Do You Measure Up?
How Can I Overcome Feeling Like I'm Not Good Enough to Answer God's Call
Dan Franklin
Jun 19, 2022 38m
Do you feel that you are not good enough to answer God's call on your life? In this message, we learn that on our own, we aren't enough, but because of what Jesus did for us, we can feel confident answering God's call. Video recorded at Upland, California.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Intro: [00:00:00] Hey, there. Thanks so much for checking out one of our messages here at Life Bible Fellowship Church. And we know there are two great ways you can connect with us. You can visit our website at LBF.church to learn more about all of our ministries and what we believe. And also, you can subscribe to us on YouTube to make sure that you don't miss one of our future videos.
Dan Franklin: [00:00:19] I want to put up a question that's going to be at the center of what we're going to talk about today. The question is, why is it that you think you measure up? Now, here's the deal, this is a question that it's unlikely that we get asked this question really overtly, but this is a question that tends to lurk behind different other things that people might say to us. Any time we sort of step out of the comfort zone, any time you try something new, you might feel this question lurking behind somewhere. It's a question that makes us wonder, am I really up to this task? Am I really important enough to do this thing that I feel like I'm supposed to do? Why is it that you think that you measure up? And even if nobody ever asks you the question, we don't necessarily need other people to ask us this question because for a lot of us, we just feel ourselves asking the question any time we step out to do something different. Who do you think you are? Why do you think you're up to this? Why is it that you think that you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:01:30] We can feel, I don't know if you ever played that old arcade Whack-A-Mole game, you know, where you've got all the moles kind of slowly emerging their heads and you've got the mallet, and you're supposed to hit them as soon as they come up. Sometimes we can feel a little bit like we're that mole, like we're just like, all right, this time I'm going to do it, I'm going to step out of my comfort zone, I'm going to do something even though I'm not quite sure I'm up to it, and as soon as we raise our head up, we feel like we get smashed by that mallet with this question, why is it that you think that you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:02:02] Now, here's what I want to let you know, the Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians is basically being asked this question by the Corinthian church. Paul, why is it that you think you measure up? And specifically, Paul, why is it that you think you measure up to be an apostle of Jesus and somebody that we should listen to? Now, it could be hard for us to believe that Paul would have dealt with this question, because we think of Paul and we're like, Paul is Paul. Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament, and we imagine Paul just to be this tall, impressive, handsome, eloquent person who spoke with great confidence. But if you read the Bible, you actually learn that our picture of Paul is not accurate.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:55] In this same letter of Second Corinthians, in Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse 10, here's what Paul says about himself. He says, "Some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” A chapter later, in Second Corinthians chapter 11 verse 6, he says of himself that he was, "Untrained as a speaker." And in First Corinthians chapter 2 verse 3, when he's describing what it was like when he first came to the Corinthians with the gospel message, he says, "I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling." So if you walked in this morning and you had in your head a picture of Paul, Saint Paul, the man who wrote this letter, it's time for us to adjust that picture in our heads of somebody that may have written great letters, but the word on him was out that he was not an impressive speaker, and the Corinthians were around some other Christian speakers who were pretty impressive.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:58] In fact, later on in Second Corinthians, Paul sarcastically refers to them as the super-apostles. And Paul doesn't seem to measure up to those super-apostles. The Corinthians are looking at Paul and they're saying, why is it that you think you measure up? Who in the world do you think you are? Now here's the deal, what we're going to get to see through this passage is we're going to get to see Paul's answers to this question. He's going to respond to the Corinthians in a couple of ways and say, here's why I think I'm up to the task, here's why I think you should listen to me. But I want to pause before we get into those answers because I want us just to recognize we might look at this and say, well, that's cool, we're going to get to see Paul defend himself and we're going to get to see Paul explain why he thinks he measures up to being an apostle.
Dan Franklin: [00:04:45] But I'm not an apostle, you're not an apostle, so are we just sort of reading somebody else's mail here and just going through an interesting story? I want to take this story and I want to make sure we can personalize what we're about to do. None of us in this room are apostles, but if you're a believer in Jesus, there are things God has called you to do, and there are ways God has called you to step out of your comfort zone. And I promise you, if you don't already know this, any time you begin to step out of your comfort zone to do what God has called you to do, you're going to get hit by this question, why is it that you think you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:05:24] There might be some of you in here that just even as Phil was talking about our go teams, that in the past when we've talked about these go teams that go overseas, that you may have had the thought maybe I should go on one, maybe I should sign up for one of those, maybe that's what God is calling me to do. And just as quickly as you started to creep your head out of that hole, it got whacked back down and you began to say, who in the world do I think I am that I'm going to go overseas and tell other people about Jesus? Maybe sometimes when we're talking about serving in our life kids ministry or serving as a life group leader, some of you hear that and you start to respond and you say, actually, I think God is calling me to do that. But as soon as you start to think about it, you get whacked back down with who in the world do I think am, why would I think that I'm up for that? I've got enough things in my own life, why do I think God would use me in that way? Maybe it doesn't even have to do with a specific ministry in this church, maybe there are people in your life, there are neighbors, there are coworkers, there are classmates, there are friends, and there are people that you know that God is calling you to be more of an overt gospel witness, to bring up conversations, to invite them to come to a church service, but every time you start to think about moving forward in that, you get whacked back down with the question, why is it that you think you measure up? Why do you think you're better than that person, that you're going to tell them what they should be doing with their life? Maybe it even applies to your own family, where you're feeling the call of God to say, hey, with our kids or with our grandkids, or as husband and wife, we need to step forward and we need to be more focused on Jesus, but every time you're ready to take that first step you get whacked back down with this question, why is it that you think you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:07:05] As we look at how Paul responds, we get to go on a journey with him and we get to personalize what he says. We get to move forward with his answers to this question because while we might not be apostles, God willing, all of us right now are thinking there are some things God is calling me to do, and I've been waiting on it. So let's look together, let's look at Paul's two answers to this question in Second Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. The first answer is in the first three verses, and the second answer is in the next three verses.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:39] So we'll look at the first one here when we're asking the question, why do we think we measure up? The first answer that we get to give is because of what God has done through us. And Paul was going to start this off to the Corinthians to say do you know why I think I measure up? Because I know what God has done through me. Verse 1, he starts off with two questions, he says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?" By the way, is anybody listening to this and saying he kind of sounds like he's being sarcastic? But you're like, but it's the Bible so I'm sure it's not. Paul is kind of being sarcastic here, he's saying, really, Corinthians, do I need to come to you with a list of references? Do I need to come to you with a letter of recommendation from somebody else to say why you should listen to me? And even though he's being sarcastic, this was actually a thing in the first century. If a Christian teacher would show up, they might show up with a letter of recommendation.
