Inferiority | Part 2

Listen closely as Adrian Rogers explains how our greatest ability to live your life through me.

Today we're going to be talking about this matter of inferiority. And many of us have the idea, you know, God just can't use me. God can use him, God can use her, God can use them. But God can't use me, we just feel inferior.

Well I pray God today that God will use this message to remove that thought from your heart and from your mind. Now I want to show you that God can use you and God can use you now and God can use you where you are and God can use you with what you have. And this is material that you definitely need to hear and get etched in your mind and upon your consciousness of how God takes ordinary people and God does extraordinary things.

with ordinary people. Now I want us to begin reading here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 26. Now let me tell you what God's plan is and it is a tremendous plan. It is a wonderful, wonderful plan. Now here's God's plan and here's the crux of my entire message. Are you listening? God takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things through ordinary people and gets glory to himself.

You understand that? God takes ordinary people and God does extraordinary things through ordinary people and thereby God gets glory to himself. Now the very first thing I want you to notice is what I'm going to call God's simple people.

These are people. They never sing, they never preach a sermon, they never get the name in the bulletin. They don't even get to lead in silent prayer in the nursery. And nobody knows about them. They're God's little nobodies. Things that are not to bring to naught things that are. Things that the world thinks are so important that the Bible says these things are just passing away. These are the people, the Bible says that God has chosen. These are God's simple people. Now having said that, I want to say several things to put it in context. Number one, he does not say not any mighty. Not any noble are called. You see that? He says not many.

He doesn't say not any. Thank God for the PhDs that love Jesus. Thank God for the movie stars that love Jesus. Thank God for the millionaires that love Jesus. Thank God for the all-Americans that love Jesus. Thank God for the beauty queens that love Jesus.

Thank God for them. And unto whomsoever much is given of the same shall much be required. The apostle Paul was one of these mighty. He was one of these noble. He was a Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

He was one of those learned men of his generation. And he was used of God. And God took that brilliance and used it. But before God could use it, he said, I count all these things but dung that I might win Christ.

Right? He laid them in the dust before the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm not saying that God does not use people who are extraordinary people. Thank God he does.

All right? Second thing I want to say is that I am not putting a premium upon laziness or mediocrity or half-heartedness when I say that God uses ordinary people. Now, you'd misread me if you thought that if I'm talking about just being lazy and indifferent and expecting God to use you. But I am telling you, dear friend, that there is a way in which God is going to get glory to himself by choosing people just like many of us who think of ourselves as being quite ordinary and sometimes thereby thinking that we're going to have to, quote, sit on the sidelines, end quote, while the superstars do their stuff.

Not so, my dear friend. God has been looking for people just like the ordinary average person that comes to church on Sunday morning. Now, so we're thinking, first of all, about what I want to call God's simple people. Now, the Bible says God doesn't just make up his mind that he's going to have to use them. No, God chooses.

I mean, God actually goes after these kind of folks. These are the ones that God chooses. Now, the second thing I want you to notice is God's special power. Now, look, if you will, in verse 30.

And you're going to find out here's the way this thing works. Look in verse 30. But of him that is of God are ye in Christ Jesus.

Now, that's where I am. I'm in Christ Jesus. Who of God, that is Jesus, is of God made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. You see, I am in Christ. Christ is in me.

And if I don't have wisdom, who does have wisdom? Jesus. And he is in me.

If I don't have righteousness, who has righteousness? Jesus. And he is in me.

If I don't have sanctification, who has sanctification? Jesus. And Jesus is in me. And so he is made unto me wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

That is all I need. He supplies. I may be ordinary. He is extraordinary. He is in me.

And therefore, he does something through me. One of the greatest secrets I've ever learned is this. And I want you to learn it here. I learned it after I was already in the ministry.

Are you ready? It's quite simple, but it's very important. I learned that God didn't want me to do anything for him. He wanted to do something through me. And folks, that's more than a turn of phrase. That is more than just some slippery way of saying something.

That is a fundamental basic truth. So I want you to get down in your heart. You see, God wants to do something through you. People say, well, I just served God in my poor little old weak way.

I feel like saying, well, quit it. He doesn't want you to serve him in your poor little old weak way. He wants you to serve him in his mighty, glorious, dynamic way. For the Bible says, it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You see, it is God that worketh in you.

God works through you. And what we need to do is to make ourselves available to God and say, dear God, I'm tired of being inhibited. I want to be inhabited. And I want you to inhabit my humanity. And I want you to live your life through me. And then I can say, nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. And the life I now live, I live.

I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. And then he goes on to say base things. Now remember, this word base means ignoble, of low degree, without pedigree, from the wrong side of the tracks.

Let me give you an illustration. There was a man in the Bible whose name was Gideon. Gideon was on the threshing floor because the Midianites had invaded the land. And he was threshing wheat really in the backside in a corner, even afraid that he might be seen because he was afraid that the Midianites might come and pounce him.

And so he's back there threshing wheat. And an angel of Jehovah appears to him. And the angel addresses him with this salutation, Hail thou mighty man of valor. Now if there's anything that Gideon was not, it was a mighty man of valor. Gideon was a chicken with a capital C. He was afraid. He was in fear.

