Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, October 14th. Sometimes Christians just try too hard, but the gospel is clear that we don't get the Lord's favor by achievement. Today's podcast helps us learn and accept the blessings of our inadequacy. Inadequacy is a very uncomfortable feeling.
In fact, sometimes it's not just uncomfortable, it's very painful and it can be very embarrassing. Well, the truth is that all of us are inadequate to do certain things. And so when you think about it, you ask yourself the question, well, is there anything good that could come out of my feeling inadequate when a person should feel very adequate, very sufficient, very qualified, very capable at whatever their attempt in life? Well, that's what I want to talk about in this message, because there is something good that can come out of our sense of inadequacy.
The title of this message is the blessings of our inadequacy. And I want you to turn, if you will, to second Corinthians chapter three. The Apostle Paul, who appears to be a very adequate person in the ministry to which God calls him, gives us a tremendous principle here. I believe in this passage that would be helpful for all of us. In fact, if you listen carefully, this message could liberate you from a feeling of inadequacy that will keep you from enjoying God's best blessings in your life. Let me give you an idea of what is happening before we read this passage so you'll understand what it's about.
Otherwise, it doesn't sound quite so simple. The Apostle Paul had been preaching in the church that Corinth and been teaching them. And so as a result, people had been saved naturally and God was blessing. Then come the Judaizers. And the Judaizers were those who believed that you were saved by the grace of God, that is, by that salvation was by trusting Jesus as your savior, plus keeping the mosaic law. And so their idea was to infiltrate the church. And this is why the whole book of Galatians was written, is the Judaizers saying, if you want to be saved, you got to place your trust in Jesus, but you got to keep the mosaic law. And so the Apostle Paul called them in the chapter before this, he called them hucksters and the peddlers of the word of God.
And so what was happening was they were teaching and preaching a false doctrine and a false idea of faith. And so the Apostle Paul, in responding to that, listening to them, he said, for example, he said, now you've come from Jerusalem, these Judaizers, and you tell us that you have instructions and you have credentials from the important people in Jerusalem in order to validate your ministry. He says, I want you to know that the validation of my ministry is not somebody's paper or parchment. Validation of my ministry is that it's written in the hearts of these people. They've been converted and God has worked in their life. And I think one of the principles that's so important here is this, and that is that the mark of a genuine ministry is not how big it is, how rich it is, how broad it is.
But the question is, are people's lives being transformed? Paul said, if you want to see what my ministry is all about, look at the transformed lives here in the city of Corinth. Now with that in mind, I want you to look at this third chapter of 2 Corinthians, and let's begin reading these first six verses. He says, are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you? You are a letter written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the human hearts. He said, now, for example, the Ten Commandments written on stones, placed in the Ark of the Covenant could not save anybody.
But what's happened to you? He says, you've been saved by the grace of God. Look in verse four. And such confidence we have, though through Christ toward God, 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. He says, you know, the law of Moses could not save you.
It can only make you aware of your need of salvation. It is the grace of God that brings redemption into men's hearts. Now with that in mind, and with that background, and for that purpose, he's writing this, I want us to talk about this whole idea of inadequacy, because all of us experience it, not just once in our life, but many times. And I want us to look at Paul's confession of his own inadequacy. Listen to what he says in verse five.
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. Now here is a very educated man, a very skilled, qualified, capable man, a man who was certainly called by God, filled with the Holy Spirit, a man who had all the credentials of his day of being adequate to do most anything, and yet he says, I'm not adequate. Now, what I want us to notice here, first of all, is I want us to understand what motivated, what prompted the apostle Paul to go into this whole idea of adequacy here, inadequacy in his ministry with the people there in Corinth.
Well, I think the first thing is this. The apostle Paul was always overwhelmed. I believe he never got over the fact of being so overwhelmed at what God had called him to do and what God was doing through him. And so I want you to look back, if you will, to the second chapter now and beginning in verse fourteen, because Paul in this fourteen through the seventeen verses tells us something very important here.
And because when he, when Paul viewed his ministry and viewed what God was doing, he said, you know, there's no way I could be doing this. Now listen to this passage and then we'll give you a little background so you'll understand what he's talking about. He says, verse fourteen, but thanks be to God who always leads us in his triumph in Christ and manifest through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.
And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. What the Apostle Paul is using in this picture is this. He says that those of us who are believers are like a sweet fragrance of the Lord Jesus Christ to one another. That those of us who know Christ as our Savior, we are like sweet perfume to other believers.
But to those who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior, we are not a sweet perfume, but we're the smell of death. Because we remind them that there is a God. We remind them that there is going to be a judgment. We remind them of the penalty of sin. We remind them of the penalty of rejecting the Lord God. So he says to those of us who believe us, we are a sweet smelling fragrance of life and hope and assurance. But to those who do not know Christ, do not want to know him, we are the smell of death.
