we think that our natural timidity is a more powerful thing that God's power which he gives to negate that timidity.

It was a disqualification for Timothy and yet it never hindered God. Thirdly, his youthfulness, he was physically beats he was naturally timid and he was too young to be doing what he was doing as far as the majority of people were concerned, and as a result of his youthfulness. He had two key challenges one was the challenge of inferiority.

So, the policy system.

Don't let anybody disqualify you because of your youth and the other challenge of youthfulness was the evil desires which are particular and peculiar to you, i.e., the stirrings up physically in the sexual realm of life. The longing after things, the longing to be well thought all the longing to be prosperous, the longing to have this world's goods are uniquely true at that age of life. What age of life somewhere between the realm of 55 and 40 years of age so those of you are feeling all be encouraged all rights to a 14-year-old, and says don't let anybody despise your youthfulness, it's ultimately no disqualification. Fourthly, his tendency to be ashamed of the gospel. Second Timothy and chapter 1 in verse eight Paul says so do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord.

I don't be ashamed of me his prisoner is not another one.

Smutty face comes to us and says you were frightened and McDonald's to tell somebody you are a Christian you were frightened to tell your friends at work that you love the Lord Jesus, you were frightened to invite them to worship with you. You will never be any good talent to go back where he belongs and remind him of Timothy who was also ashamed of the gospel didn't really want to be known as one of the ragtag involved tales that hung around with Saul of Tarsus was a major troublemaker in the universe at that time all system.

Come on now Timothy don't disqualify yourself. As a result of your shame and his fifth disqualification was a proneness to check it. Somebody asked me the other day. What is my greatest temptation in the ministry and this is it to Chuck. That's the greatest temptation which confronts me and I may be there tomorrow it will be a different temptation is not the only temptation by any means, but it is the greatest temptation that is to say enough's enough legs folded up and Timothy was just like that.

That's why Paul wrote the first seven verses of second Timothy chapter 2, to remind him he said is a hard-working farmer that receives the fruits of the crop is the soldier that keeps going. If the athlete who keeps running Timothy don't want to quit.

Are you you're in a relay race.

Timothy and somebody's waiting to take the bathroom from you. You're not on a throw it down now. Are you you're not gonna lie down in the middle of the track you're not going to walk away.

At this stage. No, no Timothy, I afterword you to keep going. Well, those were disqualifications for ministry physically weak, naturally timid to Jan by the general standards of the day prone to Chuck.

It and the tendency to be ashamed of the gospel and what is pro se to me, says God didn't give us a spirit of timidity, but he gave us a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline to Timothy 17. Here's what I want to present you with is a challenge.

In conclusion, the church grew without the aid of two things that we have deemed most important in their these one church buildings and to mass evangelism and with neither mass evangelism nor church buildings. The disciples went out and turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ is not to denigrate mass evangelist.

Every one of us here.Mrs. Costa thank God for the ministry of people like Billy Graham sandals one is not fit even to untie. But if you met him he would tell you this the way to reach the masses, is to reach them one by one, was to that same individual Timothy that Paul said the things that you have heard from me the same in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. If a group like this and it would only need to be this group. In fact, if the arbors were involved in it in a commitment to reaching one and two reaching to reaching for a neuron, then the growth in our fellowship would be absolutely unstoppable when we think of the ministry. Let's not think in terms of professionals. Let's not think in terms of pastoral superstars to make it happen and we ride along in the back of the bus, but let's realize that God wants to use you as you are vital to the ministry special in his purposes unique in the future. And when we take these things the hard then we are able to rise to each new day and say all Lord I want to be used by you today.

I got across the street across the sea, but I want you to use me today.

I want to account for Jesus Christ leave me in my job or move me out of my job use me. Here take me somewhere else. Use me.

