I was doing some house cleaning the other day while listening to some music. A song came by Rich Mullins that caught my attention. While most of you are probably familiar with Rich Mullins, some of his music is in our song books, I doubt that many of you are familiar with this song. I wasn’t familiar with it, maybe I had heard it in passing before but not enough to actually listen and understand it. The name of the song was “Who God is Gonna Use.” The point of the song was basically to say that God is completely unpredictable and we will never know who God is going to speak through or who he might use next. So in other words we better be prepared and on the lookout for the working of God. As I was thinking about this I started to realize that this works in two ways. One, we better have our eyes and ears open because God could be using anybody or anything to speak to us, and two, we better be prepared because we never know when God is going to choose to use us. Turn with me to Numbers 22:21-31.
Numbers 22:21-31 So Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. 22 But God's anger was kindled because he went, and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 And the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the road. 24 Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. 25 And when the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again. 26 Then the angel of the LORD went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. 28 Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" 29 And Balaam said to the donkey, "Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you." 30 And the donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?" And he said, "No." Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face.
For this moment the story of Balaam is not too important to us but rather it is the vessel that God has used to communicate to Balaam. Notice who was in this traveling party. There was Balaam, his two servants, and his donkey. When you read this in the past you probably did not notice that Balaam was not alone. You probably thought it was just him and his donkey. I know I did. It one of those small details we tend to read right over without noticing. We have Balaam who is disobeying God and God needs to get a message to him. He is an all powerful God who is capable of absolutely anything. Therefore it would seem simplest for God to simply speak directly to Balaam, would it not? But for some reason God rejects this idea, see God had in fact already spoken directly to Balaam and he did not listen. Well then how about the two servants, surely one of them rank higher on the chart of reasonable vessels to carry his message. But God rejects that idea too. God doesn’t even have some outside messenger or sign to show Balaam, but rather he does the unthinkable. God makes Balaam’s donkey talk to him. The only place I have ever heard anything other than a parrot speak is in the movies. I don’t think even a parrot could of held a conversation quite like this. The most ironic part is that Balaam responds and talks back to the donkey. But even a talking donkey could not convince Balaam that there was reason to turn around. After Balaam had talked to the donkey God had to open his eyes so that he could see the armed angel for him to get the message. For some reason it was ok for the donkey to speak but it was not possible that the talking donkey could know what it was talking about.
I think that every one of us has some sort of prejudice against certain people. Whether it be to a group of people or a certain individual person. We have a tendency to shut them out and refuse the possibility that God could ever speak truth through them. It might be teenagers with sagging pants or maybe the black sheep of the family. It might be those liberals or maybe those conservatives. That person who treated me that way. All of us have someone or some people we choose to shut out. They are our donkeys, which no matter how convincing they might appear we will always refuse to listen to. If we read our way through scripture I think that we will find that God has a tendency to speak through those whom we would most like not to hear from. Even look at your own lives. I think many times the greatest lessons we have learned have not been learned at the hands of friends but enemies. Who knows who God is going to use. We need to be prepared to hear God speak and hear his message to us in no matter what form it might come. In that song by Rich Mullins he goes through and lists some of the improbable vessels. Balaam’s donkey was one of them, so was Esther, the daughter of Pharaoh, and in fact even Pontius Pilate. All of them either spoke the message of God or were used to accomplish his will. God can and does use anybody he wills. No one or group of people is outside the realm of God tools. Therefore we cannot reject anybody as irrelevant or not a part of God’s message for our lives.
The second part I said of not knowing who God was going to use was that we never know when he is going to choose to use us. None of us are disqualified. In fact it is simply of matter of time, he might actually be using you right now. Turn with me to Judges 6:11-16.
Judges 6:11-16 Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor." 13 And Gideon said to him, "Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian." 14 And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?" 15 And he said to him, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." 16 And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man."
I think this is the mentality of many of us in regards to the troubles of this world. We want God to send somebody to help us, but we reject to idea that we in fact could be the somebody he sends. Have you ever heard someone pray that God would raise someone up to be this or that? Maybe what we need to start doing is praying that God would raise us up. Maybe we need to step up and say, “Here I am, an empty vessel. Fill me up and use me.” But just like Gideon we all have excuses. When the angel of the Lord shows him the reality of the fact that God sent him to be that person, Gideon start to spout out all the reasons that he could not possibly be that person. But God I am weak. In fact I am weak when measured against the weak. I am the youngest, shouldn’t this be the elder brother’s responsibility. I think we convey that same sentiment when we pray for someone else. You know I remember when we had this one person and they were such a pillar. They did this and this, if only God you would send someone like this to bring life into this congregation. As we pray such prayers, for some reason or another we are discounting ourselves and believing that there is no possible way that God could use us in such a capacity. I am not gifted enough. It is too hard for me to love that kind of person. I am not patient enough. I don’t have the time. If we wish to take that mindset then maybe we should all be named Gideon. Gideon was forgetting one thing and the angel reminded him of that. The angel never once denied that Gideon was all the things he claimed to be. In fact his lack of denial was probably an affirmation of the very weaknesses that Gideon claimed disqualified him. But the angel tells him that despite who he is God is going to use him and God will be with him.
God will make up for all of our failures and he will bridge the gap between our inabilities and success. God can take any person in this room and with his power he can make them into anything he needs them to be. If God so desires he could take me and turn me into a dancer and I simply cannot dance. You might think you cannot sing, but if God comes calling he can turn you into a singer. You may not be patient enough to deal with kids, but if God wills it he can turn you into a Sunday school teacher. If God chooses to use you then he will enable you to succeed, he will go with you. God does not call us to something we cannot accomplish with Him, but he does call us to things we cannot accomplish without him. I can confidently say that God won’t simply maybe use you, but God will use you. But God can only use us if we are willing to be used, if we are willing to become what we are not yet. 2 Timothy 2:21 says, “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”
We need to be ready to be used. We must be prepared to accomplished any good work as a vessel of God and we must also be ready to be spoken to and hear the message of God, no matter whom it might come from. No one is outside of God’s ability to use. God is capable of accomplishing anything through anybody he chooses. We must be ready and willing. Vigilant in both our search for his message and in our pursuit of being a useful vessel. God will use you and he will also use your neighbor. So be ready
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