Dan Franklin: [00:08:42] In fact, if you want to look this up later in Acts Chapter 18 verse 27, an early Christian teacher named Apollos showed up to a church with letters of recommendation from other Christian leaders. So this was a thing, but Paul's looking at the Corinthians and he's saying, doo you really need this from me? Do you really need a list of references for you to listen to me? And then he decides he's going to tell them his references, in verse two, he says, "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone." Paul says Corinthians you want a reference of why you should listen to me, you're our reference.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:26] Some of you might have remembered that earlier this year, the great quarterback Tom Brady retired from football for like two weeks, yeah, it might not have even been two weeks, it was a short stint. He retired, it was a big story, it was a big deal, and then he decided he was coming back. And I just want you to imagine this for a second, Tom Brady, widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time, tells the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I'm coming back this year. So imagine he gets in there with the General Manager, and with the coach of the team and says, all right, guys, I know that I retired, but I'd like to come back and play again for the team this year. And they respond and they say, Tom, that's so kind, could we see your resume? He'd look at them kind of dumbly and say, you want to see my resume? You guys are my resume. Remember how you were a bad team, and then two years ago I came here and we won a Super Bowl, not to mention the other six Super Bowls I've won. Do you want to see a resume? You are my resume.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:27] And this is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians, he's saying, you're asking me to prove that you should listen to me, you are the reason why other people listen to me, he says, your letter, read and known by other people. They see you Corinthians, and that makes them want to listen to me because they see the absolute transformation that happened through the Gospel of Jesus in your lives. And Corinthians, if you want a reason to listen to me, you are my reference. And he goes even further with this, and even brings some clarity to it in verse 3. So in verse 3 he says, "You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry."
Dan Franklin: [00:11:09] This is a little bit of a hint of where Paul is going to go later on, but he wants to make sure that the Corinthians, as they're reading this, that they don't think that Paul is under the impression that they were transformed from death to life, from hell to heaven, from being lost to being found, they weren't transferred in all those ways because Paul was such a great preacher, he says you are a letter from Christ, Jesus made you new.. And he says, you're the result of our ministry, but then he furthers it by saying, "Written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." Paul says, yeah, I was there, it was the result of our ministry and throughout this whole section when Paul is saying we and our, he's talking about him and Timothy and other apostles. So he's referring to himself here, he's saying, you're the result of our ministry, but really, nmyou're the result of Jesus writing you as a letter and the Spirit of God overseeing the whole thing.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:13] Paul says something similar in First Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6 when he says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow." Paul says, I was there when this all happened, and here's what's really significant about this. Paul says, all right, do you want to know why you should listen to me? Do you want to know why you should pay attention to me? Look at yourselves, remember the amazing transformation that God brought among you, and then because of that, you should listen. Paul refers back to the way that God used Him, and by the way, Paul is recognizing that he was used even though he was an untrained, unskilled, unimpressive speaker. Because as we've been talking about ,and as we'll talk about every week in this series, what we see over and over again and the reason why we're calling this series Glory and Frailty, is because God loves to show the world His glory through the frailty of his servants. Paul says, I came to you in fear and trembling a weak, unimpressive speaker, and your lives were rocked because Jesus moved in you. Your lives were changed because the Holy Spirit came and indwelt you.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:25] And Paul's giving us a powerful insight also here, Paul is confident that God can keep using him because he's able to look back and remember God in the past using him. And let me just say, you know, once you get a taste for God using you, once you get a taste for God working through you, it becomes much easier to put your head out of that hole. It becomes much easier to step forward and say, even though I'm weak, even though I'm frail, even though I'm unimpressive, I know that God can work through me because He's done it in the past. When you start to see how a bold word that you said brought encouragement to someone else, or a Bible study that you led had somebody grow closer to Jesus, or that a way that you serve behind the scenes made an impact. When you start to see God use you, you start to believe more and more that God can use you and work through you.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:27] How many of you have heard of a man named John Piper? All right, a bunch of you have and bunch of you haven't. But John Piper, he's recently retired just in the last few years, but he was a pastor in Minnesota for a bunch of years, he had a well-known ministry, wrote a whole bunch of books. In fact, if you're a reader, or even if you're not a reader, go and read the book Future Grace by John Piper, I read it almost every year, it's a wonderful, great book. He's been part of sending out missionaries, training pastors, he has had a wide impact on the world.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:59] So you could look at him and you can say, that's somebody that God has worked powerfully through. Well, let me tell you a story of something that happened with John Piper in college. In college, John Piper was asked to come to a Christian event and give a one-minute opening prayer from upfront. Now, if you know anything about John Piper, you'd be like that's like child's play. I mean, he preaches hour-long sermons, he preaches at conferences in front of thousands of people, no problem. John Piper, this time was so cripplingly anxious about public speaking that regularly, when he would give oral reports and oral presentations in school, he would be crippled with anxiety over them, and he was asked to come and give a one-minute prayer from upfront.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:50] By the way, some of you are like, that's not hard for me to believe at all. If we ask you to come up front and just give a one-minute public prayer, you'd be like, aren't there some live cockroaches I could eat instead of doing that? Like, that sounds terrible. And here's what John Piper did, and he records this in his books. He prayed to God, and this is what he prayed, he said, God, if you get me through this, and if you work through me doing this, then I will never again in my life say no to a public speaking opportunity because of my fear. God got him through it, God worked through him, and Debbie, you just said it, thank God he said yes. Because the work that God did through this man, you may be right now at that first step, you may be right at the verge where you're like, I don't know if I want to stick my hat out, I don't know if I want to say yes, I feel daunted. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I measure up? Who knows what God may do if you just take that first step to say, I'm willing to believe God could work through me?
Dan Franklin: [00:16:55] Before moving on, I just want to say one more thing. I've been thinking about this because it's Father's Day, and Happy Father's Day, by the way, to all you fathers out there. One of the great griefs that are a part of many families, many Christian families, is men not boldly stepping up and taking the lead to center their families around Jesus. And it's true of every church I've been a part of, this is true of our church also, that too frequently we have this situation where mom is looking at it and just saying, gosh, I'm trying to point the kids towards Jesus, but I'm kind of on my own in this, and my husband sort of lets this happen. And I know some of you guys are like, hey, we're the ones who are here on Father's Day, don't beat up on us. I'm not beating up on you, but what I want to say is this, there are too many of us as men who are unwilling to take the leadership that God has called us as men to take. And some of us are looking at our wives and we're like, she’s more godly than I am. If your wife is more godly than you are, that is not a liability, that is an asset. But God has called you as a man to take ownership, to say, I want to make sure we're reading scripture with our kids, I want to make sure we're praying, I want to make sure church is prioritized. We're not going to be one of those families where mom is dragging everybody to church and Dad is kind of dragging his heels and going along with it. Man, if you step forward, if you just take that first step, if you just take that first step and say, you know what, I'm weak and I'm frail, and I feel like if I read Scripture my kids are going to ask me questions that I don't know the answer to. Step forward and trust that God can work through you, and I promise you, once you begin to taste God working through you, you're not going to be able to get enough of it.
