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Can I really do that? Our Adequacy in Christ
It’s simple enough, right? Those who abide or stay connected to Jesus
can do all things.
In our heads, we know these things, but do we
believe them in our hearts? I am
reminded of the father whose son was demon-possessed. You can read that account in Mark 9. He came and brought his son to Jesus’
disciples to heal him. Keep in mind that
Jesus had sent out the twelve disciples in Mark 6. He sent them out two by two and gave them
authority over evil spirits. They went
out and preached. They drove out many
demons and anointed many sick people and healed them. Enough had been done that it would not have
been a surprise that this father would have brought his son to Jesus’ disciples
for help.
But, without Jesus’ the disciples were not able
to drive out the evil spirit from this man’s son. Jesus returns at this moment, when the son is
not healed but rather is seized by convulsions.
When the father implores Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us
and help us.” Jesus replies, “Everything
is possible for the one who believes.”
The father replies, “I do belive; help my unbelief.” Or, help me overcome my unbelief.
And, I think, that is our focus for today. To be reminded of what God’s Word says about
what he has done in us and for us. To
move some of what God has said from head to heart.
Let’s take a moment and pray as we look into
God’s Word together.
Father God, we pray for Your insights now. Speak to us and help our unbelief. We desire to live the abundant life that You
have made possible in Jesus. Teach us
now, we pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Before we jump into what Jesus has done for
those who believe in Him. I want to
briefly consider what God has done for all of humankind.
Maybe you have heard the expression common
grace. The essence is summed up in
Matthew 5:45. God, “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends
rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
There is a general blessing that God has given to all people including
our unique identity and gifts.
Genesis 1:27 explains, “God created mankind in
his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created
them.” That says an awful lot about what
God thinks about people. We are created
in the image of God. There are multiple
different aspects that we could explore as to what it means to be made in His
image.
For one thing, we are not animals. This is a big problem with evolution. Evolution does not distinguish human from
animal. Such belief opens doors into all
sorts of confusion and ethical dilemmas that have fueled a great many tragedies
over the past 150 years.
Another way that humans have been created like
God, is that humans have a soul, an eternal essence. Or, if you remember C.S. Lewis’ thought, we
are souls that have bodies. This is
evidenced in humanity’s preoccupation with what happens after death and to some
degree even in our fear of death. If we
weren’t souls but were animals, life after death wouldn’t be a thought.
Another aspect of being made in the image of
God is personhood. God is three persons
(Father, Son, and Spirit) in one being.
People are one person in one being.
We have an identity. We have
names. We exist autonomously. We get to make decisions. We can have relationship with each other and
with God. In fact, we need
relationship. And, there are needs for
certain relationships.
We are made in the image of God. We are not copies of God. One of the differences is that we don’t have
community in ourselves. We are not
relationally sufficient as individuals.
We all need relationship with God.
While not every person is called to be married. God has created us male and female. There are different and complimentary
physiology and psychology between man and woman. This is God’s design, His plan.
In addition to having male and female, God has
made us each unique individuals. Psalm
139 reveals God’s working in each life from the very beginning. Verses 13-17 say, “For you created my inmost
being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was
made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the
earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came
to be. How precious to me are your
thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!”
The medical and scientific community knows so much
about the human body, but there is much that they do not know. One of the things that remains a mystery is
how the cells of a baby’s body know how to differentiate into all the different
kinds of organs and tissue. Some have
wondered whether we should take Psalm 139 at face value, God knitting each
person in their mother’s womb. These
cells go here. You others over
there. It says again in verse 15 that we
are woven together, fearfully – awe-inspiringly and wonderfully made. Verse 16 is a definite pro-life verse,
saying, “Your eyes saw my unformed body.”
The baby’s body is already formed at 8 weeks of a 40 week
pregnancy. But Psalm 139:16 says that
God sees us before that point, before we are “formed.”