He was hiding out. And the angel of the Lord calls him a mighty man of valor. And then to heap abuse on that he says, I have chosen you to deliver my people from the hand of the Midianites.

You're going to be my general. Now Gideon at that time remonstrated with the Lord and reminded the Lord of this. He said to the Lord, he said, my family is the poorest in Manasseh and I am the least in my father's house. Now what he was saying is this, of all of the tribes in Israel, Manasseh is the worst. Of all of the families in Manasseh, my family is the poorest. And of all of the kids in the family, I am the runt of the litter. What he was saying is you have gotten to the bottom of the barrel.

You can't use me. But I believe God was thinking, I think you're just about low enough, I can use you. And you remember the story. God wouldn't even let him have a big army, right? He only had, what, 300 men. And God took a nobody general, a nothing army, whipped the Midianites and who got the glory? God got the glory. Have you ever read in the Bible where the Bible says, and the Spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon? The Spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon. God wore Gideon like I'm wearing this suit. And it wasn't Gideon, it was God in Gideon. And God took an ordinary man and God did extraordinary things to an ordinary man and God got the glory to himself. Now the Bible also says that God has chosen those things which are despised.

That means the things that will look good. The things that will look down upon. Remember when little David came against Goliath?

Can you read it over there in the Samuel materials? Goliath, that great blasphemous giant, he was defying the armies of Israel over nine feet tall. Nobody was going out to fight Goliath. David said, is there not a cause?

Why doesn't somebody go? And you remember finally David went. I'll not rehearse the story because you remember the story. But David was a teenage boy. The Bible says he was ruddy and of a fair countenance. That means, I take it, that he had a little peach fuzz on his chin.

He hadn't started to shave yet. And here was this warrior, tall, big, in brazen armor, demon possessed. And David went out against him. He said to David, when I get my hands on you, I am going to feed you to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field.

That is, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to break you in little pieces and feed you to the pigeons. But David said to him, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a shield. And he said to David, I am the king of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver you into mine hand and I will smite you and I will take your head from you and I will give your carcass to the host of the beast of the field. And then he said this, that all the earth, are you listening, may know that there is a God in Israel. Now pay attention.

I want to ask you a question. What would have happened that day if the Philistines had had a giant and the Israeli had a giant and the Israeli giant went out and beat the Philistine giant? What would that have proven? Not a thing in the world, just another Super Bowl. Another Super Bowl, that's all.

I mean, here's their champion and here's their champion. And they go out and we're going to say, who's going to win? The Bears or the Pats? Who's going to win?

Who's the strongest? But now suppose a junior high school team goes to New Orleans and plays the Bears. And they say, we're coming in the name of Jehovah. And they win the battle.

What do you think people in New Orleans are going to think? There must be a God around here somewhere, right? David said, I am going to do this. That all the world may know that there is a God in Israel and when a teenage boy goes against Goliath of Gath and wins the victory, everybody says, to God be the glory. Amen? You see, that's what God is about. Taking ordinary people and doing extraordinary things to ordinary people and then getting glory to himself.

And then God says, he takes things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. I already told you, these are God's little nobodies who are really somebodies. They are the people that nobody else knows about. They are the people, the ordinary people.

They never get mentioned. But God knows about these precious people. Years ago, there was a Sunday school teacher who was burdened for a boy, a teenage boy, in his class. That boy, 19 years of age, was working in a shoe store. That Sunday school teacher went into that shoe store to witness to that boy. The Sunday school teacher was scared to death.

He had never done anything like that. But with stammering lips, he witnessed. He laid a trembling hand on the shoulder of that shoe clerk and shared Jesus Christ. The shoe clerk was ready. He received Christ. He was saved. The shoe clerk then made application for church membership. The church refused him.

They said he didn't know enough. Do you know who he was? He was Dwight L. Moody, another of the world-famous evangelists in the same category with Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, Dwight L. Moody. Moody began Sunday school work as a layman in the city of Chicago. Hundreds and thousands of kids were transformed by the ministry of Dwight L. Moody.

He became so proficient, so well-known that he was invited overseas. He went overseas and he was speaking in a church of a very elegant, erudite, and intelligent Britisher named F.J. F.B. Meyer, Frederick Brotherton Meyer. Moody spoke in Meyer's church. Moody had hardly opened his mouth before Meyer felt he'd made a terrible mistake because Moody murdered the king's English. It was said of Dwight L. Moody that he could pronounce Jerusalem in two syllables.

He was a man with a heart on fire for God, but he was untrained. And Meyer, this Englishman, was sitting there bumping his finger thinking, it's going to be over. What a colossal mistake I've made. Well, finally the service ended. Meyer was glad that it was over. But later, Meyer was having tea with one of the ladies. And he said, and how goes it with you? And she said, wonderful, Brother Meyer. She said, since Moody has been here, God has set my soul afire for souls. And she said, I have won every girl in my class to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And that day I learned the language of the soul.

I learned something supernatural. F.B. Meyer came to the United States to preach. He was preaching in a Bible college.

And F.B. Meyer said this, are you discouraged? Are you ready to quit?

