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  (CLIP) GOD USES THE AVAILABLE
  by Chuck Smith
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Summary: This sermon reflects on the speaker's journey of preparation by
God from childhood, influenced by their mother's vow to the Lord. It
emphasizes lessons of faith, obedience, trust, and humility learned
through lean years and experiences of failure, leading to a realization
that God's work is a mystery beyond human understanding. The speaker
acknowledges being used by God despite not fitting the traditional
scholarly image, highlighting how God uses simplicity to reveal profound
truths and confound human wisdom.

Topics: "Faith and Obedience", "God's Mysterious Ways"
Scripture References: Proverbs 3:5, 1 Corinthians 1:27, James 4:10, 1 Peter 5:6

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon reflects on the speaker's journey of preparation by God from
childhood, influenced by their mother's vow to the Lord. It emphasizes
lessons of faith, obedience, trust, and humility learned through lean
years and experiences of failure, leading to a realization that God's
work is a mystery beyond human understanding. The speaker acknowledges
being used by God despite not fitting the traditional scholarly image,
highlighting how God uses simplicity to reveal profound truths and
confound human wisdom.

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CONTENT
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You know, I don't know, except that He seemed to be preparing me from
early childhood. And maybe it goes back to my mother and her vow to the
Lord. Give me, you know, through this son, I will fulfill my vow to you.

And the early preparation and filling my mind and heart with the Word of
God. And then in the teaching me lessons of faith through those lean
years where we just received so little salary. Being obedient.

Being, yes. And teaching me to trust in Him. Teaching me then, and I
look at the experience of Corona the first time I was there.

And the failure. And that was an important lesson. So that when He
finally got me to the place where He could then do what He was wanting
to do, I wasn't going to take glory or try and take the credit for what
He did.

I'm sure that God wants to work. But I think that so many times people
have been destroyed because when they, God begins to use them, they
begin to try and figure out why God used me. And I think it's a mystery.

I look at it and I wonder why did God use me? He uses the simple things
He said to confound the wise. And so He, you know, I'm not a great, I
love the Word of God. I love to study the Word of God, but I'm not what
you would call a great scholar of the Word of God.

But yet He uses me. And probably because I'm not really what you would
classify as a theologian. They usually are teaching in seminaries and
not everybody can understand them.

But because I'm just a down-to-earth person, I can share the truths of
God in an understandable, simple way, because that's the only way I can
understand them myself. And so He uses that, you know, and those that
are truly wise and all, they come and they can understand the success
and all, because the things that they usually attribute success to are
not here. And He's just using simple things to confound the wise.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/6R30XEvFok8.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/chuck-smith/clip-god-uses-the-available/
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