Dan Franklin: [00:18:46] All right, mini sermon is over, back to the regular sermon. If we ever feel like, why is it that I think I measure up? We get to first say, you know what, I have seen God work through me before, even though I'm weak and frail, I believe he can do it again, that's reason number one that Paul gives. But Paul gives another reason of why we would believe that we measure up, and that's not only because of how we've seen God work through us but because of what we've seen God do in us.
Dan Franklin: [00:19:17] Now listen to where Paul goes, starting in verse 4. In verse 4, he says, "Such confidence we have through Christ before God." Now, I love this, he's building off what he said before, I've seen God bring life transformation through me, so I'm going to step forward. He says I'm going to step forward in confidence, I have this confidence through Christ and before God. So start with the last part, start with before, I have confidence before God. Here's the deal, in life, there's only one opinion that truly matters in the end, and that's God's opinion. And Paul says I am confident before God. So you know what, Corinthians, if you're going to come at me and you're going to say, Paul, maybe you're not eloquent enough, maybe you're not smart enough, maybe you're not good-looking enough. Paul is saying, I'm confident before God, bring what you're going to bring. I have confidence before God, but He makes clear this confidence is through Christ. This confidence is not in his own strength and power and ability and morality and talents, his confidence is through Christ.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:31] And He explains this further in verse 5, he says, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." He says I'm competent in stepping forward in what God's called me to do, I'm competent before God. But I'm competent, I'm competent through Christ. Our competence, he says, we don't have our own competence, it doesn't come from us, our competence comes from God. And let's zero in on that word, competence, that he uses a couple of times here. We're not competent in ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:05] Some of you may have an open Bible and it may have a different translation than the NIV, which we're using here, and so a word that sometimes shows up in translations instead of competence is sufficiency. In other words, I'm not sufficient in and of myself, but my sufficiency comes from God. And now follow me one step further down this rabbit hole, competence, sufficiency, do you know another word for sufficient? Enough. When you say that's sufficient, you're saying that's enough. So Paul is saying not that we are enough in and of ourselves, but our enoughness comes from God. The reason that we know that we're enough is that this comes from God. And this is important because just in the same way that some of us feel like we get hammered with the question, why do you think you measure up, even if it's just internal, even if nobody says it to us, this word, enough, is another word that we get hammered by, that we're constantly wondering, well, should I do that? Am I smart enough? Am I godly enough? Am I talented enough? Am I important enough? And Paul is bringing up this question and he's saying, any time we're going to step forward and look to do what God has called us to do, we're going to deal with this question, am I enough? And Paul says, we are not enough by ourselves, but are enoughness comes from God. We're not enough, but He makes us enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:42] And if you know Paul's life, he knows this at a deep level because he knows this not just in terms of being an apostle, but he knows this in terms of just being a Christian. Paul knows that he is in the family of God, not because he was moral enough or godly enough. Paul was an enemy of Jesus. Paul threw Christians in prison. Paul oversaw the execution of Christians. Paul knows he was not enough, but thank God that Jesus loves to save sinners. Can I get an amen? Jesus loves to save sinners. Jesus loves to welcome unlikely people into the family. So Paul knows He is standing completely on grace, he's saying I was not moral enough and I was not godly enough and I was not lovable enough to be welcomed into the family, but God was enough, and He welcomed me in by his grace.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:44] And, you know, we live in a very self-help, friendly culture where this is something that you're told even this word enough. This is something if you read a self-help book or listen to a self-help guru, this is how they're going to respond to you. They're going to say, hey, if you ever wake up in the morning and you're wondering how you measure up, here's what you say, you say, I am enough. I am enough to handle it, and I'm smart enough, and I'm good-looking enough, and I'm talented enough, and I persevere enough, I am enough to handle it. And what we get from the Bible is something completely different, we get Paul saying, you are not enough, you aren't. but God is with you and God is enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:23] And I know I'm confident that for some of you right now, what I just said feels deflating. Because maybe you've had times where you've had self-doubt and you feel like I've found a lot of comfort in the idea of just saying, I know that I'm enough, and you feel a little bit deflated. You feel like, all right, well, even if this is true, this is kind of hard news to take, and I have to take in the idea that I'm not enough. What I want you to know is that this is not bad news, this is liberating news to find out that you are not enough, but God is.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:56] You can take it into just about any area, but let's take it at the core area. The core, the most foundational thing that we crave from God is his love. And you could wake up every morning and try to figure out why is it that I'm confident that God loves me? Like maybe I was confident for a different reason yesterday, but today, why am I confident that God loves me? And some mornings, if we're honest with ourselves, we wake up and we say, the reason I know that God loves me is because I've been behaving well recently, I've been resisting temptation enough, I've been reading my Bible enough, I've been praying enough, I've been serving enough, so this morning, I know that God loves me because I've been good enough. And frankly, there might be some mornings that you're able to hold on to that, but we all know what shaky ground we're on if that's your basis for God's love because a morning is coming soon when you're going to wake up and there's going to be no way for you to delude yourself into believing that you've been good enough. You will have failed, you will have fallen short, and you will have been lazy, you will not resist temptation, and you'll wake up and you'll say, there's no way I can convince myself that God loves me because I'm enough. And those are the times when we so desperately need to believe that the reason why I am loved is not because I'm enough, it's because God's love overcomes every inadequacy I have. God's love for you is not based on your lovability, and thank God it's not, God's love for you is based on His profound love that overcomes everything, Paul says, we're not enough, but God is enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:26:50] And then he takes it even further, in an unexpected way, in the next verse, in verse 6. He says, "He has made us competent." There's that word again, he's made us enough, "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Paul brings up the idea, he says, we're ministers, we're servants of a new covenant. And hearing those words might not do anything for us. but any first-century Jew who would have read this or heard this read would have immediately perked up. They would have said, New Covenant, I've heard about that. Because God made a covenant with the people of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt and out of their slavery, he made a covenant surrounding Moses and the idea of the Ten Commandments.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:38] But in the Old Testament, God promised he was going to make a new covenant, and that's what Paul is referring to. And let me just read a couple of passages that talk about this new covenant. The first one is Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 31 through 34, so just listen as I read this, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to d them”. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." God says there was a covenant where I gave them rules, but I'm giving them a new covenant, I'm not going to write the rules on a tablet of stone, I'm going to write it on their hearts. I'm going to give them a new heart.