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God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living

By

Bob Hoekstra

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Blue Letter Bible BlueLetterBible.org

https://www.blueletterbible.org/



Table of Contents

Lesson 1 Living by God’s Sufficiency Lesson 2 Characteristics of Living by God’s Sufficiency Lesson 3 Man’s Sufficiency versus God’s Sufficiency Lesson 4 Insufficient Vessels Containing Sufficient Treasure Lesson 5 Old Testament Examples of God’s Sufficiency Lesson 6 Resurrected Living by God’s Sufficiency Appendix A Class Outlines


Lesson 1 Living by God’s Sufficiency

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J201 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Living by God’s Sufficiency - 2 Cor 1:12

We who deserve the worst have, in Jesus Christ, been given the best. We thank

You for Your great mercy and wonderful grace. Thank You for our new lives.

We want to walk in the Spirit. We want to grow in Your way. We want to serve

You. And we want to be conformed to the image of Christ, your Son. Please

work this in us. We pray that, by Your Holy Spirit, You would open up the

Scriptures to us. Give us ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to receive. And,

Lord, we ask You to accomplish Your work in each of our lives right now. You

know the position of our hearts and our minds. You know what we need. You

know how to use Your word to work in our lives and we pray that you would do

just that. We pray You would touch us and that you would work in us to will and

to do of Your good pleasure. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

With this prayer that God would affect our hearts and lives, we begin the first of six sessions in

which we shall explore God’s sufficiency for godly living. This is the companion course to

Growing in the Grace of God (while not necessary to the successful completion of this course, the

student may find it helpful to have already reviewed the material from Growing in the Grace of

God). Every true Christian, every true believer, knows that he is birthed into the family of God by

grace. He is born again by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, the Scriptures

teach us that we are not only birthed by grace, but we are to grow continually in our lives of faith

by that same grace.

Godly Living and God’s Sufficiency

We shall begin this course with a discussion of living by God’s sufficiency. Mankind learns

naturally, through even his earliest experiences in life, how to rely upon his own sufficiency. The

world teaches that for man to make a way for himself in the world he is called to do what he can


do and be what he can be. He is the captain of his own destiny and what he makes of himself will

be his lot in life. We are all familiar with the kingdom of man.

But the kingdom of heaven is of a different sort. It resembles very little the kingdom of men.

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). And we are reminded that His ways

are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts; they are higher than the heavens are

above the earth (Isaiah 55:8). In the kingdom of heaven, we are called upon to learn to live by the

sufficiency of God rather than the sufficiency of man.

For our rejoicing is this: the testimony of our conscience that we

conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly

sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God. (2

Corinthians 1:12)

The apostle Paul ministered throughout the world, traveling and sharing the word of God. He

conducted himself in godly sincerity; and that sincerity did not come out of fleshly wisdom. The

wisdom of man would be insufficient for Paul’s ministration. The whole of Paul’s ministry

occurred by the grace of God. Godly living comes only by the grace of God and we who believe

are called to live godly lives.

For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of

sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in

Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:17)


But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking

in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by

manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's

conscience in the sight of God (2 Corinthians 4:2).

We are called to godly living. We desire to remain apart from things that are shameful: craftiness

and deceit. We want to live the truth and share the truth. This is the work that God has begun in

us and commends to us—that we might walk in righteousness before men. From the earliest part

of the Scriptures, we are called to live in a godly manner. From Exodus, Leviticus, and

Deuteronomy, where the Law is given, the message resounds: “Be holy for I the Lord your God

am holy.” God is a holy God. In walking with Him, we are called to walk in godliness.

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse

ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting

holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)

In Scripture, God promises that if we come out of the ways of the world and walk with God, He

will be our God and will change our lives. In this state, we will grow naturally in godliness out of

reverence for the Lord. The believer is called to godly living, but the issue at hand in our studies

is this: how does the believer accomplish this? Where is the resource for godly living?

The natural mind thinks the power to godly living is of self-discipline and human effort. But that

is the way of the kingdom of man. The kingdom of God draws on a different resource. It is of

God’s provision alone that sufficiency for godly living comes.


Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as

being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. (2

Corinthians 3:5)

Plainly, man is not sufficient of himself. Man, of himself, does not have the adequate resource for

anything of eternal value. Of his own means he cannot live as godly, he cannot save souls, and he

cannot transform lives. The sufficiency to accomplish anything of godly value is from God alone.

The New Covenant

The change from trusting one’s own sufficiency to trusting upon God’s sufficiency is a wondrous

shift in the believer’s life. From living by his own sufficiency (which can never be sufficient) to

living by God’s sufficiency (which is always completely sufficient) is the difference between life

and death, defeat and victory, weariness and abundant life. Godly living is integrally related to

God’s sufficiency. Without God’s sufficiency there can be no godly living. All true godly living

flows from the sufficiency of God at work in and through our lives.

[God] also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant,

not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit

gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

When Paul speaks of ministry here, he is speaking of servanthood. Believers are servants of the

new covenant and serve God in and under its terms. Therefore, familiarity with the covenant and

its specifics is essential.


A covenant is an agreement. We might call it a contract, or arrangement, between two parties.

The difference between this contract and the average human contract is palpable. In this particular

covenant, the new covenant, we bring little to the bargaining table. We set before God broken,

empty lives that are fallen in sin and floundering in human inadequacy. God sets upon the table

everything those empty, broken lives need. The inequity of the two parties involved is stark.

Though we deserve no deal or contract, God is gracious. We are granted a very good deal in this

new covenant. We are given a new arrangement for living. The new covenant is central to the

believer’s life—it is by this covenant that God has arranged for the believer to live life in Christ.

The new in “new covenant” is not so much a focus upon chronology as it is upon character.

Central to the character of the new covenant is its newness. Paul speaks to this in Romans 7:6,

saying that we serve in newness of the Spirit (the new covenant), not in the oldness of the letter

(or the law). Newness is spiritual vitality from the Spirit of God.

In Hebrews 10 there is a phrase speaking of life under this new covenant, “the new and living

way.” This is the natural contrast against the old, dying way—against the law. The man who

seeks to live by the law will grow weary quickly for the law is death to fallen man. The law will

destroy the man who seeks godly living of his own resource. The message of the law is: Be holy.

It is not Be better. It is not Be good. It is not Be improving. Man must be holy. Man must be as

holy as God. As this is a feat impossible for mere man, the attempt on his own part will kill him.

But the Gospel is that there is this new and living way through the grace of God that provides life.

God’s mercies are new every morning (cf. Lamentations 3:22-23): fresh, vital, alive, and always

available.


The sufficiency we need from God for godly living with God is available under the terms of the

new covenant of the grace of God. The new covenant is mentioned by name in Jeremiah 31,

Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 11, 2 Corinthians 3, and Hebrews 8, 9 and 12.

Several other passages speak of the covenant without using the term directly: Isaiah 59, Jeremiah

24, Ezekiel 11 and 36, Galatians 4 and 5, and Hebrews 7. There are other places of mention, but

this will offer a good survey of the new covenant.

“If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up

his cross daily—death to self—and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)

Christian discipleship is at the heart of life in the new covenant. The believer denies himself

because there is no other option for him—he is bound to every day follow Jesus. There is no

difference at all between new covenant living and Christian discipleship. Both speak to the same

truth, but merely utilize different terminology. Ephesians 5:18 exhorts the believer to be filled

with the Spirit. Spirit-filled life is also merely further terminology to describe life in the new

covenant. “I came that you might have life and have it more abundant.” This description of the

abundant life from John 10:10 lends to further terminology synonymous with new covenant

living.

The apostle Peter describes the grace of God as “the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). One

might also call it “the many-faceted aspects of the grace of God.” God’s grace shines forth as an

infinitely glorious heavenly diamond. Viewing a diamond, one will notice that from every shift of

perspective, a different facet will be revealed, a different color, a different lighting, a different

insight into the wonders of that gem. Consider this a simple parable of the grace of God. From

every place in Scripture, from every shift of perspective, one will see the glory of the new


covenant; it may look slightly different or be called by the same name, but in the end, it really is

the same core thing—the new covenant life.

The New Covenant Promised to Israel Eventually

To properly consider the new covenant, we should begin by looking at the promise of it in ages

past. In history, God intervened with man and promised the new covenant to the nation of Israel.

We will see a glimpse of this in Jeremiah 31. As we look at these verses, we shall see three

aspects of the new covenant that we will be able draw upon later.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when I will

make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house

of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their

fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out

of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I

was a husband to them,” says the LORD.

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days,” says the LORD: “I will put My law in their

minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and

they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his

neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'

for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest

of them,” says the LORD. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and

their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)


Some day Israel, as a nation, will come into this new covenant. Now, they are living under the

burden of having rejected the Messiah who brought in the covenant. Of course, many Jews, one

by one, for the last two thousand years, have been coming to the Messiah to live under this new

covenant, but they have yet to come en masse. Perhaps you, by natural human bloodline, were

Jewish in origin and you have come to believe on Christ as the Messiah. This is your covenant.

And someday the nation will come. Particularly, it will happen as the end of Romans 11 describes

it, it says, “Thus all Israel shall be saved.” That is what eventually awaits Israel.

There are three terms to this covenant, which are laid out gloriously in this passage. The first of

these is the forgiveness of sins, found at the end of Jeremiah 31:34. “For I will forgive their

iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.” Forgiveness of sins is part of the new covenant.

For many believers, the forgiveness of sins is really all they know of when they hear of the new

covenant. These recall easily that “this cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for

you,” and yet forgiveness is only one part of the covenant.

Not only do we see forgiveness of sins in this new covenant, but we must note the second term of

the agreement: a personal relationship with God. “No more shall every man teach his neighbor

and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of

them to the greatest of them” (verse 34). The door for the intimate opportunity to get acquainted

with God is opened under the provisions of the new covenant.

Take special note of this third provision of the new covenant: the internal working of God,

enabling His people for Godly living from the inside out. "But this is the covenant that I will

make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds,

and write it on their hearts” (verse 33).


The difference between the covenants is striking. In the old covenant of the law, the message was

inanimate. There was no life in it. It was a message of words carved in stone, external to man; it

was an outside, inanimate message. The old covenant describes what life should look like, but it

neither provides nor can it provide life to those who are under its terms. God intends for life to be

godly, to be holy, to be righteous. And the law demands it, describing life as it should be. But it

never offers life.

The new covenant, however, works inside the man. It is alive and operating at depth in the

believer’s soul. It is the Spirit of God at work. This is the glory of the new covenant: that the

message of abundant and godly life is brought internal by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit

of God brings the message of holiness and life inside the man and places it in his mind,

embedding it in his heart. In other words, God begins to develop that godly, holy life from the

inside out. This is God’s sufficiency for godly living. In the new covenant God works in us,

developing a godly life deep in our heart and it will flow forth by His grace.

The New Covenant Inaugurated for the Church Now

Though the full fruit of the new covenant still awaits Israel as a nation, today’s believer must

rejoice to know that for him, that better covenant is already inaugurated for the church now.

But now [Christ] has obtained a more excellent ministry,

inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was

established on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6)

The old covenant had promised that if those under it acted righteously, they would live. The

difficulty here is that no one of his own strength could possibly follow the law of that old


covenant. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and the glorious standards of God

(Romans 3:23). There are better promises in the new covenant. Essentially the new covenant says

that now, because the believer lives with new life, he will able to walk righteously if he draws

upon the all-sufficient resource of God’s grace.

But now [Christ] has obtained a more excellent ministry,

inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was

established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been

faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are

coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with

the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according

to the covenant that I made with their fathers.” In that He says,

“A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is

becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

(Hebrews 8:6-9, 13)

The author of the book to the Hebrews is quoting Jeremiah 31 and applying it to New Testament

believers—to Christians. He goes on to quote that passage thoroughly, demonstrating how the

new covenant of grace causes the old covenant to show its inadequacy (its inadequacy being that

it is obsolete and cannot produce what it demands of those under its terms). The new covenant as

applied in Hebrews 8 is directed at the church of Jesus Christ.

Though the book of Hebrews was written to Hebrew believers that in no way means that it is not

also helpful to Gentile believers. Addressed to Hebrew believers in the early church who were


tempted to return to the law and ritual of the old covenant (the cult worship being more

acceptable in Jewish society and therefore, incurring less persecution), the book makes claims

broad enough to suit all of Christendom. In Christ there is no east or west; nor male or female; no

Jew nor Gentile. All are become one in Christ Jesus. Therefore, that which is written to one is

written to all. This is written to “the brethren,” meaning all brothers and sisters in the family of

God.

But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said

before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after

those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts,

and in their minds I will write them," then He adds, "Their sins

and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where

there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the

blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated

for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh. (Hebrews 10:15-20)

Which He consecrated for us could be translated, “which He inaugurated for us.” It could be

rendered, “which He dedicated, initiated, instituted, set in place for us.” And note that this is

written in the past tense. This is a deed accomplished already. He inaugurated for us already, this

new and living way. It has already happened and is already available. This is the new covenant

that we live in today—the new and living way.

That which is promised eventually to Israel is already inaugurated for the church now. Both cases

are provided for by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Though as a nation, Israel rejected Jesus,


individuals of the nation still followed Him, and they were granted the right to be called children

of God (cf. John 1).

And for all who now believe, we follow Jesus, the Messiah, the Mediator of the new and better

covenant. This new covenant is instituted for us. The forgiveness of sins is ours in this new

covenant. Intimacy of relationship with God is now available to us by this new and living way.

And by this new arrangement with His people, God has freed their path that they might boldly

approach the holiest place, the very throne of God.

Recall the old and dying way, the old covenant of law. The holy of holies stood next to

unapproachable. One person on one day of the year entered in for everyone else. That was no

great intimacy with God. All of this—the sacrifices, the temple, the ritual—all work to proclaim

that God is holy and man is not. There must be the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins.

In his natural state, man is unable to approach God for God is pure, holy, and undefiled while

man it impure, corrupt, and iniquitous. The law teaches this without stammering.

Only one man would approach the dwelling of God on a single day each year, and he would

approach with fear and awe, knowing his state and the state of all mankind. So perilous was his

mission that a rope would be tied around the high priest’s ankle—if he died in the holy place, he

would be drawn out by the rope for none other could enter that place. This speaks volumes to the

need of man and foreshadows the provision of God. The new covenant has fulfilled this need to

perfection. This is a new and living way. Every one of who believes, by day or by night, can

boldly approach His holy throne.


The veil of separation between the holy place and every other place has been torn asunder. And it

was not torn from bottom to top by man, but from top to bottom by God. There is, therefore, now

no separation between the believer and his Lord. When the body of Christ was torn on the cross,

the veil was torn in the temple. The door to the heavenlies is now opened by the blood of Jesus

Christ. The believer is granted intimacy with God.

The New Covenant Provided by the Blood of Christ

From this point forward in the course, we shall be focusing upon the third provision of the new

covenant: the inner, enabling work by which God provides us the sufficient grace needed to live

as God calls us to live. Godly living comes by the sufficiency of God.

Likewise [Jesus] also took the cup after supper, saying, "This

cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

(Luke 22:20)

At the Last Supper, when Christ and His twelve disciples were alone before His trial and death,

Jesus instituted that which we know as the Lord’s Supper. The believer’s appreciation of the

Lord’s Supper will explode into newer and larger dimensions as he begins to see the significance

of the new covenant. The bread is His body and the cup is His blood; the supper is about His

death, burial, and resurrection. And yet He also says specifically, “This cup is the new covenant.”

The blessing of the Lord’s Table becomes manifest when the believer comprehends the new

covenant because he will cease to imagine of the supper only in terms of forgiveness. The new

covenant is forgiveness and more. It is forgiveness and intimacy with God and the necessary

sufficiency to function and grow and serve the Lord.


The new covenant offers God’s sufficiency for godly living and the Lord’s Supper will remind

the believer of that sufficiency. It pays to recall that the provision of the new covenant comes

through the work of Jesus Christ. Drinking of the cup is confession of the new arrangement for

living with God and by God. The new covenant is based upon His blood, so how fitting to see it

expressed so often in the Lord’s Supper. Upon thinking of the amazing and effective price paid to

establish the new covenant, it becomes no great wonder that the new covenant offers such

amazing and effective provision for those who stand under its graceful terms.

Conclusion

The primary implications and applications of new covenant living for the lives of believers exist

at the heart of the Gospel. The heart of the new covenant beats for daily living in the abundant

grace of God.



Corinthians 3:5)

Embrace God’s sufficiency. Believe in God’s sufficiency. Stand upon it. Act upon it. Revel in

God’s sufficiency with your whole heart and mind. It can be humbling and uncomfortable to

realize that one is sufficient of himself. And yet, as there is nothing of lasting value within man

that is not directly from Christ Himself, the realization can only serve to liberate the believer from

guilt and shame. Man is not sufficient to think of anything godly, anything eternal, anything

Christlike, anything life-giving, anything justifying, sanctifying, edifying, transforming, or

anything good. Of himself, man can do nothing. And that is humbling. Yet the believer is to

embrace this truth in all humility.