We're the fragrance of something they don't like. This is the reason people treat you the way they treat you on your job. This is the reason some people shun you when they find that you're a Christian. This is the reason some people, you sit out on an airplane with someone. Besides someone, you begin a conversation, you bring up the idea that you're a believer and all of a sudden they get real quiet, pick up a magazine, look out the window, do anything but talk to you no further.
Why? Because you suddenly sitting beside them, you are a threat. You are an image of something.
You are a signal of something. You indicate something to them they do not want to think about, they don't want to talk about. They don't want you to have you shoving your religion, they say, down their throat. Isn't it interesting that all you have to say is, I trust that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that's shoving religion down their throat.
That tells you how guilty they are, it tells you where they are in their life. So the Apostle Paul uses this to remind us and if you'll notice what he says in this verse, look in verse 16. He says, to the one in aroma from death to death, to the other in aroma from life to life, and who's adequate for these things? Paul is simply saying this. He says, the awesome power of the gospel to transform a person's life. He says, none of us are adequate for that. None of us can take credit for someone else being saved. No one of us can take credit because something in our life or something we said or something we did brought them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He said, who is adequate for these things?
And the answer is, of course, no one. So this is what motivated Paul here. A second thing that motivated him to say what he said was this. He did not want them to believe or to think that because of what he was saying that he was taking credit. He would not take credit, as brilliant as he was, as wise as he was, as capable as he was. Nowhere do you find the Apostle Paul taking credit for what's happening. But he says only God.
Listen to what he says. He says, who's adequate for these things? And so chapter three in these first few verses is his answer when he says, in such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything. Listen, he says nothing that has come from us made the difference. But he says our adequacy is from God and God alone, who also made us as adequate servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the Apostle Paul was very, very concerned about the fact that no one would think that he thought it was something that he did. And so therefore, he writes with that particular idea in mind. Now, when you and I think, for example, about why we feel inadequate, we said, for example, that people feel inadequate. Sometimes they are. Now, I think oftentimes we can genuinely feel inadequate. We face certain circumstances and situations in life. And so we say, but I feel so inadequate.
It is a sincere conviction about that thing. But sometimes we say we are inadequate because we do not want to face responsibility that is ours, that God has given us. Another reason is the fact that we're afraid of failure and we're afraid of someone else's criticism. So we say, well, you know, I'm so inadequate, I don't think I can handle that.
I don't think I can tackle that. Oftentimes, our excuse of inadequacy is the fact that we do not want to listen. We do not want to yield to God's call in our life. Well, feeling inadequate is not a sin. But the issue is, how do I respond to my feelings of inadequacy? Now, sometimes I can respond by saying, no, no, I'm not going to take that responsibility. I'm not going to do what I believe God is calling me to do because I feel so inadequate.
I know that I will fail and surely I just can't handle public failure. Well, I can understand that. But on the other hand, there is a right way to respond. And that's Paul's way. You see, he learned how he learned how to turn this feeling of inadequacy he had into something that was profitable for him, but profitable primarily for God. And so if I understand what my adequacy is, that God is my adequacy, if I understand that, no matter how inadequate I may feel at the moment, there's something happens on the inside of a person who learns how to claim, learns how to live out of the adequacy of Almighty God.
And the Apostle Paul certainly knew how to do that. And when I think about what people miss as a result, for example, of backing off when they feel inadequate, they miss the joy and the peace and the contentment and the happiness in life of doing things that they would not do because they feel inadequate. They miss oftentimes, listen, and they will miss the great reward that God has for them because they in their inadequacy, they serve the Lord the best they knew how the best they could.
And so I think oftentimes people miss that. And likewise, a person deprives other people, not just themselves, but they deprive other people, for example, someone who feels so inadequate, even in their friendship, they deprive someone else of their friendship. They feel so inadequate to even to encourage. So how can I encourage him?
How can I encourage her? You deprive someone else of the encouragement that they need because you don't feel adequate to do it. Or it may be that there is a place of service in the church and and we need you to do it. You say, well, but I just feel so inadequate.
What what happens is you deprive that person. I think of my first Sunday school teacher, Miss Eva Crane. Suppose you just said, I'm not teaching a bunch of kids. That old Stanley boy down there, the five years of age, I'm not having him sit in my class. Suppose you just said, well, give me an adult class.
I don't feel adequate to teach. You know what? The only thing I remember that woman ever did was to love me, smile at me and take my pennies and talk about Jesus in the church. Well, that's all I could handle, probably five years of age. And that was enough. But you know what she did? She built a foundation about going to church and giving to God. And something about love in my life is a five year old kid.
And even before that, probably three or four somewhere there abouts. Well, we feel inadequate because oftentimes we may be inadequate compared to other people. God does not compare you meet other people.
