I think I can say with confidence that most job postings don't advertise for a candidate who will be lacking in areas of skill or ability.
Well, today on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg points out that as Christians Our inadequacies can actually make us useful. God. We begin today's study in 2 Corinthians chapter 2.
Now, when I went to Troas. To preach the gospel of Christ. and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind because I did not find my brother Titus there.
So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ. and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved. and those who are perishing.
To the one, we are the smell of death. to the other the fragrance of life. And who is equal? to such a task. Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit.
On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity like men sent from God. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter written on our hearts. known and read by everybody.
You show that you are a letter from Christ. The result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone. but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours. through Christ before God.
Not that we are competent in ourselves. to claim anything for ourselves. But our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant. Not of the letter, But of the spirit.
For the latter kills. But the spirit gives life. Amen. I want to approach the subject from four perspectives. First of all, to consider uh the biblical framework.
That underpins the Uh thesis in the title. Then to change gears from that and move to the cultural setting, then to change gears again and to ask a question concerning the contemporary church, and then finally to look at the whole matter in relationship to ourselves. As individuals.
So I'll try and make my points clear as I go along, looking first of all at it, if you like, biblically. The Oxford English Dictionary, which is the only dictionary that anyone should really pay attention to. Yeah. Defines inadequacy as quotes: the condition or quality of being inadequate. If you think about that, you look up a dictionary for help, and that's as good as it can do.
Perhaps I misspoke in commending the dictionary at all. But rather, what it is pointing out is that inadequacy is. An indication of being unequal to what a task requires. And it is that very issue that in the NIV from which I was reading, Paul addresses at the very end of verse 16 and in a simple sentence when he asks the question, who is equal to such a task? What Paul is doing there is he's addressing the issue of adequacy.
And his expressions of confidence, particularly in this second letter. are not displays of self-assumption. He freely admits, as you would have noticed towards the end of our reading. that he is unequal to the task in himself. And he makes it perfectly clear that the secret to his usefulness in ministry.
cannot be traced to any natural competence.
So, in verse 5, again, not that we are competent or sufficient or adequate in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves. But our competence comes from God. Now, this is not an aberration on the part of Paul. This is true to his self-designation throughout all of his letters. Classically, in 1 Corinthians 15, he says on that occasion, I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am. and his grace towards me was not in vain. And it is this perspective which underpins Paul's entire understanding not only of himself but also of the ministry to which God has called him. And in addressing the Corinthians in his second letter, part of the challenge that he faces is found in responding to those who have opposed him and who accuse him of being cowardly and of being unworldly, of being worldly, I should say, and of being something of a second-class citizen when it comes to the things of Christ. And if you have an NIV and you're open there, chapter 10 has the heading: Paul's Defense of His Ministry.
And his defense of his ministry is a reluctant defense. Because he recognizes at the very end of chapter 10, that it's not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. He actually says that directly in verse 12, somewhat ironically, we do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. What you say about yourself means nothing in God's Word.
It's what God says about you that matters. That's how he finishes chapter 10. And so he says, if there's any boasting to be done, it mustn't be about personal achievements. but rather it must be about the Lord. And it is the Lord who has been underpinning all that Paul has done all the way through.
So that when, for example, in his first letter he writes concerning success and encouragement in evangelism, in the sowing of the seeds of the gospel, he puts it succinctly and with great humility. I planted Apollos watered, But God gave the growth. I did the job of planting, he said, and others did their part.
Now, when we reach chapter 11, we discover that his detractors have been boasting, among other things, about their Jewishness. and about their servanthood. And that is why he says in verse 22: Are they Hebrews?
So am I. Are the Israelites?
So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants?
So am I. Are they the servants of Christ? And then he says, I am out of my mind to talk like this. I am more.
Now when he then goes to the Moor, What he goes on to describe is his experience of suffering for Christ. He does not list his credentials. But rather he says, and I'm out of my mind to say this, If you want to consider my life and my ministry, then consider it distinctly in terms of inadequacy. And then he goes through his list. Been in prison more frequently, flogged more severely, been exposed to death again and again and all the way through.
It's not dissimilar to what he does when he ends his letter in Galatians. He says, I don't want really to have any trouble from any of you that I've written to. And he doesn't then say, Because you all know how prestigious I am, because you all know that I am the great mighty Apostle Paul. No, if you recall, what he says is, I don't really want to have any trouble from you, because I bear in my body the marks of Christ. In other words, his credential is a credential of weakness.