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:01] In fact, listen to what he says in Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 26, he's talking about the same thing. He says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." And here's the significance of this, Paul says, we're ministers of a new covenant. And this is what this means, this means that Paul is not arriving to tell people, we've got the list of rules, now, do this. Paul is saying we have a new message, and the new message is God changes you from the inside out. It's not follow rules and you'll get life, it's you are dead in your sin, and God makes dead things and dead people alive. So through the Holy Spirit, through a new heart, God is going to forgive your sin. He's going to welcome you into the family, and he is going to make you new from the inside out, this is the New Covenant, that's why Paul says it's not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:02] And this is easy to misunderstand, because have you ever heard people talking about the letter of the law and the spirit of the law? You're sort of like, all right, the letter of the law is that I've got to do precisely what it says, but the spirit of the law is just sort of getting all right, that there's an idea, there's an intention behind the law, that's actually not what Paul is saying here. Paul is not saying, well, we moved on from a very rigid law to a more loosey-goosey law, that's not what he's saying, he's contrasting something else. He's saying not of the letter, which means the law of Moses, he's saying the written law is no longer what we're looking to to make us new, we are of the spirit who dwells inside of us and makes us new. He says the letter kills because the thing that the law of God is good for is showing us that we deserve to be judged, it's showing us that we fail to live up to what God has called us to live up to. He says the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. We have a new message. We have a new covenant. We have a new servant. And this message is saying, God transforms you from the inside out, and your status with God is not based on what you've done for Him but is based on what Jesus has done for you, it based on the fact that His sacrifice for our sins was enough and his resurrection from the dead was enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:30] Some of you might know that today, and then also observing tomorrow, it's not a new holiday, but it's sort of a newer recognized holiday that people call Juneteenth, some of you have tomorrow off work because of this. And Juneteenth revolves around the freedom that the slaves received after the Emancipation Proclamation. But the reason this is celebrated on June 19th is because that was the day that the word got out to the enslaved African Americans that they were free, months went by from the point that their freedom was secured until the time that the message got to them. So just think about that again, there were months that went by that they actually could have been free, but they hadn't heard the message. Paul is saying, this is what I go around doing, I tell people that your freedom has been bought by Jesus. It's Juneteenth, now you get to go and live in it, now you get to go and embrace this.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:34] So no wonder Paul is saying, we are ministers of a new covenant, we celebrate not only what God has done through us, but we celebrate that God has made us new from the inside out. When you're thinking about talking to that neighbor, when you're thinking about talking to your kids, when you're thinking about serving in some way, take in that while you're talking about being a part of is the greatest message that could ever get out to anyone. And frankly, maybe one of the reasons why we're not as anxious to serve and why we're not as anxious to evangelize and why we don't feel the deep tension of we need to pass this along to our kids is because we have not yet experienced the full freedom that Jesus has bought for us. Because the more of that we experience, the more inescapable we're going to find it to talk to other people about this.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:28] Paul says I'm competent, I'm moving forward as an apostle, Corinthians, you can say what you want, I'm confident in this, I know that I measure up, and I know that I measure up because I've seen what God has done through me and I've seen what God has done in me. But in an even greater way, as we've already talked about what Paul says as an answer to this question, Corinthians, you want to know why I measure up? I don't measure up, but God makes me measure up, God is enough, in my frailty, He shows His glory. That's why Paul is able to boldly do what God has called him to do without shame and without forgetting His weaknesses but moving forward competently and confidently that God will work through Him.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:15] Please understand this clearly, this is not a self-help message. If you listen to this message, and you're like, that was a great message, the pastor told us to go out and believe in ourselves. Don't believe in yourself, believe in God. Don't be confident in yourself, be confident in God. Don't think that you are enough, you are not enough, but you've got God and he's more than enough. Whatever God is calling you to do, and however God is calling you to step out, and again, for some of you right now, this would be the first stepping out. You're saying, all right, I've come, I've attended services, I've put my faith in Jesus, but I haven't yet looked to raise my head out and believe that God could really do something in me and through me. And so every time I feel like I get that call, I just say that, no, that must be for other people, that's not for me. God has saved you; God has blessed you; God has filled you with His Spirit and he has gifted you. Each one of us have things that God is calling us to step out in. And the reason we step out is because our confidence is that even though we're not enough, he is enough. And you know, if we're really going to live this way, we're going to need constant reminders of the fact that God is enough, and he has done enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:32] And we're going to get to experience one of those reminders now because we're going to get to experience communion together. If you're going to be helping out with communion, you can head to the back right now and Tom will get you set up with the elements. As I mentioned earlier, Paul talks about being ministers of a new covenant. He says this new covenant, is where God is not looking to make us new from the outside in, he's looking to make us new from the inside out.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:57] I want you to listen to something that Jesus said when he first instituted this last supper, "He said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." Just as when the first covenant was given through Moses, there are animals that were sacrificed and there was blood that was sprinkled on the people, it was ratified with blood. Jesus ratified the new covenant that brings the forgiveness of sins by his blood and by his sacrifice. And when we take communion, we remember that. We take the bread, and we remember his broken body for us, and we take the cup and we remember his shed blood for us. And here's what I want to invite you to do during this song. During this next song, the elements will be passed, we'll all hold on to them, and then after the song, we'll take them together. But here's what I want to invite you to do, use this as a time not only to remember that because of what Jesus has done, you can be forgiven and saved but use this as a time to remember that when Jesus bought your forgiveness on the cross, he also bought your ability for Him to work through you. And if you're going to wake up each morning and say, I believe that I'm forgiven because of what Jesus did, you also get to wake up every morning believing I can step forward in confidence with what God has called me to do because of what Jesus did.
Dan Franklin: [00:37:26] Let's pray together as we prepare to take the elements. Father, thank you so much that you have given us this as a reminder of what you've done through Jesus. Thank you, that you don't demand that we would be enough because we are not enough. Thank you, that we can come to you in our frailty and in our weakness and in our inadequacy and in our unimpressive ness, and we can know that you are enough. We pray that during this time that all of the attention will come on Jesus, that we will forget ourselves, that we'll forget our frailty because we'll be so wrapped up in the strength and the love of Jesus. And Father, I pray for each person here, whatever it is that you're calling us to do, and however you're calling us to step out, I pray that you give us the boldness to follow you because we are confident in the one who has called us and saved us. We pray this in His name, amen.
