MADE SUFFICIENT
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 11, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; October 11, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Theme: Whoever God calls to proclaim the new covenant He also makes sufficient for it.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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As the apostle Paul would put it, we declare the glorious message of ‘the new covenant’ from God—which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now; when you think of the greatness of the message we bear, you may not feel adequate in and of yourself to declare it. I know that I certainly don’t. And as we come to this morning’s passage in 2 Corinthians 3, we find that even Paul—the greatest preacher and evangelist who ever lived—did not feel adequate for it. In describing his part in it all, he said, “And who is sufficient for these things?” But in this morning’s passage—in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6—Paul made it clear that the sufficiency of himself and his co-laborers for the ministry of the gospel was not to be found in themselves. There was nothing about them that made them adequate. There is, in fact, nothing in any human being that could ever make them adequate for such a thing. Rather, Paul’s sufficiency—and the sufficiency of his ministry partners and fellow preachers—and the sufficiency of you and me as well—is found in God alone. He Himself makes us sufficient.
As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6;
And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:4-6).
These words teach us, dear brothers and sisters, that we should never fear, or hold back, or hesitate the least bit from declaring this greatest of all messages to the world. If God gives us any kind of opportunity to proclaim the gospel of Jesus in any way in the situations of life in which He places us, we shouldn’t worry about whether or not we are qualified, or whether or not we are respectable enough, or whether or not we’re considered worthy enough in the eyes of this world to proclaim it. By faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made sufficient to faithfully tell people who Jesus is, and what He has done for us on the cross, and call people to place their faith in Him, and to lead them to salvation. And this is because—as Paul shows us in this passage—whoever God calls to proclaim the new covenant He also makes sufficient for it.
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Now; the apostle Paul had a particular reason for writing about his and his co-workers’ sufficiency in Christ to the Corinthians. As we see from reading on further in this letter, false teachers had apparently made their way into the church family in Corinth. They were teaching these Gentile Christians that they needed to return to the old forms and patterns of the Old Testament Jewish laws and rituals in order to be acceptable in God’s sight.
And in the process of declaring their false doctrine, they were seeking to discredit Paul himself—calling his qualifications and adequacy into question. They were doubting his apostolic authority—claiming that they were more qualified, by their learnedness and their excellent speaking abilities, to be considered more ‘apostolic’ than he was. Paul, they pointed out, was weak in his personal appearance, and his speaking abilities were not very impressive. They even advanced the idea that he was inferior to the most eminent apostles. And besides—what right did he have to put forth this ‘gospel’ of his as if it was the truth from God?
Does that kind of talk sound familiar? Have you ever been made to feel as if you had no right to declare the message of the gospel as if it were the authoritative, absolute truth?—or that you didn’t have the competency or authority in and of yourself to speak it to the issues that people deal with today? As a result of hearing talk like that, have you been tempted to be silent when the opportunity came to share the message of the gospel? Have you been made to feel ‘insufficient’ and ‘inadequate’ for it? I know that I have been made to feel that way—many times.
And here is the thing I have learned. The truth is that I am insufficient for it—in and of myself, that is. And so are you. But that doesn’t matter. Our sufficiency, dear brothers and sisters, doesn’t reside in anything about ourselves. Our sufficiency is completely from our Lord who has authorized us and who has empowered us to be His ambassadors in this world.
After He was raised from the dead, He said,
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
And just before He ascended to the Father, He told His disciples,
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Our authority for this great message that we bear isn’t in ourselves at all. And not even the power to proclaim is of ourselves. It is all through the God who called us, and who gives us the message of His love for this world, and who sends us with the promise of His enablement. And so, we should open our mouths in this world and speak the message of the Good News with all confidence in the mighty God who makes us sufficient for it.
That is what Paul’s words in this passage encourages us to remember.
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Now; to really understand this morning’s passage in these three verses, it’s helpful to take Paul’s affirmations in reverse order. Near the end of this passage, he speaks of how God had made him and his fellow missionaries “sufficient as ministers of the new covenant”. We need to understand what our message is before we can appreciate our sufficiency to declare it.
So; let’s start by looking at what Paul tells us about …
1. THE LIFE-GIVING POWER OF THE NEW COVENANT.
In the Bible, a ‘covenant’ is an agreement that God enters into with His people. It’s not quite the same thing as when one human being makes an agreement with another, though. In a human agreement, people enter into it as equals. But in a covenant that God makes with His people, He is the one who sets the terms by which they will be made acceptable in His sight.
Back in Exodus 19, God entered into a covenant with the children of Israel. After He had delivered them from their bondage in Egypt, He brought them to Mount Sinai and spoke to them in great power and fearsome glory. The mountain shook and was covered with smoke; and He gave the message to Moses to give to them. He said,
“Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel” (Exodus 19:3-6).
The people trembled at the glory of God on the mountain. And they agreed to the terms of the covenant that He made with them. God then gave them the law—summarized in the Ten Commandments—and wrote those commandments with letters onto tablets of stone. If they kept His good commandments and holy ordinances, and were faithful to obey Him in all that He told them, then they would be accepted in His sight. They would be His people—His holy nation.
Now; that was the old covenant. But that old covenant did not end up being good news. The people could not keep God’s commandments. His commandments and laws and ordinances were all good and holy in and of themselves; but they only ended up showing forth the sinful failure of the people. Those laws—written in letters upon stone—could never make the people holy; because the ability to keep them was not in them. The people of Israel lived under those holy laws for 1,500 years; but those laws only ended up bringing condemnation upon them. It made them into lawbreakers who were worthy of death. The people constantly had to go to the temple, so that the priests could offer the blood of bulls and lambs and goats in order to atone for their many sins.
