Inadequacy | casm.org

"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
2 Corinthians 3:5-6

Introduction

Do you face feelings of inadequacy when it comes to serving God in ministry? How do you deal with those feelings? How do you overcome them? Here the Apostle answers the question that he previously asked in 2 Corinthians 2:16: "... And who is adequate for these things?" Who, in and of himself, is sufficient to expound the meaning of the gospel? Who is able to unfold the contours of the gospel? Who is able to exemplify completely the Spirit of the gospel? Who is fit to work into the souls of men the eternal principles of the gospel? When it comes to serving God, the Apostle seeks to convey to his readers and to us that we are nothing more than agents or instruments in the hands of God. To accomplish this, he sets before us three key truths about the Christian and Christian ministry.

First, there is an insufficiency of human power — "Not that we are adequate in ourselves...."

When it comes to discharging the duty laid upon the Apostle, he leaves us with no doubt as to the source of his sufficiency. To be "adequate" means to possess sufficient resources to meet specified requirements. Yet, here Paul tells us that his fitness was not of himself or out of himself. He did not possess sufficient resources to meet God's specific requirements for gospel ministry.

To understand this, we must consider:

The deficiencies of the human agent. No Christian worker has an adequate view of the Savior he preaches; none has a complete sympathy for the souls of men; none has the powers of persuasion sufficient for the needs of each case; and none has the burning zeal for God which was perfectly displayed by Christ alone. Do you believe this? Can you see this in your life?
The difficulties of the spiritual work. In ministering to others, we are confronted with the ignorance of men, the willfulness of men, the sinfulness of men, the blindness of men, the hardness of men, the shamelessness of men, the ruthlessness of men, and the waywardness of men. When we consider these deep-rooted and scriptural realities, we must ask, "Who is adequate to deal with these things?"

The deficiencies of human agents and the difficulties of spiritual work are two facts that show us our complete lack of sufficiency to be effective ministers of the gospel.

Second, there is a sufficiency of divine grace — "... but our adequacy is from God...."

The source of adequacy or fitness for Christian ministry is not from ourselves, meaning that it is not self-acquired or self-sustained, but it comes "from God." This means that God is the source of both our confidence and our competency. To whom is this adequacy revealed and given? It is revealed to those who see ministry not as a profession, but as a calling. It is revealed to those who realize the preciousness and inestimable worth of a soul. It is revealed to those who highly prize and value the things of eternity over the things of time. It is revealed to those, and only those, who are sincerely conscious of their own powerlessness and the inadequacy of human aid. It is revealed to those who do not view ministry as routine or ordinary, but as a royal privilege rendered to the Most High God! It is revealed to those who have a conviction (burden that must be acted upon) that service to God is the highest and most important work that anyone can be engaged in and for which only the power of God is sufficient.

This is where the Christian worker must begin and this is where he must stay, realizing to the end that all of his strength is imparted and divine.

However, the mere sense of insufficiency can and will discourage and paralyze you, so we must move on and learn to say, "our adequacy is from God." If you were to say, "I am not very gifted and, therefore, it is not worth trying to use what I have," then you have a false modesty. Notice the balance of the Apostle:

We are not sufficient.
Our sufficiency is from God.
He has made us adequate servants.

This is true humility and faith mixed together. He is giving us an example we must always remember — that our sufficiency is not our own, but we must be continually drawing from the ever-present Christ all the resources we need. We do this by living a life of dependence and faith. The poet put it well when he wrote,

My hands were strong in fancied strength,
But not in power divine;
And bold to take up tasks at length,
That were not His but mine.
The Master came and touched my hands;
And might was in His own;
But mine, since then, have powerless been,
Save His are laid thereon.
And it is only thus, said He,
That I can work My works in thee.

From this truth, three practical lessons arise that are essential for the Christian worker to understand:

God's commission is an assurance that He will not withhold the assistance needed. The work is His, the call is His, and the authority is His. Therefore, you can rest assured that God's Word will never lead you where His grace won't keep you. (Cf. 1 Cor. 15:10)
God's Spirit is the divine agent in His work that assists all His faithful servants, strengthening the weak, so that great results are accomplished. (Cf. Zech. 4:6)
God's effectual grace overcomes the obstacles encountered by the sinner's heart and makes what appears to be weak strong and mighty to save to the glory of God.

Recap:

There is an insufficiency of human power.
There is a sufficiency of divine grace.

Third, there is an efficiency of God's plan — "... who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant...."

In Christian ministry, laziness or willfulness disqualifies a man from effective service. Laziness is a sign of a man being in the flesh and a reflection of a character flaw. Willfulness is a sign that a man is still unbroken in self. There is a difference between willfulness and willingness or determination. Willfullness says, "I want to do this regardless of what anyone else says." Determination says, "By God's grace I will be faithful to His way and I am willing to be broken bread and a drink offering for others."

God is said to work in us and through us, but not without us or in spite of us (Cf. 1 Thess. 2:13; Phil.2:13). The question is: how does God make us adequate as servants? According to 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, the effectiveness of the servant hinges upon two factors: 1) the training of his spirit and 2) the willingness of the servant.

"For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope ...."

To train us to be used, God so arranges our environment that our outward man may be broken. He places us in circumstances completely beyond our ability to cope with or greater than we can endure. A thorn in the flesh comes (2 Cor. 12:7ff) or an adversary arises (1 Cor. 16:9), and we have no way to get through it. These divinely ordained circumstances produce a two-fold result:

Negatively, to break down our outward man so that we learn not to trust in ourselves (2 Cor. 12:9).
Positively, to build up our inner man so that we learn to hope in God (2 Cor. 12:10).

