THE MAN GOD USES
This morning I would like to speak on the subject, “The Man God Uses”.
- John 1:6, 19-23; 3:22-36
- Pray
I would like you to think this morning, about what a great time this was. More than 4000 years before this date, there in the Garden of Eden, God had promised the coming of One Who would crush the serpent’s head with His heel. Thousands of years had passed since that prophecy, and the Messiah had not come.
But now, in the fullness of time, only 30 years before, God had sent His Son, Jesus Christ to come as man’s Messiah. For 30 years Jesus had been growing in obscurity. Now, finally, Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Promised One, the Messiah, was about to begin His 3-year earthly ministry. And how did God decide to announce the arrival of His Son? How did God, in His infinite and infallible wisdom, decide to launch the work of His Son? He sent a man! There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
Many, wanting to start a new campaign, would advertise. They would post flyers. They would send a herald through the streets, but not God. God used none of those methods. He didn’t send angels dragging banners behind them. He didn’t send chariots, writing their flaming messages across the sky. God sent a man. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. God sent a man.
When God wanted to prepare the way for His people in Egypt, He sent Joseph, a man. When God wanted to deliver His people and carry them to the Promised Land, He sent Moses, a man. When God wanted the walls restored in Jerusalem and for worship to be reestablished, He sent a man, and when God wanted to announce the arrival of His Son Jesus Christ, He sent a man.
May God forgive us. While we spend time looking for better programs, God is looking for better people. “While men look for better methods, God looks for better men” (E. M. Bounds).
We look at the news, and we look at our nation, and we try to figure out what we can do to turn things around. Let me tell you; that turn around starts with God’s people living and acting like God’s people. That turn around will succeed, and America will be great again, not when a certain party is in power; but when God’s people are active in prayer.
What did the Lord promise?
> 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Turning around our nation, begins with turning around God’s people.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
Dear Lord, please give us more men and women in love with You and on fire for You. Lord, please give us more men and women who understand that heaven is sweet and hell is hot, and who understand that we have a mission assigned by Jesus Himself; to not only go to heaven but to take as people with us as we can.
This morning I believe we can see in the life of John, the Herald of Jesus Christ, several characteristics that must be in place in the person, in the man God uses.
I. THE MAN GOD USES IS A MAN ON FIRE FOR GOD
- Matthew 3:1-2
“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea.” Preaching. The word translated there as preaching means “to herald, to trumpet, to proclaim, to preach.” It is a word filled with passion. You see my friends; John was on fire for Jesus. There was passion; there was fire in his words and in his heart. He was on fire for Jesus.
Many of you remember the movie from several years ago about the Titanic. Let me ask you, “What was the difference between the water that floated that ship, and the iceberg that sunk it?” The only difference was the temperature. Warm or hot water would float the ship, and water too cold would sink it. (W. A. Criswell, in his sermon The God-sent Man).
What the church doesn’t need today is more lukewarm, Mama-called, half-hearted, half-committed, fair-weather, when it’s convenient, only-on-Sunday, Christians; without enough power of God in them to blow a fly off a fruit bowl. Our nation is filled with compromising, Christ-denying, chameleon-Christians; who are no longer serving as salt and light.
The man God uses will be so on fire for God that he is able to say with the apostles, “I am unable to stop speaking about what I have seen and heard.”
Let me ask you, “Will you be that man? Will you be that woman?”
The man God uses is a man on fire for God.
II. THE MAN GOD USES IS A MAN WHO PAYS A PRICE
- John 1:23
When asked who he was, John says, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness.”
John spent most of his adult life in the wilderness. Matthew chapter 3 tells us that he ate bugs and wore camel-hair clothes. We read in Luke’s Gospel that John never drank alcohol. In other words, John lived differently than others around him. God said, “I’m going to use you, now this is how I want you to live.”
Ultimately, John lost his life because of his preaching, his unwillingness to compromise, and the stand he took.
We live in a time where the temptation to compromise and to get along is very real. We see the influence of the world creeping in and distorting many of our churches. Lord give us more people willing to take a stand and say, “It is written.”
Folks, ladies and gentlemen, if you are going to be used by God in a great way, it’s going to cost you something. You may never have to eat bugs. You may never have to wear camel-hide clothes or live in the wilderness, you may not be beheaded, but it’s going to cost you something.
It’s going to cost you turning the other cheek, when you want to give back what you’ve just gotten. It’s going to cost you apologizing to someone you’ve wronged or hurt, when your pride tells you not to. It may cost you some money, when you turn down some overtime because you have other commitments. It may cost you some friends, when you are unwilling to tell or listen to the jokes others enjoy; or when you forgo a golf invitation for prayer meeting.
It may cost your children getting upset with you, because you won’t allow them to dress and act like their friends. It may cost you a fancy vacation, because God has led you to use your money in a different way.
