You are Not Enough

Lord, we acknowledge that, without you, we can do nothing, but in Christ, we can do all things including the suffering that you've allotted to us. We pray, God, that this morning that you would guide us through your spirit as we look at your word together in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, I, recently went to a bookstore and asked a saleswoman where the self-help section was. And she said that if she told me it would defeat the purpose. But that is really a little bit of what we're gonna be talking about this morning, and that is, is that we are, our culture is really, really big into Self-help, infinite improvability, the self-help industry or what some call the gospel of wellness is a multi-million dollar industry, and you would think that if it were working that we would put them out of business because we'd all go read the one or two books, we'd all get better in whatever area it is we're trying to improve in, and then there'd be no more use for books, but they have to keep producing these books because we just don't learn what it is that we're supposed to be learning.

From the books, you can eat better, you can improve your life, you can lose weight, you can gain muscle, you can add hair, you can take away hair.

You can improve your mental health, you can improve your romantic life, any number of things. And you can basically, you can defeat the Goliaths if we want to spiritualize it, you can defeat the Goliaths in your own life. let's see where we're at on our. Little thing my barber, am I, am I on?

OK. There we go. So you can defeat the Goliath of your own life with some help from God, of course. We are infinitely improvable is what the gospel of wellness says.

and given enough effort and willpower and money and commitment, you can improve yourself in a myriad of ways. So how is this gospel of wellness doing? How's it working out for us? Well, some studies, from several, from the pharma somebody's gonna have to help me in here with, he's a doctor, pharmacotherapy, did I say that right?

Phar pharmacotherapy, thank you. From a study from 2007 to 2019, a study that was tracking college students said that prescriptions for antidepressants or anxiety medication doubled during that time period. Now, I share this, not to say that there are no uses for some of these medications, but it's just to prove the fact that in a fairly short period of time. students, college-aged students feel like they are unwell, and, and their unwellness has doubled just by the prescriptions of antidepressants and anti-anxiety.

Medication. More than a few journalists and, psychologists and counselors and sociologists have linked the extreme rise of suicide in the United States to a failure to meet the sky-high expectations that we set for ourselves, whether that be for our bodies, our bank accounts, or our children. And it's not just with college age people that this is going on, it's people my age, people younger, people older that are setting sky-high expectations for themselves and others. this idea is everywhere and it's part of what we see in our society today, that produces this idea of self-justification, self-righteousness, leaving very little mercy and redemption for people who differ from us.

And just because you happen to go to church, doesn't mean that you are necessarily immune to this culture of sky-high expectations. I'd like to quote from one of our sisters in Christ who shared a bit of her testimony, last week, Rachel Jones. Part of that testimony, she said this, I was within a large community of a works-based religion with an impossibly high bar of what they call, called righteousness. I felt the pressure of reaching that bar, making it seem effortless to be happy and joyful all the time, keeping on the mask.

so people hid their struggles. This type of thinking creeps into believers' minds too. Notice the connection between the sky-high standards of what's called righteousness and the corollary of hiding your struggles from others. And I love really what Rachel said.

This is not just unique to unbelievers, it creeps into the minds of Christians, into the church. you may be here today and, it may not be all that uncommon even here at Cornerstone for people to show up on any given Sunday or week and have certain things that they are struggling with severely. But they dare not bring it out into the public because after all, a Christian is supposed to be like Christ. A Christian is supposed to be raised with Christ.

A Christian is supposed to have all of the chains of sin broken, right? We are raised with Christ, we have a new identity. There is no longer any power that the devil in sin has over us. And so because of these truths that we understand that are actually part of the truth, not the whole truth, sometimes we show up in our Christian communities and we say, well, if I bring my sin into the light, isn't this going to counteract the gospel that I say I believe?

