Sufficient for Ministry

Bro Kenny Song

Over the last 8 months, me and my wife in particular have been undertaking some new journeys. We are really experiencing some stretching and it's all thanks to our Pastor Ronald and Jasmine.

When Pastor Ronald first moot the idea of raising pastors from within TOP, two names just seemed to naturally pop into my mind. Without consulting them, I told Ps Ronald ya, I've got two names. It is very easy to volunteer names you know? I guess you all can guess which two names that was. Pastor Ron was saying that instead of looking for a pastor, we should consider looking for someone in-house.

Personally, I'm a believer of that because I run a business. And when we run a business, rather than bringing in talents, we prefer to nurture talents from within and give them the opportunity to rise up. The reason is because they understand the culture of my company, they already know the people within the company and you have less risks. It made sense to me but strangely I never saw it from the perspective of the church. I saw it in my business but I never considered that there are sons and daughters in this church that can rise up to that role. So I volunteered the two of them and a lot has happened over the last 8 months. When I look back I am really in awe how God led the people involved up till this stage.

I spoke to Bro Koay if this is something he would consider, and he told me he was already being headhunted by the Methodist because they are building a new campus and is looking for Christian lecturers. Because he is going to retire this year. And Bro Koay shared with me that if he had a choice he would of course want to serve at TOP because this is the only church he knew and belongs to. That gave me the confidence that we are on track.

Then my wife. Of course I don't think there's anyone who knows my wife better than me. I've always felt that a day would come when she would serve God in a greater measure, but never in my mid I would have envisioned or seen her as a pastor. It came to a point where both of them had to make a decision. But it was not an easy one. Because it's life-changing. When both of them met Ps Ron, you all heard the story, our bro Koay at that time went through yes, no, no, yes, no and yes! And in the end he said yes!

When my wife also said yes, Pastor Ron called me to ask whether I will release my wife. The first question I ask her was "do you sense the call?" She said yes, and who am I to refuse, I'm going to have to deal with God and believe me, he's the BIG BOSS and you don't mess with the BIG BOSS. So I gave my blessing even though at the back of my mind, she's still very much needed in my business as a key person. I just believe that as we take care of God's business, God will take care of our business.

But once you say yes, the feeling of inadequacy or insufficiency can sometimes dawn on you. Naturally, because it is a life-changing decision, answering the call not to man, or the church but to God.

Which brings me to today's message. I titled it "Sufficient for Ministry". We all often feel inadequate when we look at the tasks before us. I know I sometimes feel like that. But as we look into the word of God, it brings great comfort to know that God is NEVER limited by our insufficiency.

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.

Noticed Paul talks about his personal insufficiency, and yet he balanced it with the fact that his sufficiency is from God. And everyone here in leadership position may find the task at hand overwhelming and you may feel inadequate, just like how Paul did in this passage.

PAUL’S PERSONAL INSUFFICIENCY (v. 5a)

Paul was a confident man. Saul of Tarsus referred to himself as being "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee. He was a learned man and a persecutor of the church.

Confidence, however, is one thing; claims of self-sufficiency are quite another. So Paul was quick to renounce any measure of self-sufficiency, saying, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us” (v. 5a). Paul was sincere.

By emphasising his insufficiency, Paul consciously relate to Moses’ insistence of his inadequacy when God called him to lead Israel. Remember Moses?

But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my LORD, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the LORD said to him,

“Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”  (Exodus 4:10-12)

Subsequently, Moses proved that in spite of his natural insufficiency, God made him sufficient. This pattern (human insufficiency — divine sufficiency) became the pattern for the calls of the great prophets of Israel.

Gideon’s insufficiency (“Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house,” Judges 6:15), was met with the Lord’s sufficiency (“And the LORD said to him, ‘But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man,’” v. 16).

Isaiah’s insufficiency (“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!,” Isaiah 6:5), was countered by one of the Lord’s seraphim bearing a burning coal with which he touched Isaiah’s mouth (cf. vv. 6, 7).

Jeremiah’s insufficiency (“Ah, LORD GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth,” Jeremiah 1:6) was allayed by the Lord (“But the LORD said to me, 'Do not say "I am only a youth"; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak (v. 7)

God can achieve his purpose either through the absence of human power and resources, or the abandonment of reliance on them. All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on him made possible the unique display of his power and grace. He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources. - Oswald Chambers

Grandfather story time. I was playing with Caden one time and he wanted to keep one of his toys on a shelf that was beyond him. He stretched all he can but cannot reach. He tiptoe also cannot reach. And he's not allowed to climb on chairs so he got really frustrated.

So grandpa came to the rescue. I told him to take his toy, then I carried him up and told him to put back the toy himself.

Did I do it for him? No. Did he put back the toy himself? Yes. Could he have done it on his own? No.

