Jesus Our Sufficiency

Introduction

Good Morning, my name is Shawn I am the family pastor here at First Grace. If you have a Bible, and I hope that you do, we will be in 2 Corinthians 3 this morning. If you do not have a Bible, we have some sitting at the welcome desk out in the lobby, please take one, it is our gift to you. While I am on the subject, if we have any guests today, please stop by the welcome desk, we have some resources there we would like to give you. I will try to make my way there after the service if anyone would like to talk with me.

Now, if anyone has one of our sermon notebooks, I have titled this sermon “Jesus our Confidence”

Our Main idea this morning is: Jesus is our sufficiency; Abide in him.

What is something you are good at? How would you communicate how good you are at that thing? You might show off your skills? What if your skill is not so easily shown, or you are having to do so at a distance? Might you find a reference, a third party, who can communicate on your behalf? What would you do if the person you were communicating with was inclined to doubt you?

This is, at least on some level, what is happening with Paul when he is writing this letter. He is having to defend his credibility from a distance to a people inclined to doubt him because they have made a categorical error. They seem to think it is Paul’s skills that matter, but it isn’t. It is Jesus who matters and the work he accomplishes through his people by his Spirit. Jesus told his disciples to abide in him, if they did not, there would be nothing they could do, and they could not bear any good fruit. However, if they were to abide in him and he in them, nothing would be impossible for them and they would bear much good fruit.

Now with this in mind, lets read.

2 Corinthians 3:1–6 (ESV)

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our [your] hearts, to be known and read by all. 3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Let’s Pray: Our Father in heaven. In the name of Jesus I pray that you shape us. On our own, we bring nothing to the table. Show us where our strength, our confidence ought to be. Teach us by your word, may the Spirit of Holiness move in the hearts of your people to show us our utter dependence upon you and the one whom you sent to save us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Chisel away the stoney callouses of our hearts. Lead us to repentance and pour out your grace and mercy on your people. Comfort us in our sorrows, and build our confidence in Jesus Christ by his Spirit. We need not do this or anything alone or in our own power! We have the power of the one who spoke galaxies into being, who transforms hearts, and shatters dominions and strongholds with no effort. We need not grow weary of doing good because while we are weak, you our God are strong. Thank you for what you are already doing, inspire us this morning to rest in your magnificent strength. In the name of Jesus Christ our savior I pray these things, AMEN.

Jesus is our sufficiency; Abide in him.

2 points: First, It is Jesus who commends us

2 Corinthians 3:1–3 (ESV)

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our [your] hearts, to be known and read by all. 3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Here at the beginning of chapter 3 Paul asks some questions which seem to be dripping with irony, that is rhetorical questions with a hint gentle sarcasm. Unless I am mistaken, these questions are another indication of the rift which had opened up between Paul and the Corinthians. Paul’s credibility seems to have come under question. Have they grown so distrusting of Paul that he needs a letter of recommendation now?

If you recall, Paul ended chapter 2 with this, “For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” This isn’t the first time in this book where Paul defends his credibility, he did so in 1:12, he does so in 1:21-23; and he gives an explanation for his actions at the beginning of chapter 2. It seems as though Paul is a little salty about their challenge to his credibility. It isn’t necessarily because Paul just doesn’t like challenges to his authority, but how we judge our leaders matters. This is true for Paul, it was true for Apollos, it is true for all the apostles and elders of the church for two millennia.

Into verse 2, Paul appeals to the congregation of Corinth to be his letter of recommendation. My version says it is written on “our” hearts, this is a contested variant in our Bibles. You may have a footnote in your Bible about this.

If you will indulge a digression for a second. When we say we believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible, we believe it to be so in the original autographs, that is the original writings. Over the course of 2000 years of copying, the manuscripts we have are extremely accurate. That said, there are still some variations from one manuscript to another, usually small things such as “our” compared with “your.” There are scholars who devote their entire careers to determining what the original text said. When we try to determine what the original said, we are not trying to undermine the trustworthiness of your Bible, every version is God’s Word and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Yet, there are some limitations we should be able to recognize and work to overcome. This is something you will grow more aware of as you dig into the details in your study of God’s word. Things such as the limitations and struggles of translating from one language to another. They don’t always line up perfectly. This doesn’t make the Bible untrue or less trustworthy, in fact, the scholarship speaks to the trustworthiness of our Bibles, and their ultimate importance.