I want to share another portion of a testimony, from Jackie Rojas who shared a few months ago when she was baptized. Really, I don't know about you, I've really enjoyed these testimonies from people who have been baptized. And, one of the things that she was sharing is just how that she grew up with this idea, that she had to be righteous enough to go to heaven if she had achieved a certain amount of righteousness which she could never quite quantify, then she could go to heaven.

But then she said this, the Lord showed me how precious I am to him, and that I am not enough, and that I do not have to be enough.

There is no bar I have to reach. Thank God because that bar was set by Jesus as our perfect sinless savior who was willing to die on the cross for my sins. Brothers and sisters, that is the gospel. That is the gospel for unbelievers, and that is the gospel for Believers that you and I are not enough and that we don't have enough, we could never be enough, but Jesus has reached the bar.

He has reached the standard and he is enough and so we're calling this particular message you are not enough. The Bible says in John 5:5, Jesus talking to his disciples, without me, you can do a few things. Amen. No, without me, you can do what?

Nothing. There is nothing that you or I can accomplish outside of the love of Christ, our connection to Christ, our unity with Christ. Without Christ, you and I can do nothing. And this morning, we're gonna consider four fundamentals of the doctrine of man that lay at the foundation of a gracious view of yourself and others.

And so, if we understand this doctrine of man, what we would call in theological circles, anthropology and anthropology is basically just your view of humankind. How is it that you view the people around you? How do you view yourself? But if you have the biblical or a biblical view of mankind, it's actually going to push you towards a more gracious view of your brothers and sisters all around you.

And it's gonna actually make you more compassionate with yourself. I just wanna let you guys know right out the gate that I am borrowing significantly by an author named David Za in his book Low Anthropology. And so if you hear some of my statements this morning and then you find it online, I'm just telling you right out the gate. I'm giving him much credit for a lot of what we're talking about, this morning.

And also, by the way, I'm, this is like a Cliff Notes version of what I'm doing for the college and career in a three-part series. So college and career students, there will be a quiz in November, so pay attention this morning because this will give you the Cliff Notes for the, the quiz. Let's talk about the first fundamental of this, what we would call a biblical view of humanity or biblical anthropology, and it's this, you are limited in what you can do and know. You are limited in what you can do and know.

You are not enough by yourself. You are a finite creature. You and I are human. Let's just admit, raise your hand if you are not God.

OK, it's good to hear that. Good to see that. You are not a Messiah. there are limits to just the fact of being human, and Christ reminds even his disciples of this when he says, without me, you can do nothing.

Nothing of any eternal value can be done without Christ. Nothing at all can be done without our Creator and we are creatures. And there may be not, there may not be a better book in the Bible that speaks so directly to our limitations and our lack of enoughness as the book of Ecclesiastes. And so you could turn to Ecclesiastes 9 if you want, or you could listen to this particular section, but it's Ecclesiastes 9.

I'm gonna read verse 11 and following. where Solomon says this, I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift. Nor the battle to the strong. Nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.

Now just listen what what Solomon has just told us. He's told us these truths that appear contradictory on the surface because we would all say that who wins races? Fast people. Who wins boxing matches?

Strong people. Who wins wars? The strong. Who are the rich?

It's people who are very skilled and have much understanding. But what Solomon wants us to see is that's a veneer. That's what we see under the sun, but when it comes to true spiritual matters and things that will last for eternity, those are not accomplished by people who just have knowledge and have great skill under the sun. But time and chance, that is what seems like random incidences or occurrences from the perspective of man happen to all human beings.

for, and it goes on verse 12, for man does not know his time. Like a fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught on a snare, so the sons of men are snared when sudden tragedy comes upon them. Does that sound like a very positive view of humankind? No, that's part of what Ecclesiastes is about is to demonstrate what humanity is like under the sun as we live from birth to death.

You can have various skills, you can do certain things, you can accumulate certain wealth and knowledge, but guess what? The sun will set on you and you will die, and that will all go away. You cannot do it all. You cannot be at two places at one time.