Recorded in Upland, California.
Dan Franklin: [00:00:19] I want to put up a question that's going to be at the center of what we're going to talk about today. The question is, why is it that you think you measure up? Now, here's the deal, this is a question that it's unlikely that we get asked this question really overtly, but this is a question that tends to lurk behind different other things that people might say to us. Any time we sort of step out of the comfort zone, any time you try something new, you might feel this question lurking behind somewhere. It's a question that makes us wonder, am I really up to this task? Am I really important enough to do this thing that I feel like I'm supposed to do? Why is it that you think that you measure up? And even if nobody ever asks you the question, we don't necessarily need other people to ask us this question because for a lot of us, we just feel ourselves asking the question any time we step out to do something different. Who do you think you are? Why do you think you're up to this? Why is it that you think that you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:01:30] We can feel, I don't know if you ever played that old arcade Whack-A-Mole game, you know, where you've got all the moles kind of slowly emerging their heads and you've got the mallet, and you're supposed to hit them as soon as they come up. Sometimes we can feel a little bit like we're that mole, like we're just like, all right, this time I'm going to do it, I'm going to step out of my comfort zone, I'm going to do something even though I'm not quite sure I'm up to it, and as soon as we raise our head up, we feel like we get smashed by that mallet with this question, why is it that you think that you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:02:02] Now, here's what I want to let you know, the Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians is basically being asked this question by the Corinthian church. Paul, why is it that you think you measure up? And specifically, Paul, why is it that you think you measure up to be an apostle of Jesus and somebody that we should listen to? Now, it could be hard for us to believe that Paul would have dealt with this question, because we think of Paul and we're like, Paul is Paul. Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament, and we imagine Paul just to be this tall, impressive, handsome, eloquent person who spoke with great confidence. But if you read the Bible, you actually learn that our picture of Paul is not accurate.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:55] In this same letter of Second Corinthians, in Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse 10, here's what Paul says about himself. He says, "Some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” A chapter later, in Second Corinthians chapter 11 verse 6, he says of himself that he was, "Untrained as a speaker." And in First Corinthians chapter 2 verse 3, when he's describing what it was like when he first came to the Corinthians with the gospel message, he says, "I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling." So if you walked in this morning and you had in your head a picture of Paul, Saint Paul, the man who wrote this letter, it's time for us to adjust that picture in our heads of somebody that may have written great letters, but the word on him was out that he was not an impressive speaker, and the Corinthians were around some other Christian speakers who were pretty impressive.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:58] In fact, later on in Second Corinthians, Paul sarcastically refers to them as the super-apostles. And Paul doesn't seem to measure up to those super-apostles. The Corinthians are looking at Paul and they're saying, why is it that you think you measure up? Who in the world do you think you are? Now here's the deal, what we're going to get to see through this passage is we're going to get to see Paul's answers to this question. He's going to respond to the Corinthians in a couple of ways and say, here's why I think I'm up to the task, here's why I think you should listen to me. But I want to pause before we get into those answers because I want us just to recognize we might look at this and say, well, that's cool, we're going to get to see Paul defend himself and we're going to get to see Paul explain why he thinks he measures up to being an apostle.
Dan Franklin: [00:04:45] But I'm not an apostle, you're not an apostle, so are we just sort of reading somebody else's mail here and just going through an interesting story? I want to take this story and I want to make sure we can personalize what we're about to do. None of us in this room are apostles, but if you're a believer in Jesus, there are things God has called you to do, and there are ways God has called you to step out of your comfort zone. And I promise you, if you don't already know this, any time you begin to step out of your comfort zone to do what God has called you to do, you're going to get hit by this question, why is it that you think you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:05:24] There might be some of you in here that just even as Phil was talking about our go teams, that in the past when we've talked about these go teams that go overseas, that you may have had the thought maybe I should go on one, maybe I should sign up for one of those, maybe that's what God is calling me to do. And just as quickly as you started to creep your head out of that hole, it got whacked back down and you began to say, who in the world do I think I am that I'm going to go overseas and tell other people about Jesus? Maybe sometimes when we're talking about serving in our life kids ministry or serving as a life group leader, some of you hear that and you start to respond and you say, actually, I think God is calling me to do that. But as soon as you start to think about it, you get whacked back down with who in the world do I think am, why would I think that I'm up for that? I've got enough things in my own life, why do I think God would use me in that way? Maybe it doesn't even have to do with a specific ministry in this church, maybe there are people in your life, there are neighbors, there are coworkers, there are classmates, there are friends, and there are people that you know that God is calling you to be more of an overt gospel witness, to bring up conversations, to invite them to come to a church service, but every time you start to think about moving forward in that, you get whacked back down with the question, why is it that you think you measure up? Why do you think you're better than that person, that you're going to tell them what they should be doing with their life? Maybe it even applies to your own family, where you're feeling the call of God to say, hey, with our kids or with our grandkids, or as husband and wife, we need to step forward and we need to be more focused on Jesus, but every time you're ready to take that first step you get whacked back down with this question, why is it that you think you measure up?
Dan Franklin: [00:07:05] As we look at how Paul responds, we get to go on a journey with him and we get to personalize what he says. We get to move forward with his answers to this question because while we might not be apostles, God willing, all of us right now are thinking there are some things God is calling me to do, and I've been waiting on it. So let's look together, let's look at Paul's two answers to this question in Second Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. The first answer is in the first three verses, and the second answer is in the next three verses.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:39] So we'll look at the first one here when we're asking the question, why do we think we measure up? The first answer that we get to give is because of what God has done through us. And Paul was going to start this off to the Corinthians to say do you know why I think I measure up? Because I know what God has done through me. Verse 1, he starts off with two questions, he says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?" By the way, is anybody listening to this and saying he kind of sounds like he's being sarcastic? But you're like, but it's the Bible so I'm sure it's not. Paul is kind of being sarcastic here, he's saying, really, Corinthians, do I need to come to you with a list of references? Do I need to come to you with a letter of recommendation from somebody else to say why you should listen to me? And even though he's being sarcastic, this was actually a thing in the first century. If a Christian teacher would show up, they might show up with a letter of recommendation.
