Mount Isa Baptist Church

Do you believe God is able to use you?

Moses had this amazing encounter with God at a bush burning, I think the danger for us is we're so familiar with the story we don't really think of it as amazing or supernatural. Having had this amazing supernatural experience of God, the bush not being consumed, and then God calling him to do a specific task, one would expect Moses to be excited and get on with the job. But instead of getting on with the job, Moses does what many of us often do he hesitates, he holds back, he doesn't enthusiastically head to Egypt to free God’s people. He's seemingly unsure of the way forward, and he proceeds over these next verses and chapters to ask God some questions. vs.11: Moses’ first concern is that he is a “nobody and is therefore unqualified to go to Pharaoh and demand the release of the Lord’s people.” Many in the church feel this same way! We feel that we aren’t as qualified as someone else, or that we just don’t have the ability to get the job done properly. In a rush to give up before we ever start, but we forget one important truth – God chose us! To say we aren’t able to do the job says that God doesn’t know what He is doing! We know as believers God has included us into the local church, has given us different gifts of the spirit. We may get involved, we know that we should be involved in the local church beyond the full-time people, God prompts you to be a deacon or an elder or a Sunday school teacher or praying in church or reading the Bible or the hospitality ministry, or you get involved in serving in the background of the church in sound or maintenance. We know the call, but to take the plunge is difficult. We know we should be involved; we know the call of God in our lives. But we, like Moses, ask, “Who am I that I should go?” Maybe you didn't think you were qualified for the job, or maybe you, like Jonah, didn't like the job God has called you to. Whatever the reason, you find yourself making excuses to explain your reluctance to perform the task that God has called you to. What's the problem? He felt inadequate. Moses felt that he did not have what it would take to do what God wanted him to do. I think those are feelings that many people struggle with. Me teaching Sunday school class, me coming to the front to pray or do the Bible reading, me being a deacon, me taking some kind of responsibility in the church, I’m nervous to take the plunge, I feel incapable, I feel unworthy, I might mess up or make a fool of myself, and we could go on and on. Well, God has an answer very quickly and simply, and He says to Moses in verse 12: I will be with you; I will be with you. Moses had to learn, and I think it's something we need to learn; it's something we need to be reminded of. He was being sent by God. God sends you not because you are adequate. It's not because you're capable, but rather to see that God, who is sending you, is capable and adequate to get the job done, even though using you. I hope this is encouraging because God uses ordinary people, and let me make a statement today that most of us are ordinary. But when God uses ordinary people, it becomes more evident that the fruit is only because of God, and that's His intention, that God gets the glory, that we glory in Christ. When God builds a church, when God converts an individual, when God uses a Sunday school teacher, when God uses you, it points to His greatness not ours. If you are in a ministry just so you can look good, either repent and ask God to forgive you or leave that ministry. So, God promises to be with Moses, but He also promises to be with all of those He sends, every single believer. Who is with you? Jesus is with you. Maybe to put it differently, we are small, but God is big. God calls and God sends and God promises to be with each and every believer therefore giving us the reason to take the plunge, we can step over the edge. If God has called us, He knows that we can accomplish the task through His power. Many people in the church forget that God has made that promise to us as

well. Who am I that I should go? We are ordinary we're small and fragile, but our Lord is big and powerful and sovereign, and He will be with us accomplishing every purpose.