There's times where I'm studying on a sermon and I feel like, man, I wish I was home, be able to play with my kids. And then I'm home playing with my kids. I'm like I should be working on my sermon. Guess what?

That happens to all of us. We can't be at two places at one time. You cannot maintain unending energy. You can't just go on and on and on without sleep.

You cannot be unceasingly healthy. Eventually your health will decline. You cannot be unceasingly wealthy. You eventually will lose all of your wealth.

You and I cannot care about everything, even though my social media feed tells me I need to care about everything. I need to send letters every day, emails. I should be emailing every politician. And I should care about every issue that's going on all around the world, but you and I do not have the capacity as human beings to care about everything.

In fact, when you find someone who tries to care about everything, what you end up seeing is someone who actually causes great tragedy in the people that are closest to them. Think of the, what is it, the shotgun preacher who is over in Africa trying to help all of the kids that are being trafficked and And he spent so much time over there, was so wrapped up in that ministry in Africa, they ended up divorced and his kids were just disillusioned. You can't care about everything.

Time is not static, you will die.

Death is the ultimate limitation. You are not the Christ. You are not enough. Without me, you can do.

Nothing, and you can't know it all. A merciless anthropology cries out in the streets today that says, do your research. Do your research. Pick the issue, politics, environment, medicine, it doesn't matter what the issue is, people are gonna tell you that you haven't really done the research.

But who of us have? Who of us could really do know all of the evidence on any particular issue? You cannot know all the evidence. You cannot be unceasingly intelligent.

You are limited by time and chance. Even though we in our age, we have this thing that's called end of history bias. We think that we're at the end. We're more intelligent than everybody that's come before us and we're at the peak of knowledge and we'll never grow into the future.

That's just demonstrably not true. All I gotta do is go back and look at sermons from 5 years ago to see that things have changed. I've grown or I don't remember what I preached 5 years ago. If I've changed up to this moment in time, surely I'm going to change in the next 10 years, right?

Is that true of you too? And so we cannot get into this, give in to this end of history bias that right now we know everything and we're at the pinnacle of our own lives. Time is not static, you will die. Death is the ultimate limitation.

You are not the Christ. You are not enough. Without me, you can do. Nothing.

We see this even on the page of scripture. There's just story after story of people who had a certain idea of what they should do and then they found out that it was just wrong. I'll just share one story with you in Jeremiah 40, and the Babylonians come in and and finally you have, Nebuchadnezzar comes in and they, they take over. There's this, they put a guy named Galiah in charge for a while and so he's gonna be the little puppet governor.

Galiah, keep everything in control and you guys will be fine. And Gallah is a guy who just wants to believe the best about everybody. And one of his soldiers, one of his guys, Johannon, comes up and says, hey, Ishmael is up to no good. He's gonna assassinate you.

Gedaliah says, why are you speaking so badly about this guy? He's my buddy. Come on. What happens next?

Gedaliah dies. He's killed by Ishmael. And eventually there's another, there's a civil war and then they have to go after Ishmael and he dies and then they're all running to Egypt with Jeremiah in the wake and we never hear from Jeremiah again. We don't know how his ministry really ends.

That's a guy, got a liar who says, man, I wish I could do that over. but he did not know it all. You get no impression that Gedaliah was ungodly. No idea that he was just a complete stupid guy.

He's just a guy who just didn't have all the information at the time, made the best decision he could, and he died. And that's just part of what it means to be human. This should lead us to humility or what some people call epistemological honesty that we really can't know at all. And we can't, that we can't support all of our beliefs with every aspect of evidence.

Just look at some of the stuff we've been through with COVID. It just felt like every week there's something new coming from the government and we're just trying to figure out what's going on. You are not enough. Christ says, without me, you can do nothing.

That's a, a first just fundamental of what we would call a biblical approach to humanity, a biblical anthropology if you will. Let's look at a second fundamental, and that is you are embattled with doubleness. You are embattled with doubleness. You don't always do what's best for yourself and others.