But not only does God want to humble the believer, but He humbles him that His child might

receive His encouragement. Though the believer cannot supply anything needed to make a life

godly, he can ever rely upon the sufficient grace of God. The same God who calls us to godly

living is willing to share His resources with us that we might grow in godliness.

Despite the great American heritage of self-sufficiency, man does not have what it takes. Such

hubris is the way of the kingdom of man. Man will build the Tower of Babel and fly into the

depths of space, but this does not demonstrate sufficiency for matters of any real importance. The

sufficiency for real life comes from God. It is good to be humbled by our natural inabilities, to

find that man was never able to please God after he fell from grace in the Garden.

The believer, though, who is a new creation in Christ, is designed to be a vessel to carry about the

life and presence of the One who is always able to think and act righteously. The believer who

recognizes his insufficiency is left in the best possible frame of mind. He is left depending daily

upon the sufficiency of God in all things. That believer will be counting upon His resources and

drawing upon God’s grace by faith. He will be ever depending, abiding, and looking unto Jesus.

God’s sufficiency is for godly living. We shall really be learning what it means to live by the

sufficiency of God. This is just the beginning.

Lord, forgive us for the many, many times in our striving and straining that we

have tried to make the Christian life happen by our resources. Teach us how to

trust in You. Make us to draw upon Your resources and give us faith to believe

that they are fully sufficient for every challenge and opportunity—and especially


for growth and service. We thank You for this glorious new covenant Lord. We

love You. The more we know of You and the more we see Your handiwork, we

come to love You and praise You and thank You that much more. In Your Son’s

holy name. Amen.


Lesson 2 Characteristics of Living by God’s Sufficiency

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J202 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Characteristics of Living by God’s Sufficiency - 2 Cor 2:12

As we move into the second portion of our discussion of God’s sufficiency for godly living, we

will take a more detailed look at the characteristics we associate with living by God’s sufficiency.

We have already noted that the Lord wants man to live, walk, and grow in godliness; we noted, as

well, that to live in such a way, man needs a resource beyond our own power. Though he would

like to think of himself as sufficient for all things, man does not have the ability to accomplish

anything of eternal or lasting value (cf. John 15:5). It is the natural human response to maintain

that with a renewed interest in God and a bit of zeal, dedication, and commitment, the believer

will proceed with the godly life in glorious fashion.

Though this may be an exhibition of a believer’s love for God, such devotion ultimately fails to

fulfill God’s purpose for His people so long as it is mustered from one’s personal strength and

will. Godly living is surely important to the Christian’s life and walk, but it must be observed that

Scriptures call us to live godly only through Christ Jesus. There is only one resource sufficient to

bring us into genuine and worthwhile service of God—and that is the power of God Himself. As

God’s children walk in faith and humble dependence, looking to the Lord for His sustaining and

redemptive work, God will supply them with His sufficient grace for godly living.

After recognizing that God’s grace is the sufficient power to propel the believer through a life of

godliness, we need to become familiar with the characteristics that are the mark of that

sufficiency. God puts His mark upon the lives He shapes and develops. As He uses the lives of

believers, as they walk with Him under the terms of the new covenant, specific and visible

characteristics of this life in God’s sufficiency will become evident. Again, these characteristics

are not such that we can merit them or can work them out in our lives by our own power. We are

not so much referring to achievement as we are to the reception of a gift. Living by God’s

sufficiency is a gift of His grace. The more the believer draws upon the abundant, sufficient


resources of God for daily living, the more God will mark and shape that believer’s life with the

characteristics of godly living.

In our last class we noted that the new covenant promises not only forgiveness of sins and an

open door of opportunity for an intimate relationship with God, but provides as well an inner,

enabling work of the Spirit of God. The message of God moves from being an outside force upon

mankind, having been written on stone, to working in and through a man, being written upon the

believer’s heart and mind. And it is by this inner work that God develops these characteristics of

godly living in his children. As His sufficiency through the abundant resources of life in Christ is

released within us through the believer’s faith in Him, the Christian’s life get marked with these

characteristics.

Do not become confused, imagining that we will be discussing a list of things for the believer to

do to become a better Christian. This is more a discussion of what God is willing and able to do

in the hearts of those who will look to Him day by day for His inward work of grace.

Led in Triumph

Remember that “our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as servants of the new

covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5). The new covenant is the arrangement under which the believer

now lives in relationship to the Lord. It revolves around looking to God for His sufficiency and

realizing man is inadequate of himself to live a life pleasing to God. Those who live by the

sufficiency of God will be marked more and more with the characteristics of a godly life. They

will become a people led more and more in triumph.


Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and

a door was opened to me by the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit,

because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking my leave of

them, I departed for Macedonia. Now thanks be to God who

always leads us in triumph in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:12-14)

Interestingly, though Paul concludes this selection with a bursting anthem of thanksgiving for

being led in triumph, the circumstances of verses 12 and 13 do not resonate triumphant. A

seemingly good opportunity to minister the gospel in Troas had been opened up to the apostle

Paul, but he had unrest and agitation within his heart. Titus, though expected, was not in the city.

Titus was to be key in reaching out with the gospel in that region and Paul needed him there. So,

because of his absence, Paul ended up going on to other territory, awaiting another opportunity.

Yet, here he adds, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ.” On the surface,

this would not look like a triumphant situation. In fact, it would more likely look like a difficult

situation or a trial. Disappointing circumstances came regularly, just as they do now. And in spite

of his frustrating predicament in Troas, Paul says plainly, “Now thanks be to God who always

leads us in triumph in Christ.”

Paul is led to thank God here for the simple reason that he is looking to the truth beyond what his

eyes can see. Though circumstances did not fit his ideal plan, and though his experience in Troas

did not have the look of triumphant about it, Paul knows something that all believers must learn:

the Lord leads the path of His children; therefore, despite all appearances to the contrary, victory

always results in the Lord’s name. God’s purposes are beyond our understanding and all will

result in His glory.


When God is allowed to lead, and allowed to lead on His terms, He always leads his people in

triumph. And the triumph belongs to God rather than man. When the believer relies upon his own

strength, he is destined to fail—though outward appearances might have the look of victory. But

whenever the Christian allows the Lord to lead—looking to Him, counting upon His strength—

He never fails to lead His children into triumph.

Many times victory is not so much made known in circumstances, but in the hearts of those

whom God is using. God moulds the lives of those He leads: their responses begin to reflect the

character of God and they begin to consider more the role of God in their lives and situations. We

should never fail to note that life under the new covenant centers upon the Lord’s sufficient grace

and the victorious life in which He will lead His people. And though we participate in its glory,

the victory is truly His alone.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him

who loved us. (Romans 8:37)

Through tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword (cf. Romans 8:35),

God leads the believer victoriously and declares him more than a conqueror. For God’s sake, the

believer is killed all day long, accounted as sheep for the slaughter (cf. Romans 8:36), and yet,

this is no victory of the enemy. It is the believer who walks in victory here. In all these things, the

children of the Lord are more than conquerors through Him who loved them. Through Christ

Himself.


As a result of Jesus Christ’s comprehensive victory over sin and death, Satan and self, and the

flesh and the world, all those who find themselves in Christ also find themselves in His victory.

By His death, burial, and resurrection, we who are in Him and are being led by Him are, even in

all the difficulties of life, more than conquerors.

The natural thought of man imagines that if circumstances would only change for the better, then

a life of victory would not be so hard to grasp. The believer, however, lives now beyond his

previous nature. He is empowered supernaturally by God’s strength and so he should look to

supernatural thought here: in all these things—these scandalous and tragic circumstances that

envelop our lives—we are, even in this moment, more than conquerors.

The Christian life is not won in a photo finish at the last day with the enemy, Satan, nipping at the

believer’s heels. Yes the believer is harried. Yes the believer is attacked. But truly, these attacks

are futile harassment, for Satan has already been defeated. He has already lost and the believer

has already won.

And the Christian has not won by just a little bit. The child of God is no mere victor of

circumstance; he is more than a conqueror. Not only has the believer shaken off the grip of death

and the escaped the wrath of hell, but now having conquered Satan and death in Christ Jesus, the

believer is bound for heaven, having inherited all blessing and honor. All Christians are made

joint-heirs with Christ. Eternal life is their reward.

Satan is without hope. His existence can never be better than it is now. These are his best days.

These are his best days and he is already beaten. There is no victory in his future—only the great

looming spectre of the lake of fire. As these are his best days, so also are these the worst days of


the Christian. And yet, even now the one who abides in Christ proceeds in victory. And life for

the believer can only get better for he has eternal glory in his store. The son of faith is already

more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. And when he lets the Lord lead, that believer will be led

into triumph, knowing that God’s plan is a plan for victory and to walk with God is to walk in

that victory.

Victory is to be enjoyed and is available for all those who are in Christ and are abiding in Him.

All who are trusting in Him, depending on Him, counting on Him, and looking to Him are

granted this victorious life. Often the reason why Christians are not enjoying this sense of victory

in their lives is that they are relying upon their own strength rather than letting the Lord do the

leading. So long as the believer draws upon his own wisdom and strength, he is not drawing upon

God’s resources; and there can be no victory apart from God’s sufficient resource of grace.

Thanks be to God that He is always faithful to lead His children into triumph and strengthen their

faith that they might enjoy that victorious life. The more the believer lives by the sufficiency of

God—counting on God, looking to God, expecting Him to work—the more He marks their lives

with this sense of conquering triumph.

A Fragrance of Christ:

Not only does the Lord mark our lives this way, as those led in triumph, but those who live by

God’s sufficiency more and more also are marked with a fragrance of Christ.

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ,

and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every

place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those


who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the

one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other

the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these

things? (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

Having our lives marked with a fragrance of Christ is one of the natural consequences of

living a life that is drawn from the sufficiency of God by faith. Take note of just who it is

that diffuses through the lives of believers this fragrance. It is God Himself who grants

such a precious gift. “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ,

and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” The God who

leads us in triumph in Christ is the same one diffusing the fragrance of His knowledge

through our lives. Everywhere the believer goes in the name and holiness of the Lord, he

exudes a spiritual fragrance, the sweet-smelling aroma of his savior. Under the terms of the

new covenant and living by the sufficiency of grace, it is God Himself who shows forth, displays,

and makes evident through us this fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place.

Those who live by the sufficiency of God have the fragrance of Christ about them. It cannot be

detected physically of course, but it is almost as though one can detect it spiritually. In the

presence of one who exhibits this characteristic, a believer will become spiritually refreshed

naturally. This is an internal change that affects the believer’s whole person and demeanor for

God’s glory. The new covenant works efferently, that is from the inside out. God diffuses this

sweet aroma, this fragrance of His knowledge, right through His people by His Spirit. This

fragrance comes from knowing Him and we know God by His gracious revelation to our hearts.

This fragrance says that a person knows the Lord. It is just evident.


God does a work in His people so they no longer smell like this dead and decaying world. As we

submit our lives to God and His gracious work upon us, we begin to smell fresh and clean and

alive and spiritually healthy. This is the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of Him; it is a spiritual

fragrance that comes from knowing the Lord. This aroma is something special and will impact the

lives of those who are in contact with it.

Verse 15 says, “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ.” New covenant servants, those who

live by God’s sufficiency, are to God the fragrance of Christ. There is a spiritual aroma of

Christlikeness that comes out of the believer’s heart and life. Take note of to whom the fragrance

first goes. The Christians first inclination is usually to think that this fragrant aroma is meant first

to be pleasing for the lost and unbelieving—operating as a force of grace to draw them to beauty

of Christ. But while this divine aroma certainly comes to the lost eventually, they are the last to

whom the fragrance is destined.

The believer’s pleasing aroma of Christ goes first to God Himself. The first ministry of the child

of God is always unto God. Pleasing Him. Blessing Him. Rejoicing His heart. Loving Him. The

primary reason the believer ought to desire to see the fragrance of Christ developed in his life is

that it pleases the heart of the Father. He said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well

pleased.” The believer should desire nothing so much as he desires the Father to look down upon

his life and be reminded joyfully of His Son.

After pleasing God, the fragrant aroma has its effect upon those who are being saved (to those

being saved, it is “the aroma of life leading to life”). This certainly applies to Christians who are

on the path of salvation, headed for glory, loving the Lord, forgiven, and born again. But by

implication, it could also apply to those who are not yet saved, but are seeking the Lord. They are


trying to find life; and from those who know Christ and love Him, that fragrance is an aroma

drawing them from life to new life. They come to find by His fragrance that they love Him and

they cannot get enough. Upon detecting this fragrance in a believer’s life and those on the path to

salvation are allured by Christ’s sweetness. They come to desire more and must learn about the

origin of that sweet-smelling fragrance. It speaks to the life they love and stirs an appetite for

more of it—“an aroma from life to life.”

Yet, to those who are perishing, those who believe “are the aroma of death leading to death.” This

speaks primarily to the effect upon those who do not know the Lord. They are perishing in the

fullest extent of the word, both in body and in soul. They have no hope for life and they are

bound for an eternity apart from the Lord of life.

By implication, this may also refer to those who have met the Lord but are not abiding in Him,

hoping in Him, obeying Him, trusting Him, and walking with Him. While not losing their eternal

salvation, these may be drifting in rebellion and faithlessness. While they have not forfeited

heaven to take up the path to hell, they are not flourishing in life. Experientially, these are not

living in the abundant life of Christ. Their day-by-day life is perishing or weakening.

And to this perishing believer, those who have the fragrance of Christ wafting out of their lives

are an aroma from death to death. In the deadness and hardness of the perishing believer’s heart,

that fragrance of Christ smells like judgment. It serves to remind them of their sin and seems to

their senses a fragrance of condemnation. It reminds them of their need for a Savior and reminds

them that it was for their deadness of heart that Christ died. Because the life of the abiding

believer is an aroma of death to them, they repel from it. They repel from Christ. His aroma is

heavenly, beautiful. But to those who are perishing, it represents death and judgment. It reminds


them both of the wrong road upon which they travel and the fact that they are unwilling to turn

from that road. The fragrance of Christ does not leave anyone where it finds him. It may be an

aroma from death to death, but it works upon the lives of those it contacts. Sometimes men must

be driven deeper and deeper into the path of death before they will cry out for help.

This is part of the believer’s ministry at times. So long as a believer is drawing upon the

sufficiency of God, he will increasingly exude this wondrous fragrance and will impact lives as a

natural result. The fragrance is an aroma from death to death and it is an aroma from life to life. It

operates as a work that God accomplishes in us and through us. God touches lives with the

Gospel aroma of His Son. This is a characteristic God marks upon our lives as we live by His

sufficiency.

A Godly Sincerity

Godly sincerity is one more beautiful mark that God crafts into the character of the believer.

Working out of a sincere heart as we serve the Lord has always been a characteristic highly

valued by the children of God.

For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of

sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in

Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:17)

Paul says that the believer is not like the many. There were too many then (as there are too many

today) who would peddle the word of God. They would use it for their own ends. False teachers

would strip Scripture of its meaning and find any opportunity to squeeze an advantage or profit


out of the word of God. They would develop weird theologies, bizarre behaviors, and strange

practices—all to the glory of self.

The servants of the new covenant are not like this for they love and serve the word. The longer

the believer lives abiding under the terms of the new covenant, the more he is conformed into the

image of Christ. The more the believer lives depending not upon his own sufficiency and human

resource, but upon the gracious sufficiency of God’s divine resource, the more he will be changed

from one who uses the things of God selfishly into one who wants sincerely to be used for God’s

benefit. As from sincerity, as from genuineness, “as from God, we speak in the sight of God in

Christ.”

We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be

blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as servants of

God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses. (2

Corinthians 6:3-4)

God marks His children as those who give less and less offense, less and less of self and the flesh,

and continually give more and more of Christ. The ministry of those abiding in Christ is neither

blamed nor discredited, for those involved are marked by love and sincerity; rather, the lives of

those who are transformed by God’s grace become commended to people. Godly sincerity comes

from God’s work upon the believer’s life as he labors as a new covenant servant.


Letters of Christ

Another characteristic that God sees fit to build into the lives of His children is that of being a

living epistle. Those who believe are crafted into letters of Christ. They are being written into

representative examples of God’s grace.

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as

some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of

commendation from you? You are our epistle written in our

hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of

Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of

the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that

is, of the heart. (2 Corinthians 3:1-3)

The believers at Corinth were the epistle of Christ, known and read by all men. Many people will

never read one word of the Bible, but they will read Christians intently, watching while they work

and interact on a daily basis. They watch and wait for the moment when the believer proves

himself just as fallible as the nonbeliever. But the fact is, believers are being read by the world at

large. And what they read in the believer who abides in the sufficient grace of God is the life and

blood of Christ. The child of God can be the letter that touches the unbeliever’s life and initiates

the spark of divine interest. Those to whom the believer ministers—be it family, co-workers,

Sunday school group, home discipleship group, or a ministry team—they are reading of the life

and creative work of Christ in the believer’s every look or reaction.

