VERY ABLE MEN
I CHRONICLES 9:1,13
You won’t find the first nine chapters of I Chronicles in your daily Bible reading guides. The reason being, the first nine chapters are genealogical records
But just because it is dry to you and I, it doesn’t means it is not important. The Whole Bible is the Word of God.
It begins in verse one of chapter one with Adam, then goes on to cover 3,500 years of human history of the Jews until the time of their captivity and return to Jerusalem.
It is saying to us that God is on His throne, He is in control. It shows when God’s people obey Him, He will bless them. If they disobey Him, He will chasten them.
In one of the groups of people, we find a choice group of people. In verse 13, The Bible says, VERY ABLE MEN FOR THE WORK OF THE SERVICE OF THE HOUSE OF GOD.
The service of God needed men of God in that day, and it still hold true today. GOD NEED MEN OF GOD TO SERVE HIM
A chicken and a pig came upon a church building and read the advertisement on the billboard out front, which read, "Help Us Feed the Poor." Immediately the chicken suggested they help feed the poor with bacon and eggs. The pig thought for a moment and said, "There is one thing wrong with feeding bacon and eggs to the poor. For you it only requires a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment."
Many in the church today do not want to be totally committed to the Lord because it demands too much of them.
This morning, let us look at he ingredients that make one a “very able man for the work of God.
I-THEY ARE MEN OF AVAILABILITY:
ISAIAH 6:8-Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isaiah was a man available to the call of service in the Lord’s work.
Notice it was a reverent response. He gave himself completely to the Lord in surrender. It was a ready response. He said, send me. It was a faith response. He didn’t specify where, he just wanted to send to do the work of the Lord.
Unlike Isaiah, so many today are not available to do the Lord’s will. Man have put a sign around their life that says, DO NOT DISTRUB.
Some say I’m just to busy right now. I have too many things going on in my life.
May I remind you, Moses was busy with the flocks at Horeb, Gideon was threshing heat by the winepress, Saul was mule hunting, Elisha was busy plowing, Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the King, James and John were busy mending nets, and Matthew was busy collecting taxes. BUT THEY ALL RESONSED TO GOD’S CALL OF SERVICE
If you are to busy to be available to God, then you are to busy. Allow God to rearrange your schedule and use you.
While waiting in a cemetery to conduct a funeral service, Charles Simeon walked among the graves, looking at the epitaphs. He found one that arrested him.
When from the dust of death I rise,
To claim my mansion in the skies,
E’en then shall this be all my plea--
"Jesus hath lived and died for me."
He was so impressed with that gospel message that he looked for someone in the cemetery with whom he might share it. He saw a young woman, obviously distressed, and called her over to read the epitaph. He took her address and visited her the next day. The home was a scene of poverty and squalor. The woman’s old mother was dying of asthma, and two little children, very dirty, were trying to warm themselves by a small fire. Simeon prayed with the family, visited them again, and found assistance for them. Later, the young woman told Simeon that she had been in the cemetery five hours and was contemplating suicide when he called her to read the epitaph. Because of his concern and availability she trusted Christ and the family situation was changed.
II-THEY ARE MEN OF DEPENDABILITY:
I Corinthians 4:2-Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
Why does God ask us to be faithful? Because He is faithful. I Cor. 1:9-God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Not everyone can be a Preacher, not every one can be a Singer, not every one can be a Teacher, but every one can be FAITHFUL.
Vance Hanver said, many saints prefer to be flashy comets instead of faithful stars. They go up like a rocket but come down like a rock.
Henry Ward Beecher was talking once to man who owned a bay horse that would work anywhere except to a certain red stripped buggy. He told the man, I experience that all the time with some of my Church members. If I try to hitch them up to come to Church on Sunday, they runaway.
In our Day, we need some of that old-fashion, God honoring, Christ centered, Spirit motivated, Church minded faithfulness.
III-THEY ARE MEN OF MOBILITY:
MARK 16:15-And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Someone has said, Jesus said go, but the favorite song of many is I SHALL NOT BE MOVED.
Moses was willing to go from Horeb to Egypt, Amos was willing to go from the hills of Tekoa to Israel, David, was willing to go from the pastures to the palace, Phillip was willing to go from the city to the desert, John the Baptist was willing to go from the desert to the city.
Dr. J.H. Jowett told of seeing six lean men carrying an advertisement of a restaurant which read, "The best dinner in London." (Also lean Christians make poor witnesses for Christ. We must mature and be full of the goodness of God.)
