How to...Be Useful for God

Raise your hand if you want to be more useful for God.

Raise your hand if you want to be more useful for God and be a better disciple of Jesus Christ! That's at least one of the reasons why we're here.

Let us look at how you can be by looking at the Bible and what it has to say to us on this subject.

The key passage today is only one verse:

Matthew 16:24 NKJV

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

There are 5 P's for us to remember today that if we learn will make us more useful for God.

The first one, then is...

Prevailing Prayer

Say it with me: Prevailing Prayer

This is for those who want to be overcomers. The word prevailing means one who sticks at it until it is achieved. In this case, it is to continue until what you have asked of God is received of God. The point is that we are those who persevere, those who keep on going...the asking, seeking and knocking that we have heard about 6 weeks ago.

James 5.16 says: The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

We might be concerned that this verse talks of the prayer of a righteous man. Are we included in this bracket? Do any of us consider ourselves to be righteous? I guess that is not one we would really raise our hands to for inwardly we would be saying we are not righteous. The question, then is:

Are we righteous?

Well, we know in one way we are not. We are tempted, we sin, we fall, we miss the mark. Remember that God absolutely with His whole heart hates sin. No sin too big or too small in our eyes is acceptable to our God who is holy, holy, holy, who is absolutely righteous. Where do we stand in relation to God's holiness? We are complete failures. When God says, as He does to us, through Jesus:

Matthew 5:48 NKJV

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Who here is not perfect?

Let's see what God has to say about that in His word:

Romans 5:19 NKJV

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

When I first asked are we righteous our overwhelming response should be: No! How can we be?

But God's view of us is that because Jesus being obedient in going to the cross and taking upon Himself the sin of the world our position has changed.

We ARE Righteous!

Yes, we can claim that for ourselves simply because we have put our faith in Jesus:

Romans 10:10 NKJV

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Now, let us remember what our first P is: Prevailing Prayer

James told us that the effective, fervent righteous man's prayer avails much. WOW! So, what is this prayer we should be praying?

First, it is the prayer of praise. This is pleasing to God, it is effective for it takes us straight into the throne room of God.

Second, it is prayer for our needs and the needs of others. And we are to pray in line with the will of God trusting God to come through for us.

Who here can pray?

Hands up!

OK, the second P.

The first P was Prevailing Prayer the second is:

Prevailing Prayer. Powerful Word.

And the main verse for this is:

Hebrews 4:12 NKJV

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Who here can read?

Well, there are plenty of people today who can't but everyone here can. This very thing leaves us with no excuse. You see, the Bible, otherwise known as the Word of God is life-changing. And, remember, we are looking at How to...Be Useful to God.

If we want to make a success of our lives for God, that is, to be effective, to be useful for Him He has already given us some tools to make that happen. The first, we saw, was Prevailing Prayer and now we are looking at His Powerful Word.

The Bible is like a map pointing the way and how to get to our destination but it is absolutely a waste of time if we leave the map in the boot of the car. We have to read it to be useful to God.

The Bible also points the way to The Way, the way of salvation in Christ alone, the way to life, the way to life eternal. Using the Bible helps us to also be successful soul-winners. Remember we were talking of leaving a legacy, a legacy is something that lasts long past the time we are no longer around. And something I have consistently said whilst with you is knowing the Bible.

So, thats the first two P's which were:

Prevailing Prayer Powerful Word Positive Faith

And the third is Positive Faith.

Who here can sit on a chair?

Right, it's not hard is it. We trust that when we sit down - in fact we trust so much it does not enter our minds that we should not trust it. And that is where we have to get to with Jesus...a simple trust that doesn't even think about it.

Well, we can find quite a number of illustrations in the Bible of Positive Faith but this is one that stands out:

Matthew 9:20–22 NKJV

And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.

You see that this woman was quite amazing. She was determined to touch only the hem of His garment, the hem is the very edge of it. Not only was she determined to touch the border of his clothes but she had absolutely no doubt she would be healed. WOW! Where did she get such faith from? Surely she had heard about Jesus, surely she had heard the stories of the lame and the blind and the paralytics and how they had been healed and she then mixed it with knowing that she would be healed too if only she could touch the edge of his clothes. Incredible!