Now back to our passage, Paul is saying his letter of recommendation was written on their (that is the corinthian) hearts and is open for everyone to see and read for themselves. They are a letter of recommendation written by the hand of Christ on their hearts not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit. The comment at the end of the section about it being written not on tablets of stone is the beginning of a segue to a discussion about Moses and the law, drawing a distinction between what he calls the ministry of death and the ministry of the Spirit. At the same time, this is also a reference to when God said the law would be written on the hearts of men.

There are several items I think we should observe and consider so far in this passage

The first and most significant is the credibility of leaders.

Paul is making the case for something, I believe only someone in his position could make. He didn’t need a letter of recommendation, he was the one who led them to faith and planted their church. They need look only to their own salvation to see he was an apostle.

In the region, there were teachers who preached for money, their credibility was tied to their skills, voices, and at least in part to how much they would charge to speak. These men were orators, professional speakers who could communicate in a way that was entertaining. At the same time, the church had grown to distrust Paul. He did not behave in the way they thought he should. He refused payment, instead he worked to support himself, or lived on the generous donations from other churches. This lowered their respect for Paul. He also didn’t speak like an orator. He kept it simple and let the Spirit do his thing. His presence in Corinth, as he says in chapter 1, was marked by simplicity and sincerity. He was not relying on his skills, his personality, his intelligence, or even his title as an apostle. He was relying on the Holy Spirit to do a work in Corinth. Paul’s credibility was in question because they were looking for the wrong evidence that he was the apostle he claimed to be. They were looking with the eyes of the world, instead of looking for the fruit that comes from abiding in Christ.

Let me pause here, it isn’t wrong for us to vet a leader. It isn’t wrong to have expectations for how he will complete his job. When I was hired, it was right to get references, which amounts to the same idea as a letter of recommendation. As we look to the future, these are practices we shouldn’t just abandon. That said, however, we need to understand if we consider our leaders, or future leaders, only in human terms, we could run into problems.

Matthew 7:15–20 says, “15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Paul seems to indicate the most important credential he possessed was the fruit the Spirit had produced in the hearts of the Corinthians themselves. This, I assume, was their very salvation. On top of that, he would have been the first to disciple them. He would have been the one who introduced them to the Holy Spirit, and the gifts and fruit only he could produce in them.

So, we as the people of God, in order to make sure we are safe from wolves, we ought to pay attention to the fruit produced by our leaders. This especially refers to me and any other pastor or elder you call to lead you. While we are not perfect, and will make mistakes, some being colossal blunders, it is important to observe what kind of fruit we produce. Do we have the fruit of a healthy tree as Jesus says, or a diseased one? If the fruit is bad, it reflects something within our hearts that can be a potential danger to the body of Christ. So here is my challenge to you, by what do you judge your leaders? Is it based upon worldly expectations? Or is it upon a search for the healthy and vibrant fruit of the Holy Spirit of God in their lives and in the life of the church?

If you are seeking leadership of any kind, not just in official ways, but if you are leading others, are you bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit? If you lead now, what kind of fruit marks your life? What kind of fruit marks my life, is there anyone I could use as a letter of recommendation? If you aren’t bearing fruit, you should stop and ask why? Perhaps you are not connected to the vine.

Second, God shows his strength in our weakness.

This is the major theme in this book, and it is in this section as well. Paul’s strengths are irrelevant to his credibility. Who he knows and his abilities are irrelevant. What matters is what the Holy Spirit did through him, and continues to do.

We are Americans. We are workers, entrepreneurs, builders. Self-reliance is an historical virtue for Americans. While it may be waning by generations who have grown up comfortable, it is still there. It would make sense that it would find it a little weird that Paul doesn’t see it that way. We like excellence, shouldn’t Paul have put his best foot forward? This is the man who verbally sparred with the philosophers on Mars Hill. He was trained by one of the most famous Rabbis in history, apart from Jesus himself. He knew the Bible in a way many couldn’t compete with, yet, he showed himself weak? Why? Because God can do far more abundantly than we can ask or can even imagine.

