The One Trait You NEED To Be Used By God: INADEQUACY

 

“The great mistake made by most of the Lord’s people is in hoping to discover in themselves that which is to be found in Christ alone.” A.W. Pink

For all four years of high school I wrestled. During the last two, my junior and senior years, some of the greatest wrestlers in the country were on our team. The college that Maranatha Baptist Academy was associated with had Olympic Gold Medalist, Ben Peterson, for their head wrestling coach. As it was a dormitory school, young wrestlers from around the country came to work out with Ben, but being around such great wrestlers didn’t help me. I was still inadequate. My wrestling skills just didn’t cut it.
  Our conference included the Wisconsin School for the Blind and the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, as well as Ethan Allen, a school for juvenile delinquents. There’s something very humbling about being pinned by a blind guy, a deaf guy, and a convicted felon.
  None of us like to be embarrassed or feel foolish or inadequate. America loves winners not losers. Winners get accolades, the girl and a new car. Losers slink off into obscurity. Yet, those who are inadequate are the very ones God uses. They don’t have to be convinced that they can’t do it – they know that they can’t do it, and it’s precisely why God can use them.
  One of the primary reasons that Christians don’t share the gospel is that they feel inadequate to share the gospel. They feel that they don’t know enough or that they’re going to say the wrong thing or look stupid. But they’re wrong. God loves to use the inadequate, the “losers” so that it’s His power and He gets all of the glory!
  One of my favorite accounts in the Bible is found in Numbers 22. Someone dubbed it the “Minor Minor Prophet.” It’s so encouraged me through the years. It’s about a wicked prophet named Balaam and his “ride.” Though Balaam was a wicked prophet, he was not a false prophet. He did hear from God and God did give him some true prophecies to speak. But he was also materialistic and greedy. He was a prophet for hire.
  Balaam was hired by an evil king to curse God’s people Israel. God told him, “No,” but Balaam still wanted the big payday. Like a spoiled toddler, he kept begging God to let him go, and finally, God conceded. Here’s where the “Minor Minor Prophet” comes in.
  The next morning, Balaam saddled his donkey and left for Moab but God sent an angel to take out Balaam on the way. The donkey that Balaam was riding could see the angel, but Balaam couldn’t. And when the donkey three times moved to avoid the angel, Balaam was angry and beat the animal. “Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth” (Numbers 22:28), and it rebuked the prophet for the beatings. “Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn” (verse 31). The angel told Balaam that he’d have killed him had not the donkey spared his life. Ironically, a dumb beast had more wisdom than God’s prophet. The angel then repeated to Balaam the instruction that he was only to speak what God told him to speak concerning the Hebrews. His ride, that donkey, was a “Minor Minor Prophet.”
  That’s so encouraging for us! If God can use a dumb donkey to speak and accomplish His will and share His Word, then He can surely use us.
  One of the most amazing traits that you’ll find repeatedly in Scripture is that God uses the very ones the world overlooks to accomplish His will. In fact, often God humbles very talented, natural leader types so that He can use them. It wasn’t until Joseph was a slave and a prisoner that God used him to rescue His people. Moses was a fugitive turned shepherd when God called him to lead Israel out of Egypt. David was the baby of the family. When Samuel was looking to anoint a new king, his family had forgotten all about him. Peter was a rough, a “stick your foot in your mouth” fisherman that God used to preach on the Day of Pentecost and thousands came to Christ. Paul was a brilliant theologian but God struck him blind to make him realize how impotent he was before God saved him. We don’t know the name of the little boy that gave up his lunch that Jesus used to feed the 5,000. Check out the Bible for yourself. You’ll find individual after individual who was a nobody that God greatly made a somebody but it was only because the Somebody had His hand on their life!
  In evangelism we are in a spiritual battle. There is no way mere mortals could accomplish or win this battle on our own. God gave us this responsibility so that He could use us and He’d get all of the glory!
  Most of us are hesitant to share our faith or build a bridge with a lost family member, neighbor or friend because we feel like such spiritual losers…God loves to use a loser!
  If you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, you already know how powerful He is – after all, He saved you. Next Sunday we’ll have the joy of seeing several individuals be baptized. None of them came to Christ because a light broke through the heavens or an angel appeared to them. They came to Christ because God worked in their heart. They came to Christ because some inadequate believers cared enough to share the gospel with them. I love 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”  Why don’t we share the greatest message that the world desperately needs?
  We feel inadequate. We are. Yet, God never gives us a responsibility without also giving us the means to accomplish it. Evangelism is not some specialized call. God has already provided all of the divine resources that you will ever need to share His message. He’s indwelt you with His Spirit. While we are inadequate, He is more than adequate.
  We think that we don’t know enough. We feel we don’t understand the gospel well enough to share it with someone else. We’re afraid we won’t have the answers to questions that someone might raise. We don’t have to have all of the answers. We know that once we were lost and now we’ve been found. We’re like the blind man who only knew that he’d been blind and now that Jesus had healed him, he could see (John 9).
  Do you want to reach your world? Start by knowing the names of those around you, that neighbor and co-worker. Begin praying for them. Be friendly and kind to them. Learn what they care about and who they are.
  If you and I will simply care, if we will be Jesus to those God has brought in our paths, it’s amazing what God will do…not because we’re super Christians but because He’s a Super Savior!

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