You can see why this would make us useful to God. All things are possible with God:

Mark 9:23 NKJV

Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

This is an incredible statement. Not pretend belief. Only true faith can get an awesome amount of things done. Jesus said it to a man who wasn't sure whether to trust Him or not for all that He had gone through before but Jesus said; "trust me", and he did. For...

Luke 18:27 NKJV

But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

Faith is not hard or impossible: Did we all not trust Jesus for our salvation and as a result become children of God?

Who here believes in the resurrection?

In case there is any doubt:

1 John 5:1 NKJV Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

And as God's Children are we not heard as surely as a son to his father?

Clearly faith is not hard, it is like child-like trust. And God hears us and can use us with faith like that.

This kind of Positive Faith along with Prevailing Prayer and His Powerful Word makes us incredibly useful to God. Of course, this means we have to change our priorities to make these 5 P's part of our lives. So far we have only seen 3. Two more to come. Here are the first three and the next one:

Prevailing Prayer Powerful Word Positive Faith Persevering Love

The fourth P then is Persevering Love

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us.

We are compelled to live a life of love. But love that does not give up. Persevering Love. Love is the capstone for all that is done in God. Without love all that we do is pure rubbish and pure noise. It is worse than noise, it is the clanging together a love song of salvation with drums, cymbals, electric guitars all playing together at the same time but without rhythm, without melody all when you would expect a love song to be soft and mellow and in tune. True love does not give up. It Perseveres and keeps going and breaks down walls of resentment, hurt and misunderstanding.

Persevering Love is one of compassion and empathy and makes us more useful to God as we try to place ourselves in their situation. Love conquers.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NKJV

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Surely this is true in the One who gave it all. If the love of Christ compels us then it also compelled Him to the outrageous extreme that no one else can top. If we love because He first loved us then his love must surely be amazing! I'm sure that Jesus would have been discouraged on the road to Jerusalem, a city that had killed all those who had been sent to it in the past to declare the love of God to them but now the Son of God has come and they still refused His love, still refused His overtures, still refused His love song. Then He went the extra mile and demonstrated His love all the more for those who wanted to kill Him...He forgave when pinned to the cross. And we say, don't we that it was not the nails that held Jesus there but His love. And this is unquestionably the case.

Who could have done more for us?

And this is love that we need to share and not keep to ourselves because it is a love that compels us to Persevering Love.

And now we come to our final P:

Prevailing Prayer Powerful Word Positive Faith Persevering Love Persistent Effort

The fifth P is Persistent Effort

Isaiah 43:10 "You are My witnesses," says the LORD.

There is no point in any of the previous four if we simply give up after a week or two or even a year or two. All these have to be done if we are to answer the question:

How to...Be Useful for God

This last one, Persistent Effort, is one that is often missed but also really answers the question we raised our hands to at the very beginning of today's sermon, which was:

Raise your hand if you want to be more useful for God.

Raise your hand if you want to be more useful for God and be a better disciple of Jesus Christ.

So, what is left? We are to be witnesses to others of the love of Christ in God and His saving power.

So, maybe we spoke to somebody once about Jesus.

What of the second opportunity?

We have to persevere in this area, too. We have to have patience, that's for sure but we must never give up for the value of the soul is beyond invaluable and estimation. The price for their souls was set in the blood of Jesus when He took ours, yours, sin and their sin upon Himself. That puts the value of a soul beyond the scope of this world:

Matthew 16:26 NKJV

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

But we, who are already God's children, have a responsibility now to share what saved us from hell and can save them too. And God tells us we are His witnesses but also tells us that:

Proverbs 11:30 He who wins souls is wise.

The title of this sermon, if you have forgotten is:

How to...Be Useful for God.

We have all claimed that we want to be useful for God. Well, we need to put these five things into practice and and then we will become more and more useful to God and His Kingdom.

What were they?

Prevailing Prayer Powerful Word Positive Faith Persevering Love Persistent Effort

All these actions though require us to do what Jesus said which we also mentioned at the beginning:

Matthew 16:24 NKJV

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.