Let me know that I am part of your purpose. I'm only an old clay pot, unaware of my frailty and my weight of my fear level where of the futility that Mark so much of me but I am ready to be use as a prerequisite. While there are a number of them. One is spiritual fullness. And God never ever fill the life that he first didn't clean and you wonder why it is that God does not flow through you and use you to the fullness that he might part of the problem will be for some of us that there is a blockage in the plight that their sales which is built the sale of a dirty mind the sales of the unforgiving spirit the sale. The jealousy the sealed of a rebellious heart. The sale of all kinds of things flow into the pipe and we wonder why it is that God is not in all his fullness when he lays his hand upon an individual he takes his first two cleanups for cleanliness is a prerequisite of usefulness, may I encourage every one of us tonight to see that God has unique and special purposes for your perhaps a mom and your tide is aware to so many duties of children while listen God gave you children disciple that in a Tarantino horizon call you blessed of all the people's names are on the role of American churches. The statistics tell us 5% don't exist 10% can be found 15% never attend 25% attend only once on a Sunday, 50% are involved in no meaningful ministry opportunity. 75% have no family worship. 90% of no devotional life and 95% never lead a person to faith in Jesus Christ. And even when you allow for all the statistical analysis. If it's evenly marginally the case it says this to say we better shake a leg because Jesus is coming back in time is getting short in the world looks kind of dark and our friends look kind of gloomy and they might not come into our church building, but he will talk with is in McDonald's and they will heat in our homes and they will listen to us when we walk with them and talk with him on the way to use any excuses. Let's get down to business you in your small corner and I and my will not be to one another.

We give an account to Jesus Christ on the day of judgment. We need to make the most short time we have available to tell others about God's plan for salvation. That's from today's message on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.

Be sure to keep listening. Alister will be back in just a minute to close with prayer Alister today give us an encouraging reminder that God can use us, despite our fears and our weaknesses. God is made each of us with a distinct purpose, and he empowers us by his Spirit to fulfill that purpose. As Alister mentioned, we need to shift our focus away from our own frailty and instead learn to trust in God alone. This is the lesson that's reinforced in a book, we are recommending today. The book is called the God contest.

It retells the story of Elijah and his challenge to the prophets of bail to identify who is the one true God. You may be familiar with this Old Testament story from first Kings chapter 18. This book is a colorfully illustrated children's book, you'll find it very helpful, even for young children for preschool and up because the God contest affirms that there is only one true God. The God who created the world and everything in it. Today is the final day. The book is being offered, so be sure to request your copy of the God contest before today ends you'll find the book on the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org/donate or you can donate and request a copy of the book when you call 888-588-7884. Today is also the final day of our series titled more jars of Clay and as a reminder, you can make the entire series your own.

It's available on the USB it comes along with messages from an earlier series that simply titled jars of Clay all 16 messages in these two studies are available for purchase on a single USB it's available for just five dollars you'll find it by going online to truthfully.org/store or you can order it by calling 888-588-7884.

Now let's join Alister as he closes in prayer for God our father, we thank you tonight that it is your purpose is to make your strength made perfect in our weakness.

We confess to you our weakness. I confess to you, Lord, how easy it is to become dispirited along the pathway of faith how easy it is to forget the heritage that we've been privileged to know what I thank you for the people around who say come on let's go. There's a race there's a finishing tape tonight. We praise you from our hearts for those who helped us along the journey. And even today have helped us on the journey. Yes, we fed spikes in the shins and elbows in the ribs but we understand it's part of running with been discouraged because the plants have grown as quickly as we might have life, but we know that must be part of being a farmer because God when you want us to be make us clean make is useful because men and women of God that we might win men and women for God and all the more as we see the day of Jesus Christ return drawing near, we commit one another to your care, asking that you will watch over and between us. Bless our life since we live them out before you maybe always be a help and never a hindrance to one another so that on the day when we stand before you. We may do so without shame because the thank you for all of your grace. We ask this committing one another lovingly to your through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior that Bob peen. Thanks for listening. Join us tomorrow as we launch a series of messages from the book of Daniel assures us that no matter what we face. God is still on the throne. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Learning is for Living