These passages of scripture make clear that human
life is sacred. Every human being is an
image bearer of God. And so, there is an
adequacy within humanity in general. It
is given to us in our unique and individual creation. Yes, we are fallen. Yes, the “apparent adequacy” is affected by
many factors. But God’s Word and His
life giving power in each person is the reason why we treasure every
individual. This is why we respect
people regardless of any characteristic that the world might use to
discriminate. You and any person you see
has been created in the image of God.
On top of all these expressions of God’s common
grace toward humankind, God also blesses each individual with certain
gifts. In the church, you hear people
talk about spiritual gifts, but there are other gifts whether emotional,
mental, or physical. I list emotional
first because if you look at I Corinthians 13, it is clear that the most
important characteristic, the most excellent way, is love. I Corinthians chapter 12 begins with one of
the key passages in the bible about spiritual gifts. Then, it talks about how the body is made of
many parts. There is talk about some of
the roles in the body of Christ (apostles, prophets, teachers, and so on). Chapter 12 ends with the exhortation to
desire the greater gifts. Chapter 13
tells us that in spite of any other gift, if we do not have love, we are
discordant, we are nothing and we produce nothing.
In the world, there is often the most prejudice
and discrimination against those with mental limitations. And yet, many folks that have those
limitations, people that the world looks at as un-gifted, are often the most
loving and content, the most gifted of us all in the excellent way of love, the
greatest gift of all.
And so, we are each one fearfully and
wonderfully made. We are made adequate
to be in fellowship and relationship with God and with one another. Our identity and our adequacy are formed from
the foundation of the world and the depths of the earth. To quote a modern day theologian, “God made
you special, and He loves you very much.”
Or, there’s the wisdom of the cross stitch that was on my cousin’s wall
back in the seventies. “I know I’m
somebody, ‘cause God don’t make no junk.”
And yet, we don’t find that we can live up to
the gifts that God has given us, nor can we live out a life of healthy
relationships on our own. Carl shared
last week that a key component of our our identity is our insufficiency. We are not holy or perfect. We are not in a position where God does the
making and gifting, and we take over after that. We fall short, time and again. In spite of what God has placed in us from
before we were born, we are insufficient in a couple of ways. We are insufficient relationally. We need God and each other. We are also incapable of living in a right
way because of sin.
I think nearly all people are aware that they
have a big barrier to living in a pure or righteous or even a consistently
agreeable or peaceable way on their own.
But thankfully, that awareness is a good thing. Charles Spurgeon said it like this,
“Discovery of your own insufficiency ought to be the means of leading you to
the Lord.”
God knows our condition. He knows that we are broken by sin and even
in bondage to it apart from Him. In
preparing the message, I thought of the Michael W. Smith song, “Never Been
Unloved.” We sing it sometimes. It describes our condition apart from God.
I have been unfaithful;
I have been unworthy; I have been unrighteous, and I have been unmerciful.
I have been
unreachable; I have been unteachable; I have been unwilling; and I have been
undesirable.
Sometimes, I have been
unwise; I've been undone by what I'm unsure of.
I have been unbroken; I
have been unmended; I have been uneasy, and I've been unapproachable.
I've been unemotional;
I've been unexceptional; I've been undecided, and I have been unqualified.
Unaware, I have been
unfair; I've been unfit for blessings from above.
But because of You, and
all that you went through, I know that I have never been unloved.
And even I can see the
sacrifice You made for me, to show that I have never been unloved.
Ephesians 2 make our situation abundantly
clear.
As for you, you were dead in your
transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways
of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now
at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one
time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and
thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. – Ephesians
2:1-3
The perspective of these verses is in the past
because Paul was writing to people who have put their hope, their trust, their
faith in Jesus Christ. As a result ...
Because of His great love for us, God, who is
rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. – Ephesians 2:4-5
This righteousness is given through faith in
Jesus Christ to all who believe. – Romans 3:22
And so with that, we’re now fully adequate,
right? Sort of?