His appeal Is the appeal of a back that has been broken open in the service of Jesus Christ. If there is to be any boasting, he says, let it then be boasting in the Lord. And perhaps to illustrate the very point at the end of chapter 11, he says. If I'm going to boast, I'll boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I'm not telling lies.
And then he says, In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket for a year. from a window in the wall. and I slip through his hands. Not exactly an auspicious departure.
From Damascus? Could he ever have forgotten the great contrast? between the way in which he had proceeded to Damascus in all of the pride of his heart. Breathing out threatenings and slaughter against those who name the name of Jesus Christ. And now he leaves squeezed into a basket.
and pushed out through the wall. and scarpering away to safety. Says wait, it was there. that the persecutor became the persecuted. And in that new experience now of persecution.
In all of the weakness that unfolds. Paul declares credentials of his ministry. And so in chapter 12, Which, of course, you are greatly familiar with. He is aware of the fact. That the opportunity for boasting.
Concerning the peculiar experience of being caught up into the third heaven. Is a wonderful one. If ever you had an opportunity to brag, to go on the equivalent of Christian TV and let everybody know what had happened to you in those strange moments, it is there for you to do. But he says, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to use that as a basis for self-promotion.
I'm not going to use that as a platform to set myself forward and make these people know who are my detractors, just how significant I am, and just what I have experienced of God, and all the things that are peculiar to me. He says, I'm not going to do that. I could do that. But I choose not to do that. It's along the lines of his arrival in Corinth, isn't it?
1 Corinthians 2. When I came to you, loved ones, I didn't come to you with this or with that. Not because he was incompetent in the term of his intellectual faculty. but because he recognized the incongruity in the proclamation of a message That was so foolish. There is a lesson in this in passing.
My boss in Edinburgh all those years ago makes a wonderful comment on this. He says, of all the contexts in which boasting is inappropriate, this surely heads the list. any genuine experience of God, is a gift of his love. and provides no basis for us. to elevate ourselves.
So he says, I'm not going to use this as a basis of elevation. And then he explains his thorn in the flesh in terms of God's purposeful intervention in his life. There was given me, verse 7, a thorn in my flesh. This is his theologizing of his experience. It's not our jurisdiction here to go into this just now.
But the way in which he expresses this, this striking, Peterson paraphrases it helpfully: because of the extravagance of these revelations, and to keep me from getting a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in touch with my limitations. I find that very helpful. Says Bengal, how dangerous. Must self Exaltation be. when the Apostle required so much restraint.
That God intervened in his life. At the deepest level of his physicality. in order to ensure that he would understand. That actually, it was in the experience of weakness and inadequacy. That is greatest usefulness.
was to be found.
Now Let's finish this first point with just a couple of comments. It is In the confrontation with inadequacy, that he discovers that God's grace is sufficient. You will notice that his weakness is not removed. He asked For this thorn in the flesh to be removed, that is not removed. But the weakness becomes the conduit of God's power.
And I think verse 10. gives it to us perfectly in that sentence, doesn't it? The paradox of grace When I am weak. Then I am strong. When I am weak, then I am strong.
Here I suggest to you is the principle of all effective service. And if I may jump outside of my first point for a moment, and this is why some of us will never amount to anything for God. Because we revolt against this principle. And I'm going to show you in a moment. Just why we are prone to do so.
The glory does not lie in our inadequacy. This is not a plea for going around like Uriah heap. Trying to tell everybody I'm a very humble man, Mr. Copperfield. I am your ambush servant.
Master copper field. If you know David Copperfield. The glory does not lie in our inadequacy. but lies in the adequacy of Christ. which is discovered.
in our weakness. and in our insufficiency.
So, again, Peterson's paraphrase at the end, he says, Now I take limitations in my stride, and with good cheer. These limitations that cut me down to size. And so the weaker I get. The stronger. I become.
Well, there we have it. That's enough on the first point. I think instead of my insufficiency proving to be a barrier to usefulness, The reverse is the case. Since dependence Is the objective Weakness. is the advantage.
Secondly, let's look at it in terms of the Cultural setting in which we read our Bibles and in which we respond to these truths. A culture. That to borrow a phrase from David Wells, has quotes a bloated sense of human capacity. a bloated sense of human capacity. In keeping with that assessment, and writing in the Wall Street Journal in July 2009, Peggy Noonan observed in one of her columns.
Quotes, for thirty years. The self-esteem movement told the young They're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history. An entire generation. with no proper sense of inadequacy.