Perhaps the most tragic feature of the failure of Christians to take the gospel to the lost is the awful results. A pastor was passing a big department store and followed the impulse to go in and talk to the proprietor about his salvation. He said, "I’ve talked bed’s and carpets and bookcases with you, but I’ve never talked my business with you. Would you give me a few minutes to do so now?" Being led to the private office the minister took out his New Testament and showed the businessman passage after passage which brought before him his to accept Christ. Finally the tears began to roll down his checks, and he said to the pastor, "I’m seventy years old. I was born in this city, and more than a hundred ministers and five hundred church officers have known me as you have, to do business with. In all these years you are the only man who ever spoke to me about my soul."
IV-THEY ARE MEN OF COMPATIBILITY: I Corinthians 3:9
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
The work is God’s but he use and I to work with Him. And if this work is to be done, we must be compatible , that is in harmony with God and one another.
We is not in some people’s speech, it is all I, and My. They want to be in the limelight.
I heard the story of a boy who was pumping the old pump organ in A Church so a certain lady could play it. After the service, he said to her we really played well today. She snapped back, what is this we stuff, I played well today. Well the next Sunday, she attempted to play the organ, but no sound came out of it. She hear a voice say, IS IT WE OR ME.
Why was it that the United States put a man on the moon before the Russians who were ahead us in the space program? It was because the Untied States space program pulled together and practiced teamwork.
Years ago a wealthy English family was entertaining friends at their home. As the children swam one ventured into the deep water and began to drown. The Gardner heard the other children screaming and jumped into the water and saved the child. The youngsters name was Winston Churchill. Deeply grateful to the gardener, the parents asked how they could ever repay him. He hesitated, but then said "I wish my son could go to college someday to be a doctor. "He will" said Churchill’s parents. "We will pay his way."
Years later when Sir Winston was Prime Minister, he became ill with pneumonia.
The best physician the king could find was called to the bedside of the ailing leader.
His name Sir Alexander Fleming, the developer of penicillin and the son of that gardener who long ago saved a drowning Winston. Churchill later said, "Rarely has a man owed his life twice to the same person."
As believers we owe a debt of gratitude and service to the Lord because He made and He saved us.
V-THEY ARE MEN OF STABILITY:
Galatians 5:1-Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
We are in a spiritual battle. Spiritual battle is not off in the future some place; it is today. So what we have to do, we have to do today.
Do you ever watch prize fighters? I grew up in an era of the Friday night Fight so I have watched several of them. In boxing one of the greatest flaws is dropping your guard. It is a dump mistake but many boxers do it and pay the consequences. In Christianity we can also drop our guard. We can fail to remain steadfast in the faith.
Not only should we stand but we should be standing in the right place.
Samson was in the wrong place when he lost his strength, Jonah was in the wrong place and wound up in the belly of a great fish, Peter was standing in the wrong place at the fire and he denied Jesus. YOU WON’T BLE TO STAND FOR THE LORD UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
I am not saying it will be easy to stand for the Lord but you can stand if you will look unto Jesus your Lord.
In his book, Thirteen Days to Glory, author Lon Tinkle tells about Colonel Jim Bowie and the brave defenders of the Alamo. That sacred Texas shrine had only 183 defenders against a huge army led by Santa Anna. On March 3, 1836, two hours before dusk, the Mexican guns quit firing. William Travis lined his men up in a single line inside the Alamo. He told them no reinforcements were coming and that their destiny was sealed. "Our doom is certain," Travis told the weary men. Travis then pulled his sword from its sheath and drew a line in the dirt floor in front of them and asked every man who was determined to stay in the Alamo and die to cross the line. Topley Holland was the first man across the line. Others quickly followed--Daniel Cloud, Micajah Utry, Davy Crockett. Colonel Jim Bowie was sick and unable to cross the line so he called for help and four men sprang to the side of his cot and lifted him over the line as the other men cheered. On March 6, the Alamo fell and the brave defenders within her walls died. They made the choice that counted most and the Republic of Texas was born out of their shed blood.
If those men could do that in the physical realm, how much more should we able to stand in the Spiritual realm for Jesus.
CONCLUSION:
David Ugsberger tells of General William Booth, the founder of the salvation Army, who had lost his eyesight. His son Bramwell was given the difficult task of telling his father there would be no recovery. "Do you mean that I am blind?" the General asked. "I hear we must contemplate that," his son replied. The father continued,” I shall never see your face again?" "No, probably not in this world." "Bramwell," said General Booth, "I have done what I could for God and for His people with my eyes. Now I shall do what I can for God without my eyes."
