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(upbeat music) - We're studying through 2 Corinthians chapter two this week, day
four. We're going to look at verses 12 to the first part of verse 16. And as we get
into this section of 2 Corinthians two, we're going to see Paul talking about how
you and I survive our own inadequacies, our own inferiority complexes.

Sometimes when we talk about surviving as a servant, the servant's survival
manual, sometimes we have to survive problems from outside of us. Sometimes we
have to survive problems between us. But the worst of our problems comes when it
means we have to survive problems that are within us.

To be an effective servant of Christ, there's a basic feeling that we all must
survive. And the feeling is this, I could never be an effective servant of
Christ. That feeling comes because you realize your own inadequacies.

You see your own weaknesses. And so you think, how could God use me? I could
never be an effective servant of Christ.

And when you have that feeling, that feeling can result in an increased
dependence on Christ or it can result in deep feelings of personal inadequacy.
You have a choice in that moment. And many Christians walk down the road of what
I call a Christian inferiority complex.

Now, what are the causes of this? What creates this? A couple of things.

First, false humility and then unresolved guilt. False humility, the feeling,
how could God use me? I couldn't ever be used of God.

God is so great and I am so puny. I am but dust, so how could God use me? False
humility, but then also unresolved guilt.

I don't deserve to be a servant. If you only knew what I had done, if you only
knew what I had said, how could God use me and I don't deserve to be a servant?
Now, those actually are both sourced in our pride rather than in our dependence
on God.

Paul, as he talks in beginning in verse 12, talks to us about how you and I can
overcome these feelings to become an effective servant. In fact, he gives us
some keys in chapter two and three, three specific keys we're going to be looking
at during the next couple of weeks about how you survive these feelings. It
begins in chapter two, verses 12 to 16.

Paul says this. Now, when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and
found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind
because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and
went on to Macedonia.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and
through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are
to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are
perishing. To one, we are the smell of death.

To the other, the fragrance of life. How do you survive a feeling of inadequacy?
How could God use me?

I don't deserve to be a servant. First thing you do is this, you embrace true
humility. That's where you start.

You don't try to build yourself up. In fact, very opposite, you realize who you
really are. You embrace true humility, true humility.

We often try to find a false kind of humility in personal ridicule. We think if
I put myself down enough, then maybe the Lord will lift me up. Oh, God could
never use me.

How could God ever use me? I'm but a worm. How could this happen?

It doesn't work. You go down that path and you end up building feelings of
inferiority rather than humility. And those feelings of inferiority, they take
you down a selfish path.

They take you to a place where you've got to solve those feelings yourself by
something that you do for yourself. But when you start with humility, that takes
you down a godly path. That drives you to Jesus.

And Paul, Paul had humility. Paul's humility was born of his relationship with
Christ and it was born of his responsibility before Christ, those two things.
His relationship with Christ and his responsibility before Christ.

You see that in the statements that he makes in these verses, especially in this
powerful picture. This picture where he talks about in verse 14, we're always
led in triumphal procession in Christ. God always leads us in triumph.

This is a very powerful picture and it's deeply rooted in the history of Paul's
day. He's talking here about a Roman triumph. When a Roman general had killed at
least 5,000 in a battle and gained a new territory, he was awarded what was
called a triumph.

It's the Roman equivalent of a ticker tape parade. It was a procession through
Rome that celebrated this general. And this procession, it displayed the
captives that he had gained from this country that had now been conquered.

In this procession, part of the procession were a group of priests that bore
garlands of flowers and pots of fragrant incense. And in this procession, the
prisoners, those who'd been captured, followed in chains. They were doomed to
execution.

The parade often ended at the Circus Maximus where the helpless captives would
fight wild beasts. So Paul says here, there's these priests and there's this
fragrant incense. And those who'd been victorious in the battle, they smell this
and they smelled victory.

But those who'd been defeated in the battle, they smelled this and they smelled
death. Paul says we're the same way in Christ. The aroma of Christ in our lives
is in our lives.

And those who know Christ, as they smell this, they smell the fact that we're
all headed for heaven. But those who don't know Christ, as they smell the
reality of God in your life, they smell the fact that they're separated from
God. It's the aroma of life for one and the aroma of death for another.

There is a distinctive to Christianity, as powerful as a distinctive smell in a
room. The presence of Christ in you is more powerful than you realize. And so
your presence as a Christian in a situation challenges people to think in ways
that you don't even see.

It challenges believers to be lifted up in faith and it challenges unbelievers
to realize they don't yet have faith. And those who want to keep God at arm's
distance, it causes those unbelievers to want to reject you, to push you away.
It causes unbelievers who want to have faith to want to get closer to you, find
out what you have.

Now, in this picture, there's the picture of these conquering soldiers, this
triumph. We are always led in triumph. Some say, as commentators look at this
passage, some say that we are the conquering soldiers in this picture.

We are marching in triumph with Christ. Others say that we're the conquered
captives, that we've been put to death in Christ so that we can have a new life,
that we're under new management in our lives. I believe, without going through a
lot of detail in this and coming down on one side or the other, which I could
do, I believe there's actually truth in both pictures.

They both help us to understand humility. Humility is realizing he leads you in
triumph. You're part of his triumphal procession always.

It's not your triumph, it's his triumph. He's the general. He's the one who's
out in front, never me.

So when I realize that, even though I'm part of those who conquer, we are all
conquerors in Christ, Romans 8 tells us. I realize that he's the conqueror,
never me. But there's the other picture too.

There's the truth that he has conquered our souls. There's the truth that we
live in grateful submission to him. So we're led in triumphal procession always,
and we live in grateful submission to him always.

That's true humility. Our father, we pray you'd grow us in humility. I've got,
we've got so much to learn.

Protect us from false ideas of humility that just put us down, where we think if
we say less of ourselves, it's going to make more of you. Even as we pray that, we
know how foolish that is. And give us a true humility.

A humility that realizes you are leading us in triumphal procession to be part
of your kingdom forever. But a humility that realizes also that you, Jesus, and
only you have conquered our souls. We haven't done this, you've done it.

So we're entirely dependent on you for life. Thank you for the life you've given
us, Jesus. And help us to live in humble gratefulness.

This day, this day, one day at a time. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Tomorrow we're going to see together a second source of true humility.