Are You Willing To Be Used Of God?

For example:

• God used the beauty of Esther to save His people from the evil plans of Haman who wanted to destroy them.

• God used the sling of David to save His people from the Philistine giant named Goliath.

• God used the jawbone of ass for Samson to kill his enemies.

• In Numbers 22:28 God even caused a donkey to speak to rebellious Balaam.

Through the ages God has used:

• Floods to achieve His goals.

• Strong winds to achieve His goals

.

• A Burning bush to achieve His goals.

But in our text, we find that God used a SMALL LAD.

WHEN DID GOD USE A LAD TO ACHIEVE HIS GOAL?

It was when the multitudes were following the Lord because of the miracles He had performed on the sick.

Lunch time was approaching, and there was no food to feed the multitude.

It was in this setting that the Lord asked the disciples what could be done about feeding the multitude.

Now the Lord is not in the habit of asking us for advice, because he does not need any advice…HE IS OMNISIENT, HE KNOWS EVERYTHING SO WHY SHOULD HE ASK FOR ADVICE!!!

But so often I find myself giving God my advice.

Sometime I tell Him how to answer my prayers.

Illus: One day an old man wanted to give God some of his advice. He did this by writing a letter to God and tied the letter to a tree outside a church.

The priest came and took down the letter. It read "Please God, I'm a poor man, please send me $100,000 so I can pay my debts and live peacefully".

Being a kind priest, he took donations around town for the old man and raised $5,000. He put it in an envelope and wrote on it "From God" and left it next to the tree when he saw the old man come visit again.

The next day, the old man came back and tied another letter to the tree.

The priest then came and took down the letter and read it excitedly. "Dear God, thank you for sending me the money. Next time, please send it to me directly as the priest can't be trusted, can you believe he took $95,000 of the money!"

I guess we are all guilty of giving God Advice in how to do this and how to do that!

But God is Omniscient and He does not need any of our advice since He knows everything.

But there are those who feel God does not know everything!!!

Illus: Jesse Duplantis one of these wacko preachers on television claim he has been to heaven many times.

He said on one occasion the Lord told Him he had a problem and did not know what to do, so he asked Jesse what he should do? (This is not a joke, he seriously said the Lord had a problem and wanted him to tell him what to do with this problem)

And if it was not so ridiculous to think of God who created everything, would ask THIS ARROGANT FALSE PROPHET what he should do about a problem he does not know what to do…it would be funny!!!

Jesse does not know the God of the Bible; if he did, he would know GOD IS OMNISCIENT AND HE KNOWS EVERYTHING.

GOD IS SELF-SUFFICENT, HE DOES NOT NEED US, WE NEED HIM!!!

The Lord does not need our advice on any situation whatsoever!

HOWEVER, now the Lord did ask these disciples what He should do in feeding the five thousand for a reason.

But He did not ask because He did not know what to do; He asked to see what they would say.

Look at John 6:6 and this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.

It was a test, and they flunked it BIG TIME!!!

Andrew said, in John 6:9, “THERE IS A LAD HERE….”

God used this lad with his five barley loaves, and two small fishes to accomplish His goal.

The lessons of this lad are many.

For example:

(1)One of the things that we are taught is this, “Little is much when God is in it!”

When you are surrounded around five thousand hungry people, five barley loaves and two small fishes are not going to go very far.

But we serve a….

(2) God can use anyone or anything to accomplish his will.

Let’s look at this story of this young lad to see how God can use us to make a difference in the lives of others.

We first need to look at-

I. THE LAD

The Bible says in verse 6, “There is a lad here…”

Someone might be saying, “So what?”

There were probably a lot of young boys there. And there probably were, but the Bible distinguishes him from all the rest.