When a person is born of the Spirit, through faith in Christ, he or she is equipped by God to be a minister to others. God makes you adequate, competent for all that is in front of you!  God makes you able to do what he has called you to do.

You may not FEEL adequate for whatever is in front of you.  You may not feel adequate in your parenting, in your work, in handling your finances, in handling your problems.  You may not feel adequate to serve other people in the name of Jesus.  You may not feel you have something to give to people, that will touch them, change them, help them, build them up, feed them spiritually.

I would say most of us feel inadequate about a lot of things. Sometimes I feel so weak it scares me!  When I think of what I NEED to do in life and what I WANT to do for God and others, and I look at myself, I can seem so pathetic.  I am not just saying that - I can really feel that!  And IN OURSELVES, we are NOT adequate for all that God calls us to.

In this passage Paul says, “We are not competent in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. “God has made us competent as ministers”, or he has made us sufficient ministers, or made adequate servants.  He equips us with supernatural abilities to serve others!  

Although Paul expresses confidence in his ministry, he admits he is NOT competent... in himself.  And the things God has called you to do, are far to great for you to be able to do it in your power and effort.  BUT God makes you adequate!!  God gives you enough of whatever it takes to be ABLE to do what you are called to do.  Like Paul we are always aware of our personal incompetency, but always confident in God, to make us competent.

God takes ordinary people like you and me, weak in ourselves, and makes us competent to minister to, to bless, to do good, to other people.  You have a ministry, and an effect, a gift, that others need!  Romans 12:6 says, “ having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, LET US USE THEM”.  1 Peter 4:10 “As each has received a gift, USE it to serve one another”.   In spite of our incompetence, we are to have confidence in God’s working within us to always have something to give to others!

One: We are all ministers, we can all minister to others.  In this passage Paul says “we are ministers of a new covenant”.  He was speaking of himself and his unique call as an apostle.  But we are all called ministers.  Hebrews 6:10 says, “God is not unjust, so as to forget your work and the love you have shown toward his name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints”.  This is not written about apostles or pastors, but to the poor persecuted Jewish Christians who, in their trials were still ministering to the saints!  HOW we do that is as different as snowflakes are different but we all are called to be ministers to the saints.

To minister means to serve, to bring something to someone that meets a need.  When Paul brought a financial gift to the saints at Jerusalem, he said, “I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints”.  

When Jesus was tempted by the devil for 40 days, at the end of that time it says, “The devil left him and behold angels came and ministered to him”.  They brought  encouragement, and comfort and maybe food and drink.  Ministering is giving someone what is necessary to sustain their physical and spiritual life.  Mother’s minister to their babies.  When you bring food to someone you are ministering to them.  Ministry is feeding people’s souls.  It it ministering the water of life to people.  It is ministering what people need for encouragement, hope and healing and salvation.

One commentator said “Ministry is seeing the needs of fellow believers and willingly distributing to them what the Master has placed in your hands to meet those needs”.  Everyone of you should think of yourself as a minister.

Two: We are ministers of New Covenant message and life.  

The New Covenant was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood”.  It is God’s agreement with us, to remove our sin and guilt and give us a new heart that wants to love God and please him.  Hebrews 10 summarizes it this way: This is the covenant I will make with them, says the Lord.  I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds”  and “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more”.  

Paul called it the ministry that brings righteousness.  Through faith in Jesus Christ,  God declares us to be righteous in his sight, and then gives us the Spirit who leads us to live righteous lives from the inside out.  He writes his will and his desires on the tablets of our hearts!

Paul called the Old Covenant the ministry that condemns men because of our inability to keep it.  But the new covenant enables us to live righteous lives. John Bunyan expressed this so well in a short poem titled: Run John, Run.

Run, John, run. The law commands
But gives neither feet nor hands.
Better news the gospel brings;
It bids us fly and gives us wings.

In verse 6 he said, “We are ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life”.  We are not just ministering written instruction or laws to people!  We are ministers of the Spirit for the Spirit gives LIFE!  The most prominent feature of the new covenant (the message) is that the Holy Spirit comes to live in us – we are born of the Spirit, and then live a life of walking in the Spirit.  This is Christianity!