If he calls you to do something, he will equip you to do it. Therefore, our feelings of inadequacy are not bad feelings. They're not wrong feelings.
They're not sinful feelings if we respond to them in the right way. Well, when I look at the Apostle Paul and also ask the question, well, how could this man who said I am so inadequate and I feel like that none of these things are of me? Well, you say, well, now, isn't that a contradiction to what he said in Philippians chapter four when he said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's not a contradiction. It simply says that the Apostle Paul learned how to turn his inadequacy into something that was profitable for the kingdom of God.
He knew how to handle inadequacy. And what I want to happen to this message is I want us to be able to understand that there are blessings and inadequacy that we feel and how to turn that into the right thing that be profitable, whether it's in your home, your business, your church life, your witness, whatever it might be, because certainly there is a way of looking at in the proper fashion. And so what we have to ask is this. If the Apostle Paul in all of his weakness and all of his failure and he failed just like we did, the seventh chapter Romans said, you know, he said, what I want to do, I find myself not doing what I don't want to do. I find myself doing. If the Apostle Paul could experience failure and if he could experience success and he could experience God using him, will God do the same for us?
And the answer is yes. God will do. Listen, he will do for you what he did for the Apostle Paul.
The same thing. No, because that was his calling in life. You have your calling in life.
God has something he wants to do in your life and through you. The issue is, are you adequate to do what God has called you to do? No. Can God make you adequate in your relationship to him? Yes. Can we excuse our inadequacy for not obeying God and not following him and not serving him?
No, we cannot. I can remember the first time in my life when it became a reality to me, though I've been preaching a number of years, it became a reality to me that living the Christian life was not my responsibility. I had failed and failed and failed.
I remember I would get out of my travel trailer by myself and fast for three or four days, sometime a little longer, sometime a little less, praying and asking God to search my heart. I knew something was missing in my life. I thought, Lord, I'm trying my best to live the Christian life. I'm trying my best to do what you want me to do. And I failed over and over and over again.
God, what in the world is going on? I grew up in a church that laid down the law. I tried to follow the law. I did the best I knew how to, in spite of everything I did. I felt just like the Apostle Paul. That became one of my favorite passages, not because I liked it, but because it described me. What I don't want to do, I find myself doing. What I want to do, somehow I can't do it. Kneeling down on that old concrete floor and that study outside, for the first time in my life, I understood Almighty God did not require me to live the Christian life or to measure up to this awesome standard of holiness.
Because why? He says, I am the vine, you're the branch. The branch that is abiding in the vine, what is happening? The sap that runs in the vine, runs in the branch. What is it? Produces fruit, not branches, but what?
The Spirit, the sap that runs in the vine, in the branch, producing the fruit. All of a sudden, when I saw that, I thought, praise God, hallelujah, what I've been doing. The reason I couldn't do it is God wasn't about to let me do it. It's not His plan.
It's not His program. He's been bringing me, bringing me, bringing me to absolute total defeat and a sense of inadequacy, so that when I, in absolute desperation and total inadequacy, could say, oh God, show me the truth, picked up this little book and called it, they found the secret. Read the first chapter, Hudson Taylor. When I started reading that chapter, he sounded just like me. I thought, God, here's somebody that sounds just like me.
I hope he's got an answer. When he came to the illustration about the vine and the branch, I laid that book down, stretched that on that flat concrete floor, and I didn't get up until I knew that I had accepted the truth, that the Christian life is not what I do in my energy. It is what Almighty God, through His indwelling Son, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, does in and through my life. I remember driving up to the church parking lot and looking at that building and think, thank God, this is not my responsibility.
I mean, I've been driving up there thinking that thing weighed 40 tons every time I looked at it, thinking, God, this is not my responsibility. These people aren't my responsibility. You called me to preach the gospel and trust you. This is your work done in your way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Listen, when I understood how inadequate I was to live the Christian life, and I was reading the Bible every day studying the Word of God, preaching the gospel, and letting God use me to lead other people to accept Him in spite of all that, I was defeated in my Christian life. And listen, when I realized that I was absolutely totally inadequate to live the Christian life and to serve God, it was a liberating, freeing moment in my life.
Freeing moment to realize. Listen, it released me from the burden of trying to do what God would never equip me to do. Listen, I think about, for example, Billy Graham and think about Billy Sunday and think about Dwight L. Moody, all three of these men, none of them went to seminary. You think that bothered them? Not with God in their life it didn't bother them. And you see, most people think, well, if I don't have this education, if I don't have this and if I don't have that, all God is looking for. Listen, you don't have to be all this educated.
You don't have to have all these so-called worldly assets in your life. God is looking for men and women who are willing, listen, who are willing to bow their knees and their heart before Almighty God acknowledged that they have absolutely nothing within themselves to give and to say, Lord, here am I, send me. Thank you for listening to the blessings of our inadequacy. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, hop by In Touch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