Every offering they made was a reminder that a completely new covenant was needed. And God provided that new covenant! Back in Jeremiah 31—back in the days when the old covenant was still in effect—God made this glorious promise to His people through the prophet Jeremiah;
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
In establishing this new covenant, God wasn’t promising to set His law aside. He could never do that, because His law was holy. It was—and forever will be—an expression of who He is as a holy God. But instead of changing His law, God would change His people. He established a new and better covenant in which His people would no longer read the law—written in letters on stone outside of themselves—and then be required to keep it in their own power. No longer would they be subject to the strict letter of the law—and thus end up suffering the condemnation of death for their failure to keep it. Instead, in this new covenant, He would write His law upon their minds and hearts. He would declare them righteous as a gift of His grace, and would give them the inward ability to walk in accordance with His holy standards, and would make it possible for them to know Him in a personal way, and would completely forgive all their sins.
And dear brothers and sisters; it is Jesus who—through the will of His Father—has brought this new covenant into being for us. As it says in Hebrews 9:13-15;
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:13-15).
Jesus—the sinless Son of God—was sent by the Father to be born into the human family. He was born under the law. But as one of us, He kept God’s law for us perfectly; so that His righteous obedience could be credited to us by faith. And then, He took the guilt of our sins upon Himself and paid the full death penalty in our place; so that our sins can be completely forgiven. And now—under the new covenant—we’re told;
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16-17).
When you and I place our faith in what Jesus did for us—in the sinless life He lived for us, and in the atoning sacrifice He made on the cross for us—then all of our sins are forgiven, and we are declared righteous in God’s sight as a gift of His grace. And what’s more, when we believe on Jesus, God the Father places the Holy Spirit in us. The Spirit seals us as belonging to the Father; and He takes up permanent residence within us to help and to enable us so that we are transformed from within. The Holy Spirit helps us to live the life that pleases our holy heavenly Father; so that, by the Spirit—through faith in Jesus—we walk through life in conformity to the Father’s holy standards. We don’t do it outwardly—by the letter; but rather inwardly—by the Spirit.
And this is the new covenant that Paul felt so privileged to proclaim. It is the most glorious news the world has ever heard. It’s the happy message that the people of this world most need to receive. It’s the new agreement that God makes with sinners by which they are now made 100% acceptable in His sight; “… not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”. No wonder Paul was thrilled to proclaim it! It’s the most life-transforming message the world could ever know.
By the way—have you believed it? Have you placed your faith in what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross? I hope you have. And if you have, then it is your privilege to proclaim it too.
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But who is adequate to proclaim such a message? Who is sufficient for it? As we continue to work our way backward in our passage, we see …
2. THE SUFFICIENCY OF ITS MINISTERS THROUGH GOD.
As we see in verses 5-6, Paul says, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant …”
The false teachers who were discrediting Paul had made their own teaching up from out of their own imaginations and on the basis of their own authority. It all originated with them. But this glorious message—the message of the new covenant—did not originate with Paul or the other apostles. It was given to them, by God, to preach to the world. In Galatians 1:11-12, Paul wrote;
But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12).
And not only was the content of the message of the new covenant given to Paul, but so also was the ability to preach it. In terms of his own qualifications, he was completely unworthy to declare it. But as he wrote in 1 Timothy 1;
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever (1 Timothy 1:12-17).
Paul’s own sense of unworthiness caused him to be unspeakably grateful that he was able to proclaim this great message. In Ephesians 3, he wrote;
To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him (Ephesians 3:8-13).
Now, dear brothers and sisters; if a man like Paul—who was formerly a vicious persecutor of the church—could be saved and made sufficient to proclaim the gospel, then so can we. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say once that sharing the gospel is just a matter of ‘one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread’. And that’s true—except that we’re declaring where to find the greatest bakery in the universe, and that the Baker is empowering us to make the declaration available to all.
It’s never because of any sufficiency in and of ourselves—not even to think of anything as having come from ourselves. It never will be. It is only—and only ever will be—because God has made us sufficient by grace.
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So; that is our message. And that is our sufficiency to proclaim it. And leads us—finally—to …
3. THE CONFIDENCE THAT COMES FROM THE SUFFICIENCY.
In verse 4, Paul says, “And we have such trust through Christ toward God.”
What ‘trust’ or ‘confidence’ is he speaking of? We find it in verses 1-3; where he wrote;
Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart (vv. 1-3).
Paul and his fellow missionaries didn’t need special letters of reference in order to prove that they were authorized to preach the good news. They knew that they had been given a message to proclaim—the message of the new covenant in Christ that results in the transformed life of all who believe it and enter into it by faith. They knew that they were completely sufficient by God’s grace to proclaim such a message. All they had to do was preach it—and the transformation of life that resulted was all the proof that is needed of its power.
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So; let’s read the words of Paul in our passage again—this time from the beginning to the end. He said;
And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (vv. 4-6).
This same message—this good news of the ‘new covenant’ in Christ—has been entrusted to you and me, dear brothers and sisters. We may not feel worthy of it. And the people of this world may not think that we are qualified to proclaim it to them. But our sufficiency doesn’t come from us. We are sufficient only because God Himself gives us the message makes us qualified to declare it.
And so, in complete confidence, let’s declare it—where ever God places us, and however He opens the door for us to do so. For when it comes to whoever God calls to proclaim the new covenant, we can be sure that He Himself makes them sufficient for it.
EA