An entire generation with no proper sense. of inadequacy. Those of you who are sociologists will be familiar with the book Therapy Culture, written by a professor from Kent University in the south of England, Frank Feuridi, or Feuridi. And in that book he records At the beginning he has some very uh helpful uh graphs. And in one of them, he records a search of 300 United Kingdom newspapers in 1980.
He searched 300 newspapers looking for a reference to self-esteem. In 1980, They couldn't find a single one. In 1986, they found three citations. By 1990, there were 103. A decade later, in 2000, There were a staggering 3,328 references.
Who knows? how many there are today. But what we do know today Is that living for oneself and feeling good about oneself is increasingly The central and controlling feature of human existence. And such an orientation has no place for the men. For thoughts.
of inadequacy. Because to tolerate such notions works against. The absolute essentiality of maintaining a favourable opinion of oneself. Whatever else happens. We must never ever lose that.
It is the key to everything our world tells us. Says Fiordi in his book, Low Self-Esteem, is one of the most overused diagnoses for the problem of the human condition. And if you care to read the book, he works it out very helpfully. Earlier this year, around the time of college and university graduation, David Brooks wrote an editorial in the New York Times entitled It's Not About You. He described the graduates setting off into the world with what he refers to as the baby boomer theology.
so often iterated in commencement addresses ringing in their ears. And then he articulates that theology. Follow your path. Passion. Chart your own course.
Follow your dreams. Find yourself. This, says Brooks, is the litany of expressive individualism. which is still the dominant theme. in American culture.
Again, quoting him. Today's graduates enter a cultural climate that preaches the self. as the center of life. But says Brooks in his concluding sentence, the purpose in life is not to find yourself. It is To lose yourself.
Are we going to have to turn to the editorial pages of the New York Times, in order to correct the warped theology of contemporary evangelicalism? And we shouldn't assume that this kind of pushback To any realistic, proper sense of inadequacy, he's a twenty-fourth. sensory phenomenon because it isn't. In nineteen forty-six, John Sloan who was then president of Dartmouth College, told the graduating class, Quotes, there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix. In 2010, Jim Kong Young Kim.
Referenced the statement from 1946 and then told the graduating class: quotes, you are the better human beings we've all. been waiting for.
Now, if you found the statement in 1946 staggering, what do you make of such a statement in 2010? The starting point for this mentality actually is not high school graduation. It's beginning a lot earlier than that, as those of you who are doing child psychology know. The time when children could relax and be children and fall off their bikes and fail. has has faded into the dim and distant past.
Achievement is aspired to from the moment of birth, if not before. William Cohen in the New York Times says nowadays parents hire tutors to correct the pitching motions of little leaguers. Because the one thing we couldn't possibly tolerate is for little Freddie to be a failure. or to find out that he has an inadequate little left arm. And he's just going to have to live with it for the rest of his life.
Now you're sensible people, you read the papers, you you review culture. Every so often, a discordant note sounds.
Someone introduces the idea of inadequacy or failure as important to usefulness.
Someone as significant in Steve as Steve Jobs. In his now legendary graduation speech at Stanford University in 2005. Steve Jobs at least moved in the direction of Paul's perspective when he tied his being fired from Apple at the age of 30. To significant progress in his later life. This is what he said: It turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to me.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. less sure. about everything. Uh But actually, that perspective is still more than a Sabbath day's journey away from. the biblical framework.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear more about strength and weakness tomorrow.
Now, if you're a parent or a grandparent, We want to encourage you to request the book we are recommending to day. It's called Grounded in Grace. Helping Kids Build Their Identity in Christ. This is a book that addresses an issue many young people are struggling with. They are trying to find their identity.
You may have a child in your family who has placed significant emphasis on athletic or academic performance. even to the point of rooting their identity in their aptitude. While the book we're recommending offers parents guidance on how to redirect a child, to first and foremost define their identity as belonging to Christ. This book was written by Jonathan Holmes. He's a biblical counselor and a father of four.
He offers a practical roadmap to help you disciple kids through identity struggles and to help parents and grandparents better understand the societal pressures that children are dealing with. You'll find many helpful tips to encourage open and honest conversations about self-worth. how to nurture your teen or young adult to build his or her identity in Jesus rather than in their feelings or activities. And if you don't have children or grandchildren, let me suggest you get a copy of this book, Grounded in Grace, and gift it to a parent or a teacher or to your church's youth ministry. The book is yours when you make a donation to Truth for Life.
You can do that online at truthforlife.org/slash donate or call us at 888-488-888. five eight eight seven eight eight four. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll take a step back and view the church and ourselves from God's perspective. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life.
With the learning. Is for living.
