It's amazing, though, who God chooses to use.
The greatest Christian movements this country has ever experienced
! It came from other people who are
!
He could not spell well. He did not speak well.
He was a teenage shoe salesman that stumbled over his words,
but he had a Sunday school teacher that had a burden for him.
Edward Kimball paced back and forth in front of that Sunday school,
I mean, in front of that shoe store one day,
praying that God would give him the energy to speak
to Dwight L. Moody about his salvation.
When Edward walked into that store,
Dwight L. Moody was in the back in the stock room.
Edward Kimball walked back there, shared Christ with him,
and Dwight L. Moody came to know the Lord
in the stock room of a shoe store in Boston, Massachusetts.
And God used Moody powerfully
through the second half of the 19th century.
He put a fire in that man's soul
and a passion in his voice,
and he preached simple sermons that burned with evangelistic fury.
And his meetings filled music halls, filled arenas,
filled theaters across America and throughout Great Britain
with the simple gospel.
During one campaign in London of several nights,
he preached to over 2 million people who heard the gospel.
And he would say,
if you want to find fault, come and find fault in me,
but don't find it in Christ.
He had no microphone.
He had no radio.
His voice was carried by the Spirit of God.
And it's been said that no man since the Apostle Paul
has shaken two continents with the gospel
like Dwight L. Moody did.
A simple man used of God.
Last week, we looked at four ordinary men
that God used in extraordinary ways.
And those men were accompanied by seven others
that were just as faithful,
but that we're not nearest familiar with.
Just as unlikely and used just as mightily.
And these most often are overlooked.
But they shouldn't be,
and they're not going to be today.
Mark chapter 3, beginning in verse 13,
it says,
And he went up, speaking of Christ,
went up on the mountain and called to them
those whom he desired, and they came to him.
And he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles.
So that they might be with him,
and he might send them out.
Notice this.
Three things is what he called them to.
One was that they might be with him.
Number two, and he might send them out to preach.
And three, that he might give them authority
to cast out demons.
They had a supernatural authority that God gave them,
those apostles that he called.
He appointed the 12,
Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter,
James, the son of Zebedee,
and John, the brother of James,
to whom he gave the name Barnurgus,
that is, sons of thunder.
Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew,
and Matthew, and Thomas, and James,
the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus,
and Simon the zealot,
and Judas as a carrot who betrayed him.
Last week, we spent time talking about
Peter, the outspoken,
Andrew, the inviter,
James, the thunderous,
and John, the passionate.
Next on this list is Philip.
I call him the practical.
There's a powerful passage in Acts chapter 9
about an Ethiopian that's led to Christ
by a man named Philip.
That's not this one.
Don't get your Philips mixed up.
This one was a fisherman.
From Bethsaida in Galilee,
just like Peter,
just like Andrew,
the same areas James and John.
He was a just-the-facts,
by-the-book, practical kind of guy.
Honestly, a pessimistic killjoy.
When 5,000 men and their families
need to be fed,
Philip told Christ how expensive it was
to feed them.
Jesus got it done anyway.
When Jesus was in the upper room,
Jesus told the apostles,
if you know me,
you know the Father.
And Philip said,
show us the Father.
In other words,
he didn't get it.
He didn't get what Christ was saying.
But God can use a practical pessimist.
Pessimist.
History tells us that God used
Philip mightily in the church
and that he died a martyr.
They stoned him to death.
And his preaching reached many for Christ
before his death.
God can and will use the practical.
And then there's also the skeptic.
Philip's best buddy was Bartholomew.
John calls him Nathaniel.
That's probably his given name.
Anywhere you see Bar in front of a name
in the Bible,
Bar means son of.
And so in reality,
Bartholomew was the son of Ptomei.
And by the time you take an Aramaic name
and translate it into Greek
and then translate it into English,
you get Bartholomew out of Bartholomei.
But he came from Cana
where Jesus did his wedding miracle.
Philip is the one that brought him to Jesus.
And he was just as imperfect
as the rest of us are.
His problem was he had too much bias in his life.
He had some prejudice in his life.
And I want you to watch what happens to him
when he meets Christ.
It's found in John chapter 1,
beginning in verse 45.
And it says this,
Philip found Nathaniel,
that's the same guy as Bartholomew,
and said to him,
we have found him of whom Moses and the law
and also the prophets wrote,
Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph.
And Nathaniel said to him,
can anything good
come out of Nazareth?
And Philip said to him,
come and see.
Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him
and said to him,
behold,
an Israelite indeed
in whom there is no deceit.
And Nathaniel said to him,
how do you know me?
Jesus answered him,
before Philip called you
when you were under the fig tree,
I saw you.