When true new covenant ministry takes place, it makes people letters of Christ. The message of

the letter is written upon the heart. This is not a message of mere words, parroted, recited, and


remembered. It is written upon the heart and the writing of it is the accomplishment of the Spirit

of the Living God. This is the new covenant at work. God, by His Spirit, works upon the inside of

the believer, writing the message, making us letters of Christ.

As one of the characteristics of living by God’s sufficiency, being a letter of Christ is not

something we can plan to happen or work to achieve. It is the grace and power of God alone,

writing upon the hearts of believers a message that makes them a letter of Christ. The believer’s

epistolary existence is simply a characteristic of living by God’s sufficiency.

Acts 7 contains one of the great sermons recorded in the Word of God. Preached by Stephen, a

young man in the early history of the church, Acts 7 spells forth a great message of the history of

God dealing with stubborn people, His chosen nation Israel. As Stephen comes to the conclusion

of his message, he levels a final condemnation upon his hearers.

"You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You

always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”

(Acts 7:51)

His audience was so convicted, so irritated, so reactionary, that they stoned him. While this is

certainly tragic, the telling matter is the manner of Stephen’s reaction.

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying,

"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he knelt down and cried

out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin."

And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:59-60)


Echoing his own Savior, Jesus the Christ (“Father forgive them, they do not know what they’re

doing”), Stephen pleas to heaven for mercy upon his assailants. Imagine momentarily the heart of

the man who heard these words. One’s heart would either be further hardened against the truth or

would break under the weight of love. Steven was a true epistle of Christ. He reflected the spirit

and mind and life of Christ. He had been so deeply touched by the Lord that in one of the most

difficult times for human beings (death—and even an early death at that), he behaves as his own

Lord Jesus would, instead of behaving in the manner of a normal human being.

Our Source of Sufficiency

It is the will of God that we be marked like this. It is His good pleasure to have His children

characterized in such a way. Those who walk under the terms of the new covenant, drawing upon

the resources of God that are adequate for the Christian life, will have their lives marked by the

sufficient grace of God. They are those who have a sense of being led in triumph. They are those

marked by a fragrance of Christ. They are those who increasingly have a godly sincerity about

them. And they are those whose lives actually become letters of Christ.

And there is only one power sufficient for these things. Paul, if it is recalled, speaks exactly to

this matter. From 2 Corinthians 2:16 he writes, after listing some of these amazing things God

does in the believer’s life, “And who is sufficient for these things?” Who is adequate to live this

kind of a life? His answer is astonishing, simple, and powerful.

And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we

are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from

ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us


sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but

of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2

Corinthians 3:4-6)

Paul speaks of a great measure of confidence and trust. Some versions translate verse 4, “and

such confidence we have through Christ toward God.” There is only one place the believer might

find that great measure of confidence. There is only one place from where the believer might

receive the power to be letters of Christ, to have godly sincerity, to have a Christlike fragrance,

and to walk in triumph. The believer of God is confident in these things and his confidence will

be born out because God Himself will meet and surpass all these expectations.

This, of course, cannot be a religious self-confidence. The Christian cannot work himself into this

confidence. It can only come by grace. The believer cannot simply decide to be triumphant. The

child of God cannot will himself to exude the fragrance of Christ. The Christian cannot work

himself into sincerity. The believer cannot inspire himself to become a letter of Christ. That

would be self-confidence and reliance upon a faulty resource. Instead the child who abides in

God’s grace relies upon a true and pure resource. He relies upon God Himself. This is confidence

in the Lord God Almighty through our relationship with the Lord Jesus. This is as far from self-

confidence as one can be for it includes this confession: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves

to think of anything as being from ourselves” (v. 5).

The Christian should crucify his own feelings of self-confidence and self-sufficiency and be done

with it. By the grace of God, he will find a life in Christ through confidence in God. If he is

willing to forsake all self-confidence, willing to put his confidence solely in God, the believer can


become the most confident of people—not in arrogance, but in meek and humble confidence

upon a power greater than himself.

We are convinced by God that no man has the sufficiency of self to make a life into the godly

example we have seen. We must trust through Christ toward God. This is the power and goal of

the new covenant. We must see the shortcoming of every resource not of God and live by His

sufficient resources. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from

ourselves,” but as Christ said in Luke 9:23, we must deny ourselves, taking up daily the cross of

Christ. We must crucify our self-confidence and put to death self-sufficiency. Through

resurrection life, Christ brings to life a new sufficiency—the sufficiency of God.

Recall in 2 Corinthians 3:6, that it is God-given sufficiency through Christ that is available to

servants of the new covenant. Recall as well, that the new covenant is not of the letter but of

grace. The new covenant is therefore not adhered to via rules to obey by your own achievement,

but rather through a covenant empowered and kept by the Spirit. God’s resources are poured out

upon the hearts of His children by the internal work of the Holy Spirit.

This is issue of life or death. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. If we do not let the Lord

give us ears to hear the difference between living by our sufficiency and God’s sufficiency, we

mistake the purpose of the Gospel. This is the difference between life and death, not only in the

initial moment of regeneration, but in everyday Christian living as well.

Please note that the verses we have been discussing are not referring to the moment of salvation.

They speak more to the experience of the saved growing up and going on. These passages deal

with the maturation, development, and daily progress of the godly. They promote the kind of life


that comes from the Spirit of God supplying the sufficiency of God in Christ—life and death, day

by day, living in Christ.

The new covenant, boiled down, is Christian discipleship, abundant life, and living in the fullness

of the Spirit. New covenant living involves renouncing self-sufficiency while relying solely upon

God’s sufficiency. It involves facing the complete inadequacy of man’s strength, will, and

abilities, and rejecting them in order to live the Christian life. The new covenant life involves

growing in godliness by the faith and knowledge that Christ is fully sufficient for the task He lays

before His people.

We need love. We need joy. We need peace. We need patience. We need perseverance. This

comes from one source alone: solely God’s all-sufficient grace. Those who live by the sufficiency

of God have lives that are increasingly marked by the characteristics we have discussed.

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I

in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

(John 15:5)

The branches of a vine are never sufficient of their own resources to bear fruit. For the branch,

apart from the vine, can do nothing. Just so, Christ is the vine and believers are the branches

bearing fruit from the resource of His grace. Apart from Him working in and through His people,

they can accomplish nothing.

And note that Scripture does not tell us that apart from Christ the believer’s works are weakened.

Apart from Christ, everything that is done is nothing. Everything is waste. Everything is vanity.


But abiding in Christ, the Christian bears much fruit. All that we need to bear abundant fruit is

found right there in the vine. The vine has sufficient resources. The branches do not. All life for a

branch is found in its drawing on the resources of the vine.

Scripture calls this “abiding.” This conveys the experience of counting upon, relating to, looking

to, and depending upon something beyond oneself.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

(Phillipians 4:13)

Americans tend to like the first part of that verse. “I can do all things” goes right along with the

typical American braggadocio. But as much as Americans might like to hear that, “I can do all

things” is not the message of Scripture here. Apart from Christ man can do nothing. Relying upon

his own perseverance, strength, intellect, and willpower, man accomplishes nothing at all. But

through Christ, man can do anything God requires him to do. If man will sacrifice pride and abide

in Christ, all things are possible.

“God gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “By faith we access this grace in which we stand”

(Romans 5:2). God works in His people through humility and faith. Humility says, “I cannot.”

Faith says, “God can!” The child of God humbly admits, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves

to consider anything as coming from ourselves,” and in so doing is bound to be used of God. Our

sufficiency as believers is from God.

If the believer humbly walks in Christ, God will mark the believer’s life with these characteristics

we have studied for that child of God will be drawing upon God’s sufficiency for all things. His


sufficiency, His abundant resources, which are enough for whatever we face, will have a mighty

life-changing impact on the lives and actions of the abiding Christian.

Conclusion

In conclusion let us reflect upon the great benediction of Ephesians 3. This is the fruit of the new

covenant.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all

that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to

Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations,

forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

God receives glory through lives that will look to Him and to His all-sufficient resources. He

works in and through those who rely upon Him. And when He is relied upon, God is glorified,

His children are built up, and other lives are touched. That is the heart of the new covenant—

God’s sufficiency for godly living.

Lord God Almighty, we thank You so much for this glorious new and living

arrangement into which we bring our brokenness, our emptiness, our spiritual

bankruptcy, and our ineptitude. You are willing to fill us with Your resources.

You are fully sufficient for every task and opportunity. Lord, help us to live in

trust and knowledge of this fact. In Your Son’s holy name. Amen.


Lesson 3 Man’s Sufficiency versus God’s Sufficiency

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J203 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Man’s Sufficiency Versus God’s Sufficiency - 2 Cor 3:3

In our third course studying God’s sufficiency for godly living, we shall be focusing on Man’s

sufficiency in contrast to God’s sufficiency. From that which we have seen thus far in the

Scriptures, a large gap between the two should be expected. And such is exactly what we find.



Corinthians 3:5)

Here we find explicit contrast between man’s sufficiency and God’s sufficiency. Man’s

sufficiency, the Bible makes clear, is not sufficient. Man does not have resources that are

adequate to meet the task set before him. The task is godliness. The task is growing in Christ-

likeness. The task is walking with God and serving God. The task is transformation into the

image of Christ. And this is a task man is destined to fail in so long as he relies upon himself.

Man does not have adequate resources to fulfill the task of godliness—despite the fact that such is

the path in which he is required to walk. So clearly, man must look elsewhere for the sufficient

resources for Christian living.

Paul declares with confidence the source of this sufficient power. The believer’s sufficiency is

from God. The only place the believer can find adequate supply of life in order to grow, live, and

serve in the manner to which God calls His children is by the sufficiency that comes from God

Himself.

Looking at the contrast between man’s sufficiency and God’s sufficiency, we can easily see it in

terms of tension. This is a matter of man’s sufficiency versus God’s sufficiency. There is a very

real conflict or struggle between the two. In one corner, man’s sufficiency—only useful for the


kingdom and purposes of man. In the other corner, God’s sufficiency—all-powerful and all-

sufficient, it draws men up to the glory of the kingdom of heaven. Man’s sufficiency is great for

storing up power and treasure on the earthly plane (which will pass away), but is completely

inadequate for that which the believer is called to in the family of God.

When looking at the contrast between man’s sufficiency versus God’s sufficiency—and

especially in light of the key passages for this course (2 Corinthians 2-5)—it does well to

recognize that this speaks of the difference between living by the old covenant of law and the new

covenant of grace. The new covenant of grace is really the crux of these early chapters of 2

Corinthians and in chapter 3, there is a contrast building between discussion the new old

covenants.

Who also made us sufficient as servants of the new covenant. (2

Corinthians 3:6)

Believers are new covenant servants. As we have seen, the Christian serves God under the terms

of the new covenant. Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for

you.” The shed blood of Jesus Christ, purchasing for His children an astounding new and living

arrangement for walking with God: that is the fuel for the new covenant.

But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil

remains unlifted in the reading of the covenant, because the veil

is taken away in Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:14)


Here again, Paul is explicit: the contrast in this very chapter is between the old covenant of law

and the new covenant of grace. Paul distills this further in verse 5 to a contrast between living by

man’s sufficiency and living by God’s sufficiency. Living under the law as one’s code of life, as

one’s way by which he relates to God, demands living up to that law on one’s own best effort and

resources. As we know, no one has the purity and strength of character to begin or develop a

relationship with God by law. The book of Galatians is exceedingly clear upon this matter. As is

the book of Hebrews. As is the message of the prophets of old, the message of Jesus Himself, and

the message of the apostles in the New Testament. The law was never intended as a means to

begin or develop a relationship with God. The law was given to show man’s desperate need to

have a relationship with God based upon something beyond man’s own merits. The law

demonstrates man’s need for forgiveness of sin and need for a new life to draw upon. And of

course, this is all provided in the new covenant under the abundant grace of God. Under the new

covenant, the believer finds forgiveness of sins and finds a new life to draw upon for daily living.

So then, this study of man’s sufficiency versus God’s sufficiency is a look at the contrast between

trying to live under the terms of the old covenant of law as opposed to living under the new

covenant of grace. The old covenant of law leaves man to draw upon his own resources for life

and godliness, whereas the new covenant of grace opens up God’s sufficiency as the believer’s

daily supply. As we proceed in this session, we shall discuss a number of contrasts between old

covenant living and new covenant living—that is, man’s sufficiency versus God’s sufficiency.

Ink vs. the Spirit

We looked previously at the issue of God marking believers as letters of Christ. Building a

characteristic of Christ’s life into the lives of His children, God, by His gracious work, makes the

believer into a living statement of who Jesus Christ is and what He can do.


Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not

with ink but by the Spirit of the living God. (2 Corinthians 3:3)

This passage reminds us the manner by which the believer is crafted into a living epistle—not

with ink, but by the Spirit of the Living God. Ink versus Spirit. Ink speaks of human resource, of

something man can produce and man can use. It matters not whether the man is merely a natural

pagan or a born-again child of God. Anyone can write and work in ink. We might say that just as

the rain, the ability to use ink falls on the just and the unjust alike. This is something for which,

by God’s common grace, even man is sufficient.

That, however, is not the life the believer lives in Christ. This grace falls on God’s children alone.

Life in Christ must be by the Spirit of the Living God. The believer’s epistle is not written by the

mere human hand in something as fleeting and fading as ink, but he is written upon by the very

Spirit of God. Human resource pales when compared to divine resource.

Christian lives are lives are to be built by the Spirit of the Living God. Hearts are to be touched

and changed by the Spirit of the Living God. The life of the believer should be characterized

always by a dependence upon Spirit rather than upon ink and the work of human hands. The

believer should find his life characterized by the presence and activity of the Spirit of God.

Tablets of Stone vs. Human Hearts

Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not

with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of


stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. (2 Corinthians

3:3)

Soft and living, the vessel of the heart stands in stark contrast to the hard coldness of tablets of

stone. Tablets of stone are external to the lives of believers. Hearts of flesh sit inside our very

being. A tablet of stone is inanimate and simply dead rock. A tablet of the human heart, the tablet

for the writing of the message of the Spirit, is alive. The contrast here, between death and life, is

enormous. The attempt to live up to a perfect standard that exists external to one’s being is here

contrasted with God’s work of bringing that message of holiness and godliness and His perfect

glory into the center of the believer’s being. No longer does God write upon the cold, dead stone

of Sinai, but now He writes upon the believer’s heart and mind.

The heart is critical in living by God’s sufficiency. Christ Jesus said, “Guard your heart, for out of

it flow all the issues of life.” All of life begins in the heart and flows outward. That which occurs

within the heart soon becomes apparent on the outside, shining out, shown forth, manifested, and

evident to all. Therefore, the believer must guard the heart, must live by what God is doing in the

heart, rather than by what he can attain by living up to an external and insufficient standard.

The tablets of stone to which Paul refers exemplify man’s attempt to attain a standard external to

him (in this case, the tablets of the law Moses brought down from Sinai). When the believer’s

eyes look to the law of stone, he will always fail for what man is sufficient for such things. Yet

when the believer looks to the word God writes upon his human heart, his thinking, motivations,

evaluations, and priorities will all be transformed. God works at the very fountainhead of life in

the core of His child’s being. The Spirit of God dwells in the heart of the believer developing and

enacting the very life of Christ in and through the believer. How much better for the believer to


relinquish the hope of shaping his own life of his own resources to live up to the message on the

stone, the Ten Commandments. How much better for the believer to have God working from the

inside, effecting life changes from His all-sufficient grace. The comparison is laughable. Tablets

of stone versus human hearts—the enormous difference between life by man’s sufficiency and

life by God’s.

The Letter vs. the Spirit

Who also made us sufficient as servants of the new covenant, not

of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit

gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

Living by the letter speaks of man’s sufficiency and reliance upon the old covenant. It speaks of

law. Living by the Spirit, though, speaks of God’s sufficiency and the blessing of grace for life

through the new covenant. The letter demands that rules be kept—and that is death. Whether the

Ten Commandments from God Himself or from any manmade moral code, the human being is

frail and inept and will necessarily fail to meet its standards.

Too often, believers attempt to levy a letter upon their own heads. “Oh, you cannot do that and be

a good Christian.” “Oh, you have got to do this to be a growing Christian.” “Oh, you cannot do

that if you are a Christian.” “Well, if you want to really show that you are a Christian, you have

got to get into this.” And true, these can be proper extrapolations of the moral life of the righteous

as stated in Scripture. But such statements are not helpful for they ignore the heart of the matter.

Such statements and admonitions center upon man rather than focus upon God.


The Ten Commandments are holy, just, and good and the Scriptures declare them so. They

describe the perfect holiness of God. They call to believers, beckoning them to righteousness. But

as Hebrews 7:18-19 says, the law makes nothing perfect. The law demands perfection, but cannot

forge perfection. It cannot offer anything to cause the perfecting or maturing process to take place

in a believer. The law is a measuring rod, a set standard of righteousness, but it cannot function as

a source of growth and life for men.