You don't. I don't. If I always did what was best for me, I would not be eating my cheese puffs at 10:00 p.m. And Katie tells me, I get the bag out or whatever it is I'm eating.

It's about 10:00 p.m. we're gonna sit down and we're gonna watch Hogan's Heroes. I get the Hungry and I walk into the kitchen and my son says, I see nothing. I see nothing.

And so I eat my cheese puffs and then around 2 or 3 in the morning, I'm like, what, actually, probably about 15 minutes after the cheese puffs. I'm like, why did I do that? And Katie's just like, you do it every night. Why don't you just learn your lesson, right?

But we don't always do what's best for us and it's not just on small things. A lot of times it's on big things. Our will is limited. We're not always rational as we'd like to think we are.

We're very emotional creatures and we're all together in this. That's why you're laughing is because it's true about you as well. You act many times as your own worst enemy. we have, we think that if I can just get the right information, I'll do the right thing.

And if that were true, whenever we did biblical counseling here at Cornerstone, I would have one meeting with someone or one meeting with a couple and that would be the end of it because they would come back the next time and say, Pastor Mike, you're such a wise counselor. You gave me 3 things to do. We did it. We don't need you anymore.

Praise God. But guess what happens? That's not the way it rolls. I've met with people getting help where I've met with them for over 1 year.

I've met with people in this church for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and we're still trying to figure it out and we're looking at the same Bible, right? So what's wrong? We're embattled with doubleness. And this is true.

we've talked in a previous sermon about Romans 7. I want to talk for a moment here about Galatians 2. In Galatians 2, it's very interesting because you have the apostle Peter, the future Pope, right? Right?

The future pope is being confronted by Paul. And it's interesting because we thought, I thought Peter learned all his lessons before Christ's resurrection, right? But what does Paul say in Galatians 2:11? Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face.

Why? Because he was to be blamed. For before certain men from James, he would eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

Barnabas seemed like a guy that isn't totally depraved, does not have in dwelling sin, but even Barnabas was carried away by Peter. And then he goes on later and notice the context of this wonderful verse that we memorize. I've been and this is Paul talking to Peter and almost, almost certainly. I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith and Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. It's like Peter's using, or Paul's talking about himself, but he wants Peter to hear Christ died for you. He loves you. He gave himself up for you and these other Gentiles.

Knock it off, Peter. Come on. And so right in the very same chapter, you have a spiritual pastor, an apostle in the church, who's living out sinful behavior, being a respecter of persons. He's having to be confronted by another brother in Christ, who's pointing out a sin, but then pointing him to the one who is enough, Jesus Christ, who loved him.

Peter is not enough, you are not enough. Without Christ, you can do nothing. Let's look at a 3rd fundamental. You are slanted toward yourself.

You are slanted toward yourself. This is the nice way of saying you sin. You sin. You're self-centered, you are biased, you are egocentric.

You can't always see straight, and this is not just true of unbelievers. This is true of me, this is true of you. Hebrews 3:13 says this, but exhort one another, talking about Christians daily, while it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. You can be hardened by what?

The deceitfulness of sin. If you're not encouraging, challenging, exhorting one another every day. And I, truth be told, that sometimes we need to be exhorted every minute, every hour, we need to be challenged because sin can so easily come in and calcify. You can have your quiet time.

Everything's just butterflies and roses. You come out of your prayer closet, one of your kids says something, does something or didn't do something, all of a sudden it's like, What happened to quiet time? And then you need to like confess your sins to your own child or your family member. Benjamin Benjamin Franklin once quipped, who has deceived you so often as yourself?

That's coming out of the mouth of an unbeliever. It's true. Luke 6:42 says this, Paul, or Jesus says, how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye. And he talks about the need to remove the plank, but let's, let's get to the, the initial point.