Moral of the story? I love my grandson and will of course help him when he can't do it on his own. All he has to do is ask.

So Christ will carry you and all your burdens, if you will let Him.”

There is nothing wrong in having and honing our gifts or abilities. It is just that we should not put our dependence on it instead of reliance in God. Our help comes from the Lord.

PAUL’S GOD-GIVEN SUFFICIENCY (vv. 5b, 6)

Only a man like the Apostle Paul, is humbly aware of his complete weakness can know and prove the total sufficiency of God’s grace. Thus Paul is able to balance his negative declaration, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves,” with the positive counterpoint, “but our sufficiency is from God” (v. 5). And Paul goes on to explain that his sufficiency comes from two things:

1) the sufficiency of the new covenant

2) the sufficiency of the Spirit.

New-covenant sufficiency.

First, the new covenant of Christ was and is a ministry of transformation, whereas the old covenant of Moses did not bring about transformation.

The old covenant began auspiciously, as in Exodus, with the giving of the Ten Commandments (cf. Exodus 19, 20), the reading of the Book of the Covenant (cf. Exodus 20:18 — 23:33), and the people’s unanimous response, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do” (24:3). Following the people’s promise, everything of significance was doused with the blood of the inaugural sacrifices — half the blood on the altar and the other half on the people and the Book of the Covenant (cf. 24:6, 8). The reason for this blood-drenching was to emphasize the seriousness of sin and to teach that the payment for sin is death.

But the weakness of the old covenant became immediately apparent. The people who promised “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do,” and again, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient” couldn’t do it for one day (24:3, 7)! This is because though the old covenant law was good, it was an external ordinance, and the blood of animal sacrifice could not take away sin.

After generations of repeated failure, God promised a new covenant to Jeremiah, recorded in 31:31-34, which prophesied the contours of transformation:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But 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. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour 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.” Jeremiah 31:31-34

The promise of internal renewal (the Law within, an intimacy with God, a personal relationship with God, and true forgiveness) all prophesied radical transformation.

Then, when Christ came to the final hours of his life and held up the cup at Passover saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20), it was as if he laid his hand on that passage in Jeremiah and said, “This day this Scripture is fulfilled before your eyes.” Jesus Christ effects the radical transformation of the new covenant by his shed blood. Millions of such transformations have been worked in the lives of men and women for the last 2,000 years, and we ourselves share the same transformation in Christ.

Paul’s point, in respect to himself, is that at the moment of his conversion and calling he had been made a minister of the new covenant. At Paul’s conversion Christ had said:

“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Acts 26:15-18)

The Paul was thrilled over this. As he later wrote to Timothy, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:12, 13).

Can we imagine Paul's feeling? It was a privileged to be called of God, to serve him.

Sometimes, we feel that we are doing God a favour by serving. Especially when we are gifted in certain natural talents that make it so easy to excel in those areas. We need to be careful. We serve because we love him and we are willing vessels for him to fulfil his kingdom purposes. Nothing else. It's so easy to get carried away when we are praised for doing a good job. Don't get me wrong, encouragement is biblical, taking God's glory is not. We are called to encourage one another, but we need to acknowledge that without God, all we do is just performance.

And herein lay Paul’s adequacy. It was totally of God — “but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant” (3:6). Like Moses and the Old Testament prophets after him, Paul also was made “sufficient in spite of insufficiency by the grace of God”. This universal principle has been the experience of God’s faithful servants.

“God chose me because I was weak enough. God does not do his work by large committees. He trains somebody to be quiet enough, and little enough, and then uses him.” - Hudson Taylor

Paul lived out his ministry with the unlimited sufficiency of the new covenant. The transforming power of the gospel attended all his ministry — transformation in many places including Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and even Rome — always with an inward change of the believer.

Holy Spirit sufficiency.

The corresponding promise to Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant was Ezekiel’s promise of the Spirit:

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:26, 27)

We referenced this scripture in Lesson 3 at Care Group Friday night.

And Paul references this promise as we see in verse 6 in its entirety: “who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The problem with the old covenant was that the written Law (here called “the letter”) provided no power to obey it because it was not accompanied by the empowering work of the Holy Spirit.

Last night, at Care Group, we discussed on what is one of the most important function of the Holy Spirit, and as usual, our teacher-pastor Koay said it was "Empowerment".

The Law wasn’t bad. In fact, it was the holy, just, and good expression of God’s will, and innately spiritual (cf. Romans 7:12, 14). And the Law itself did not kill. Rather it was the Law without the Spirit (the Law as “letter”) that killed.

Under the new covenant through Christ, that condition changed for the better by means of the Holy Spirit who writes “not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (v. 3b) and therefore enables the obedience of which Ezekiel prophesied: “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (36:27).