The letter is only a measuring rod of life; it does not nurture, cause, or provide life. Only the

Spirit of God can accomplish this. Since life comes not by the law but by the Spirit, the believer

should never set upon himself or other believers a new law. The believer’s life may certainly (and

should certainly) reflect the righteous standard of this letter, but none of this occurs in and of the

believer. There is nothing within man to cause such righteousness of life to spring forth. A life’s

adherence to facets of the law operate more like signs of potential life than as an indication of

what is causing such a life to grow and develop. This is the contrast between the letter and the

Spirit. It is the difference between living by rules one can never hope to keep and living by the

Spirit of God at work to change us.

Ministry of Death vs. Ministry of Life

Next we shall compare and contrast a ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of life, and the ministry

of the law, the ministry of death. Ministry can be described as serving up something, providing

something, dispensing something, or producing something. In the following passage, there are

contrasted two distinct ministries with two distinct goals. Death and life.

[God] who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new

covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but


the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and

engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel

could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory

of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the

ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? (2 Corinthians 3:6-8)

We see clearly that the ministry of death is the ministry of the law, “written and engraved on

stones.” The ministry of life, on the other hand, is here called the ministry of the Spirit, for even

as the letter of the law brings death and condemnation, the Spirit of the Lord brings life and

liberty to believers.

Each member of the body of Christ, in every thought, action, and circumstance, is either

ministering death or ministering life. Congregations, too, as they minister, are either ministering

death or ministering life. If a believer or congregation is ministering by human sufficiency, death

is the result—for life comes only by the Spirit. If a believer or a congregation is ministering by

God’s sufficiency, abundant life is being served up—for Christ has banished death and reigns as

the king of life. So long as one ministers in God’s sufficiency, he is ministering the life of Christ

through the unceasing power of the Spirit.

The ministry of life has a distinct appearance in a believer’s life. The moral reflection of God and

the fruit that God can produce will all be naturally characterized in the life, ministry, family, and

service of the believer. His life will overflow with love, peace, humility, gentleness, warmth,

genuineness, confidence in God, and spiritual fulfillment (fulfillment both in the believer’s own

life and in the lives of those he serves). And this kind of life can only flow from living by the


sufficiency of God. These are attributes and fruit of the character of God and only by Him can

any hope to exhibit such things.

The ministry of death as well has a distinct appearance in a believer’s life. Instead of the godly

characteristics of love, charity, and joy, and the liberating hope of life in the Spirit, the ministry

of death exudes an oppressive man-centeredness. Instead of love, there is ministered judgment.

Instead of peace, the believer is overcome in a striving anxiety. Instead of humility, pride and

self-righteousness become evident. Instead of confidence in God, there remains self-confidence.

Instead of a down-to-earth reality, a genuineness, in the believer’s life, there exists hypocrisy and

pretense. Instead of fulfillment, all is emptiness and frustration. Instead of gentleness, harshness

and roughness become the normal expression. Instead of warmth, the believer is rendered cold

and austere.

The church is to be loving and peaceful. The body of Christ is to walk in humility and in a

confidence in God. God’s children are to be genuine with lives fulfilled in contentment. Believers

should radiate warmth and gentleness. These are all characteristics that mark the healthy

congregation that basks in the wealth of God’s grace. This love cannot come from life in the old

covenant. This hope cannot come from life under the letter. This true and lasting joy cannot come

by the sweat of human hands working under the guise of human sufficiency. No, this kind of life

can come only by the purity and sufficient power of life in the new covenant.

The issue is truly critical for the church too. No matter the teaching and outward appearance of

one’s church, if it draws upon the wrong resource, it is actively killing people spiritually. The all-

to-frequent building up of the congregation by means of touting their personal worth has a

devastating effect upon the church. Believers in such situations are being killed with pride. They


are so deluged with the conception that Christ died for them due to their great worth. They are

become themselves the pearl of great price. And because this approach encourages believers to

value themselves highly, it likewise encourages them to trust upon their own sufficiency rather

than God’s; and as we have seen, that is the ministry of death.

Such an approach twists the message of Scripture causing great damage to the body of Christ.

Scripture certainly speaks of the Father’s love for His children, but is likewise certain to describe

that He loved His children while they were still wicked sinners. It plainly speaks of the fact that

Christ died not for the beautiful, nor for the worthy, but for the ungodly. The unfailing message

of God’s word is always a magnification of God and His love and how great that love must be to

pay such a costly price (His own Son) for the likes of sinful, worthless man. The fact that God

loves the believer to so great a degree that He would pay that infinite price for someone who is

useless for anything but human glory (and rarely even that) can drive the believer unflinchingly

to trust upon God rather than man. Recognizing this truth of God’s sufficiency, the believer can

find love, acceptance, peace, security, blessing, protection, and joy. And this will change him.

God desires His people to minister life, to take humble part in the ministry of life. He wants

believers to offer life to the entire world. The church should offer—from what they themselves

have been given—the life that gives people life in God, hope in God, humility before God, love

from God, peace with God, genuine reality in the Lord, and the character of Christ Himself.

The Ministry of Condemnation vs. the Ministry of Righteousness

So the believer is given to choose between the ministry of life and the ministry of death. This can

also be spoken of as the difference between the ministry of condemnation and the ministry of

righteousness.


For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of

righteousness exceeds much more in glory. (2 Corinthians 3:9)

Comparing Paul’s two terms here, the ministry of condemnation and the ministry of

righteousness, we again find stark contrast.

The ministry of condemnation speaks of living by the letter of the law and living by the

sufficiency of man. It condemns the man, declaring him guilty and a failure. The ministry of

condemnation is typified in the law. If one tries to live up to the law everyday, he lives a

condemning experience. Recall the standard: Be as holy as God. And from Leviticus and 1 Peter:

“Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” And from Matthew 5:48: “Be perfect as your Father

in heaven is perfect.” That is the standard to which men must attain if they are to live holy by the

law. So no matter how well one lives, when brought before God’s standard of righteousness, he is

only ministered condemnation if his trust rests upon his own works and discipline.

Living by his own sufficiency, man will be left only under condemnation. This is a restrictive

way to live, always walking under the burden of guilt and failure. It can be both repressive and

inhibiting to live under the law for as guilt and condemnation mounts, the believer who stands

under this ministry of death will begin to see only his own malfunctions without recognizing the

power of Christ’s gracious work. This kind of life, one based off the merit of one’s performance,

leaves people consistently uneasy with God because they can never do enough to satisfy His holy

standard of perfection. Because of this inability and their belief that they must rely upon their

own ability, they harbor the conception that God is always mad at them or discouraged by their


lack of ability. They begin to feel as though God is against them. This is the fruit of the ministry

of condemnation.

The ministry of righteousness, however, revolves around living by the resources of God. This is

new covenant living. This is living by the grace of God. And its results are astounding. The

ministry of righteousness announces and declares that by faith in Christ, man can be righteous in

Christ. And that righteousness of Christ is available daily—for daily living by faith. Contrasting

with the ministry of condemnation, the message of this ministry is one of liberation. It offers an

enabling, strengthening, encouraging power to people who embrace it. The relationship with God

for those who seek life under the ministry of righteousness is not built upon personal performance

(that is, what can be done for God), but upon what God has already done for them in Christ.

The ministry of righteousness brings the believer to become increasingly at ease with God. It

allows for building a relationship with God and drawing nigh to God. Those under this ministry

of life need not run nor hide from God for it is upon His righteousness—and not their own—that

they are secured. Instead, these people are seeking God and approaching God without fear

because they know Christ is their propitiation. Christ is the satisfactory payment for their debt of

sin. The believer should realize that God is not mad; He is satisfied. His wrath has already been

poured out upon Christ, and therefore, there is none left to pour upon the believer. God is not

looking for a chance to get mad at His children; He is looking for a chance to show His child how

much He loves him.

And this is the ministry with which we ought to minister upon one another. We ought to be

always pointing the believer to the righteousness of Christ for in the ministry of righteousness,

Christ is not only our substitute on the cross, forgiving our sin and death and giving us new life,


but He is as well our daily resource of life. Each day we ought to draw from Him what we need

for the challenges, opportunities, situations that face us.

If we live by the sufficiency of man, if we try to urge others to live by the sufficiency of man, we

are merely dispensing condemnation to them. But if we will live by the sufficiency of God and

urge others to do the same, we are ministering righteousness—righteousness from Christ and in

Christ that covers our sin and offers us a whole new life into which we can grow.

Fading Glory vs. Remaining Glory

Now we should look at Paul’s use of “glory” that has appeared numerous times now. So far we

have looked at these contrasts: ink versus the Spirit, tablets of stone versus human hearts, the

letter versus the Spirit, the ministry of death versus the ministry of life, and the ministry of

condemnation versus the ministry of righteousness. Now we shall contrast fading glory and

remaining glory.

For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much

more glorious. (2 Corinthians 3:11; cf. also v. 7)

Compare these: a life characterized by fading glory versus one by remaining glory. The first is

built upon man’s sufficiency. The other is built upon God’s sufficiency. The first is comes by

performance under the letter of the law. The other comes by receiving God’s resources under the

grace of God.

The fading glory is similar to the hype of a religious pep rally—when the numbers of

Christendom gather together, five thousand, ten thousand, seventy thousand, all together in a


stadium chanting, “Jesus! Jesus!” “We’ll take the world for Him! We’ll be faithful to Him!”

Caught in the moment, these are adrenalized into believing that they are superhuman, never able

to stumble or fall again. And it is certainly a glorious moment—but in truth, a moment of fading

glory. When the believer is off alone two weeks later, where is the glory of the 70,000? It

becomes a four-way duel: just the believer, the world, the flesh, and the devil. The feeling is one

of trepidation as the lone believer is now clearly outnumbered. Two weeks earlier, this believer

was in the assembled multitude, chanting in glory, proclaiming “new life” with the greatest intent

and willpower. But glorious as that was in the moment, if it was based upon human sufficiency, it

will be a fading glory.

Glory will always fade when born of the forge of man’s sufficiency because such glory is

dependent upon man’s ability and man’s faithfulness, which are fleeting. The believer might have

the greatest of intentions. He might even go so far as to make a serious and profound vow. But if

the believer is drawing upon his own resources, then soon his own inability and his own

unfaithfulness will be demonstrated.

Fortunately, the believer does not have to function in the Christian life with a fading glory. There

is a remaining glory, an eternal glory, that can abide with him day after day after day after day.

This is a glory that remains like the everlasting God, who always was, always is and always shall

be—for it is a glory born of Him and of His grace. The glory remains because the everlasting God

is one who has promised to His children that He will never leave nor forsake them. God reveals

this glory in the hope and the strength of the heart that is looking to Him rather than the hype of

the moment. That is a wonder! When the entire multitude is departed and the believer stands

alone again, he is truly far from alone, for God is still there. He has not changed. He still stands

available to the believer’s every need. He is still committed to His people. He is still able. And He


infects His people with a lasting glory—the kind of glory remains after all is departed. Because it

depends on His ability and His faithfulness, this glory is never-failing.

Substantial Glory vs. Excelling Glory

How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if

the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of

righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was

made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory

that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what

remains is much more glorious. (2 Corinthians 3:8-11)

Upon the one side there is a substantial glory and on the other, an excelling glory. The first is the

glory of the law, the old covenant. The law truly was glorious. It came with glory. It had glory.

But Paul here speaks of the new covenant of grace, living by God’s sufficiency, as an excelling

glory—as something more glorious than that which came before.

The old covenant, the law, definitely had a certain glory. The law points out the basic problem of

man, his sin. The law points as well to the righteous character of God. When Moses went up upon

Sinai and received the law, he came down with his face shining from glory. Yet the glory was

fading (2 Corinthians 3:7). God always intended that the glory of the law would fade before the

surpassing, exceeding, and remaining glory of the new covenant.

And Moses put on a veil for the sake of the people because the glory apparent upon his face was

terrifying to them. The glory of the old covenant was truly glorious. Yet still it was a fading


glory, which was passing away. Moses put the veil on for the right reason—to protect the people

from the glory of God—but he kept it on for the wrong reason. He put it on to protect the people

He kept it on to protect himself and the implied position in God’s graces that the veil represented.

Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of

speech—unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the

children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was

passing away. (2 Corinthians 3:12-13)

The believer is often tempted to act in the same manner as Moses, pretending for the sake of

others that his spiritual life is glory-filled that people would honor him. But Moses should not be

emulated in this for his glory was passing. If there is any glory at all in the believer’s life, it is to

be there only as a result of God’s at work in him. This glory is continuously given to Him

anyway. If anyone notes anything glorious and shining about the believer, it is to be God working

in him (rather than the glory of his own labors). By the new covenant, the believer takes heart in

the fact that he is not sufficient of himself. He revels in the fact that he cannot think of anything

as being from himself. He knows and finds comfort in the truth that if anything is seen to be

sufficient, godly, or glorious in him, that glory comes from God alone.

As there is a glory that is intended to fade, the glory of the old, even so there is a glory that is

excelling glory. As glorious as the law is in its ability to condemn to perfection, so much better is

the glorious remedy to that perfect condemnation. Glory be to God that the law reveals the heart

of the problem. Man is sinful; God is not. Man is alienated from Him. And once forgiven, man

looks at the perfect standard of the law and still cannot stand up to it. He is fully inadequate. And

as glorious as it is to be shown these things, so much better the glory of the new covenant truth of


grace. Sin is remedied. Man’s insufficient power to do good is relieved. The believer no longer

has to attain adequacy for he is made adequate by a source far beyond his own power. This comes

from God. This is an excelling, surpassing glory.

Conclusion

Man’s sufficiency versus God’s sufficiency is the critical issue here. For most struggling

Christians, the battle is right here and climaxes about these issues. For those who have a vision to

serve and please God, the fulfillment of that vision is found here. Living by man’s sufficiency or

God’s sufficiency is the difference between being servants of the new covenant or servants of the

old covenant. The old covenant—law, letter, man’s resource—brings death. The new covenant—

grace, God at work, God’s abundant sufficient resources for life—brings life.


being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also

made us sufficient as servants of the new covenant, not of the

letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

(2 Corinthians 3:5)

May our hearts receive the message of the Lord, embrace the vivid contrast and implications

between these two ministries and be draw to walk in humility, admitting we do not have the

resource needed. But also in faith and dependence upon God, may we know and take heart in the

fact that He does have the resource that is needed. This message is not just about man’s

bankruptcy, spiritually. It speaks of God’s bountiful grace that is infinite, spiritually. Embracing

the reality of both of these truths is where God wants us to walk.


Lord, I am not sufficient to consider anything that would be godly: pleasing You,

touching hearts, changing lives, seeing souls saved, or building the kingdom.

Such worthy deeds cannot come out of my own natural, even dedicated human

resources. But I believe that everything that is needed can come out of Your

abundant and comprehensively sufficient resources of life. I willingly

acknowledge that I am inadequate for these things, but you are fully adequate. I

renounce trust in myself. Help me to put all my hope and trust in You O Lord.

Thank You that Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light. Amen.


Lesson 4 Insufficient Vessels Containing Sufficient

Treasure

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J204 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Insufficient Vessels Containing Sufficient Treasure - 2 Cor 4:7

In this fourth session we shall endeavor to take hold of the fact that the man of faith is an

insufficient vessel containing sufficient treasure. We shall look at an intriguing set of terms that

Paul develops through 2 Corinthians 4. First though, let us return once more to the passage we

have deemed as thematic for this course:



made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the


(2 Corinthians 3:5-6)

The fact of the matter is this: man is not sufficient to supply the resources needed for the life he is

called to live. But the believer need not be driven to despair because his sufficiency is from God.

The life God calls us to live is one for which He is entirely willing to supply the resources

necessary to its fulfillment. This is a wonderful arrangement for the believer—this is the new

covenant, God’s new arrangement for living.

These resources of God are available to servants of the new covenant. The new covenant of grace

stands in stark contrast with the old covenant of law. The believer is granted and sustained life,

not by the letter, but by the Spirit—that is, life comes not by rules to keep, but by God’s Spirit as

He supplies the believer’s needs and grants him life.

Earthen Vessels with Heavenly Treasure

The title of this session comes from 2 Corinthians 4, which speaks of earthen vessels filled with

heavenly treasure. God has set a pattern into the Christian life. He has crafted men as earthen


vessels. Men are weak and ordinary, as if made of clay. Earthen, frail, vulnerable, and inadequate,

believers are meant for a purpose but are entirely insufficient for its demands. The Scripture says

that God knows our frame that we are but dust—not gold dust, but the common, ordinary kind.