We enter the trial in weakness yet believing; we come out in strength. We enter in death; we exit with resurrected life (Cf. Phil. 3:8-11). As a Christian worker, you should know that God is building your ministry through each trial and difficulty. If there is no thorn, then there is no grace, and thus, no power in ministry.

However, usefulness not only involves the training of our spirit, but also the willingness of our hearts. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord warned the disciples that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41). To engage in spiritual things like prayer, discipleship, or the ministry of the Word, the Spirit is willing to reach out to people in spite of their coldness or hardness, but each time this ministry is exercised, it comes at a great cost to ourselves. Concentration, focus, spiritual and mental alertness, and emotional stability are all needed in order to be an effective servant. Why? Because ministry is not just giving out facts or doctrines. It is not just doing the minimum and trying to stay safe. Ministry demands a giving of yourself — your heart, your soul, your mind, and your spirit — all in the midst of a cosmic conflict context. Some people serve by giving only the truth; but people are rarely affected. Other people serve by giving much of themselves but no truth, and people are not enriched or fed. The servant of God is to give both. (Cf. 1 Thess. 2:8)

In John 7:37-38, Jesus unfolds a wonderful insight about the Spirit and ministry. First, to the one who is thirsty, Jesus reveals that He is the one that we must come to in order to receive what we need. Now-do you know how to come to Jesus? I ask this question because some don't. We come to Jesus by faith and prayer (Heb. 11:6) as the one and only God and the all sufficient Savior (Heb. 4:16). To approach Him in any other way will not result in the fellowship of His presence.

The water that Jesus was referring to is the Holy Spirit. Second, Jesus reveals that to have Him is to have the Spirit. Third, the Spirit is taken into the believer's innermost being, but then afterwards, it is out of the depths of our being that the Holy Spirit flows to others.

Spiritual work is demanding and it drains and consumes not only our spiritual strength, but also our physical strength. We may not have to pay a high price every time we serve, but in order to be an effective servant of God, we must be willing to pay it, if need be. The question is, are you willing? How willing are you to stretch yourself and to be stretched to the limit? Often the degree of our usefulness in God's hands is directly tied to how willing we are to be instruments of God.

We have answered the question about how the Lord makes us adequate; now let us answer the question what does He make us adequate as? He makes us "adequate" or able ministers of a "new covenant" or a fresh covenant. This is the glory of our ministry. In 2 Corinthians 3:5-11, Paul contrasts the gospel with the Law to show us how glorious our ministry really is!

What do we have that is different from what the men of old possessed? It is "...not of the letter but of the Spirit..." In other words, our ministry:

Our ministry has a God-given proof of its reality, namely, the transformation of peoples lives (2 Cor. 3:1-3).
Our ministry comes with a God-given proof of our calling, namely, a confidence of God's power to transform people through the gospel (vv. 4-6).
Our ministry is not fading, but lasting. It brings liberty not bondage, and it enables us to look upon the glory of God in the Savior's face-as the way of increasingly becoming like Him in character (vv. 7-18).

Isn't this wonderful? Who wouldn't want to be a part of a ministry like this? Three truths that flow from this text are:

The insufficiency of human power
The sufficiency of divine grace
The efficiency of God's plan

In closing, remember that Paul's aim is to be understood. To help us get it, the Apostle gives us two pictures. The first is of a letter (2 Cor. 3:1-3), the second is of a reflection or, in our day, like a photograph (3:18). As Christians, we are to be letters. However, our credentials are not best seen by the letters of recommendation from former pastors or teachers, but in the lives of the people who have been transformed through our ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is said that a missionary was sent to an obscure Hindu village to receive a group of new converts into the mission, of whom the report had come that they had all become true Christians. As they were examined one by one, the missionary was delighted with their knowledge and experience, and they were all accepted. At last there came a poor, deformed, and stammering fellow, who seemed to have little knowledge or character; the missionary was about to reject him when all of the natives exclaimed, "This is the man from whom we learned all that we know of Jesus. It is he who brought us to Christ; how can you accept us and reject him?"

After that, there was no letter or proof needed. They were living epistles that witnessed of his work and his worth. His work was his highest witness. Can we say the same of ours? You can if you look to Jesus and lean on the sufficiency of His grace. The influence of our true character will always be discovered in the lives of those around us. How is your influence seen?

But how is this impression made on our lives and the lives of others? Is it made by pressing the truths of Scripture hard upon the souls of those around you? Is it made by chopping away at the rough edges of yourself and others until you can see a smooth and committed disciple? No, no, the process is not that of engraving, which is how letters were written in that day, but photographing.

On a photograph, an image is transferred or produced onto another medium with a flash of light. This is how God paints His pictures. It is by the flashlight of the Holy Spirit and a vision of the face of Christ that the image of the Son is transferred to our lives. It is as we behold by faith the glory of the Lord in the mirror of the Word that God transforms us and conforms us to His likeness.

Have you looked upon the face of Jesus until His light has shone back into your own? This is the great mystery that Paul explained (Col. 1:26-27), and if you think back to the beginning of your walk, it is the same thing you discovered which made you want to go and tell everyone what you had found. This is the process. We are to be a living, published letter and a genuine production of Jesus, a photograph that continues to reflect the glory of Him. Look away from yourself. Look upon His face. Lean upon His strength.

Application

In order to find the confidence to dispense the spiritual blessings that God has given to His people, we must know that it is:

By the inner work of the Spirit — o make sure that there is nothing that veils or resists the operation of the Spirit in your heart.
By the outward mirror of Christ — or the sight of Christ is a transforming sight; therefore, daily maintain your relationship with Christ as the "mirrored God." Here you will find that the mind of God will come to be your mind, the work of God will be your work, and the very life of God will be your life. Remove whatever veil that shields His face from you, whether it be ignorance, prejudice, or sin.