It will cost you some pain, as you battle temptations others give in to. It will cost you some sleep, and some TV time, as you commit to regularly spend time in prayer and in God’s Word. It’s going to cost you something.
But listen, as Billie Hanks once said, “You will win no more people and exert no more influence for the Savior than the quality of your life allows” (Billie Hanks).
Let me ask you, “Will you pay the price?”
The man God uses is a man who pays a price.
III. THE MAN GOD USES IS A MAN WHO KNOWS HIS PLACE
- John 3:27-30
In the passage immediately before this, John’s disciples came to him complaining that Jesus was getting more and more attention, and people are beginning to follow Jesus instead of John. John replies, “No one can receive a single thing unless it comes to him from heaven.” In other words, Jesus is called to be the Messiah. God has called me to be His messenger. I have no problem with that. He must increase and I must decrease.
John didn’t complain that he wasn’t getting enough attention. He didn’t complain that others were following Jesus. He said, “God has a plan, and it’s God’s plan for me to be a messenger.”
Some of you have the gift of teaching. Some of you are gifted at making people feel welcome and appreciated. Some of you are gifted carpenters, or mechanics, or electricians, homemakers or whatever.
God gives us all different gifts and different abilities, and brings us together as the Body of Christ to work in His kingdom, not to build kingdoms of our own.
Folks, ladies and gentlemen, God has gifted and equipped each of you differently. He has given each of you a different ministry.
My point? God has gifted everyone in this church. He has given each of you a job and He has given each of you different talents in order to carry out the work He’s given you. The man God uses knows he is but one part in the Body of Christ. He doesn’t look down on others because they don’t do what he does. He doesn’t build himself up because of how he serves God or the church. He isn’t jealous, advertising everything he does so people will know what a great guy he is, afraid that others will get more recognition than he. The man God uses is a man who knows his place: a servant in the Kingdom of God.
IV. THE MAN GOD USES IS PRAISED BY GOD
> Luke 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John
Can you imagine such praise? Think for a moment of the people, Jesus, the Creator of all things, the ever existing Lord has seen.
He knew Noah, a man who built a large ship miles from the nearest water. A man who devoted his life to building a ship, which his neighbors laughed at him, and his children questioned.
He knew Abraham, the one who left his homeland and all he knew, and offered his only son as a sacrifice. He knew Daniel, who slept with lions, and Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo - who risked death in flames for His sake. He knew the giant-slayer David, and the sea parting Moses. He knew Elijah before fire was sent from heaven and before he flew in his fiery chariots to heaven, and Enoch before he was transported to heaven.
Think of all the great men and women who had served the Lord down through the millenniums. And of all of them, Jesus says, “There is none greater than John.”
John was a man with a mission, and never compromised that mission, that assignment. He made the most of the opportunities the Lord gave him where he was, and never worried that he was in the backwaters of no where. He did what God called him to do, where the Lord called him to do it, with all of his heart, and the Lord said, “Of those born of woman, there is none greater than John.”
Oh can you imagine how great it will be to one day hear our Savior say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things, now I will give you many. Enter you into the joy of your Lord.”
The man, the woman the Lord uses, is always seen, is recognized and praised by God.
V. THE MAN GOD USES IS A MAN WHO SERVES JESUS
- John 3:30
In North Shore Baptist Church, in Chicago, the Sunday School Director and one of the deacons in the church was a man named James L. Kraft.
As a young man, just beginning, he wanted to be the most famous manufacturer and salesman of cheese in the world. He was going to be rich and famous, and he was going to do it making and selling cheese.
So as a young man, he started out. He had a little pony named Paddy and a little buggy. He would make his cheese and put it in the buggy and drive Paddy down the streets of Chicago, selling his cheese.
The days passed and the months passed and he fell into despair. He wasn’t succeeding. He wasn’t making any money. He was just working long and hard with no success. One day, driving those streets, in a cloud of despair, he began talking to his pony. He said, “Paddy, there’s something wrong. We’re not doing it right. Our priorities are not where they ought to be. Paddy, He says, “Maybe we ought first to serve God and place God first in our lives.”
When he got home that night, Kraft made a covenant that all the rest of his life he would serve God first. And then he would work as God would direct and open doors and bless.
James L. Kraft went on to found the great Kraft Food Corporation. When you go to the grocery store and see foods with the name “Kraft” on it, you are looking at food made by this man’s company.
Years later, He had the opportunity to speak at a large gathering in Washington D. C. In that address, the founder of one of America’s largest corporations said, “I had rather be a layman in the North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago than to head the greatest corporation in America.” He paused and then added, “My first job is serving Jesus.” (Told by W. A. Criswell).
I charge you gentlemen, be that man. I charge you ladies, be that woman. I charge you youth people, be that person. Catch on fire. Pay the price. Know your place. Serve Jesus. Be that man.