Well, God does not “just” do the saving, and
then we take over after that, either.
II Corinthians 3:5 is probably the key verse
about competence or adequacy.
Not that we are competent [adequate or
sufficient] in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence
comes from God. – II Corinthians 3:5
Jesus made it clear that this is an ongoing
reality of dependence in John 15:5. He
said,
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you
remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do
nothing. – John 15:5
Our competence, our adequacy is in Jesus, the
true vine. We have to stay connected to
Him in a relational and sustaining way.
That I think requires some humility.
Spurgeon taught on that pivotal verse from II
Corinthians 3:5. He exhorted, Let us not
aim at being original thinkers, but at being witnesses and heralds of what God
says to men. Our Lord Jesus did not strive to be an original thinker, for he
said, ‘My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me.’ The Holy Spirit does not
speak as an original thinker; for the Lord Jesus said, ‘He shall take from what
is Mine, and shall show it to you.’ As we have reminded you before, the
original thinker of the Bible is one of whom it is said, ‘When he speaks a lie,
he speaks of his own.’ We are not wishful to emulate him in such originality.
We are not sufficient to think [or claim] anything as from ourselves!
You see this in humility from both Joseph and
Daniel. Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Do not
interpretations belong to God.” (Genesis 40:8) Daniel said to King
Nebuchadnezzar, “No man can explain, but there is a God in heaven who reveals
mysteries.” (Daniel 2:27) Though both these men were able to interpret dreams,
they gave the credit to God for revealing these things to them.
Ephesians 5:15 gives us this warning,
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as
unwise but as wise. – Ephesians 5:15
The word careful has an aspect of accuracy
built in it. Be accurate then in how you
live. Where is your foundation. Are you resting in and on Christ, or are you
resting on yourself? Or other sources of
understanding?
It’s a challenge maybe to sort it all out. It’s not that we don’t think. We do think, but we desire to think as God
thinks, to reason as God reasons about things.
It’s not that we don’t work. We
do work, but we do all things in Christ.
In I Corinthians 15:10, Paul wrote, “But by the grace of God I am what I
am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of
them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
And in I Peter 4:11, Peter wrote,
If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who
speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the
strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus
Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. – I Peter
4:11
When we live in the adequacy we have in Christ,
we glorify God. And even more so, when
we are adequate in our areas of weakness or during times of weakness, we
glorify God all the more. That’s totally
opposite of what the world leads us to believe.
It says we should work from our own strengths.
II Corinthians 12:9 says,
He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more
gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – II Corinthians
12:9
II Corinthians 4:7 says,
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show
that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. – II Corinthians
4:7
I know I’ve been hanging on Spurgeon quite a
bit, but he has such powerful insights and fantastic turn of phrase. In line with these thoughts, he wrote, “The
more wonderful the work, the more intense the inquiry.” When the evidence of God’s workings is
strong, the desire to know what is really going on, to know Him increases.
I Peter 2:9 tells us, we “are a chosen people,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” Why?
“That you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His wonderful light.”
So, why do we feel inadequate at times? And, why do we disqualify ourselves from
declaring the praises of Him? I think
one of the key reasons is because of what we have done, thought, or
believed. We judge ourselves, and we
forget that after we confess our sins, the Lord remembers our sins no more.
Thinking back to II Corinthians 3:5, Spurgeon
introduced an expression, I’ve not heard before. Do we need “thinking-grace?” By thinking grace, he meant do we need help
to think properly? I think that the
answer is unequivocally, “Yes!” We need
thinking grace.
I work as a manager, so I have tried to be open
to learn about leading professionals over the years. In recent times, storytelling has become more
and more recognized as an important method of communication, as a way of
guiding the decision-making process, as a way to establish culture. In just the last couple of months, I’ve seen
more writing directed at controlling your own story. Some authors seem more grounded than
others. One talked about how you should
think about what your future might be and then live looking toward that future
considering what role you are playing in your own story. Are you living as the hero, the victim, the
villain or the guide. I could see some
virtue in that methodology. It has merit
in finding out whether you have “stinking thinking.”