And yet:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence

of the power may be of God and not of us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

The wonder of being a vessel is that vessels are designed to contain something. And that is where

the believer’s meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in life rests—in the treasure he is meant to

contain. And yet still, the believer is but an earthen vessels. Though a container, we might refer to

the believer as a simple, clay flower pot. Now a clay pot is no big thing, but containing the right

flower, its worth is magnified—magnified for how it reflects the beauty of the flower. This is a

good picture of what the Christian life is supposed to be. The believer has great treasure kept

within earthen vessels of his body and soul, in fact, within his very life. Paul has already told us

of this great treasure:

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:15)

That very word, fragrance, fits the imagery we have already presented of a flower in a container.

“We are a fragrance of Christ.” This fragrance comes not from the clay pot, but from that which

resides in the pot. If one is to be the fragrance of Christ, that sweet-smelling aroma can only

originate from Christ Himself. A clay pot only has an ordinary earthen fragrance and can never

smell as a fresh flower. The fragrance comes from Christ Himself, because the life of Jesus is


manifested in the believer’s body (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10). The life of Christ is the treasure

housed within the believer’s earthen vessel. It is the life of Christ that is manifested from within

the believer’s mortal flesh (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:11).

The earthen vessel: mortal flesh. The treasure: the life of Jesus. Recall Colossians 1:27, "Christ in

us, our hope of glory." That is Paul’s point here. The believer hosts incredible treasure in an

ignoble, earthen vessel. God has ordained this to be that "the excellence of the power may be of

God and not of us." If any excellent power is seen in and through the believer’s life, it is to be

seen clearly as something foreign to his nature—it must be clear that God is the power of

excellency residing in the believer.

Of course, this is not the manner in which humanity regularly thinks. Man generally focuses upon

the earthen vessel. He shines it, paints it, polishes it, shapes it, postures it, and does whatever he

can to keep it from perishing. But the outer man is perishing daily. There is no way to stop the

process brought on by the Curse. The believer is encouraged to recognize these vessels are only

meant for a temporary season. As long as the inner man is being renewed day by day, the believer

walks the right path and God is having His way in the man.

So then, the believer holds within himself (as an earthen vessel) an exceedingly valuable treasure.

And he is given this treasure that the transcendent, extraordinary excellency of the power would

be recognized of God and not of us. The dynamic, animating force that is to develop, drive, and

produce a Christian life is to come from the contents of the vessel, not the vessel itself. This

power is to come from the treasure rather from the human in whom the treasure dwells—from the

flower rather than from the clay flowerpot. This is a picture of insufficient vessels, containing

sufficient treasure.


The Process that Magnifies the Treasure:

Now further, Paul describes a process described that magnifies the treasure.

We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are

perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;

struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)

This speaks of earthen vessels—those same vessels hosting divine treasure. It speaks of the

believer in Christ. It speaks of the Christian life from a significant perspective.

The believer, who is indwelt by the treasure of the life of Christ, is hard pressed on every side. He

faces major pressures from every direction. He is pressed hard from on every side. And though

clay pots are not built to take pressure (it does not take much pressure to crush a clay flower pot),

because of the strength of the treasure within, the believer is not crushed. That the excellence of

the power may be seen of God, the believer is able to stand strong in the midst of trials,

difficulties, and circumstances beyond his imagining. The believer must learn to be sustained by

the treasure of the life of Christ that dwells within the believer’s earthen vessel.

Further developing our understanding of the process by which the treasure is magnified, we find

that the believer is perplexed but not in despair. The perplexities in life are great, and yet, are

ultimately unable to overwhelm the believer. Life is fraught with a constant flow of decisions—

many of them tough—and answers often seem fewer in supply than the questions. Men face the

perplexing issues of life daily. Priorities must be carved out and met. But though the believer is


driven near to despair, he does not. He does not end in hopelessness for he is filled with a great

and steadfast treasure: Christ’s life and Spirit.

Still more, the believer is persecuted but not forsaken. Those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ

are ripe for persecution. Those earthen vessels in which the life of Christ comes to dwell are

destined to end up as vessels hated by the world. The more a believer rejoices in Christ and walks

in His way, the more he stands as a mark of conviction against the unbeliever. The believer

becomes—by simple virtue of his changed life—an irritation to those who remain in the world.

As salt in their wound and light in their darkness, so the believer becomes the stark contrast

between fragrant life and odious death.

When once a man comes to believe, he will find himself accused, misunderstood, opposed, and

maliciously used by the people of the world. Once a man is saved, even his relationship with his

family may sour (whereas before, they could not wait to see him coming, now they might not

wait to see him going). Even Christ declares this to be the way of the Christian: “A servant is not

greater than his master—if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (cf. John 15:18ff).

Because of the treasure held within these earthen vessels, there is a predictable persecution that

will take place. But here is the amazing thing: though the believer may be persecuted to the

uttermost, he need not despair. Though persecuted, the believer is never forsaken. If the whole

world stands against him, the believer can stand proud in the strength of the Gospel, declaring,

“The one who lives in me, who is the treasure in my life and the flower that blooms in my clay

vessel, is with me. He stands for me and shall never be against me.”

Still more, we find that as earthen vessels, believers shall be struck down but not destroyed.

These are not the everyday pressures of life that Paul pictures here. These are the catastrophes of


life—those events that are so strong in their force that they threaten to destroy the heart and mind

of those caught in their wake. And yet, God is still faithful. The believer is struck down yet not

destroyed. Life hits hard, and yet, the child of God does not fail to get up and go on. This is not

because of anything so grand as the popular sentiment “I am a survivor.” That grants too much

strength to the vessel. Clay pots do not survive much. Maybe a light breeze. Maybe a bumblebee

or two landing on it. Clay pots cannot survive even small things like a hammer, a short fall off a

table, or an errant baseball. No, the believer continues to persevere not because he is a born

survivor but because he contains the excellent power of God available in Christ Jesus. By His

grace, His work, His mercy, and His presence, the believer gets up once more to face the world

and his trials. The believer carries on because God will not forsake the believer.

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, not of

ourselves. This is a whole new way to live. The world is taught to make a simple pot look like an

ancient Chinese vase from the Ming Dynasty. The world wants the vessel to be the priceless

treasure. After 150 coats of hand-painted shellac, they no longer see a clay pot; all that remains is

a gorgeous decorative vase. But Scripture will not kid the believer on this matter—he is an

earthen vessel and no better. The glory of life, the meaning of life, the joy in life, the purpose of

life, and the fulfillment in life all revolve not around the clay vessel, but around the treasure God

places in each vessel! It is humbling to be an earthen vessel, to be sure. But it is far more

exhilarating to have the treasure of Christ within.

This passage describes the harsher circumstances of life as if they approach as a tank. And there

stands the believer: a clay flowerpot. This is not a fair match, but life does come at the believer

like a tank, relentlessly rolling toward the child of God. It is big, it is heavy, and there is nothing


the believer can do to stop it. No matter his preparation, no matter how he tries vainly to roll out

of the way, it can only amounts to, at which angle will he be crushed?

But Paul describes life here in this way, coming upon the believer as a tank. And the only reason,

when the dust clears, that the believer still stands is the treasure in the flowerpot. The flower,

blooming, fragrant, and growing, is stronger than even the most crushing of life’s struggles.

Those pots that are without the bloom of Christ’s life will be shattered and destroyed, left to their

despair. The only ones that can survive are those who play host to the treasure of God within their

very souls.

An Attitude Held by the Believer:

Paul further describes an attitude that persists in these earthen vessel that have been made

invulnerable by the treasure they keep.

Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,

that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (2

Corinthians 4:10)

The believer carries with himself always, in the human vessel of his life, the dying of the Lord

Jesus. That reality exists in him. He embraces it. He confesses it. We does not deny it for it is joy

to him. The child of God is always aware that because he, the believer, deserved death and

everlasting darkness, Jesus Christ died upon the cross. That too he carries in himself as an earthen

vessel, the dying of Jesus.


The world may speak colloquially about what a person deserves, saying “He deserves a wife like

Cleopatra and Betty Crocker rolled up into one!” or “She deserves a husband who looks like

Arnold Swartzeneggar, but has the heart and mind of William Shakespeare.” Man does not

deserve that.

Rather, as earthen vessels, man deserves nothing better than the grave. And as an earthen vessel,

the believer carries always about with himself the dying of Christ Jesus. Christ died for the

believer’s desserts. And in order that he never forget that Christ paid the ultimate penalty for what

the believer deserved, the believer carries that death around always. Christ did not die because He

deserved death. He did so as a gift to His bride, the church. And so, all believers carry that about

all through their lives. And the child of God cherishes that fact. He embraces that gift. For in

carrying Christ’s death, the Christian carries too His life.

Jesus said in Luke 9:24 that those who would try to save their life would lose it. And further,

those who would lose their life for Jesus’ sake would find it. Those who are focused upon the

glory of their earthen vessel—trying to make their clay flowerpot really pleasing to the eye and

make a life out of it—they will lose everything to time and eternity. Those who renounce what

the flowerpot can offer by embracing the dying of Jesus will find a full and glorious life, now and

forever—a life in Christ.

Therefore, the believer always carries about the dying of Christ that the life of Christ might be

manifested in the believer’s body—that Christ might be seen right through the earthen vessel He

inhabits. As Jesus said, “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross

daily and follow Me.” So the child of God says, “No!” to this clay pot. He says, “The cross for

this clay pot!” He follows Christ Jesus for life—and that eternal. Christ, the treasure who lives in


His people, is the pursuit of His people. Recall Galatians 2:20. "I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me." That is the believer’s attitude—one of humility

towards oneself and one of hope toward Christ.

An Action Fulfilled by God

As earthen vessels, believers not only carry about with them a special attitude related to the cross,

the dying of Jesus, but as well are acted upon by God Himself.

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake,

that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

(2 Corinthians 4:11)

This speaks of those who live—those earthen vessels who have come alive in Christ. Everyone on

earth is an earthen vessel. Every child of Adam is an earthen vessel, a clay container. The

difference between the world and Christians has never been that they are earthen vessels and

believers are heavenly vases. If all people are earthen vessels, the difference then is what is held

within the vessels. Believers are filled with treasure, while the unbeliever is not. The unbeliever is

filled with his own death, whereas the believer is filled with the dying of Christ, which is life. The

unregenerate man is a clay pot filled with no good thing. The child of God is the same kind of

pot, but filled with every good thing. The believer is always learning to be filled with the

blossoming life of Jesus Christ.

Believers are those who have come alive. Where once like the world, dead in sin in Adam, the

believer, through faith in Jesus, has come alive. And now, being alive, he is always delivered unto


death. This is sobering. Those alive in Christ are always delivered to death, handed over to

mortification.

This is not negativism. This is just one part of reality. Praise God for speaking the truth to His

children. And let us not think this a morbid reality for it is on account of Christ that the believer is

killed all the day long—evidence of his eternal life! So the believer rejoices in the Lord always.

He is the cause of joy. He is the source of joy. He is the one who sustains joy.

There is, in the path of believers, a consistent series of impossibilities that stand in their

opposition. This does not imply any lack of love on the part of God toward His children, but

merely that He uses means to bless the believer that His children might not understand. He

ordains this constant delivery unto death to demonstrate His love for His people. This matures the

believer, teaching him that life is a battle zone. The terminology of warfare fills the New

Testament. God uses daily circumstance to prepare the believer for it, to use the believer in it, and

to use it in the believer.

And further note, believers are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Christ

Jesus also might be manifested in the mortal flesh of His people. Ought not Christ have the right

to be seen in and through those for whom He died? The believer’s life is not his own. He has been

bought with a price. Therefore, Christ deserves the glory and the honor of being visibly witnessed

in the lives of believers. And it is God who works upon the believer’s life that such might occur.

The Lord knows how to get the hearts of His children locked upon Him. Believers increasingly

learn that as earnestly as they call upon Him in moments of agony, they should likewise learn to

call upon Him in times of ecstasy too. The believer’s focus upon glorifying and taking joy in the


Lord should be unchanging no matter the circumstance. Colossians 2:17 reinforces this saying,

“Whatever you do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is seen most often and most clearly in the believer as he is delivered over

to death, put in impossible situations, and perseveres despite outward appearances to the contrary.

The believer calls upon God in these situations and He comes through. And the life of Jesus is

manifested in Christian’s mortal flesh, in his human, fading humanity. Christ Jesus is seen

through His people.

The Temporal Impact on Others

As the attitude held by believers about the dying of Christ Jesus lets Him be seen in and through

the lives of believer, so too does God’s active work upon the lives of believers allow Christ to be

seen clearly through those lives. It is of no wonder then that all of this has a temporal impact on

others.

So then death is working in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians

4:12)

Paul’s statement is intriguing. This whole passage is intriguing. Death is working in the believer

going through the tough situations, but life is working in the believers who hear about it. As Paul

reflects upon his own walk and the difficulties underwent by his earthen vessel, he notes that it

was death working in him; but through the perspective of those believers in Corinth, life was

working abundantly.


Though the personal experience of the believer is one of death and hardship, those surrounding

him are given eyes to see the bigger picture. They recognize that just as God worked in the past,

so shall He work again that He might be glorified through the perseverance of His child. So death

works in the life of one believer, but through him life in the other. Others see God at work and are

revived. They are stirred. Life works in them.

The Eternal Impact on the Believer

Again, this is not morbid. This shaping of the one and touching of the other is designed for the

glorious purposes of God. And still, there is more to this paradigm than its mere temporal impact;

it can potentially have an eternal impact on the believer.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for

us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (2

Corinthians 4:17)

Note the contrast here: light afflictions for the moment and an eternal weight of glory. This

momentary, light affliction is contrasted powerfully with the everlasting treasure of glory in store

for the believer. The afflictions are momentary while the glory stands eternal. The afflictions,

despite being crushing, are counted as light by comparison to the glory and pleasure to come.

Despite the continual trials and difficulties undergone by himself and other believers, being

persecuted, beaten, scourged, and stoned, Paul (by God’s Spirit) is able to refer to such

difficulties as “momentary, light afflictions.”

The natural reaction of the believer would be to think that afflictions are working against him. Of

his own vision and perspective, man would never imagine that the agonies of life are working for


his benefit. Yet by God’s grace the believer can be enabled to view life and its difficulties

through God’s perspective.

The word, “weight,” has to do with fullness or capacity. It fits the picture of a vessel quite well

for it is God’s intention that these momentary light afflictions would enlarge the believer’s

capacity as a vessel. Peter speaks of the believer’s abundant entrance into the everlasting

kingdom in 2 Peter 1. Paul, too, speaks of heavenly reward in 1 Corinthians 3. Everyone in

heaven is going to be so glad they are there and rejoicing and blessed, but not everyone will have

the same experience there. Jesus said, “He who is faithful in a little will be made ruler of much.”

The believer’s capacity to serve the glory of God will be filled to completion in the heavenly

kingdom. And it is the weathering of trials in faithful perseverance that enlarges that capacity,

making one believer a larger vessel than perhaps another.

What then is the difference from life to life, from vessel to vessel, and from experience to

experience in heaven? The difference revolves around the momentary light afflictions. And

unfortunately, this is easily confused and many make a great mistake in this regard. Many come

to feel that to whatever degree they experience difficulties in life at the present, it will

automatically be conversely glorious in heaven. The truth is that it is not simply the trials that

enlarge the believer’s vessel for this eternal fullness or capacity of glory. The heart of the matter,

and the thing that truly works to enlarge the believer’s capacity for the glorious, is the heart of the

believer. Paul tells us that the momentary, light affliction produces an eternal weight of glory,

“while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the

things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians

4:18).


Too many Christians, too much of the time waste their afflictions and their difficulties. By

focusing on the visible and the temporal, they forfeit the fruit these trials can cultivate in the

perseverant life. It is not looking to the circumstances themselves but to God’s awesome hand

that enlarges one’s spiritual capacity. These afflictions produce an eternal weight of glory when

the believer does not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen—at

eternal things. Those who go through their trials not focusing on the vessel, but focusing on the

treasure—the Lord Jesus, His kingdom, His plans, His sovereignty, His faithfulness, His

adequacy, His sufficiency—those lives are enlarged. Their momentary light afflictions are

producing for them an everlasting capacity to enter into the fullness of the glory of God.

Conclusion

This is an astounding view of the Christian life. We would never, ever imagine this if God had

not revealed it to us in His word. Being insufficient vessels containing sufficient treasure fits right

into God’s sufficiency for godly living. The fact that we, as believers, are simply earthen vessels,

clay flowerpots, is humbling. But God gives grace to the humble. Seeing the inadequacy of our

vessel, our human life, throws us upon the grace, the goodness, and the sufficiency of the Lord

Jesus Christ. Finding in the treasure, this blooming, fragrant life of Christ is what the believer’s

life is all about. That others might see Him in us. That He might be glorified. That they might be

touched. And along the way, we who believe might be enlarged for fullness of life with Him ever

more.


