The Person God Uses Part 2

But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread Your protection over them, that all who love Your name may be filled with joy.

For You bless the godly, O LORD; You surround them with Your shield of love.

For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening, I started last Wednesday night about the Person God uses and the benefits of being a person God uses.

God is looking for those who will be totally committed to Him. So my question tonight is Are you a Person God uses and if so are you totally committed to Him.

In John Chapter 6, the story is told that Jesus had gone over the Sea of Galilee and a great multitude followed Him because they saw the miracles that He did, and there were many there that needed help.

Jesus went into the mountain and sat with His disciples, and when He lifted His eyes, Jesus saw a great company coming to Him.

He knew that they had been there a long time and were needing some food.

So Jesus asked Philip:

Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for Him. Turning to Philip, He asked, "Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?"

Now this is what I want you to notice Jesus is all knowing and He knew what Philip was going to say and Jesus already knew what He was going to do.

He was testing Philip, for He already knew what He was going to do.

Does God test you? And the answer is yes, why does He test us if He already know?

It is because He want us to know where we are standing.

Put me on trial, LORD, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and my heart.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Now let’s look back at what Philip was doing>

Philip replied, "Even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them!"

It is so easy to look at a problem and at our human supply and say that what we have is not enough to meet the need.

1. God uses a man who gives his all.

Here we find this little boy coming into the picture, Andrew, Peter’s brother brought him to the Lord.

Now this is my question is why did Andrew bring this boy and his five loaves of bread and two small fish to Jesus?

Could it been that Andrew was bring prove to Jesus, that Andrew was show hard evident to Jesus.

Are there times that you pled your cases with Jesus point to Him and telling Him as though He doesn’t know the situation. So we feel the need to inform Him.

Certainly, what he had was not enough for a crowd.

Look what Jesus did:

Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward He did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.

Jesus take the five loaves and two small fish and blessed it and began to break it.

He gave it to the disciples and each one of them distributed it to the multitude.

When they got through, there were 12 basket fulls left.

Sometimes the Lord wants to bless us but cannot because we are still withholding part of our self from Him.

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. "

The reason God does not bless some people is because their measuring rod in giving to God is too little and too short.

The Bible says that the Lord will bless in direct proportion to your gift.

I believe that Jesus gave the remaining leftover to the little boy as reward for what God had done for him.

This is little boy did not have a lot but what he had it gave it to God.

I have had many people say, How do you know when you have given your all?

My answer is simple: When you have nothing left, that when you can truly say that everything that you posses belongs to God, you have have given your all.

If there are no secret corners of your heart of your heart that you are reserving for yourself.

You open yourself up to God when you say it is Yours Lord, all is Yours.

2. God uses a man who doesn’t know when to quit.

One of the most interesting stories in the life of Israel is when they crossed over the Jordan river and immediately ran up against the walled city of Jericho.

It has been documented that four chariots could run side by side on the top of the wall. It was that big and wide.

Israel was not prepared to knock the wall down, much less defeat Jericho.

But Joshua got a word from the Lord to tell the people to start marching and to march once each day and seven times on Sunday.

Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram's horn. On the seventh day you are to march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing the horns.

When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams' horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town."

It is not hard to imagine that the people of Jericho found it amusing to see these people marching around the wall day after day.

I don’t know about you but when I read about this, it like I can hear the people laughing.

And saying things like, What do they think they are going to do choke us to death with the dust from their trampling feet.

People laughing and making fun of you because you are down on your knee constantly believing God going to move on your behalf and years have past but you are still praying and still believing.

Understand this It is easy for us to want victory when we have only done half a job. We have only marched half the required amount.

But we must march all the way if we are going to gain the victory.

A pastor tells this story about a lady who came to church one Sunday morning and told him that God had saved her husband the night before.

And the Pastor began to rejoice with her about the miracle, What a miracle!!

Because of husband was one of the meanest man in the town.

But this lady began to tell this story about her and her husband, and she said, that her and her husband had went to bed and both had fell asleep and she felt the bed shaking.

And she look over at her husband and tears were flow and she asked him what was wrong and he said I have been talking to the Lord. And she said I prayed him through right there.

The Pastor asked her how long have you been marching around that wall. How long have you been believing for your husband?

This pastor knew that her husband had gone out on her, had broken the marriage vow, and had abused her.

This lady answered the pastor and she said for 20 years I have been believing.

Whatever wall you are facing, you must make up your mind to not quit but to listen to the voice of God. Let God lead and direct, Let God be the one in charge and not you.

Serve only the LORD your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him.

a. Serve only the Lord

b. Obey His commands

c. Listen to His voice

d. Cling to Him

Four things that will keep a person that is used of God from quitting.

a. Serve Only the Lord

This mean I will believe only what God report is and not man. Man’s report, I will not fear.

If you serve the Lord only then you know that He will take care of you.

But My servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to Me, so I will bring him into the land he explored. His descendants will possess their full share of that land.

Caleb had a different attitude than the others have. He look at the report of the Lord, believing that all things are possible with God. And we can take this land and this is great land that God has gave to us.

b. Obey His commands

We must be obedient to God, just like the Joshua telling them to march then we march.

Whatever God says we do.

c. Listen to His voice

Come and listen to my counsel. I'll share my heart with you and make you wise.

d. Cling to Him

Cling means To adhere closely; to stick; to hold fast, especially by twining round or embracing;

Monday morning, Pastor Tommy Barnett send me a text: And this is all it said: The Braided.

I did not know what he saying or why he send that to me until now.

I looked it up, Braided means To weave, interlace, or entwine together, as three or more strands or threads;

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

Now I want to end with this: We know how to march around the walls, we know how to line the priests up, we know how to play the ram’s horn, we know how many times to march, but we are getting many walls down today.

listen to this believe this going to help us: after we have completed 13 laps then we blown on the ram’s horn and trumpet, we have forgot a very important thing.

You see the ram’s horn and trumpet was a signal for victory. But we have forgot God told the people to shout.

You see the walls did not come down until the people were complete obedient to Him and shout and the shout was a sign of rejoicing for the victory.

Where your shout?