This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - This is day five together of our look through 2 Corinthians
chapter two. And we're going to look at verses 16 and 17 today. Yesterday we talked
about the fact that true humility comes from a relationship.

Recognizing who Jesus really is in your life. He's the king. He's the one who's
leading us in triumphal procession.

He always leads us in triumph. Today we're going to look at the truth that true
humility also has to do with a responsibility. How you handle the stewardship of
who God has made you to be and the work that he's given you to do.

Seeing what God has given for us to do with the right eyes, that's part of true
humility. And here's how you look at it. Paul talks about it in the last half of
verse 16 and into verse 17.

He says this, "And who is equal to such a task? " Unlike so many, we do not
pedal the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God
with sincerity like men sent from God.

Now there's true humility. Paul saying, "Who is equal to such a task? " What God
has given us to do, no one is equal to do.

We are not capable in our own power of doing what God commands us to do. We need
his power. And apart from his power, it's not going to get done.

So trying to make yourself equal to the tasks or the responsibilities that God
has given to you, that will never result in humility. That just results in
inadequacy usually or pride if you lie to yourself enough. Now you come to God
and you say, "God, I'm not equal to this task.

"I need you. " The question is, how will you respond to the fact that you're not
equal to this task that God has given? You cannot do what you're not equal to
do.

So how are you going to respond to that? Now Paul says there are many who respond
to it selfishly. They just depend on what they can do.

So he says, actually they become those who peddle the word of God for profit.
They just let the word of God start to meet their needs rather than taking on
the task that God has given us, which is to meet other people's needs. And
that's the lowest common denominator in many ways or lowest form of what some
people call faith.

It's not real faith at all. They say they have faith in Jesus, but really it's
all about how can God meet my needs today? It's not about loving God with all my
heart, soul, and strength.

It's not about loving my neighbor as myself. It's how can God meet my needs
today? How can I use God to get what I want?

That's peddling the word of God for profit. And you may think I'd never do that.
Well, I've done it and you've probably done it too.

I've never sold God's word out on a street corner for profit, but there are
times in my life when I've looked at God's word to meet my needs, not realizing
one of the things he's challenging me to do is meet other people's needs. How am
I going to have the kind of humility that realizes I'm not equal to this task?
How do I begin to depend on him?

Paul talks about it in the last part of verse 17. We read through it quickly,
but it is a passage that is filled with meaning. As you go through it phrase by
phrase, you see the power of what he's saying here.

How can you be the kind of person who depends on God? Here are the phrases. You
do it in Christ, you do it before God, you do it with sincerity, and you do it
as men or as a normal human being.

First, you do it in Christ. In the New Testament, there are over 150 references
to our being in Christ. God's spirit puts you in Christ.

You don't have to do anything to put yourself in Christ. The moment you're
saved, God himself puts you in Christ through his spirit. Now, what does it mean
to be in Christ?

It means that when God looks at you, he sees you in the light of your faith in
his son. Let me picture it this way. Suppose, I do, I have a piece of paper in
my hand, and it's a nice white sheet of paper, but let's suppose this represents
your life.

If it represents your life, obviously the paper's not a clean white sheet of
paper. None of us is perfect. It has been crumpled up by your selfishness.

It has been muddied by your sinful habits. This piece of paper has been torn by
your mistakes. It's been made ragged by your attempts to be a good person
without God's strength.

Now, if I hold this piece of paper up now and you were to see it, it would be a
pretty ugly thing. That represents your life. But suppose in my other hand, I've
got a Bible, and I take this piece of paper and I fold it up and I place it in
the Bible.

Like you're in Christ, I place it in the Bible. And I fold the Bible over that
piece of paper. Now, if I hold up the piece of paper, you don't see it at all.

All you see is the Bible because it's been put in the Bible. You've been put in
Christ. So now when your life is held up before God, God sees Jesus.

That's what it means for you to be put in Christ. God sees Jesus, the perfection
of Jesus, the holiness of Jesus. He now sees you as in Christ.

And when you realize that, you realize that's where my life is. And you
recognize if I'm going to live out the life that God has for me to live, I need to
live out a life that's depending on his power. I'm dependent on his forgiveness
in order to be in heaven with God for eternity.

I'm also dependent on his power each day of my life to live the life that God
has given me to live. I am not only put in Christ, I'm to live my life in
Christ. The picture Jesus gave of this is like a vine in branches.

As long as the branches are attached to the vine, then the life flows through
them and the fruit can come from them. I stay attached to Christ. I stay in
Christ.

That's how I respond to the fact that I'm not equal to the task. Whenever you
feel like I can't do this, I'm inadequate. I'm inferior.

It's an invitation to say to yourself, okay, I gotta get back to it. I'm in
Christ. I'm attached to the vine.

