The Lord Needs You

The Lord Needs You Jeremiah 1:4-10 Have you noticed how God chooses the most unlikely people of this world to do God's work? Jeremiah was a case in point. He was about 18 years old when the Lord called him to awareness and to an active faith. He thought he was but a child. God thought he was ready. But Jeremiah wasn't the only one being touched on the shoulder, or mouth, as the case may be. The boy-king Josiah was also being used of God to restore the purity of Israel's religious heritage. God was using an unlikely pair to bring reform to His troubled land and chosen people. That Jeremiah feels inadequate to the task puts him in good company. From the days of Moses, those whom the Lord had designated as His voices to the people have felt ill-equipped to serve ― and often for better reasons than Jeremiah could muster. Take, for example, these five Bible characters who felt inadequate, misinterpreted, failed or were disappointing, yet were used by God to do great things. The youngest of the twelve sons of Jacob, Joseph, was only 17 the first time he had his dreams about ruling over his family. He saw them bowing to him, and his brothers were perturbed to say the least. He misinterpreted the dream. Bowing before Joseph, in the dream, didn’t mean he was going to be the king of Israel or the leader of the family. The dreams meant that Joseph was going to be divinely placed in a position with the power and the influence to save Israel, not only as a family, but as a future nation. I mentioned Job last week. Here’s the rest of the story. Job was a man who had everything. You could sing Abba’s song, Money, Money, Money, and be pretty good at describing Job. He had a good name, health, wealth and a beautiful family. But then, Satan went to God and asked for permission to mess with Job's life, to test him. Permission granted. Tragedy struck and Job lost his wealth. Next, a storm took the lives of all his children. Then, a debilitating disease left his whole body covered with painful boils. Satan wanted to kill him but God said, “Uh-uh-uh, noooo, not that, just test him and you’ll see his faithfulness and you, Satan, will fail.” Did Job have a bad day or even months upon months and think of himself as a failure? He sure did. Back then, if you suffered loss, it was believed you had done something to offend God and God was punishing you for your atrocities. Job knew he had not done anything wrong but still he suffered so he wondered, he cried, “What gives?” Yet he remained faithful. Job did curse the day of his birth, but he never cursed God. He said: “May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’ That day - may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine on it.” 2 However, Job stayed loyal to God's will and sovereignty. God’s response to Job's loyalty went “viral” (to use today’s vernacular) and ended up in the Bible as an example of how God rewards true faithfulness. Job just looked up with patience to our Sovereign God and waited for his deliverance. We read in Job 42:10-12, “…. the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house to comfort and console him for all his troubles.” The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life doubly more than the former part, including having as many children as before. He lived 140 years and had a full and agreeable life after all. Moses, not a young man but rather 80 years old when God got his attention in the burning bush, Moses had a real insecurity complex. He was no Charlton Heston. He was exiled from Egypt, a total loser. Moses was unwilling to cooperate. He said to God, “Let Aaron do it.” He gave God all the excuses in the book to not obey and to not do what God was asking him to do. Ask yourself if this sounds like you: “God, I can’t do what you want me to do because I have a terrible, horrible past, I’ve sinned, I killed, I lied, I ran away, I betrayed my family’s confidence, I relinquished my spiritual talents, I’m full of hate and anger, and I suffer from stage fright!!” And those were just a few of Moses’ excuses… and maybe a couple of ours. We know the rest of Moses’ story. Gideon was a young man whose only thought was gathering food and hiding from the Midianites. Gideon had lots of questions and needed an extended conversation with God to convince him that all would be well. Long story short, God gave Gideon the signs he was asking for. Gideon finally decides to go against the Midianites and wins an epic battle for the nation of Israel. And who could forget Peter. The Apostle Peter is often spoken of as a rude, dense, uneducated man, boisterous and overbearing, then Jesus enters his life and he becomes first among the original disciples. He was the leader of the troupe. Even then, he was to have a great failing and an even greater recovery and finally goes on to become a founder of the church. So Jeremiah was to be in good company. Jeremiah has always held a special appeal. From his feelings of inadequacy, he becomes the example of strength and commitment. He knew that when God's prophets had been called to preach an unpopular word to powerful people, the results were not always rosy for the prophet. However, Jeremiah also knew the impressive record of triumphs that had accompanied those prophets who had remained faithful to God's Word. Jeremiah was called to shake up the people of Israel, to break down and build up, to provide a reconstruction 3 of a broken house. From what power-base, though, was he to accomplish this? His