Lesson 5 Old Testament Examples of God’s Sufficiency

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J205 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Old Testament Examples of God’s Sufficiency – Gen. 15:4-6

In this fifth session of our study through God’s sufficiency, we shall consider "Old Testament

Examples of God’s Sufficiency." The believer is called to godly living, but always arising is the

question of where the believer comes by the resource to live the life to which God calls him. As

we have seen (and will continue to see), a life of growth in Christ-likeness can only come about

through drawing upon God’s sufficiency for godly living. Throughout the Old Testament, God

presents us with examples of those saints who lived by faith, those who looked to God to be their

sufficiency. These were driven to Him by the high and holy standards of the law of God; and by

their own insufficiency to fulfill such a law. Yet these were also drawn to God by His mercy and

grace and by His sufficient resources. These Old Testament saints will be another example

illustrating life by God’s sufficiency as described in 2 Corinthians 3:5.



Corinthians 3:5)

This particular seminar of six lessons is a follow-up from the Growing in the Grace of God series

and really looks at the same issue—living by the grace of God—from a different perspective. In

that prior series, it was demonstrated thoroughly that humility and faith are critical in living by

the grace of God. “God gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). It is hearts of humility that draw

upon the grace of God. Still more, it is by faith as well that God’s grace is met. “By faith in Jesus

we have access into this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:2). Paul speaks, in 2 Corinthians

3:6, of those who are made sufficient as servants of the new covenant—that is, those who live not

by their own sufficiency but by God’s sufficiency. These are those who humbly agree that they

are not sufficient of themselves to consider anything as coming from themselves. But though the

believer does not have sufficient resources in himself, sufficient resources can be made his.


As the believer draws upon the sufficient resources of God in humble faith, it is the grace of God

that flows in and through his heart and life. This lesson is a survey of those of the Old Testament

who really lived in that manner. These men lived by the sufficiency of God through faith in Him.

The only difference really between them and the present-day Christian is that they saw Christ in

promises while those living today look back to an accomplished event. And yet, in either case, it

is all by faith. As the author of Hebrews says, the saints of old looked at the outline of the plan in

shadow form. Now in Christ, believers have the substance of the things for which the Old

Testament saints had hoped. While grace is more abundantly available to us than it ever was to

them, there are still men of old who are great examples of a life dedicated to trusting upon God’s

sufficiency for godly living.

Abraham Believing the Promises of God

Abraham is known in the New Testament as the father of all the faithful. Though Abraham

struggles with his faith, God continues to hold the patriarch in His hand guiding him and caring

for him. At one point, Abraham is having doubts that the heir God had promised him would ever

come. God comforts the man, reiterating His promise.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, saying,

"This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from

your own body shall be your heir." Then He brought him outside

and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you

are able to number them." And He said to, "So shall your

descendants be." And he believed in the LORD, and He

accounted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:4-6)


Abraham’s temptation was to look at His own sufficient resources, lacking though they were, and

to attempt to fulfill what God had promised of his own power. Abraham looked at Eliezar, the

slave in his household, and feared that because Abraham and Sarah had failed to birth an heir

perhaps this servant would be his heir. God promised an heir, through whom would come a great

nation and through that nation all the world would be blessed. Through this immediate heir would

be the Seed that would be Messiah.

On another occasion, Abraham again fears for the integrity of God’s plan and begins to work out

of his own sufficiency. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, devise a plan involving planned infidelity

with Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden. So results Ishmael, a product of man’s ingenuity and man’s

sufficiency. Matters like this are not an assistance to God. God, being omnipotent, does not need

help in accomplishing that which He sets out to accomplish. Man is arrogant to think he is going

to help God when it is only God who can help man. God is not needy; man is. God is not

insufficient; man is.

So despite Abraham’s worries, God reassures him bringing him outside to view the stars. God

promises on His own name that Abraham would be given seed that would bring forth a nation as

great in number as the stars in the heavens. An innumerable host would be the family of

Abraham. And Abraham believes in the Lord. He trusts the Lord. He recognizes God as the one

who is sufficient for all things. And God accounts that to Abraham as righteousness. And so it is

with the believer today. The believer trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom there is the promise

of salvation.


Ultimately, Abraham receives the gospel in the promises of Genesis 12:3 and through Him all the

nations of the world are blessed. He, living roughly four thousand years ago, expected someone

to come who would take care of the needs of all, including himself. Today though, believers look

back in trust in that same saviour. Paul makes it clear, in Romans 4, that just as David and

Abraham were justified by faith, so are all believers justified. All who ever come to the Lord,

come by faith. Men come to know the True and Living God by depending upon the word of the

Lord, the promises of God. God accounts faith in Him as righteousness. God considers them

righteous who believe in Him.

This is God’s work in the believer today. He promises life in the Gospel, a man believes it, and

God deems him righteous. All of this is based, of course, upon the work of Christ on the behalf of

His sheep. So then, it is God who is sufficient for righteousness, not man. And Abraham

discovered that sufficiency by believing the promises of God.

Joshua and Caleb Trusting God for the Land

Of course, Abraham is not the only example we see of saints who believe the promises of God. In

the book of Numbers, God has promised to deliver the land of Canaan into the hands of the

Israelites as an inheritance. Joshua and Caleb have just returned from the spying out the land; it is

still filled with Canaanite inhabitants and though these two trust for God’s provision, the other ten

spies express fear and doubt.

But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who

were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes.

(Numbers 14:6)


The two faithful men of God tear their clothes in sorrowful anguish because they had just heard

the majority report from the ten other spies who went into the land. The ten had given a negative

report, assenting to the fact that the land was great (the grapes are huge and there flows milk and

honey), but protesting entrance into the land due to fear of its inhabitants (giants living in huge

walled cities). The ten spies declared there was no way Israel could take the land. Joshua and

Caleb hear this report and they tear their clothes. They are ripping their clothes even as their

hearts are ripping in contrition and pain to hear such a message of doubt against the promises of

God.

These are the people of God. They are promised the land of Canaan by God Himself. Joshua and

Caleb were going to stand on that promise. These two are those who will stake their hope on the

sufficiency of God Himself.

And they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel,

saying: "The land we passed through to spy out is an

exceedingly good land. "If the Lord delights in us, then He will

bring us into this land and give it to us, 'a land which flows with

milk and honey.' Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the

people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has

departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them."

(Numbers 14:7-9)

The report of Joshua and Caleb is right in the heart of the will of God. These men are looking to

God’s sufficiency rather than man’s self-sufficiency. They realized that taking the land did not

depend upon the strength of the nation of Israel, on the numbers of the Israelites, or upon the


tactics of the Israelite strategists. According to such things, the Israelites would certainly be no

match for such forces. But the Lord had promised it to them. And the Lord was going to give it to

them. And these two men believed the Lord. Joshua and Caleb, entrusting God for the land, are

great examples of living by drawing upon, depending upon, counting upon God’s sufficiency.

Moses Pointing to the Lord for the Battle

Here is another great example of living by the sufficiency of God. In giving direction to the

Israelites in their future battles amongst the peoples who would soon stand against them, Moses

points to the Lord for victory in the battle.

When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses

and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be

afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought

you up from the land of Egypt. So it shall be, when you are on

the verge of battle that the priest shall approach and speak to the

people. And he shall say to them, “Hear, O Israel: Today you are

on the verge of battle with your enemies. Do not let your heart

faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because

of them for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight

for you against your enemies, to save you.” (Deuteronomy 20:1-

4)

Note carefully, this is nothing like the modern “power of positive thinking” issue in which people

are encouraged that the battle is first won in the mind by affirming oneself and claiming the

victory beforehand. The modern society says, “Do not allow yourself to be frightened! Just think


victory! Think positive thoughts!” Moses’ words to his people are nothing like that. He explains

that these upcoming battles would not be like them against a fortress of Goliaths. It would not be

nomadic Israel waging war against the mighty city of Jericho. It was going to be a fortress of

Goliaths and mighty Jericho falling before the strength of almighty God. The battle did not

belong to Israel, but to the Lord. If He commanded the battle, then victory would be the only

possible result. It is God who is sufficient for the things impossible to men. And Moses’ pointing

to the Lord for the battle is a great example of living by the sufficiency of God. There are battles

set forth daily for every believer in the Christian life.

And life in the promised land is a picture of life for the believer today. The Christian does not

look to the promise of a physical, literal land like Israel did. For the believer today, the land is

heavenly living—living in the spiritual promises of God. The promised land is a picture of

Christian life. The promised land and entering in is a type of the abundant victorious Christian

life, a life every believer is called to live here and now.

And so, the believer faces battles daily. He faces daily struggles against giants and strongholds,

things that would hinder him from inheriting the fullness of the spiritual blessing of Christ. And

yet, no believer needs fear such foes or circumstances for the Lord fights for His people. He can

be relied upon to the uttermost. He is sufficient for the battle that He has laid before His children.

And it is from His adequate resources that the believer is to draw upon by faith and dependence

in order to gain the victory.

David Confessing the Lord as His Comprehensive Resource

Perhaps the richest example in the Old Testament of a man relying wholly upon the all-sufficient

arm of the Lord is King David. Ruling Israel approximately one thousand years after God’s


covenant with Abraham, David confesses the Lord as his comprehensive resource. David was

king over all Israel and yet, was God still the only one the king relied upon to sustain him.

I will love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and

my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I

will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation. (Psalm 18:1-

2)

Note the words of David’s heart: the Lord is a rock, strength, deliverer, salvation, and stronghold.

But note closer, David is sure to describe God as his rock, his strength, his deliverer, etc., because

of his personal relationship of faith in the Lord. “The Lord is my strength, my rock, my fortress,

my deliverer, my God in whom I will trust.” The Lord is all of these things and He will be

revealed as all of these things to the believer so long as the believer walks in dependence and

faith upon the Lord.

Everyone needs strength. The Christian life is a battle. God does not expect the believer to have

sufficient strength of himself. Man is limited by design that God can be glorified when the

believer declares boldly in faith, “The Lord is my strength! I rest upon His sufficient strength.”

All men need a rock to stand on. This world is sinking sand. All around people are sinking. The

only place of stability upon which to stand is the Lord. The Lord is the only stable rock of

foundation to be found. The believer stands upon Him. The believer stands upon His promises.

Despite the danger of the world at large, where warfare rages on all sides and strife exists in every

corner, the believer is granted a mighty fortress to hide inside. By faith the believer can say, “The

Lord is my fortress. He shall camp around me. He shall protect me.”


This is a beautiful example of someone living with God as his sufficiency. God was David’s

comprehensive resource. He declared that it was in God that he would put his trust. And that is

how the believer draws upon the sufficient resources of God. God’s children depend upon Him

and He supplies all that is needed for their lives of godliness.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The

Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm

27:1)

The world is a frightful place. Dreadful things happen everywhere. There are people around the

world paralyzed by fear. Fear wants to strike the believer wherever he lives as well. This is a

dark world and it is hard to know what is coming for the darkness. But there is a light. There is a

saving protection. Rescue is available. This is the Christian confession: “the Lord is my light and

my salvation. Whom shall I fear? If God is for us, who do we have to be afraid of?”

Though the world, the flesh, and the devil all stand fast against the believer, in truth, they are but

paper tigers for they can do nothing against the believer who has the Lord at his side. God never

expected His children to be able to handle all these things on their own. He happily offers them

His strength and power. But still, He calls the believer to look to Him in faith. He is right there to

take care of the issues. He is the light to shine in the darkness. He is the believer’s salvation. He

shall rescue His child from daily trails. Even as He rescued the believer from sin and death at the

point of salvation, so too does He rescue that same believer from the circumstances of life.


That is indicative of the life of David. When he trusts in the Lord, David is a mighty example of

living by the sufficiency of God. Whenever David lives by his own sufficiency, he gets into

major trouble. He tumbles into the pits of womanizing, adding wife to wife, and then takes

another man’s wife and covers his sin by murdering her husband. Yet even then he becomes a

good example because all mankind stumbles and falls; and as David throws himself on the mercy

of God, so too does the believer. David does not justify himself and cast blame upon others or

upon the circumstances about him. He does not blame Bathsheba for bathing where he might see

her. Rather, David takes responsibility for his sin and throws himself before God’s mercy. Both

Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 show vividly his broken heart. And so he pleads the mercy of God,

confessing the depth of his sin. And in response, God cleanses David and restores him.

In Psalm 36, David again confesses the Lord as his comprehensive resource.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the

children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.

They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,

and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For

with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

(Psalm 36:7-9)

Here David speaks of the loyal, steadfast love of the Lord. God is always lovingly for—not

against—His children once they put their faith in Him. He offers a faultless shelter and

protection, here described as His wings. Yet His people are not just protected; they are also

satisfied. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of His house.


The world promises riches untold. But its gold is tarnished and limited. The only abundantly

satisfied ones are those who draw upon the fullness of the house of the Lord. Jesus said, "I came

that you might have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Christ did not die to grant His

people a stockpile of trinkets but bountiful measures of love, peace, joy, faithfulness, meekness,

gentleness, and self-control. And the Lord gives His children to drink from the river of His

pleasures. Nothing is more pleasing than a life lived by the river of life, with the Holy Spirit

pouring out the resources of God to a trusting heart.

From God is the fountain of life. Too many Christians, though Christians because they found

eternal life in Christ through faith, go through life day by day according to a prescribed ritual

developed over years. Too many Christians are in this position of inadequacy. Too many believe

they can develop a life for God. Too many follow a self-motivated path of self-sufficiency. And

while this may show good devotion, it lacks severely a biblical wisdom.

Jeremiah called God the fountain of living waters. God does not want His children to develop

lives dedicated to Him on their own. He is the fountain of life. As a believer focuses upon the

Lord, abundant life flows naturally from God and into the believer. Then, without trying, the

believer naturally pours forth for the Lord’s glory and service. There is hardly a larger issue for a

Christian, once saved. The believer must not try to develop a life for God through planning and

discipline—that is only the power of man living by his own sufficiency. It can never be adequate.

Rather the believer should seek only God and allow Him to develop a life of abundance in the

believer. This flows naturally from God through faith. This grace then pours out to touch others

for His glory and honor.


David saw where life came from. “For with You is the fountain of life. In Your light we see

light.” The only way believers can see their path through this dark world is by the light of the

Lord shining out of His word and into Christians’ hearts and minds as they walk. He is the

believer’s comprehensive resource.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on

His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall

give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord,

trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. (Psalm 37:3-5)

Trust in the Lord, and do good. For the believer to do good in any true sense, that good must

originate from a trust and dependence upon the Lord. Dwell in the land. Just as the children of

Israel occupied a physical, literal land in the time of David, so too does the New Testament

believer occupy his own promised country. A heavenly land with foundations built and

established by the hands of God. The believer dwells there living by the promises of God, feeding

upon His faithfulness. By faith, the child of the Lord ought to let his nurturing and nourishment

come from the faithfulness of God. Such a life, feeding upon the faithfulness of God, will result

in an increasingly faithful, reliable believer—one well established in His word. Because the

believer is not drawing upon his own resources, but upon the unlimited resources of God, his

works will be righteous and powerful and lasting.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. The flesh

naturally applies this truth selfishly and apart from the context of the presentation of Scripture. It

imagines that God intends to grant the every wish of any who delight in the Lord. The fact is that

such an attitude is not delighting in the Lord but only delighting in material desires. Man is


created to serve God before serving his own wants. The believer should never approach God as if

to use Him. This psalm says nothing in that regard.

David here encourages the believer to let God be the thrill of his very inner being. The child of

God should let the Lord be that which excites, motivates, and drives. The Lord should be that

which causes the believer to rejoice within. Then He shall give His child the desires of his heart;

that is, God will plant within the believer’s heart the kind of desires he ought to have—the kind

God wants him to have. God shall change the natural desires of His children to be desires for

godliness and righteousness and purity and growth and service. So well knit into the hearts of

believers shall these desires be that they shall become the most natural instincts of the believer

who is focused upon Christ and His sufficiency.

Commit your way to the Lord. The future and welfare of the believer lies not in his own hands but

in those of the Lord Himself. The believer should submit his plans and path before the Lord. He

should be willing to give such ambitions up that God might be able to create something better and

stronger from him. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him. God alone is the one

sufficient to develop a way through life for each of His people.

Those who commit their way to the Lord and trust also in Him are blessed beyond measure. And

He shall bring it to pass. The path that He desires for the believer to walk upon is one that He

shall certainly bring to pass by His own supreme will. Oh, what a beautiful picture of living by

the sufficiency of God.

David lived, as it were, looking at shadows of the fullness of the kingdom. The New Testament

believer, however, is now in Christ; he has seen the fulfillment of that at which David could only


hint. Even as David lived in the shadows, so does the believer of today stand right in the midst of

the blazing light of Christ. The way of Christ, the manner by which he walked is even more

abundantly clear and available to we upon whom the end of the ages has come (cf. 1 Corinthians

10:11).

Isaiah Proclaiming God’s Power for the Weak

Another great Old Testament example of living by the sufficiency of God occurs in the ministry

of Isaiah as he proclaims God’s power for the weak. Those who are aware of their own weakness

or inadequacy are always encouraged by God’s sufficiency. Isaiah addresses those who recognize

such truth. And he promises strength—strength to those who admit to weakness (after all, Christ’s

yoke is easy and His burden is light).