That's where I'm going to be equal to this. I don't have to build myself up. I have
to connect myself or recognize that I am connected to him through what he's done
for me.

In Christ, Paul says you do this. In Christ, we speak, here's the second phrase,
before God. So that's how you live to be equal.

You do it before God. This is how we speak. It's also how we act.

What Paul is saying here is it's all done in his presence. We do it in Christ,
but we also do it before God. All of life is lived in his presence.

It's not as if God has given me a task and I go off somewhere, I'm going to do this
task. Okay, okay, okay, I've got it done. And then I come back and say, okay,
God, here's how I did.

No, the task that God has given, he is with me. He is present every moment as
I'm living out that task for me to talk to, for me to depend on, for me to rely
on. I'm living my life.

I'm saying my words before God. Now there's some days, I think for all of us, we
wish that wasn't true because of what we said, what we did. Those days, God is
there and we're in Christ and he forgives us.

But there are so many days when I need to strengthen power and I need to realize
he is right here with me. I am living out my life in the presence of a most holy
God before God. In Christ, before God, Paul says we do this.

And if you're going to live out, you're going to live past the truth that you're not
equal to the task, the third thing Paul says is you do it with sincerity, with
sincerity. One of the temptations when you know you're not equal to the task is
to try to be a fake. I'll fake it like I'm equal to the task.

But Paul says, I don't choose that. I choose instead sincerity, just being
honest about who I am. Now this word sincerity, a legend arose out of the Latin
for this, sena sera, which means without wax.

And this legend arose, which I think has a great picture to it, is the idea that
the pottery of the day would actually sometimes get cracked out in the sun. And
so the shop that sold the pottery in order to make it sellable would put wax
into those cracks and sort of fade it in so that the pot didn't look cracked
anymore, but it looked perfect. It was only when you brought the pot home and
put a plant in it, put it out in the sun that then the wax would melt and you'd
see the crack that was in it.

Truth is we've all got cracks in our lives. We've all got struggles in our
lives. We've all got places in our lives where we wish we could hide it.

Paul says, instead of hiding it, we're going to see later in 2 Corinthians, he
says, I actually glory in it because I realize that's a place of forgiveness.
That's a place of recognizing the power of Christ in my life. So you live your
life with that kind of sincerity.

You live your life so that when the heat's put on your life, the phoniness
doesn't melt, but instead the truth of who Jesus is in you comes out. Don't
follow the path, the temptation of trying to fake it in order to show people
that you're equal to the task. Instead, just admit I'm not equal to the task.

I've got as many problems as you do, but praise God, he uses us in his
forgiveness and his power and his grace. So Paul says, I do this in Christ. I do
this before God.

I do this with sincerity. And then he says, we do this as men. You can say as
women too, those of you who are women listening to this.

We do this as people sent from God. First he says, as men. He says, we're mere
human beings.

I'm not trying to be more than I am, Paul says. I'm just a mere human being. I'm
never more than that.

But, he says, God has decided to send me a mere human being sent by God. God has
decided to send mere human beings. False humility says, I can't do this because
I'm not perfect.

But the truth of the matter is, God's decided to use imperfect people to get his
will done on this earth. That's how he does it. He does it through his body,
through the church.

And he uses our gifts together to accomplish his will. And as missionaries go
out, they are imperfect human beings, but they accomplish God's will. As sermons
are taught, they're taught by imperfect human beings, but they accomplish his
will.

We do it in Christ before God with sincerity. I'm a mere human being, but sent
by God. Now, as you look at your life, what God wants to do in your life, let me
just ask you, have you been allowing the feeling of inferiority to keep you from
being the person, from doing the things that God wants you to do?

The truth is, we've all got those feelings. Some of us hide them better than
others, but we've all got those feelings. And the question isn't whether you
feel inferior sometimes.

The question is, what are you going to do with that feeling? Is it going to cause you
to become depressed and feel like God could never use me? Or will it drive you
instead to depending on God in a fresh new way?

Let's pray together. Father, I pray that for each of us, the truth of these
verses would shine in our lives more and more. We are in Christ.

We are in you, Jesus. Thank you for the gift of being placed in you for
salvation and for life and abundance. And we do live our lives before God in
your presence.

We can live with sincerity because you've forgiven us, because it's all about
you, Jesus, and not about us. So we don't have to be a fake or a phony. And we
can live as those sent by God, mere human beings, but sent by God.

So I pray, Lord, for some of us right now that there would be a turning point in
our lives where instead of living in depression and discouragement or hiding in
depression and discouragement that God could never use us, that we'd realize,
although I'm not equal to the task, God has given me a task, and Christ in me,
Christ in me, is equal to this task. Give us a new faith in what you want to do in
our lives, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Next week, we're going to be looking at
chapter three.

We're going to see how Paul continues to talk about how to live above our
inferiorities.