Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God
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Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God

2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6  (ID: 3148)

Reliance on Christ is crucial in the life of a Christian, yet we like to depend on our own abilities instead. In this sermon, Alistair Begg asks us to contrast our modern view of self-reliance with the truths of Scripture. When we face our inadequacies and admit our absolute need of God’s help, we display His glory to those around us.

Series Containing This Sermon

Lessons for Life, Volume 4

Series ID: 26704


Triumph in Christ

12When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, 13my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.

14But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17For 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.

Ministers of the New Covenant

1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our1 hearts, to be known and read by all. 3And 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.2

4Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6who 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.

Copyright © 2023, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.

Alistair Begg
Alistair Begg is Senior Pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bible teacher on Truth For Life, which is heard on the radio and online around the world.