He gives power to the weak, even the youths shall faint and be

weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait

on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with

wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall

walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31)

Clearly, all believers qualify for this power so the question remains that concerns the reason so

many Christians fail to walk by accessing the power of God. The chief problem encountered here

is that these Christians do not honestly believe they are weak.

These believers need to overlook the myth that has been perpetrated upon them by the false

teaching of the world. They need to see themselves as God sees them. "Not that we are sufficient

of ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves" (2 Corinthians 3:5). God, through


Paul, declares that mankind is pretty weak. Fortunately, it is only the weak to whom He gives

power. Those who think they are mighty have only their own supposed might upon which to

draw. For a believer to qualify for the unsurpassable strength of the Lord, he must simply agree

with the Lord that he is weak and unable to perform any worthy act of his own strength. In the

world, such is the last thing one is supposed to do. In a worldly church, such is the last thing one

is encouraged to do. But in the word of God, the truth shines free: He gives power to the weak.

He increases strength. And oh, that builds hope. That builds faith. That builds expectation. That

builds peace and rest in the Lord.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. Even the youthful

resource of humanity has its limitations. Even those whose energy seems boundless and strength

seems undiminished will ultimately fail and grow weary. But those who wait on the Lord, those

who hope in the Lord, will have their expectation fulfilled. Those that continually place their trust

upon the Lord, even as time passes, shall be filled to overflowing with the grace of the Lord.

But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like

eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. All strength is given to

those who patiently hope in the Lord. As the believer puts his hope in the Lord, he draws upon—

by faith—the sufficient resources of the true and living God. The Christian who lives by faith and

hope is living by grace rather than by what strength he might muster on his own. He receives new

strength from God. He shall soar above his troubles as if upon wings of eagles, looking down

with God’s perspective. He shall run the race of life without being overcome by weariness. The

believer who rests in and trusts upon the Lord will walk step after step after step, never bowing

the knee to the world and never fainting upon the road of this difficult world.


Jeremiah Giving God’s Contrasting Options on Trust

In prophesying, Jeremiah only allows for two possible objects upon which man’s trust can be

laid: man or God.

Thus says the Lord: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the

Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall

not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched

places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not

inhabited. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and

whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the

waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear

when heat comes; and will not be anxious in the year of drought,

nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

First Jeremiah speaks of the spiritual wilderness of the man who trusts upon the power of man to

accomplish anything of worth or value. There is no spiritual abundance there because the

sufficiency is of man there. Man is weak. Man is impotent. And man does not offer that kind of

life that can bring one to know beauty and power and strength.

Jeremiah contrasts the sufficiency of man here with that which is truly worthwhile. Those who

depend on the Lord, who put their expectations in the Lord, do not live as in a barren wasteland.

Life in the grace of God is life in a lush garden of abundant grace. There is no anxiety. There is

no fear. All needs are met—and met to overflowing.


Of the two options here, one brings a cursing and the other brings a blessing. One is trusting in

man. The other is trusting in the Lord. One produces lives like shrubs in the desert in a parched

wilderness. The other, trusting in the Lord, produces lives like a tree planted right into the bank of

the river.

Conclusion

In conclusion, refer to Micah 7:7-9 in which Micah acknowledges his hope in God. All that we

have read are examples of what believers have abundantly available to us in the new covenant of

grace—God’s sufficiency and abundant life. All this is found in Jesus Christ.







Lesson 6 Resurrected Living by God’s Sufficiency

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




J206 God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living - Bob Hoekstra 1 Resurrected Living by God’s Sufficiency – Luke 22:14-20

With this final session, “Resurrected Living by God’s Sufficiency,” we shall complete our course

discussing God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living. God calls the believer to walk uprightly with

Him, to walk in the path of godliness, neither indulging the flesh nor living selfishly, but pleasing

and honoring and serving the Lord. The focus of this series has not been what the godly path is,

though we have given some attention to that along the way. The majority of attention has been

devoted to the resource from where the believer finds the sufficiency to walk in such a godly life.

Our emphasis is upon God’s sufficiency for godly living.

Here now, our focus turns to resurrected living by God’s sufficiency. The Lord shows clearly in

His word that the best life a Christian can muster up will never be adequate for that life in which

God calls His people to walk. This is the fact of natural life and the human experience. No matter

the dedication and zealous heart of the believer, so long as he strives in his own power, he will

fail. Despite this, there is a resurrected life available for all believers in Christ Jesus. Resurrected

living by God’s sufficiency is about learning to live by the sufficiency of God and how that life

enables the believer to walk increasingly in a life reflecting one’s resurrection. A life sustained

and energized by the resurrection power of God is daily available to all His children. This again

speaks of the issues we have dealt with several times in 2 Corinthians 3:5-6.







The life the Spirit gives is resurrection life. The new covenant is a covenant of grace and God’s

new arrangement for living within the new and living way. The old deadness of the law is passed.

The deadness of human striving and the resources of the flesh is no more. The Spirit gives new

life. The new covenant is the covenant of the Holy Spirit, a covenant by which the grace of God

is poured out by the working of His Spirit. And in that grace is the very provision for resurrected

living. While once dead in Adam and in his own human resources, there was deadness in man.

But through resurrection, death is beaten for the believer.

And be certain that man is not sufficient to raise himself from the dead, from the strength of the

Law. One cannot simply just try hard enough until resurrection life bursts forth. Only by faith and

dependence upon God Himself can man tap into the ever-flowing source of resurrection life—life

found only in Jesus Christ.

The Resurrection and the New Covenant

Here then is another aspect of the provisions of life under the new covenant of the grace of God.

Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you.” The blood of Jesus

Christ not only forgives sins, but as well secures God’s people a glorious arrangement making the

resurrection life of Jesus Christ their resource to draw on daily. That is the source from which the

believer’s sufficiency flows. And this source is abundantly sufficient to produce a new kind of

life of resurrection—a life empowered by the resurrection power of God.

In this matter of resurrected living by God’s sufficiency, let us consider momentarily the

relationship between resurrection and the new covenant. They really do fit well together, hand-in-

hand and hand-in-glove. Luke speaks to the resurrection and to its relationship to the new

covenant describing the forgiveness of sins and newness of life.


When the hour had come, Jesus sat down, and the twelve

apostles with Him. Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I

have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; "for I

say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the

kingdom of God." Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and

said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves; "for I say to

you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of

God comes." And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and

gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you;

do this in remembrance of Me." Likewise He also took the cup

after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood,

which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:14-20)

Here we are told of the last Passover feast the Lord observed before the cross. This became the

first Lord’s Supper that He instituted for the church, commanding that all believers would, in

remembrance of Him, take the bread and the cup. The bread reminds of His body, the perfect

sacrificial Lamb sent in the place of His people. The wine reminds of His blood, spilt on the

behalf of His sheep as He went in their place all the way to death. The blood of the Son of God is

priceless washing all believers from every sin. The church remembers this in the institute of the

Lord’s Supper.

Still, Christ spoke of partaking of this meal again with His people again some day—this on the

eve of His death. Implied in this narrative of the Lord’s Supper is very special revelation about

the new covenant. In describing that great covenant and how it was purchased, Jesus spoke of


partaking again. There is the solid implication of resurrection. The only way the Lord could ever

partake of this supper again with His followers, even with those who believe in this day, would be

if there were a resurrection intervening between the time at which he spoke and when He would

partake. Resurrection is here implied as the new covenant is taught.

But there is a still tighter relationship. And not just one subtly implied. Perhaps the greatest

resurrection passage in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15, solidifies the link between

resurrection and the new covenant. It develops further the relationship as it speaks of the Gospel.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the Gospel which I

preached to you, which also you received and in which you

stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word

which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I

delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ

died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was

buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the

Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Paul here speaks to the essential aspects of the Gospel, the Good News. It involves the death,

burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures. Promised in the

Scriptures, described in the Scriptures, and fulfilled in the message of the Scriptures is Jesus’ life,

death, and resurrection as Savior and Lord. That is the heart of the Gospel. That is the Good

News. The Good News is God’s new arrangement for living. The Gospel is, in fact, the new

covenant and the new covenant is the Gospel. The new covenant is God’s provision of grace for

forgiveness and new life. And the resurrection is critical to it.


And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty. (1

Corinthians 15:14)

Resurrection is essential to Christianity. If there is no resurrection, then all the Gospel

proclamation is vain. There is no reason to speak of the Lord Jesus, the Word of God, forgiveness

of sin, and life in Christ, if Christ is not risen from the grave. If Christ is not risen, preaching is

empty. Without resurrection, Christian doctrine becomes merely one more dead religious message

about one more dead religious leader. Yet Christianity is not dead—for Chirst is indeed risen. The

Gospel is based upon a risen Christ. The Good News is founded upon the fact that Jesus, the Lord

and Savior, is alive today.

And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your

sins! (1 Corinthians 15:17)

If Christ was not raised from the dead, the Christian faith, faith placed in the Lord Jesus, would

be futile, empty, vain, pointless. All men would still be dead in sin. If Christ Jesus were still in a

tomb, the believer’s sins would still be unforgiven. It would just be evidence of another religious

leader dying with a message he had not the strength to fulfill. Resurrection is crucial.

Mankind needed someone who would go through death for him and come out the other side

victorious over sin and death. Mankind needed one who would prove to be God in the flesh, not

just a martyr dying for a cause.

But now Christ is risen from the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:20)


Christ is alive! The Lord Jesus is risen! That is the Gospel. That is critical to the Good News for

that is the Good News. Sin is vanquished for God’s people for Christ indeed has risen from the

grave, death defeated and sin laid low.

In Luke 22 at the Last Supper, the resurrection is implied as essential, as a part of the new

covenant. In 1 Corinthians 15, the crux of the new covenant, spoken of as the Gospel, is the

resurrection and it is declared as essential. Without the resurrection there is no good news.

Without life from the dead, there is no Gospel. There is no new covenant if Christ is not living

today.

The new covenant is purchased by the shed blood of one who would rise again, proving by

Romans 1:4 that there is by the resurrection declared the ultimate power of and to the Son of God.

It was not simply a man who died for the sins of his followers, but a man who was God in the

flesh paying atonement for His own people. His death was not just a matter of one man dying for

another, but in Christ’s death the very Godhead participates fully. Because Christ Himself is

infinite, there exists infinite value in His shed blood—value enough to cover the sins of all

mankind.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord

Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57)

Victory over sin and death is made the believer’s through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus

Christ. No man could have any secure hope to go beyond the grave without the resurrection of the

Lord. No man could hope to have forgiveness of sins without the resurrection of the Lord Jesus


Christ. And now, Christ is risen and all His people can now sing in their hearts, “Thanks be to

God who gives us the victory!” Spiritual victory is not something we achieve or establish. It is

something that is given to us. It is a gift of the grace of God.

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ.

(2 Corinthians 2:14)

Here is another song of thanksgiving. Even as 1 Corinthians 15:57 spoke of thanksgiving for the

victory in Christ, here Paul speaks forth thanksgiving to God for leading the church in that

resurrection victory. God leads His servants in resurrection victory—the servants of the new

covenant. Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 3:6, "God who also made us sufficient as servants of

the new covenant."

New covenant servants are always led in resurrection victory whenever they let the Lord do the

leading. If the believer follows after humanity, follows after the world, the flesh, or the devil, or

follows his own wisdom, he is not letting the Lord lead. Without the Lord’s guidance into the

paths of righteous service, the believer will certainly stumble around in defeat no matter how

circumstances or experience are pushing him. But whenever he lets the Lord lead, he will always

be lead into triumph in Christ. Whether life looks triumphant or feels triumphant is beside the

point. Recall that the believer lives by faith rather than by sight. If the believer is truly and by

faith letting God lead his steps into righteousness, relying upon His wisdom and sovereignty, he

will remain confident in God despite outward appearances. “Thanks be to God who always leads

us in triumph.” This is the resurrection victory of the Lord Jesus Christ.


The Resurrection and Justification

Resurrection affects two major arenas of living before God: the believer’s initial experience of

God and then his day-to-day walk in the path of righteousness. This deals with birth and growth.

These are described in two of the great New Testament biblical words: justification and

sanctification.

We shall treat both, but first we should start with the resurrection and justification. The

resurrection is tied intimately into justification. Justification could not take place without the

resurrection. Justification is the declaration of just standing before God. It is a declaration of

righteousness. It is better than “not guilty,” “innocent,” or “exonerated.” It is the active opposite

of guilty. It is good and just and honorable and righteous and, best of all, holy.

All believers have recognized their own guilt and sin. Because of that corruption, no man may

come into the presence of God, be a part of the family of God, know God as a friend, or live with

Him forever. Man must be made just, must be made right. He must be justified. He must become

the object of an act of justification. This can only take place by the grace of God and it is directly

connected to the resurrection.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who

according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a

living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the

dead. (1 Peter 1:3)

God’s children have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ—and this based solely upon

His abundant mercy. And they have been born again to a living hope. Their justification, being


declared righteous in the sight of God through faith in Christ, includes new birth. And this new

birth calls them to a living hope.

Recall that biblical hope is not any sort of blind or wishful hope. Christ Jesus is called the Blessed

Hope. He is the Blessed Hope because the word hope in the New Testament implies a guarantee.

Hope is cause for expectation. It is the basis of certainty. Christ is the Blessed Hope because He is

the blessed certainty. He is the sure expectancy. There is an absolute and happy guarantee that He

shall come back. And every believer is born again to a living hope, to a sure guarantee, to

certainty, to cause for expectation that is living and breathing. The believer is born again into new

life in Christ. And spiritual birth is a new birth to a living hope. The believer’s expectation of

heavenly blessing and provision is based upon resurrection life. And all this is through the

resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The resurrection of Christ offers an expectation pulsating with life abundant. It offers resurrection

hope for it is birthed in sure resurrection past. Turning death to life and defeat to victory, the

resurrection holds great power. And it powers our hope. Resurrected life is now the portion of all

who believe—for now they are in Christ Jesus who himself resurrected and now grants the gift of

life to all who ask in faith. Justification raises all who believe—who were dead in trespasses and

sins—to newness of life.

The fact is that man does not simply need enlightenment and spiritual reformation, as if it were

religion itself that could cure man’s disease of corruption at his core. He needs a personal

resurrection, a resurrection of his heart and soul and mind. This is what the believer is granted in

Christ: a rising from the dead to newness of life.


The Resurrection and Sanctification

Yet too many who have come alive in Christ on the basis of His resurrection, try afterward to

establish a Christian life by their own resolutions, their own resolves, their own vows, their own

promises, their own resources, or their own sufficiency. Man is raised to newness of life and then

he tries to build a life in the old ways, on the old resources. These old resources never did anyone

any good. Everyone inherited them from Adam and no one has ever gotten anywhere on their

merits.

The Christian life is a resurrection life. That life can only be found in a resurrected Lord. And that

resurrection life that can only be found in a resurrected Lord can only be built and developed

following a resurrected Lord. The Christian life is not just a religious new leaf the believer turns

over. It is not simply the inspiration of joining a new religious club that stokes the fire of man’s

soul as he involves himself in new activities and new vocabulary.

The Christian life is a resurrection life. Without the resurrection, the life will not begin. But

without that same resurrection power at work in the daily Christian living, there is no continued

life. Without the resurrection power of the Gospel, there is no way in which to find the sufficient

resources to live the life that believers are called to—because it is a resurrection life to which the

Christian is called. The Christian life begins, grows, and culminates entirely in the perfected

power of the resurrection.

Now it is relatively easy for people to agree that resurrection and justification are tied intimately

together. To put it another way, no man can be born again apart from the resurrection of the Lord

Jesus Christ and faith in that risen Lord who died and rose again on our behalf. But there is just as

intimate a tie between the resurrection and sanctification. And this is not so readily accepted.


Justification is related to new birth, to beginning a new life with God. Sanctification is related to

growing in the Lord, walking on with the Lord, and getting acquainted with the Lord.

Justification is the starting point. Sanctification is that which follows.

Sanctification is the process of the believer being conformed evermore into the image of Christ.

Yet this is no act of the believer’s discipline. This is not the believer working in his life trying to

be the best he can be. This is not the believer making promises or even heartfelt verbal

commitments. No, this is still the power of the resurrection at work. The resurrection is directly

related to the progressive path of sanctification. It is by the resurrection of Christ that His sheep

are being set apart, literally, more and more, to the purposes, the glory, and the use of God.

This day-by-day work in the believer’s life cannot take place apart from this glorious implication

of the reality of the resurrection and its power in daily Christian living. Daily Christian living is

also to draw on the benefits of the resurrection.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may

know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the

glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding

greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the

working of His mighty power. (Ephesians 1:18-19)

Paul prays that the church would know three things in this short passage: the hope of Christ’s

calling; the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints; and then third, the exceeding

greatness of His power toward us. Our focus of study here will concentrate on the third portion,


but note the very thrust of the prayer. It is a prayer that the eyes of the believers’ understanding

would be enlightened that they might know fully of certain things (the hope, riches, and power of

Christ and their relation to His bride). Day by day, God wants His people to know and experience

these things.