And Nathaniel answered him,
Rabbi,
you're the son of God.
You're the king of Israel.
And Jesus answered him,
because I said to you,
I saw you under the fig tree.
Do you believe?
You'll see greater things
than these.
In this passage,
what you find out about Bartholomew
is both his weaknesses
and his strengths.
His weaknesses
was that he wrote people off
because of where they were from.
Or for what they look like.
He was prejudiced.
He came from Cana.
Cana is a small,
nothing little town.
You wouldn't know anything about Cana
if Jesus hadn't done
that wedding miracle there.
But he scorned someone
who come from a rough,
unrefined little town
named Nazareth.
And Nazareth was rough.
You get your tail whooped in Nazareth,
you ain't careful.
I mean, it's that kind of place.
And he knew that.
He didn't expect much
to come out of that,
but man, he got a whole lot.
Jesus told him something
only God could know.
First, he tells him
that he's honest.
If you're an honest person,
God can use that powerfully.
It's not common today.
Second,
Jesus speaks of what he knows
about Philip.
And we're not sure
of what Jesus was speaking of,
but it really don't matter
if we know what he's speaking of.
Philip knew what he was speaking of.
I mean, excuse me.
Yeah.
Bartholomew knew who he was speaking of.
He knew.
And that is God's unique way,
and that's the way he does it,
to speak to each one of us
right where we are.
Through the Holy Spirit of God,
God can whisper something
in your ear today
that nobody else in the world
would ever understand
what that means.
But you know what that means.
That's because he's personal.
Customizes.
And he did that for Nathaniel.
And the reality is,
we don't know what he's speaking of,
but what it appears to be,
houses were small in that day.
And when we were studying
Capernaum a couple of weeks ago,
I told you that an exterior wall
was no more than 18 feet on a house,
and that was it.
So they were small,
and when they were cooking going on,
it got hot,
and they lived in the desert.
And so there was often
a shade tree nearby,
and they'd go hang out
on the shade tree,
either for rest
or possibly for study.
Theologians believe
that what he saw,
and we don't know for sure,
what he was talking about
was Bartholomew studying
the Word of God
under that tree.
Jesus had seen him
studying God's Word.
And Jesus was saying to him,
what you've read
is now being fulfilled
before you.
And in response to that,
he knew what he was talking about,
and he said,
you're the Son of God.
We don't know much else about him,
except that he was
brutally killed for his faith,
and his body was thrown into the sea.
God can and will
change and use
the skeptic.
And then there's Matthew.
And I call Matthew
the meticulous,
because Matthew
was probably
the most educated
among them.
He was the tax collector,
which was a shameful
occupation.
He had sold his soul
to the Romans
for money.
That's what the Jews
would think.
And that is until
Christ called him
and he walked away
from his lifestyle
and he invited
all his friends
to his house
and invited Jesus
to his house
and introduced
his friends to Jesus.
We basically know
two things about Matthew.
One is that he was
a publican
or a tax collector.
And we also know
that he wrote
the Gospel of Matthew.
And this is what
is interesting.
In the Gospel of Matthew,
he quotes the Old Testament
99 times.
It is in an effort
for the Jews
to see Jesus
as the fulfillment
of prophecy.
But I want you
to remember something.
As a Roman commissioned
tax collector,
his job was seen
as so sinful
that he was not
allowed
in the synagogue.
So this man's
not been sitting
under the teaching
of the Word of God.
He's not been able
to because of
what he did
for a living.
So how in the world
did he know
Scripture
so much?
Well, apparently
he studied on his own.
And by him
studying God's Word
on his own,
God began to
draw him.
God began
to work in him.
And then one day
when he was sitting
in that tax booth,
Jesus walked by.
And Jesus looked
at him and said,
come and follow me.
And the man
dropped everything
he did
and followed Christ.
No wonder
he left immediately.
God had already
been doing a work
in his life.
He seems to have
stayed humbly
in the background
of the ministry
of the Lord.
It seems obvious
that he was
journaling to me.
Obviously,
he was journaling
the words
and the actions
of Jesus
everywhere they went.
We have the Sermon
on the Mount,
Matthew chapter 5
through 7,
because of Matthew
and because of his
scribing
while Jesus
was speaking.
Not only did he write,
but the history
tells us
that he shared
the gospel
with the Jew
and the Gentile
alike
until he was
most likely
burned at the stake
for his strong
Christian message.
God uses
the meticulous.
Then there's also
Thomas.
Thomas is the pessimist.
You probably know him
as Doubting Thomas,
but he's more than that.
Thomas was a worrier.
He was anxious
and he was cautious
and he was a bit like
Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.
He's,
oh,
it'll never work.