Dan Franklin: [00:08:42] In fact, if you want to look this up later in Acts Chapter 18 verse 27, an early Christian teacher named Apollos showed up to a church with letters of recommendation from other Christian leaders. So this was a thing, but Paul's looking at the Corinthians and he's saying, doo you really need this from me? Do you really need a list of references for you to listen to me? And then he decides he's going to tell them his references, in verse two, he says, "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone." Paul says Corinthians you want a reference of why you should listen to me, you're our reference.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:26] Some of you might have remembered that earlier this year, the great quarterback Tom Brady retired from football for like two weeks, yeah, it might not have even been two weeks, it was a short stint. He retired, it was a big story, it was a big deal, and then he decided he was coming back. And I just want you to imagine this for a second, Tom Brady, widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time, tells the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I'm coming back this year. So imagine he gets in there with the General Manager, and with the coach of the team and says, all right, guys, I know that I retired, but I'd like to come back and play again for the team this year. And they respond and they say, Tom, that's so kind, could we see your resume? He'd look at them kind of dumbly and say, you want to see my resume? You guys are my resume. Remember how you were a bad team, and then two years ago I came here and we won a Super Bowl, not to mention the other six Super Bowls I've won. Do you want to see a resume? You are my resume.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:27] And this is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians, he's saying, you're asking me to prove that you should listen to me, you are the reason why other people listen to me, he says, your letter, read and known by other people. They see you Corinthians, and that makes them want to listen to me because they see the absolute transformation that happened through the Gospel of Jesus in your lives. And Corinthians, if you want a reason to listen to me, you are my reference. And he goes even further with this, and even brings some clarity to it in verse 3. So in verse 3 he says, "You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry."
Dan Franklin: [00:11:09] This is a little bit of a hint of where Paul is going to go later on, but he wants to make sure that the Corinthians, as they're reading this, that they don't think that Paul is under the impression that they were transformed from death to life, from hell to heaven, from being lost to being found, they weren't transferred in all those ways because Paul was such a great preacher, he says you are a letter from Christ, Jesus made you new.. And he says, you're the result of our ministry, but then he furthers it by saying, "Written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." Paul says, yeah, I was there, it was the result of our ministry and throughout this whole section when Paul is saying we and our, he's talking about him and Timothy and other apostles. So he's referring to himself here, he's saying, you're the result of our ministry, but really, nmyou're the result of Jesus writing you as a letter and the Spirit of God overseeing the whole thing.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:13] Paul says something similar in First Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6 when he says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow." Paul says, I was there when this all happened, and here's what's really significant about this. Paul says, all right, do you want to know why you should listen to me? Do you want to know why you should pay attention to me? Look at yourselves, remember the amazing transformation that God brought among you, and then because of that, you should listen. Paul refers back to the way that God used Him, and by the way, Paul is recognizing that he was used even though he was an untrained, unskilled, unimpressive speaker. Because as we've been talking about ,and as we'll talk about every week in this series, what we see over and over again and the reason why we're calling this series Glory and Frailty, is because God loves to show the world His glory through the frailty of his servants. Paul says, I came to you in fear and trembling a weak, unimpressive speaker, and your lives were rocked because Jesus moved in you. Your lives were changed because the Holy Spirit came and indwelt you.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:25] And Paul's giving us a powerful insight also here, Paul is confident that God can keep using him because he's able to look back and remember God in the past using him. And let me just say, you know, once you get a taste for God using you, once you get a taste for God working through you, it becomes much easier to put your head out of that hole. It becomes much easier to step forward and say, even though I'm weak, even though I'm frail, even though I'm unimpressive, I know that God can work through me because He's done it in the past. When you start to see how a bold word that you said brought encouragement to someone else, or a Bible study that you led had somebody grow closer to Jesus, or that a way that you serve behind the scenes made an impact. When you start to see God use you, you start to believe more and more that God can use you and work through you.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:27] How many of you have heard of a man named John Piper? All right, a bunch of you have and bunch of you haven't. But John Piper, he's recently retired just in the last few years, but he was a pastor in Minnesota for a bunch of years, he had a well-known ministry, wrote a whole bunch of books. In fact, if you're a reader, or even if you're not a reader, go and read the book Future Grace by John Piper, I read it almost every year, it's a wonderful, great book. He's been part of sending out missionaries, training pastors, he has had a wide impact on the world.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:59] So you could look at him and you can say, that's somebody that God has worked powerfully through. Well, let me tell you a story of something that happened with John Piper in college. In college, John Piper was asked to come to a Christian event and give a one-minute opening prayer from upfront. Now, if you know anything about John Piper, you'd be like that's like child's play. I mean, he preaches hour-long sermons, he preaches at conferences in front of thousands of people, no problem. John Piper, this time was so cripplingly anxious about public speaking that regularly, when he would give oral reports and oral presentations in school, he would be crippled with anxiety over them, and he was asked to come and give a one-minute prayer from upfront.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:50] By the way, some of you are like, that's not hard for me to believe at all. If we ask you to come up front and just give a one-minute public prayer, you'd be like, aren't there some live cockroaches I could eat instead of doing that? Like, that sounds terrible. And here's what John Piper did, and he records this in his books. He prayed to God, and this is what he prayed, he said, God, if you get me through this, and if you work through me doing this, then I will never again in my life say no to a public speaking opportunity because of my fear. God got him through it, God worked through him, and Debbie, you just said it, thank God he said yes. Because the work that God did through this man, you may be right now at that first step, you may be right at the verge where you're like, I don't know if I want to stick my hat out, I don't know if I want to say yes, I feel daunted. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I measure up? Who knows what God may do if you just take that first step to say, I'm willing to believe God could work through me?
Dan Franklin: [00:16:55] Before moving on, I just want to say one more thing. I've been thinking about this because it's Father's Day, and Happy Father's Day, by the way, to all you fathers out there. One of the great griefs that are a part of many families, many Christian families, is men not boldly stepping up and taking the lead to center their families around Jesus. And it's true of every church I've been a part of, this is true of our church also, that too frequently we have this situation where mom is looking at it and just saying, gosh, I'm trying to point the kids towards Jesus, but I'm kind of on my own in this, and my husband sort of lets this happen. And I know some of you guys are like, hey, we're the ones who are here on Father's Day, don't beat up on us. I'm not beating up on you, but what I want to say is this, there are too many of us as men who are unwilling to take the leadership that God has called us as men to take. And some of us are looking at our wives and we're like, she’s more godly than I am. If your wife is more godly than you are, that is not a liability, that is an asset. But God has called you as a man to take ownership, to say, I want to make sure we're reading scripture with our kids, I want to make sure we're praying, I want to make sure church is prioritized. We're not going to be one of those families where mom is dragging everybody to church and Dad is kind of dragging his heels and going along with it. Man, if you step forward, if you just take that first step, if you just take that first step and say, you know what, I'm weak and I'm frail, and I feel like if I read Scripture my kids are going to ask me questions that I don't know the answer to. Step forward and trust that God can work through you, and I promise you, once you begin to taste God working through you, you're not going to be able to get enough of it.