Paul had an tremendous advantage over Moses. Moses was charged to minister the Law to a stiff-necked people who would not obey it, but Paul was called to minister in the transforming power of the Spirit to a people who would be empowered to keep the Law under the new covenant.

I'm sure all Pastors will prefer to be in Paul's shoes rather than Moses. And the good news is that they are!

What a glory it is to proclaim the gospel of the new covenant in Christ’s blood — to proclaim radical transformation (“If any man in Christ, new creation!,” 2 Corinthians 5:17, literal translation) — to proclaim the Spirit’s empowerment to keep God’s statutes — to preach complete forgiveness.

When I was first saved, I had the privilege of going to Billy Graham's crusade in Singapore. So many responded at the altar call with the song "Just as I am…" was sung. He preached a powerful salvation message. Never could I have imagined that someone like Billy Graham could have felt inadequate delivering a sermon.

In August 1955 someone wrote a letter to The Times deploring Billy Graham’s recent invitation to preach at Cambridge University. Billy Graham’s approach, he argued, would be “unthinkable before a university audience . . . it would be laughed out of court.”

Mr Billy, age thirty-six, was experienced, but the thought of speaking at Cambridge weighed heavily upon him. His biographer William Martin notes:

Graham, ever insecure about his lack of advanced theological education, dreaded the meetings and feared that a poor showing might do serious harm to his ministry and affect ‘which way the tide will turn in Britain.’ Had he been able to do so without a complete loss of face, he would have cancelled the meetings or persuaded some better-qualified man to replace him.

40 years later in his biography, he wrote:

I have been deeply concerned and in much thought about our Cambridge mission this autumn.... I do not know that I have ever felt more inadequate and totally unprepared for a mission. As I think over the possibility for messages, I realize how shallow and weak my presentations are. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with my unpreparedness that I almost decided to cancel my appearance, but because plans have gone so far perhaps it is best to go through with it.... However, it is my prayer that I shall come in the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit.

The great evangelist chronicled his weakness and his need of the Spirit’s power. Billy’s arrival in Cambridge was unsettling. The opening night was Sunday, November 6, the day after Guy Fawkes Day, a day of fireworks, bonfires, and general revelry. Billy met with C. S. Lewis, newly arrived in Cambridge, and the conversation went well, though Lewis’s parting remark was unsettling: “You know you have many critics, but I have never met one of your critics who knows you personally.”

Billy Graham preached for three nights, but the results were modest. His sermons were, by his own estimation, too academic. He knew that he was not getting through to the students’ hearts. He felt he was preaching to please his audience rather than the Holy Spirit. So Billy Graham sought the Lord.

On his third sermon, Billy Graham set aside his university-focused sermons and preached to ordinary human souls. Billy Graham’s weakness plus the all-sufficient, transforming gospel of the new covenant plus his dependence upon the Holy Spirit crafted a mighty ministry in Cambridge. Afterward John Stott wrote his praying congregation, “Only eternity will finally reveal, how much was accomplished during that week.” Another great evangelist came to Christ that week, David Watson.

Those whom God uses have always been aware of their insufficiency and weakness, be it Moses or Gideon or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Paul or Peter or John. And it was their insufficiency that invited the sufficiency of God.

God is not looking for gifted people or people who are self-sufficient. He is looking for inadequate people who will give their weakness to him and open themselves to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the transforming grace of the new covenant.

If God is calling you, do not hide behind your weakness. I don’t know what he may be calling you to do — it may be missions, it may be teaching a Sunday school class, it may be ministering to children, it may be to serve wit the worship team, it may be stepping up at work or doing something you sense a call to do. But if he’s calling you, don’t say you cannot — your weakness is the ground for his calling. Follow God, and he will use your weakness as an occasion for his power.

And if you are feeling terrifying stirrings within your soul as he nudges you outside your comfort zone, where you will be out of your depth (but you know that he is calling you), give your weakness to him and accept his sufficiency.

This is the way it was for Moses and for all the prophets and for the apostles and for all who follow in their stead — everyone who serves the Lord. God uses people who are weak because of their unique ability to depend upon him. Remember, there are no failures in the work of God. It's impact can only be measured in eternity.

I just want to say this for our two pastors. They are gifted and they are very different. My wife is a natural leader in the sense that she can plan things and execute them and she's got good administrative skills. Our Pastor Koay is a teacher. He opens his mouth he must teach already. But those are their natural gifting. And I believe God has given those gifts. But one day, they are going to realise it is not about our abilities. It is not about the gifts that we have. It is about God working through us and there will come a point of time when they are going to feel insufficient and that on their own, they cannot do it.

But the comfort is this, they are in the same company as Paul. Take comfort in the fact that as we serve, it is mandatory that we rely upon God to take us through. Amen!