He's that kind of guy.
When Lazarus died
and Jesus was going
into Bethany
to raise him
from the dead,
the disciples
didn't want him to go.
It was a dangerous place
and they didn't want him
to go.
They were afraid
of what would happen
to him.
They tried to get him
not to go.
Jesus would not hear
of it
and Thomas said,
let us also go
that we may die
with him.
And Philip said,
do what?
And in the Greek,
that's,
huh?
But he don't stop there.
When Jesus told him
in John 14,
he would prepare
a place for them
and where he goes,
he will go also.
It was Philip that said,
excuse me,
it was Thomas that said,
Lord,
we don't know
where you're going.
How can we know the way?
And Jesus said to him,
I'm the way,
the truth,
and the life.
No one comes to the Father
through me.
What he is most known for
is not being with the disciples
in the locked room
when the resurrected Lord
appeared to them.
And later,
they told Thomas
that they had seen Christ
resurrected
and he didn't believe it.
Notice what he says
in John 20.
It says,
so the other disciples
told him,
we've seen the Lord.
But he said,
unless I see in his hands
the marks of the nails
and place my finger
in the marks of the nails
and place my hand
in his side,
I'll never believe.
Eight days later,
his disciples
were inside again
and Thomas was with them.
Although the doors
was locked,
Jesus came
and stood among them
and said,
peace be with you.
And then he said to Thomas,
put your finger here
and see my hands
and put your hand
and place it in my side.
Do not disbelieve,
but believe.
And Thomas answered him,
my Lord
and my God.
It does not say
in scripture
that he touched his hands.
It does not say
that he touched his side.
And I personally believe
he didn't have to
because when he saw
the Lord,
he knew
and he said,
my Lord and my God.
It was a life-changing
experience
for Thomas.
Many historians concur
that he shared Christ
effectively in India
and that's where
he's buried.
And if you go
to India today,
there are still churches
that were established
during the first century
during his ministry.
He's believed
to have died
a martyr
by being ran through
with a spear.
God can change
and use
even a pessimist.
Give your kink to God
because he can.
Then there's the obscure.
The obscure is a man
named James the Less.
He's called the Less
probably due to his stature.
That's about all we know
about him.
It is interesting
that his dad's name
was Alphaeus.
And we learn
in Mark chapter 2
that Matthew's dad's name
was Alphaeus.
Now,
there's a lot of close connection
among the disciples.
As I've studied the disciples,
I realize they were all,
many of them
were already friends
before they ever met Jesus
and followed him.
Many of them
were from the same area.
Seven of them
are fishermen,
for instance.
So there's a possibility
that they could be brothers,
but there's nowhere
that it says that
except that Mark points out
both of their dad's names.
And he don't do that
for everybody.
History tells us
that James took
the gospel to Syria
and to Persia
where he was killed
for his faith.
Even when little see it
and it seems obscure,
God uses
those.
And then there's also
the zealous.
He was another man
named Simon.
Don't get your Simons mixed up.
This Simon is a former zealot.
That means that he's a militant,
politically motivated outlaw
that hated Rome
and wanted to bring down Rome
one man at a time.
The zealots were disruptors.
They were assassins.
They wanted to
take down Rome
and they
had men
that were called dagger men
who kept a small,
concealed,
curved,
bladed knife
in their robes,
underneath their robes.
They're bad dudes.
But you know what?
God changes bad dudes.
God doesn't work
in bad dudes.
I got to reading this
and I got to thinking
about something.
Can you imagine
you got Matthew
or Levi
who was the publican.
Now that means
that he
bought himself out
to take up taxes
for the Romans.
He aligned himself
and worked for
the Romans.
And then on the same
team
you've got Simon
the zealot
who hates the Romans.
How in the world
could two people
be on the same team
and be so different?
How can that happen?
God.
God does that.
It is believed
that Simon died
for his faith.
God can use a zealot
and he can turn
that zeal
into something
that changes people's life
for the gospel.
One more today
I want to talk about
and that's the humble.
There's another man
among the apostles
named Judas
and if you're that guy
no wonder you're humble.
You got the wrong name.
But
he was also called
Thaddeus
and I'm going to call him
Thaddeus
so we don't get
the Judas guys
mixed up.
Thaddeus
is a nickname.
It means breast child.
The modern translation
of that is
he's a mama's boy
just to be honest with you.
He is.
And I don't mean that
as a criticism
but he was soft hearted.
He was unassuming.
He was humble
and he was tender.
And he's mentioned
one other time
in scripture.
It's in the upper room
when Jesus
is telling them
that he'll ask
he will make himself
known to them.
and humbly
Judas asked him
Thaddeus asked him
Lord
how is it
that you will manifest
yourself to us
and not to the world?