God wants us to know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. Too

much of the time, too many believers are drawing upon the sufficiency of man to try and live the

Christian life. They look to human power to make each day work as Christians. That is not what

God wants the believer to learn for it is something all man already knows. He knew that in Adam.

It is in man’s very nature (corrupt as it is) to bear down, get tough, bite the bullet, and reach deep

inside for the strength to carry on. This is nothing more or better than simply man drawing upon

the insufficient resources of man rather than upon the abundant resources of God.

Rather than have His children focusing on their inner strengths, the Lord wants them to know

what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards them, working on their lives. In fact,

according to the working of His mighty power—

Which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead

and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.

(Ephesians 1:20)

The power God wants His children to know about, to increasingly understand, and to walk in day

by day is this great resurrection power that works toward His people. It is available to work upon

their lives and then in and through those same lives. This is His power. This is the working of His


mighty power that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. It is resurrection

power.

The power all believers are to draw upon for daily Christian living is resurrection power. This

power works in and through all aspects of the believer’s humanity, but becomes the very

energizing dynamic in and through all of it. For a Christian, for a new covenant servant, for one

living by the grace of God—not depending on man’s sufficiency but putting their hope in God’s

sufficiency—that sufficiency flows forth naturally in this form, resurrected life.

The resource of an energizing, dynamic power that is available to all believers is beyond

comprehension. And because of man’s nature, he is very prone to forget just how much power is

available him. Man is so constantly aware and distracted by his own resources that inexplicably,

he forgets the power of God. Yet every believer should be constantly proclaiming the gospel of

resurrection life to every other believer in order that each might be constantly reminded of the

true source of their power to live. The power of Christ is of a different realm. He commands the

oceans to quiet and the storms to still. And it is by the power of Christ and His resurrection that

the believer lives and thrives.

The sufficiency of God includes resurrection power. Living by God’s sufficiency is living in

resurrection power. God wants the believer to know this power. There is a direct relationship

between the resurrection and sanctification. The resurrection of Christ is the kind of power His

bride needs for the godly life to which she is called.

The great desire of the apostle Paul is that he might know God. Knowing God is the heart of it all.

It is the heart of life itself. The believer finds eternal life when he meets God in Jesus Christ. He


grows in that life as he gets acquainted with God through Christ. His faith is built. His trust and

hope is focused and enlarged as we get to know the Lord.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the

fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

(Philippians 3:10)

At first glance it may seem as if Paul is speaking of four things here: 1) knowledge of Him, 2) the

power of the resurrection, 3) the fellowship of His sufferings, and 4) conformity to death. Yet this

is not truly so. One stands out like a mighty mountain above the others: knowing Him. That little

word, “and,” as the implication often in the New Testament, can even be translated as, “even,” or

“that is.” “That I may know Him, even in this way, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship

of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Actually what is listed here is one great reality

above all realities. In fact, Paul called knowing the Lord the number one issue in life.

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the

knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. (Philippians 3:8)

That word excellence could be translated as “surpassing value.” Paul says that everything he had

or could come up with on his own was worth nothing in comparison the surpassing value of

knowing Christ. Paul considered it all waste in comparison. This knowledge of such value comes

partially through God’s self-revelation of through the word, by His Spirit. But in depth and

reality, knowledge comes through that revealed through Scripture in combination with the

experience of that revelation applied in the path the believer walk along. By God’s grace, what


the believer is shown of the character of Christ in the word becomes the manner in which he

walks.

And here are three arenas where the word gets applied out into believers’ lives—three arenas in

which they come to know better the Lord of their salvation. These are resurrection, suffering, and

death. The believer’s path to knowledge begins in resurrection. In fact the believer’s first real

knowledge of the Lord, the regeneration he experiences upon being born again, is an act of the

resurrection power of God. He is raised from death. When once dead in trespasses and sins, the

believer has been made alive and raised with the Lord Jesus.

But there are other ways to get to know the Lord. And sometimes when some Christians are just

about to get to know Him in some new dimension, they think that all the wheels have come off

their Christian cart. They are startled because they begin to suffer. Too many are led to believe

that suffering is a thing of the past and that earthly life for the Christian is all happy pastures.

Shame on the church for not properly preparing the newborns in the kingdom for the inevitable

time of suffering that God has in store for each of His sheep.

God wants His people to know Him in the power of His resurrection. And essential to tasting

resurrection power is the taste of suffering (even as His Son suffered). Fellowship with Christ in

His sufferings is one of the three means to knowledge of God. Those who follow the Lord and

walk in that resurrected life and power will necessarily encounter affliction and trouble and trial.

Persecution and opposition become the order of the day. The believer’s life becomes a battle zone

of spiritual warfare. Yet so long as the believer is focused upon his identity in the resurrection

Lord Christ, these struggles become strengthening agents, granting the believer a steadfast hope

and a greater knowledge of the Lord. The fellowship of His sufferings is an amazing thing.


Christ Jesus Himself suffered much. He was anointed with the oil of gladness above His brethren.

No one knew the joy of the Father and life as it was designed to be as Jesus did. But He was also

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He went through heartache and heartbreak and He

sweat drops of blood in the garden for our sin. But He suffered opposition and persecution

because of His righteousness. And as the believer grows in rightness, as he becomes more like

Christ, those forces and people who hated Him will have the same attitude toward the believer.

Jesus said, “If they persecuted Me, they are going to persecute you.” This is the path the believer

follows to come to knowledge of the Lord in the fellowship of His suffering. This is important for

it allows the believer to grow in his loving appreciation and understanding of our Lord and what

life in the Lord is about.

Suffering also occurs as a result of the sinful, fallen, sin-scarred, sin-sick world the believer

inhabits. Jesus walked through this world and it brought Him suffering. As the believer walks

through the same world to any measure as Christ did, so will he fellowship in the same manner of

suffering. The believer is given a share in the same kind of suffering. And so, the believer’s

appreciation for the Lord grows. Christ left glory above to experience a world of discomfort and

violence that He might bear the cross on behalf of His sheep. The contrast between glory and

suffering should cause the believer to appreciate the Lord all the more. This is what it means to

know the Lord in the fellowship of His suffering.

The third arena in which the believer comes to know better the Lord is often looked forward to

the least. This is being conformed to His death. These are the times when everything around us,

and sometimes within us, looks and feels as if it is dying. Despair. Heartache. Impossibility.


Buried. Occasionally, a man will feel simply buried—buried under the depth of rubble of the

circumstances of life. This is the taste of the conformity to His death.

For all practical purposes, mind, emotion, and will experience an entombment—a whole sense of

inadequacy and perplexity. In such times, the believer may feel as though he were Lazarus, lying

dead and buried in the grave. Those who walk long with the Lord are almost certain to experience

this conformity to His death. They are put in a place similar to Christ’s, a place where all hope

would be lost if it were not for that last thread of certain hope that the Father would be faithful,

even in this. These are the times when believers may even cry out, “Into thy hands I commend my

life, my spirit, my everything!” And at times, to fulfill the Father’s will and glorify the Father

(that it would be His will and not ours that would be done), the believer stands in these

circumstances as though dead.

The spiritual anguish can be almost paralyzing. If not for the faithfulness of God, His people

would surely perish. Never envy those for the experience, but envy them for the growth that God

is working in them through the experience. Being swept up in despair and doubt and fear, the

believer has no recourse but to throw himself entirely into the sufficient and loving arms of the

Lord. And even as God called Lazarus out from the grave, so will He be faithful to breathe life

into the believer’s drowning soul. One can never imagine such depths of hopelessness, despair,

and doubt until they live in the eye of that hurricane of spiritual hardship. And still, allowing the

believer to feel the weight of that kind of impossible helplessness works a marvelous change in

the believer. He comes to depend—by his necessity—upon the faithfulness of the Father. Even as

Christ was there and was kept by God’s faithfulness to Him, so too will the believer be called

unto death and then out of death by his loving Father.


And once that conformity to His death has impacted the believer, the threats of the devil and the

world mean little. What is the power of the created against the power of the creator? God is

faithful to raise His children in power against any threat of destruction. After being raised from

out of such a spiritual dying, the believer is granted a whole new view on things. Life comes once

again to the believer by the resurrection faithfulness of God. Life goes on with a living hope

through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection is absolutely and thoroughly

tied into sanctification—into the daily Christian life.

Paul wanted to know the Lord in all three of these ways: “If by any means I may attain to the

resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:11). This does not refer to resurrection at the end, the

final resurrection. He already had that by being in Christ. This is something he wanted to

appropriate now. Paul wanted to know the Lord this way now.

Paul says, in essence, “I want to know the Lord so greatly, through resurrection, suffering, and a

conformity to death—all these means in every way applied—if by any means I might walk in a

resurrected kind of living now among this dead world.” In fact the word resurrection appears in a

unique form and is only used once in the whole New Testament in this manner. It denotes of a

lifting up out of. Paul wanted to be lifted by his walk with God up above a dead world. He wanted

to walk a resurrection life now. He wanted this life and knew it had to be based upon the knowing

of God.

Incredibly, when one gets to know the Lord through the conformity to His death, he is necessarily

led right back to the resurrection. The ultimate application of the power and grace and work of

God in any dying situation is when He raises the believer again. These living resurrections give


the believer a resurrection kind of faith—a faith that realizes that God can work far beyond the

extremities of man’s limits and imagination. This is the resurrection power.

Further, we see evidence of Paul going through these same experiences in his own life.

Agonizing, but helpful, Paul recognizes these experiences for what they are:

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble

which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond

measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes,

we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not

trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians

2:8-9)

Paul, being experientially entombed, was being led into conformity to death like Jesus. Put in a

place where only the faithfulness of God and resurrection power from God could save him from

despair, Paul grew in depths of faith. Those of his party were burdened beyond measure. They

were assaulted above and beyond their strength. They despaired of life. They carried about inside

themselves a sentence of death.

But note that though they “had the sentence of death,” they died in all these ways in order that

“we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead." To realize conceptually the

fact that God raises people from death is one thing, but the personally experience of that

resurrection brings a whole new strength of meaning to the words. It is another thing entirely to

experience firsthand God’s power in this way—to be brought to a practical deadness as Paul was

and to find out that it is not man who should be trusted but God, who raises the dead.


So often, to bring about in the believer’s heart an honest faith, God must work in a way that

destroys the believer’s faith in himself. Many do not trust wholly in the Lord because they are

still trusting in themselves in ways they cannot face or admit.

Paul was taken through agonies here to the end that he and his missionary team would not trust in

themselves but “in God who raises the dead.” One way in which God purges the believer of self-

trust is that He takes that believer to the end of self’s resources. Then, when in the midst of the

horror of a life gone deadly wrong, the believer is forced to look to God—to look to true power

and strength. And God bursts through the clouds of death and gloom and breathes once more that

resurrection life into the helpless believer. Through these events, God teaches the believer to trust

in Him who is ever able to raise the dead.

This is the resurrection tied in to the Christian life. The Christian life is a resurrection life and

such is found only in a resurrected Lord. And it can only be developed by following, getting

acquainted with, trusting, and believing that resurrected Lord. The believer is called to resurrected

living by God’s sufficiency.

Conclusion

We shall conclude this course with the passages with which we began. Recall that this kind of

resurrected living by God’s sufficiency fits well our theme verses.







And further:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence

of the power may be of God and not of us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

What power? Resurrected power. The resurrected life of Christ.

That the life of Jesus might be manifested in our body. That the

life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2

Corinthians 4:10-11)

In the believers’ earthen vessels, that which is to be seen is the resurrected life of Christ:

resurrected living by God’s sufficiency.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but

Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I

live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself

for me. (Galatians 2:20)

We do not speak of a natural human life. We do not look to man’s sufficiency. We speak of

resurrection life and God’s sufficiency through the resurrected life of Christ. The life the believer


today lives in his body of flesh, he lives most truly by faith in the Son of God. His lives in

resurrected living by faith in Jesus Christ.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear

with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)

Christians are given life from God, eternal life, but the life He gives is His own life to share. As a

vine shares its life with a branch, so does Christ share His resurrected life with His sheep. This

brings all power to the believer in all sufficiency. Colossians 3:11 speaks of the new creation, the

body of Christ, where Christ is all and in all. Jesus Christ lives in all of His people. He wants to

be all that all of them will ever need. He is their all in all. He is in all of His people and He is all

they shall ever need. The Lord is a risen Lord who lives on—and it is to that fact that Christ’s

people may look for their all-sufficient strength for daily living.

The believer’s comprehensive sufficiency is found in the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As the believer trusts in Him, depends on Him, it matters not if he stands in a trial or an

opportunity. It matters not if he is called to step out and take action or endure in a waiting

process. It matters not how diverse the situations are, the believer’s sufficiency is the same: the

drawing by faith upon the resurrected life of the resurrected Lord Jesus who lives in His people.

By His Spirit, He wants that life lived in His people and out through them. In God’s sufficiency

for godly living there is included this glorious reality: resurrected living by the sufficiency of

God.


Appendix A

By

Bob Hoekstra

Brought to you by




God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living Complete Outline

1

God’s Sufficiency for Godly Living Living by God’s Sufficiency (Study #1 of 6) Introduction: Godly Living and God’s Sufficiency: 2 Corinthians 1:12; 2:17; 4:2; 7:1; 3:5 The New Covenant: 2 Corinthians 3:6 Jeremiah 31:31 Matthew 26:28 Mark 14:24 Luke 22:20 1 Corinthians 11:25 2 Corinthians 3:6 Hebrews 8:8, 13; 9:15; 12:24 Isaiah 59:21 Jeremiah 24:7 Ezekiel 11:19, 20; 36:26, 27 Galatians 4:21-5:1 Hebrews 7:18-22 Luke 9:23 Ephesians 5:18 John 10:10 The New Covenant Promised to Israel Eventually: Jeremiah 31:31-34 The New Covenant Inaugurated for the Church Now: Hebrews 8:6-13; 10:15-20 The New Covenant Provided by the Blood of Christ: Luke 22:20 Conclusion:


2

Characteristics of Living by God’s Sufficiency (Study #2 of 6) Introduction: 2 Corinthians 3:5b, 6a Led in Triumph: 2 Corinthians 2:12-14a Romans 8:37 A Fragrance of Christ: 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 A Godly Sincerity: 2 Corinthians 2:17; 6:3, 4a Letters of Christ: 2 Corinthians 3:1-3 Acts 7:59, 60 Our Source of Sufficiency: 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 John 15:5 Philippians 4:13 Conclusion: Ephesians 3:20, 21


3

Man’s Sufficiency versus God’s Sufficiency (Study #3 of 6) Introduction: 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6a, 14b Ink versus the Spirit: 2 Corinthians 3:3 Tablets of Stone versus Human Hearts: 2 Corinthians 3:3 The Letter versus the Spirit: 2 Corinthians 3:6 Ministry of Death versus Ministry of Life: 2 Corinthians 3:6-8 Ministry of Condemnation versus Ministry of Righteousness: 2 Corinthians 3:9 Fading Glory versus Remaining Glory: 2 Corinthians 3:11 Substantial Glory versus Excelling Glory: 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 Conclusion:


4

Insufficient Vessels Containing Sufficient Treasure (Study #4 of 6) Introduction: 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6 Earthen Vessels with Heavenly Treasure: 2 Corinthians 4:7 The Process that Magnifies the Treasure: 2 Corinthians 4:10 An Attitude Held by Us: 2 Corinthians 4:10 An Action Carried out by God: 2 Corinthians 4:11 The Temporal Impact on Others: 2 Corinthians 4:12 The Eternal Impact on Us: 2 Corinthians 4:17, 18 Conclusion:


5

Insufficient Vessels Containing Sufficient Treasure (Study #5 of 6) Introduction: 2 Corinthians 3:5 Abraham Believing the Promises of God: Genesis 15:4-6 Joshua and Caleb Trusting God for the Land: Numbers 14:6-9 Moses Pointing to the Lord for the Battle: Deuteronomy 20:1-4 David Confessing the Lord as His Comprehensive Resource: Psalms 18:1, 2; 27:1; 36:7-9; 37:3-5 Isaiah Proclaiming God’s Power for the Weak: Isaiah 40:29-31 Jeremiah Giving God’s Contrasting Options on Trust: Jeremiah 17:5-8 Micah Acknowledging His Hope in God: Micah 7:7-9 Conclusion:


6

Resurrected Living by God’s Sufficiency (Study #6 of 6) Introduction: 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6 The Resurrection and the New Covenant: Luke 22:14-20 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 14, 17, 20a, 57 2 Corinthians 2:14a; 3:6 The Resurrection and Justification: 1 Peter 1:3 The Resurrection and Sanctification: Ephesians 1:18-20 Philippians 3:10, 11 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 Conclusion: 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6; 4:7, 10, 11 Galatians 2:20 Colossians 3:4a, 11

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