Are you ready to throw in the towel? He said, if you're not willing to give everything to Jesus Christ, would you at least come this far to be honest with God and tell God that you're not willing? But would you tell God this?

If you're made willing, would you at least come that far? And there was a man out there, Wilbur Chapman, a youngster, had a lot of ability, but he was about ready to quit. He said, God, that is me. God, you know that I've been ready to quit. And God, I haven't been willing. But God, at least I'm willing to be made willing.

Oh, God, make me willing. And God made him willing. And Wilbur Chapman became a dynamic evangelist preaching the gospel of Christ across America. When he needed more help, he called that YMCA class. There was a clerk that I referred to earlier whose name was Billy Sunday to be his helper. Sunday helped put up the tent, take down the tent, take the offerings, pass out the hymnals, do the counseling and so forth. Later, when Chapman got out of evangelism, he turned everything over to Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday even took Wilbur Chapman's sermon notes.

He didn't know how to prepare a sermon. But God's hand was upon Billy Sunday and Billy Sunday preached in great, great power and many souls were saved. Billy Sunday came to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1924 and held a revival crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina.

They shook Charlotte. Out of that revival crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina, there was a prayer meeting that got started that continued for a decade. They said, those businessmen, as they met together, they said, Oh, God, we want you to send another revival to Charlotte, North Carolina that not only will shake Charlotte but will shake the world for Jesus Christ. And God, in answer to that prayer that came out of the Sunday Crusade, sent Mordecai Ham, to Charlotte, North Carolina, a man with white hair, a man that preached hell, hot, heaven, sweet, sin, black, judgment sure and Jesus saves. And in that crusade, a boy from a dairy farm, tall, lanky teenager, blondish hair came forward, skinny kid, gave his heart to Christ. His name was Billy Graham. Billy Graham has preached the gospel of Jesus Christ before kings and princes and presidents, nationwide television and radio, girdled the globe with the gospel behind the Iron Curtain. Only God knows how many souls have come to faith in Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham.

An amazing chain of events. But I remind you, it started with a Sunday school teacher that few of us know. Many have never even heard the name of Mr. Kimball that led Dwight L. Moody to faith in Jesus Christ.

He's one of those little nobodies, isn't he? Billy Graham's a household word. Billy Sunday is a household word. F.B. Meyer is a household word.

Mordecai Ham, a household word. But not Mr. Kimball. But don't you have a sneaking suspicion that God knows Mr. Kimball's name?

I do. I mean, dear friend, that God knows you Sunday school teachers and God knows you ushers and God knows you people in the sound room and God knows those people over there in the nursery. He says not a cup of cold water will be given in my name to one of these little ones, so you'll lose your reward. I tell you, dear friend, God is keeping the score.

What a wonderful thing that is. That is, to me, that God takes the nobodies who are really God's somebodies and God uses them in an extraordinary way. Now, listen.

Listen. God's simple people. God's special power.

The last thing I want you to see. God's sovereign purpose. Why does God do this? Well, look, if you will, in verse 29.

He tells us why He does it. Here's His sovereign purpose, that no flesh should glory in His presence. There are not going to be any peacocks in heaven. That no flesh should glory in His presence. That's the reason why He saves us by grace. He won't save us by works, will He? For by grace be saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should... what?

Boast. Why does God use ordinary people and give them extraordinary power? That no flesh should glory in His presence. No superstar is in heaven. Well, you say, I have more ability than someone else.

Good. Under whomsoever much has been given to the same shall much be required. But I tell you, dear friend, when God comes to judge you, God is going to judge you whether or not you fill that place that He had for you. And what is that place where He has for you? You want me to tell you the highest place in the world? It is not being Billy Graham. It is not being the pastor of a church.

It is not writing a big book. The highest place in the world is the center of the will of God for you. Wherever that is. I have news for you, dear friend. If you want to be used of God, you can be used of God. If you want to be used of God, that doesn't matter. If you're willing to be used of God the way that God wants to use you, that's what matters, right?

You don't choose your place of service. If you make yourself available to Him, do you know what the greatest ability is? It is availability.

It is availability. So many times my prayer is just simply this. Lord Jesus, inhabit my humanity and do what you want to do in me. Just inhabit my humanity. I want you to be to say, to think. What you want me to do is be to say and think, okay? And folks, no matter whether you're known or unknown, mighty or weak, base or noble, if you're there, you are used mightily of God.

Are you listening to me? Don't you dare insult the grace of God by saying that God can't use you. God has been looking for somebody.

Just like you. He made you. And God's people said, let's bow in prayer. And I want you to say to God, God, I thank you that I am who I am. I am what I am by the grace of God and I thank you. I thank you for those things that I call strengths.

I thank you for those things that some call weakness. I thank you, Lord, that I am who I am. By the grace of God. And now, Lord, I present myself to you. Inhabit my humanity. Live your life through me, Lord. Be thou Lord in me. Exalt yourself through me. Whether I'm known or unknown.

Whether I'm successful, unsuccessful in the eyes of the world. Be uniquely God in me. Thank you for the encouragement from God's Word today.

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