Dan Franklin: [00:18:46] All right, mini sermon is over, back to the regular sermon. If we ever feel like, why is it that I think I measure up? We get to first say, you know what, I have seen God work through me before, even though I'm weak and frail, I believe he can do it again, that's reason number one that Paul gives. But Paul gives another reason of why we would believe that we measure up, and that's not only because of how we've seen God work through us but because of what we've seen God do in us.
Dan Franklin: [00:19:17] Now listen to where Paul goes, starting in verse 4. In verse 4, he says, "Such confidence we have through Christ before God." Now, I love this, he's building off what he said before, I've seen God bring life transformation through me, so I'm going to step forward. He says I'm going to step forward in confidence, I have this confidence through Christ and before God. So start with the last part, start with before, I have confidence before God. Here's the deal, in life, there's only one opinion that truly matters in the end, and that's God's opinion. And Paul says I am confident before God. So you know what, Corinthians, if you're going to come at me and you're going to say, Paul, maybe you're not eloquent enough, maybe you're not smart enough, maybe you're not good-looking enough. Paul is saying, I'm confident before God, bring what you're going to bring. I have confidence before God, but He makes clear this confidence is through Christ. This confidence is not in his own strength and power and ability and morality and talents, his confidence is through Christ.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:31] And He explains this further in verse 5, he says, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." He says I'm competent in stepping forward in what God's called me to do, I'm competent before God. But I'm competent, I'm competent through Christ. Our competence, he says, we don't have our own competence, it doesn't come from us, our competence comes from God. And let's zero in on that word, competence, that he uses a couple of times here. We're not competent in ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:05] Some of you may have an open Bible and it may have a different translation than the NIV, which we're using here, and so a word that sometimes shows up in translations instead of competence is sufficiency. In other words, I'm not sufficient in and of myself, but my sufficiency comes from God. And now follow me one step further down this rabbit hole, competence, sufficiency, do you know another word for sufficient? Enough. When you say that's sufficient, you're saying that's enough. So Paul is saying not that we are enough in and of ourselves, but our enoughness comes from God. The reason that we know that we're enough is that this comes from God. And this is important because just in the same way that some of us feel like we get hammered with the question, why do you think you measure up, even if it's just internal, even if nobody says it to us, this word, enough, is another word that we get hammered by, that we're constantly wondering, well, should I do that? Am I smart enough? Am I godly enough? Am I talented enough? Am I important enough? And Paul is bringing up this question and he's saying, any time we're going to step forward and look to do what God has called us to do, we're going to deal with this question, am I enough? And Paul says, we are not enough by ourselves, but are enoughness comes from God. We're not enough, but He makes us enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:42] And if you know Paul's life, he knows this at a deep level because he knows this not just in terms of being an apostle, but he knows this in terms of just being a Christian. Paul knows that he is in the family of God, not because he was moral enough or godly enough. Paul was an enemy of Jesus. Paul threw Christians in prison. Paul oversaw the execution of Christians. Paul knows he was not enough, but thank God that Jesus loves to save sinners. Can I get an amen? Jesus loves to save sinners. Jesus loves to welcome unlikely people into the family. So Paul knows He is standing completely on grace, he's saying I was not moral enough and I was not godly enough and I was not lovable enough to be welcomed into the family, but God was enough, and He welcomed me in by his grace.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:44] And, you know, we live in a very self-help, friendly culture where this is something that you're told even this word enough. This is something if you read a self-help book or listen to a self-help guru, this is how they're going to respond to you. They're going to say, hey, if you ever wake up in the morning and you're wondering how you measure up, here's what you say, you say, I am enough. I am enough to handle it, and I'm smart enough, and I'm good-looking enough, and I'm talented enough, and I persevere enough, I am enough to handle it. And what we get from the Bible is something completely different, we get Paul saying, you are not enough, you aren't. but God is with you and God is enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:23] And I know I'm confident that for some of you right now, what I just said feels deflating. Because maybe you've had times where you've had self-doubt and you feel like I've found a lot of comfort in the idea of just saying, I know that I'm enough, and you feel a little bit deflated. You feel like, all right, well, even if this is true, this is kind of hard news to take, and I have to take in the idea that I'm not enough. What I want you to know is that this is not bad news, this is liberating news to find out that you are not enough, but God is.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:56] You can take it into just about any area, but let's take it at the core area. The core, the most foundational thing that we crave from God is his love. And you could wake up every morning and try to figure out why is it that I'm confident that God loves me? Like maybe I was confident for a different reason yesterday, but today, why am I confident that God loves me? And some mornings, if we're honest with ourselves, we wake up and we say, the reason I know that God loves me is because I've been behaving well recently, I've been resisting temptation enough, I've been reading my Bible enough, I've been praying enough, I've been serving enough, so this morning, I know that God loves me because I've been good enough. And frankly, there might be some mornings that you're able to hold on to that, but we all know what shaky ground we're on if that's your basis for God's love because a morning is coming soon when you're going to wake up and there's going to be no way for you to delude yourself into believing that you've been good enough. You will have failed, you will have fallen short, and you will have been lazy, you will not resist temptation, and you'll wake up and you'll say, there's no way I can convince myself that God loves me because I'm enough. And those are the times when we so desperately need to believe that the reason why I am loved is not because I'm enough, it's because God's love overcomes every inadequacy I have. God's love for you is not based on your lovability, and thank God it's not, God's love for you is based on His profound love that overcomes everything, Paul says, we're not enough, but God is enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:26:50] And then he takes it even further, in an unexpected way, in the next verse, in verse 6. He says, "He has made us competent." There's that word again, he's made us enough, "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Paul brings up the idea, he says, we're ministers, we're servants of a new covenant. And hearing those words might not do anything for us. but any first-century Jew who would have read this or heard this read would have immediately perked up. They would have said, New Covenant, I've heard about that. Because God made a covenant with the people of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt and out of their slavery, he made a covenant surrounding Moses and the idea of the Ten Commandments.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:38] But in the Old Testament, God promised he was going to make a new covenant, and that's what Paul is referring to. And let me just read a couple of passages that talk about this new covenant. The first one is Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 31 through 34, so just listen as I read this, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to d them”. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." God says there was a covenant where I gave them rules, but I'm giving them a new covenant, I'm not going to write the rules on a tablet of stone, I'm going to write it on their hearts. I'm going to give them a new heart.