Like we discussed last week, we are to rely on the one who can do all things. If we rely on our own strength, we will fail, but if we remember our dependence on the one who saved us, there will be nothing we cannot do.

Third, the law is written on our hearts

This is something Paul hints at. In verse 3, Paul speaks of the Corinthians as a letter from Christ delivered by the apostle written, not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit. However, this was not something written on stone, but on human hearts.

Jeremiah 31:33–34 says, “33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

As Christians, we believe in something a little odd. The big theological term is Inaugurated Eschatology. I call it “already and not-yet.” With the Holy Spirit residing in us we have the law of God written on our hearts. This is something “inaugurated,” (which can mean simply “introduced, begun, or initiated”). It was inaugurated when Christ died, rose again, ascended to Heaven, and sent his Spirit. The very one who inspired the writers of the Bible to be carried along and to communicate the very words of God, he resides in the hearts of all who believe in Jesus. However, we do not yet know God fully. Jeremiah 31:33-34 has been fulfilled, but we are also awaiting its complete fulfillment. A time is coming when everyone who walks the earth will know God even as he is fully known.

For all who repent of their sin and put their faith in Jesus Christ, that he lived the life we all should live, then died the death we all deserve, crucified on the cross for your sin and mine, that he died and was buried and raised 3 days later. All who confess with their mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raise him from the dead will be saved. If anyone here has never put their faith in Jesus Christ for their hope of Salvation, the law of God is not written on your hearts, you do not know God, but he calls to you. To know God is eternal life, will you believe today? If you will, pray sincerely to the Lord for forgiveness and express your belief in Jesus.

I will pray an example in just a minute, if you would put your faith in him, you may pray along side me, but if you do, make sure it is genuine. After I pray, we will look at the remainder of our text this morning.

Let’s Pray: Father in Heaven, you are good, and just, and powerful. You are God. I am a broken sinner who is guilty before you. I deserve punishment for the things I have done. Even so, in love you offered you son, who willingly died in my place to pay the price for my sin. I believe. I believe he came in the flesh and died for me. I believe he rose from the dead victorious over sin, death, and the grave. Thank you for salvations offered in Jesus Christ. Please send your Spirit to dwell within me and teach me to abide with Christ, and to walk as a imitator of him all the days of my life. It is in the name of Jesus I pray these things, AMEN.

Now, if you prayed along side me to put your faith in Jesus, come find me after the service, I would love to talk with you about what it looks like to walk in faith and what the next step might be.

Jesus is our sufficiency; Abide in him.

Second of 2 points: Our confidence and sufficiency is in Jesus alone

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Having appealed to the Corinthians themselves as a letter of recommendation written by the hand of Christ on their very hearts with the ink of the Holy Spirit of God, Paul continues to elaborate on their confidence and sufficiency.

Just as it is true, Paul couldn’t boast in himself or his abilities because what was accomplished was a work of God in Christ Jesus and applied by the Holy Spirit in them, it is also true more broadly. Paul’s confidence isn’t really in himself, it is in God. It is a confidence they possessed through Christ toward God. So God is the one who is all powerful, all knowing and all wise. It is he for whom all things are possible. This is not true of Paul. In Christ we have been given free and full access to the Father. It is through the work of Christ that the Spirit of God is stamped onto all who believe as a seal until the day of redemption.

To be sufficient simply means to be adequate, to be enough. To have what it needed. His sufficiency, his adequacy is from God, not from himself. It is God who made him and his companions enough as ministers of a new covenant. A covenant in the Spirit of God, not the letter of the law. For, he says, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. This last part is something we will get into more next week. For now we will talk about the ideas of confidence and sufficiency.

It is interesting. In and of ourselves, we have no reason for confidence, we are insufficient people. There is no righteousness I can bring to the table; there is no strength, or wisdom. There is no skill I can bring that will be enough or even mildly helpful. Christ is the one who is sufficient. We need him for everything. Everything good that is true of Christians is because we abide in him and he in us.