We are not Paul and do not have his same calling. But in some way we ARE ministers of the new covenant.  This New Covenant message comes out from us in the message of Christ we share with people.  It also flows through us in the way we treat people, in the way we love people, in the way we forgive people.  When you show grace to people you are ministering the new covenant! When you forgive your husband or parents or your co-worker you are demonstrating the new covenant.  The new covenant message shows on your face and in your eyes, and in the tone of your voice!  

People can sense whether you are handing them the letter of the law, as though you expect RULES to change them,  OR you are offering them the life of Jesus Christ and the promise of the Spirit to transform and heal and make them whole!

Are you ministering a new covenant message in your home?  Is the emphasis on  Christ and what he has done for us!  As a family, do you glory in Christ and what we have in HIM?  Are you emphasizing the letter of the law or the Spirit who gives life?  We are ministers of the new covenant!!

*Three:  God has equipped you, by the Spirit, to do things that bless, and change and transform other people.  Paul said to the Corinthians, “You yourselves are our letter!”.  You are “the result of our ministry”.  Something happened in people’s lives as a result of Paul’s words and work and life.  People were born again; people were transformed.  Instead of providing a letter of recommendation, Paul said, “I have living letters of recommendation, changed lives, known and read by all men”.

Yet he acknowledges that his effect on people is supernatural: “You show that you are a letter FROM CHRIST, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.  Paul said I wrote on your hearts.  YET it was NOT I, but Christ.  Christ used me to make an impact on you.  And he did it by the Spirit of the Living God but I was the instrument (the pen).

Verse 3 says, “Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts”.  Today God is not writing a message on tablets of stone (as when he wrote the 10 commandments), but on tablets of human hearts!  And he uses you to do it.

You help someone, you love someone, you share God’s truth with someone, you encourage someone, yet it is the Spirit of the living God that is producing something in that other person’s heart.  It is the Spirit of the living God who uses, what he has led you to do, to leave an imprint in that other person.  By the grace of God you are changing the people around you.  You are an instrument by which God is writing on their hearts.  

Spurgeon said, “The mysterious influence that flows through us is NOT of earthly manufacture; it is the pure Spirit of the Living God!”.   When you answer God’s call to ministry, there is a mysterious influence flowing through you to other people…..and it is nothing less than the Holy Spirit of God!  

There is no greater calling, no higher privilege than to be a minister of Christ.  I am NOT talking about pastors and missionaries!  I am talking about you, in your life and the people you are around, and the opportunity YOU have to a minister of the life of Jesus to others ALL THE TIME!  -certainly to your family, to your spouse, to your kids, to the waitress, to the family of God, to that wounded person you just met.

I pray for you to have a revelation that the Spirit of the Lord is upon YOU to minister to people and their needs. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 “To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”.   The Spirit of the Living God is manifesting himself through you for the good of all those around you!

*Four: This is something we can be confident about because our adequacy comes from God.  Paul said, “Such confidence we have before God!  NOT that we are competent in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves but our competency comes from God”.  Paul had great confidence before God that God was using him to make an imprint on people’s hearts.  He did not say God could never use me.  He was confident about carrying on his ministry! But this...  

Confidence comes from knowing our competence is NOT found in ourselves!  BUT IN GOD!  Most of us know how weak we are.  We feel our smallness, our nothingness, very keenly at times.  And we think, “How can a man like me (or a woman like me) minister life to people! - to my kids, or grandchildren, to my friends, and co-workers, the saints right here at RLC?”.  There might be times when you don’t know how you can face one more day, let alone impact other people’s for Jesus sake.  IF our confidence is based in ourselves, on our feelings, in our being able to come up with the right words, or in working up the strength to go on, it does not give confidence, but despair.

The realization, that we are not competent in ourselves, can actually be a huge relief!  It releases us from the burden of trying to be something we are not.  It brings peace. We don’t have to pretend to be something we are not.  We can fully agree with Jesus Christ when he says, “Apart from me you can do nothing”.  

AB Simpson said when we understand that we are dead and that Christ is our life, we would not count upon our own “condition, states and resources, any more than a dead man’s”.  Would you depend on a dead man to do something for you, to bring you something you need?  Don’t trust in yourself either!  