What a
what a humble statement.
He couldn't believe
that Christ
would let himself
be known to them.
It was as if he was saying
who are we?
There's a great account
in history of Thaddeus.
Thaddeus took the gospel
to Mesopotamia
the modern day Turkey
today.
And he went to a king
named Kim Abgar.
This is told to us
by Eusebius
which is a reliable historian
and we find out
a lot about
what happened
to the apostles
after the days
that scripture writes about
from his accounts.
And
in this account
he goes to
King Abgar
of Edessa
and he lays
hands
on that king
and he heals
him of a debilitating
disease
and that king
came to Christ
and he encouraged
others to come
to Christ
as well.
Thaddeus did a
powerful work
for the Lord
before he was
beaten to death
by clubs
because of his faith.
So what are we?
Think about
your traits.
Are you so practical
that you make
everybody else
around you sick?
Always shutting
them down
when they want
to do something special?
No,
that's not practical.
Well,
God will cultivate that.
He'll use that.
Are you a skeptic
questioning
everything
that comes
down the way?
God can
nurture that.
He can work
with that.
Are you one
with a meticulous
nature?
A bean
counter?
One focused
on the details?
We need
folks like that.
God has a way
of refining
that,
smoothing
that.
Or are you
a pessimist?
Ask your neighbor.
They'll tell you.
God can make
a believer
out of you
as well.
He did Thomas.
Are you one
that's behind
the scenes?
Good.
We need
folks behind
the scenes.
We need
folks who are
willing to serve
the Lord
even if they're
not recognized
for it.
God uses
such as that.
Are you
one that's
full of
zeal?
If you are
throw your
knife blade
down please
and let the
Lord sanctify
that zeal
and God
will use
you powerfully.
Powerful things
can happen
for the Lord.
Are you so
humble that
you're shocked
that God
can ever
use you?
He can
and he
will.
But hear
me.
Don't let
the devil
humiliate you
into thinking
that you
can't be
used by
God.
None of
us have
excuses.
The apostles
teach us that
God does
extraordinary
things through
ordinary
people.
God
gathers
the most
unlikely
people
together
to do
the most
unbelievable
ministry.
I started
this morning
by talking
about D.L.
Moody.
Let me
quote him
one more
time.
He said
this,
I am
only one
but I
am one.
I can't
do everything
but I
can do
something.
What I
can do
I ought
to do
and by
God's
grace
I'll do
it.
May we
all be
the same
and then
do it.
With every
head bowed
and every
eye closed.
I want
to ask
you this
morning if
you've ever
given your
heart and
life to
the Lord
Jesus Christ
you may
find yourself
with some
of the
traits of
these guys
that just
came natural
for them
and it
comes natural
for you.
And I'm
thankful that
their stories
give us hope
that God
takes us as
we are and
makes us to
be what he'd
have us to
be but we
must surrender
who we are
to him.
And if
you've never
surrendered your
life to
Christ you've
never admitted
that you're
a sinner and
you're separated
from God
that you need
him to forgive
you of your
sins and to
come into your
life and
empower you and
change you
that's never
happened to you
I encourage you
today to come
follow the Lord
in obedience.
Maybe you're
here this morning
and you have
done that but
you've never
acknowledged that
through baptism.
We're baptizing
next week and
if you've never
been baptized as
a believer I
encourage you to
come we'd love
to line that up.
Set that up
with you.
Maybe God's
drawing you to
Pickens First
Baptist Church.
God's doing a
wonderful work
here and I
just want people
to be obedient.
I just want you
to follow what
the Lord's telling
you to do.
If you feel led
to commit your
life to follow
him here I
encourage you to
come.
God's doing a
good life to
do it.
And for all
of us I hope
today through the
scope of the
Holy Spirit of
God you've seen
those traits
within yourself.
Those traits that
may not be that
good and may be
pretty good but I
am thankful through
the Holy Spirit of
God through the
sanctification that
only he can give.
that our lives
can change and we
can become
productive for
Christ.
God can use us
in mighty ways if
we're open enough
to allow him to
use us.
Will you surrender
who you are today
to the Lord?
Whether it be in
the place you stand
or whether it be at
this altar or
whether you have a
pastor praying for
you.
Lord I'm ready to
serve you and I
ask that you'll
refine me to be
everything you'd
have me to be.
I don't know what
God's telling you
but I encourage you
just do exactly what
he tells you.
Trust him.
Heavenly Father I
love you and I
thank you Lord for
your love for us and
I ask right now
Father that you'll
have your will and
your way in our
midst.
Help us to be
obedient and follow
you as you lead.
In Jesus name.
Amen.