To abide in Christ is to make our home with him. He is our strength and our fortress. He is our armor and our weapon. He is our wisdom, and our confidence. When we focus on our own wisdom and strength, we receive the fruit of that wisdom and strength. It will be feeble and worldly. It is why so many of our churches use worldly marketing and business strategies. They make sense to us because we are thinking in terms of the world. The idea is something like this: “They work for my widget factory or my internet start up, why wouldn’t it work for the church?” It doesn’t work because the god of this world (lower case g) wants to snuff it out.

Yet, we are filled with one who is more powerful than our adversary. As 1 John 4:4 tells us, greater is he who is in us, than he who is in the world. With Christ dwelling within us by the Holy Spirit, not only do we then become sufficient (enough), but we become more than conquerors through him who saved us.

This is true individually, but it is also true corporately. We are only sufficient as a church because of Jesus. There is no program we can provide that will change that. There is no preacher we can hire or call; there is no pastor we can bring in (myself included), that will make us more adequate and useful to the task before us. It is Jesus and him alone who makes us sufficient. It is through him we have confidence for the success of the mission we have been given. He said he would be with us always even to the end of the age. The end of the age is when he returns in glory. Yet he is with us by his Spirit. He said that by his Spirit his apostles, and I would assume us as well, would do greater things than even Jesus did when he walked this earth, yet we don’t. Why? Because we think everything need be done in our own power.

To be clear, I am talking to myself more than everyone. I want to abide in Christ, yet I fear I only have the weakest idea of how that ought be. I rely on my own wisdom and intelligence instead of the good gifts which come from above from the father of Lights with whom there is no variation nor shadow do to change. I rely on my own gifts and skills independent from that of the Spirit, even as we are told that when Jesus ascended on high he led a host of captives and gave gifts to men. It is too tempting to think that because I have the education, because I have the experience, I have nothing to learn or taught by you. Yet the only thing that makes me sufficient is Jesus, just like you. The only wisdom that matters comes from above. The only confidence I ought to have comes from abiding in Jesus.

John 15:4–5 Jesus said, “4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

What about you? Do you abide in Jesus? Do we as a church abide in Jesus? If apart from him we can do nothing, perhaps we do nothing because we do not abide in him. Perhaps this ought to be how we begin to pray as a church. Pray the Spirit would lead us to abide more and more fully in Christ. We have been knocked down, but nothing is preventing us from standing up on the rock of our salvation, abiding more and more fully in him and becoming a force for our enemy to reckon with, standing with the strength with the one who saved us. Standing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Sowing seeds of the gospel far and wide and walking in love as Christ loved us and and gave himself up for us.

Jesus is our sufficiency; Abide in him.

Conclusion

It is Jesus who commends us. When we abide in him, the Spirit will bear fruit through our lives. This fruit isn’t really for us, but for those around us. So, Jesus will commend us in the hearts of those we encounter, a letter of recommendation written with the Spirit on the hearts of men.

Our confidence and sufficiency is in Jesus alone. If we are confident in ourselves, what use is it. We have an all powerful God who wants to make himself known among the nations. What can we do on our own that could possibly compete with that? Who can heal hurts like him? Who is a better counselor? Who is a better defender of the faith?

We need to Abide in Him, both individually (you and I), and corporately (together). We need to pray for God to move among his people and to send us into his harvest. We need to pray to the one who destroys strongholds that he would make us strong in the face of an enemy who lies, and seeks to destroy us and our ability to be effective in our mission.

Jesus is our sufficiency; Abide in him.

Our Father, teach us to abide in your son. Show us how to make our home with him. To be a vine attached to the branch. Bear fruit through us, the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of salvation in our hearts and the hearts of the people we encounter. We need your strength, we cannot do it on our own. We are weak, we are insufficient. There is nothing paise worthy about me, everything special about me is granted to me through Jesus. I pray you do an amazing work among your people here and in the community around us. Show us your glory, show us your power, wonder and might. Show us your love for this people and you desire to be known by them. Transform us all according to your will. It is in Jesus name I pray these things. AMEN

Announcements

Teachers’ Breakfast!

Business Meeting and Potluck August 18th. Bring a dish to share

The elders are working to fill our committees, we need your help. If there is an area you think you might be able to help, please come talk to me or Eric.

Benediction

as you follow after him remembering your sufficiency, your strength, your confidence is found only in Jesus Christ the Lord; Abide in him.