When we go to minister to someone we don’t have to work up something, we don’t have to FEEL something.  We live life, expecting nothing from ourselves, but expecting everything from God.  I don’t know how many times I have dialed someone’s phone number, while whispering out loud, “Lord I have no idea what I am going to say, give me grace and words to love this person and speak into their life”.

The main cause of Christian “NON- ministry” is that we are looking first to see if we are competent, we conclude we are not, and therefore withdraw into our own private lives.  But instead, AS we are aware of our weakness, our lack, we should look to God’s adequacy!  Vance Havner said, “Our weakness and God’s strength form an unbeatable combination!”.  

There is this ongoing paradox in Paul that he himself knew full well.  And we experience it too: inadequate, and adequate at the same time, incompetent and competent, insufficient and fully sufficient at the same time and in the same person.  We are weak, but we are strong.  We feel very normal and earthly and human, even empty, yet IN that, God moves us and uses us and gives us grace to minister and love and have a word for someone.  And we live life like that!  

You might minister to someone and it obviously blesses them and you feel really good. And you think, “OK, I got it figured out.  I know how to minister to people! I’m gonna love and serve and bless people.  Then the next day you might feel like a withered flower, like you just have nothing to offer.  But that doesn’t matter!  Because our faith is ALWAYS IN GOD WHO MAKES US ADEQUATE EVERY DAY, IN EVERY SITUATION WITH EVERY PERSON.  We are always aware of our personal incompetency, but always confident in God, to make us competent.  Weak in ourselves, yet still ministering life everywhere we go, to everyone we meet BECAUSE GOD MADE US COMPETENT.  And you trust in that!

The church at Corinth complained that Paul was a terrible speaker and that his personal appearance was unimpressive, and some concluded that he was inadequate.  Paul did not argue with that conclusion. What they thought of him did not destroy him...or even bother him! He fully accepted that, and felt the same way about himself!  But that never stopped him from being a minister of God!  

We accept that are not adequate in ourselves.  But then we must recognize that we are no longer just ourselves!  We have been indwelt by the Spirit of the living God.  The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, has come upon you, IF you are truly born of God.

So this is your confession (in all circumstances, in all feelings): BUT GOD MADE US ADEQUATE!  This HAS to be the way you think!

AB Simpson “Many Christians can say, “We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves….but the number, I fear is very small who can say, “Our sufficiency is of God”.   “We may be ready to admit our our disability, BUT are we AS READY to admit HIS ABILITY?”

If we only see our inadequacy we might not get out of bed in the morning. We might never get to church.  We might never make that phone call. We won’t be faithful to other believers.  We won’t be able to think of anyone else’s needs but our own, because we are focused on our insufficiency.  We won’t share anything, won’t pray for others, because we are living in inadequacy, in bondage to the feelings of NOT BEING ABLE.

Instead this is how we are to live:  We go on day by day, and some days just hour by hour, knowing and feeling that we are NOT able, but that God IS!  So we CARRY ON, looking for that next person to bless, to pray for, to encourage, to love, to share Jesus with, to serve.  Because that’s who we are!  We are ministers, empowered by God!

Here are some personal thoughts I wrote down on this topic, awhile back, that I am hesitant to share because it makes me look weak, but it may help someone.

I can feel so weak, at times, it scares me.  The feeling is that I don't have the strength to face another meeting, sell another house, preach another sermon, bear the cares qne responsibilities of being a pastor one more day.  I can feel so empty in my own self and in my emotions, like I have no emotional strength.  Depressed even. I can feel so inadequate that I wonder how I could have anything to give others.  Yet I always find that God himself is the power of my life.  He is the strength of my heart.  He is my glory and the lifter of my head.  He upholds me day by day.  He continually makes me able.  

Who then is adequate for these things?  But God made us adequate!  Not that we are adequate in ourselves, but God made us adequate.

This is not a new thought for me but something I live out almost daily.  Never feeling sufficient in myself but always finding that I am sufficient in Christ.

And when the feelings of weakness come, it is like I have never learned this before.  It is a whole new battle of faith to be fought and won in that moment or day.