power was not political or military or financial. He was not one of Israel's judges of old, leading battle parties to claim or reclaim a promised land. Jeremiah's authority was through the Word ― those words that God had placed in his mouth. The Bible is filled to bursting with the most astounding demonstrations of God's involvement in this world and in human lives. The most amazing miracle, though, that Scripture reveals, is not that God created everything in the cosmos, nor that God brought a tremendous flood to the earth, nor that God helped the Hebrews escape from Pharaoh, nor that God rescued Israel through feats of supernatural power. No, even more remarkable than all these occurrences is an overwhelming realization that all of Scripture reveals, and it is just this: "The Lord needs you!" The Lord needs you? The Lord needs me? It is a pretty intimidating proposition, maybe even presumptuous. What does a statement like, "The Lord needs you," really mean? We can say it at least three ways: The LORD needs you. The Lord NEEDS you, and The Lord Needs YOU. The LORD needs you? What for? The God who created the universe, the Almighty Eternal, Everlasting Father, God, has need for little old me, you say? The God who created at least two hundred billion, billion stars? The God who created this galaxy, a galaxy so big that it takes a light ray 100,000 years to pass from one end to another? And how many galaxies did God create? Countless! THAT Lord needs me? Right! – Right. Perhaps we would all feel a little less threatened if we would remember that, at one time, the Lord even had need of a donkey; a beast of burden, an animal which is the symbol of stubbornness and stupidity. Yet, the Lord took a donkey ride into Jerusalem. What would be the equivalent today? Would the Queen of England be seen in anything less than a Rolls Royce? Aren't American dignitaries or foreign diplomats ferried around in Cadillacs and Mercedes? For Jesus to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey would be the modern-day equivalent of the President of the United States arriving for an inauguration in a rusted-out 1985 Ford Escort with no air conditioning or radio. Truly, the LORD, great as the Lord may be, the Lord needs you! Another way of saying this statement is: The Lord NEEDS you. Paul taught us never to say to one another, "I have no need of you" (in so many words). (I Corinthians 12:21) But to say that God needs us is another matter. In one sense, God doesn't need anything. God is God, period! But God has chosen to work in certain ways that make you and me absolutely critical. As someone has put it, "Without God, we can't. Without us, God won't." You don't think the Lord needs you? Jeremiah tried to convince the Lord that he was too young and inexperienced to be a voice for God. The Lord didn't need him, Jeremiah protested; God needed someone else who 4 knew the ropes, had some clout, someone who could flaunt their reputation. Notice Jeremiah's protest comes before he even knows what God wants him to say. Sound familiar? Jeremiah could not imagine the Lord "needing" a young, untested adolescent, such as himself, for anything. The concept of the Lord "needing" is strange enough to us and Jeremiah; but if that is the case, surely, then, God only "needs" the best, and we can still find an excuse that He doesn't need you or me. So let me also say, then, the Lord needs YOU. Jeremiah tried to avoid his direct call from God. So did Isaiah and Ezekiel, much like Moses. Jonah tried to slip out the back. Peter was like straw in the wind, being blown hither and thither. Paul cringed at the thought. Each of these people refused to think of themselves as strong and capable, but God needed them, nonetheless: God needed Moses, with his stammering tongue; Jonah, with his misguided patriotism; Jeremiah, with his inferiority complex, and feelings of inadequacies, deficiencies and disabilities; Isaiah, overwhelmed by his unworthiness; Elijah, who was manic-depressive at times, almost immobilized; Ezekiel, who was rendered speechless; Paul, whose thorn in the flesh constantly crippled him; and Peter, who was both fearful and impetuous. Does any of this sound familiar? We all have our excuses why God could get along without us. According to the late Dr. William Quick, former pastor of Metropolitan UM Church in Detroit, the three worst words in the English language, are, "I am only..." (verse 7). This is such a limiting, debilitating, handicapping attitude. “I am only…” Yet, for God, His "strength being made perfect in our weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9) makes the perfect servant. Zechariah 4:6 says it all, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord." Let me just add one more thing, “The Lord needs you, NOW!” Dwight L. Moody preached on Zacchaeus with great fire and conviction. The whole story of Zacchaeus just came to life right there on the platform. But Moody often called him, "Zacchus." On the way home from church, his children would chide him, "Pa, it isn't Zacchus, it's Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus." "I know, I know. But I don't have time to say Zacchaeus," Moody would bellow. "There is too much work to be done to say Zacchaeus." We need to cultivate our sense of the now, our sense of necessity. Nothing ever gets done without a sense of urgency. The people who make a difference in this world share a sense of immediacy and importance in the Lord's work. The Lord needs you, NOW. Will you answer?