Other authors though are downright “name it,
claim it” or “believe and receive.”
Choose your story, change your life.
Rewrite your life. “Uncover how
you created the life you have through the stories you’ve been telling
yourself.” When I hear something like
that, I wonder am I capable to write a good story for myself? I have several times in my life that I would
have gladly written my own story that would have not been aligned with God’s
desire for my life. Is it my story or is
it God’s story for me?
We need to be careful where we get the
messaging that we dwell on. Even (or
especially?) kids movies can have some interesting messaging. When I say interesting, I mean vague
mumbo-jumbo that has no truth or power behind it. I though of the end of the Lego Movie,
Emmett, the hero, tells the villain, Lord Business, “You... don't have to be...
the bad guy.” That’s not a bad start.
The message continues, “You are the most talented...
most interesting... and extraordinary person in the universe. And you are
capable of amazing things, because you are the Special. And so am I, and so is everyone.” As we began the message, it is clear that
there is even some truth behind this. We
are made in the image of God. Everyone
is unique and gifted in their own way.
In the end though, Emmett’s thought is stripped
of any power. Emmett concludes, “The
prophecy [that there is a Special] is made up, but it's also true, it's about
all of us, right now, it's about you, and you, still, can change everything.” The prophecy about our adequacy is not made
up. And, we can’t change
everything. God changed everything. We change by agreeing with God.
Another program I’ve watched before has a head
to head matchup between a character who is a kind of savant and another
character who is called Preacher. The
savant says that the bible is broken, has contradictions, and doesn’t make
sense. Sadly, this preacher answers
these charges by saying, “It’s not about making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to
change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith. It fixes you.” But, what kind of faith is that? A faith that is not based in truth. Can you believe in something that isn’t real
and have a real transformation?
It’s not like you can say that you don’t believe
in gravity (or that you do believe in anti-gravity) and then start flying
around.
What you believe and the basis of that belief
does really affect what you can see, literally.
There’s this really interesting research that is making its rounds in the
media again now. I think the first paper
was written in 2006. After studying a
lot of ancient literature, the authors came to the conclusion that ancient
peoples couldn’t see the color blue because they didn’t have a separate word
for the color blue.
Taking it one step further, they found a
relatively isolated people group in the present that does not have a word for
blue, the Himba tribe from Namibia.
What’s even more surprising is that the absence of this word impacted
their ability to identify blue as a separate color from green.
There's Evidence Humans Didn't Actually See Blue Until
Modern Times (sciencealert.com)
This same people group has multiple words for
green, and they were able to correctly identify slightly different shades of
green from one another.
I don’t think the authors of any of several
studies were trying to say that ancient peoples couldn’t see blue. Their eyes work the same as our do
today. But, until they had a word for
it, it's likely that they didn't actually notice blue distinctly from other
colors. In their conclusion, it was
noted language shapes the ability to detect and distinguish color.
If language affects our ability to perceive
color. How much more does our
consumption ratio of truth and non-truth (falsehood, error, deceit) influence
our ability to understand and believe the truth about ourselves and God?
It’s become an expected part of Faithwalkers,
there is a question about how many attendees read their bible every day for the
previous year. It’s not meant to
embarrass anyone. The desire is to
challenge everyone to get a daily meal of God’s Word. (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4) Without a consistent supply of truth, we will
be easily “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by
every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their
deceitful scheming.” (Ephesians 4:14)
And so, I will end with this thought and
challenge, if you feel inadequate.
Are we abiding in Christ? Are we staying in relationship with Him? Are we seeking Him? Are we staying nourished by His Word?
“God is able to bless you abundantly, [to make
all grace abound to you,] so that in all things, so that at all times, having
all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” – II Corinthians 9:8
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,
for ever and ever! Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21
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