If not You, If not Me—then Who?
“Set a guard, LORD, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door
of my lips.”
(Psalm 141: 3 NASB)
This week was “Mission Week” at the university where I teach. So, I invited two missionaries to speak to my students about their calling, about the work God had called them to do. One missionary was a wife and mother, a woman called to marry a Russian, to serve God in Ukraine. One missionary was a young woman, a former university student called to serve God as a teacher of English in China.
Whom God chooses, He uses for His purposes.
Whom God chooses, He provides him a way to represent Jesus, the Son of God.
Whom God chooses, He sends.
Whom God chooses, He goes with, as the one He sends—Goes.
Whom God chooses, He allows him to depend upon & to go in the strength of the LORD.
Whom God chooses, He allows them to ask God’s Holy Spirit to seal their lips, as they go, until it’s the proper time, God’s time, to speak.
Whom God chooses, He equips.
Whom God chooses, He brings home whenever his mission on life is finished.
Whom God chooses, He eventually brings home, and when he arrives, he only desires to hear God says: “Well done . . .”
- Ordinary people.
- Common “Joes.”
- No one special in the eyes of the world.
- Weak people.
- Unskilled people.
- Quiet people & people with limitations & people who have fear.
- Regular people & people with jobs, with careers, busy people who sense God’s voice calling them.
- God’s people—All of those God calls to salvation, God also calls to His Work—to testify.
Chosen People, Saved People, Sanctified People, Holy People, & Obedient People!
“For consider your calling, brothers and sisters, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;
but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
and the insignificant things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,
so that no human may boast before God.
But it is due to Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
so that, just as it is written: “LET THE ONE WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
(The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 1: 26-31 NASB)
It is quite obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooked, the ones who were the insignificant nobodies of the world. In the world’s eyes, we may become “somebodies,” but it is only through Jesus that we can truly be Somebody God wants us to be!
Through Jesus Christ, we become the sons and daughters of God.
Apart from Christ, we are lost lambs.
God chooses unexpected sons and daughters to go to unexpected places.
God chooses us to GO & to DO unexpected things.
When we do—go, then we realize it was not ourselves who did anything, but the LORD who did something through us.
- If you are a believer, then you are a follower of Christ Jesus.
- If you are a follower, then you are a Christian, a child of Almighty God.
- If you are a Christ-follower, then you are a son or a daughter of the King of Kings.
- If you are a child of God, then you are a saint called to be on-mission for Christ Jesus.
- If you are called, then you are to go!
- If you are to go, then the light is to shine through you, as the light of Jesus shines out to the world of people surrounding you.
- If you are to shine the light, then it truly is not US the world should ever see, but JESUS!
So, If not You, then Who?
So, If not Me, then Who?
And So, If not Us, then Who?
God chose Moses, and then Moses complained about his stuttering speech.
God gave Moses a helper, his brother Aaron, to speak the words that needed to be spoken.
God chose Gideon, the weakest man in all of Israel.
God gave Gideon power to lead the army to deliver the people from the Midianites.
God chose Ruth, the young widow who lived far from her home.
God placed Ruth in her mother-in-law’s home, in a land where she gleaned wheat for Boaz, a kinsman redeemer.
God chose Esther, a daughter who did not know her parents, but one who trusted her uncle.
God allowed Esther to be taken to the palace where she was selected to become the king’s wife. & God positioned Esther exactly where He needed her to be—to save His people from death.
God chose Rahab, a harlot, to protect and save His spies in Canaan.
God used Rahab to convince and lead her whole family to be saved.
God chose Jonah, and Jonah ran the other way, far from God, hoping to escape his call.
God sent a fish to swallow Jonah, to help him get back on track, to help him find his way.
God chose Jeremiah, and Jeremiah claimed he was too young, too much a youth.
God used Jeremiah to proclaim the judgment of God!
God chose Mary, the young girl, engaged to Joseph, the one who could hardly fathom her call.
God gave Mary the privilege of birthing & being the mother of Jesus Christ the LORD of all!
All had limitations, weaknesses, & excuses why they could not go when God called them to go.
BUT GOD canceled their excuse as only God can do!
- IT WAS GOD, ONLY GOD, who chose them to go.
- IT WAS ALWAYS GOD, who gave them the words to speak.
- IT WAS HOLY GOD who prepared the way for them to walk. &
- IT WAS ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD who gave them the tools to do His will.
Dr. Luke was called by Jesus to become a disciple & then God gave him these words, the very words of Jesus Himself.
“Now when they bring you before the synagogues and the officials and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say;
for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
(Luke 12: 11-12 NASB)
- We have no excuse to not Go!
- We have no excuse to not Do!
- We have no excuse to keep the Hope of Jesus to ourselves!
- We have no excuse when it is God Himself who promises us that He will always Go with us!
- We have no excuse when it is God’s Holy Spirit who promises us that He will give us the words to speak!
- We have no excuse to disobey God’s call on our lives!
- We have no excuse!
God calls all people to know Jesus as Savior!
God calls all people to walk in obedience to the LORD!
It is not “if” God calls but “when” God calls!
Yes, it is “then” that we are to obey our Father God!
If not You, then Who?
If not Me, then Who?
So, If not Us, then Who?
“Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is, Jesus our Lord,
equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
(Hebrews 13: 20-21 NASB)