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:01] In fact, listen to what he says in Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 26, he's talking about the same thing. He says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." And here's the significance of this, Paul says, we're ministers of a new covenant. And this is what this means, this means that Paul is not arriving to tell people, we've got the list of rules, now, do this. Paul is saying we have a new message, and the new message is God changes you from the inside out. It's not follow rules and you'll get life, it's you are dead in your sin, and God makes dead things and dead people alive. So through the Holy Spirit, through a new heart, God is going to forgive your sin. He's going to welcome you into the family, and he is going to make you new from the inside out, this is the New Covenant, that's why Paul says it's not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:02] And this is easy to misunderstand, because have you ever heard people talking about the letter of the law and the spirit of the law? You're sort of like, all right, the letter of the law is that I've got to do precisely what it says, but the spirit of the law is just sort of getting all right, that there's an idea, there's an intention behind the law, that's actually not what Paul is saying here. Paul is not saying, well, we moved on from a very rigid law to a more loosey-goosey law, that's not what he's saying, he's contrasting something else. He's saying not of the letter, which means the law of Moses, he's saying the written law is no longer what we're looking to to make us new, we are of the spirit who dwells inside of us and makes us new. He says the letter kills because the thing that the law of God is good for is showing us that we deserve to be judged, it's showing us that we fail to live up to what God has called us to live up to. He says the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. We have a new message. We have a new covenant. We have a new servant. And this message is saying, God transforms you from the inside out, and your status with God is not based on what you've done for Him but is based on what Jesus has done for you, it based on the fact that His sacrifice for our sins was enough and his resurrection from the dead was enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:30] Some of you might know that today, and then also observing tomorrow, it's not a new holiday, but it's sort of a newer recognized holiday that people call Juneteenth, some of you have tomorrow off work because of this. And Juneteenth revolves around the freedom that the slaves received after the Emancipation Proclamation. But the reason this is celebrated on June 19th is because that was the day that the word got out to the enslaved African Americans that they were free, months went by from the point that their freedom was secured until the time that the message got to them. So just think about that again, there were months that went by that they actually could have been free, but they hadn't heard the message. Paul is saying, this is what I go around doing, I tell people that your freedom has been bought by Jesus. It's Juneteenth, now you get to go and live in it, now you get to go and embrace this.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:34] So no wonder Paul is saying, we are ministers of a new covenant, we celebrate not only what God has done through us, but we celebrate that God has made us new from the inside out. When you're thinking about talking to that neighbor, when you're thinking about talking to your kids, when you're thinking about serving in some way, take in that while you're talking about being a part of is the greatest message that could ever get out to anyone. And frankly, maybe one of the reasons why we're not as anxious to serve and why we're not as anxious to evangelize and why we don't feel the deep tension of we need to pass this along to our kids is because we have not yet experienced the full freedom that Jesus has bought for us. Because the more of that we experience, the more inescapable we're going to find it to talk to other people about this.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:28] Paul says I'm competent, I'm moving forward as an apostle, Corinthians, you can say what you want, I'm confident in this, I know that I measure up, and I know that I measure up because I've seen what God has done through me and I've seen what God has done in me. But in an even greater way, as we've already talked about what Paul says as an answer to this question, Corinthians, you want to know why I measure up? I don't measure up, but God makes me measure up, God is enough, in my frailty, He shows His glory. That's why Paul is able to boldly do what God has called him to do without shame and without forgetting His weaknesses but moving forward competently and confidently that God will work through Him.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:15] Please understand this clearly, this is not a self-help message. If you listen to this message, and you're like, that was a great message, the pastor told us to go out and believe in ourselves. Don't believe in yourself, believe in God. Don't be confident in yourself, be confident in God. Don't think that you are enough, you are not enough, but you've got God and he's more than enough. Whatever God is calling you to do, and however God is calling you to step out, and again, for some of you right now, this would be the first stepping out. You're saying, all right, I've come, I've attended services, I've put my faith in Jesus, but I haven't yet looked to raise my head out and believe that God could really do something in me and through me. And so every time I feel like I get that call, I just say that, no, that must be for other people, that's not for me. God has saved you; God has blessed you; God has filled you with His Spirit and he has gifted you. Each one of us have things that God is calling us to step out in. And the reason we step out is because our confidence is that even though we're not enough, he is enough. And you know, if we're really going to live this way, we're going to need constant reminders of the fact that God is enough, and he has done enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:32] And we're going to get to experience one of those reminders now because we're going to get to experience communion together. If you're going to be helping out with communion, you can head to the back right now and Tom will get you set up with the elements. As I mentioned earlier, Paul talks about being ministers of a new covenant. He says this new covenant, is where God is not looking to make us new from the outside in, he's looking to make us new from the inside out.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:57] I want you to listen to something that Jesus said when he first instituted this last supper, "He said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." Just as when the first covenant was given through Moses, there are animals that were sacrificed and there was blood that was sprinkled on the people, it was ratified with blood. Jesus ratified the new covenant that brings the forgiveness of sins by his blood and by his sacrifice. And when we take communion, we remember that. We take the bread, and we remember his broken body for us, and we take the cup and we remember his shed blood for us. And here's what I want to invite you to do during this song. During this next song, the elements will be passed, we'll all hold on to them, and then after the song, we'll take them together. But here's what I want to invite you to do, use this as a time not only to remember that because of what Jesus has done, you can be forgiven and saved but use this as a time to remember that when Jesus bought your forgiveness on the cross, he also bought your ability for Him to work through you. And if you're going to wake up each morning and say, I believe that I'm forgiven because of what Jesus did, you also get to wake up every morning believing I can step forward in confidence with what God has called me to do because of what Jesus did.
Dan Franklin: [00:37:26] Let's pray together as we prepare to take the elements. Father, thank you so much that you have given us this as a reminder of what you've done through Jesus. Thank you, that you don't demand that we would be enough because we are not enough. Thank you, that we can come to you in our frailty and in our weakness and in our inadequacy and in our unimpressive ness, and we can know that you are enough. We pray that during this time that all of the attention will come on Jesus, that we will forget ourselves, that we'll forget our frailty because we'll be so wrapped up in the strength and the love of Jesus. And Father, I pray for each person here, whatever it is that you're calling us to do, and however you're calling us to step out, I pray that you give us the boldness to follow you because we are confident in the one who has called us and saved us. We pray this in His name, amen.
Recorded in Upland, California.
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