As that you and I at any given moment or day may have huge glaring flaws in our vision, our ability to look and perceive, and yet we think we can go and help other people. Well, without Christ, you can do nothing. But in Christ, that's exactly what you're called to do. As we talked about this morning through the Holy Spirit, with the help of others, with the word of God, as you're looking at other people, help other people, you have a distrust of your own ability to constantly perceive correctly.

That's why we need a multitude of counselors, by the way. And we come alongside and yes, we do help each other with specs, but only on the back end of recognizing that our vision is marred. We can't always see straight. Just consider, this is an example of an unbeliever.

Sometimes we can just be deceived by other people. It's interesting in Genesis, actually throughout the Old Testament, have you ever noticed that there's a lot of times that the, the unbelievers get better press than the saints? You have this doctrine of like the noble unbeliever. Abimelech is such.

This is the situation in Genesis 20 when, Abraham, is saying, yeah, yeah, that's my sister over there and. And Abimelech takes the really good looking sister and thinks that he's going to add her to his harem or marry her or something. And but then in the middle of the night, God shows up in the dream and says, indeed you are a dead man. Because of the woman you have taken, for she is a man's wife.

I didn't know. Abimelech says, but Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say she is my sister and she, even she herself, he is my brother, and the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands, I have done this. So Abimelech, as an unbeliever, got deceived by Father Abraham, and, and then God has to show up in special revelation and say, hey, something, you, you're in trouble here.

Then God said to him in a dream, very interesting what God says, yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Why didn't Abimelech not touch her? Because God held him back.

God has the ability to actually take unbelievers and keep them from doing violence to other people. And he also has the ability to do the same thing for us, right? To hold us back from the sins that we would have otherwise done. I think sometimes our own sinful pride gets in the way.

Think of one of the best kings in the Old Testament. I love Hezekiah. One of the, my, one of my favorite kings. Anybody, Hezekiah is one of your favorite kings?

Only a few of us. OK, go Hezekiah. Hezekiah's just an awesome king. Lord used him in so many ways, had this evangelism campaign up in northern, the north in Israel and a lot of works that he did of, of, waterways and this and that, really neat stuff.

But then in 2 Chronicles 32:31, it says, however, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in his land, the wonder, God withdrew from him in order to test Hezekiah so that Hezekiah might know what was in his heart. And so the, the, the picture here is, is, is these emissaries from Babylon show up and they say, hey, show us all of your, what you got here. Oh yeah, let me show you just the amazing things that the Lord has done.

And he shows them everything, his armory, all this stuff, and the Bible tells us that God chose in His love and sovereignty, we would add, to just pull back a little bit so Hezekiah could see, here's what happens.

When you don't have me. Here's how your pride will take over and put you in a tough spot. And so Hezekiah, it's like he took stupid pills. He showed them everything.

And then later on when he's confronted, Isaiah comes up and says, hey, by the way, what did you show them? Oh, everything. Thus says the Lord. The Babylonians are gonna come and carry your sons off.

Nobody needed a special prophet to say that. But then what's even more interesting is Hezekiah says, oh, that's great. At least it won't happen in my day. What?

What are you doing? You're my favorite, one of my favorite kings. Come on, Hezekiah, you need to get with it. I gotta put my t-shirt in the back of the closet.

But it's, it's these kinds of stories are on the page of scripture to remind us, even the best of saints. All God has to do is just pull back just a little bit and all of a sudden they're just Drinking stupid water, it's just incredible., we can get confused by pride thinking like this guy. we start thinking that the suffering servant is just there to assist us in finding the self-help section. Christ didn't carry the cross merely to help you improve your image or to improve your Instagram.

He died to save you from yourself and your love affair with yourself in sin. That's why Christ died. But we can get really mixed up and start thinking that he's just here to improve my life a little bit and make everybody like me or something like that. even with the best intentions and ministry, we can get bit by self.

Just look at what happened to Paul and Barnabas when they were ready to head out on one of their missionary journeys. they were gonna go out and preach the gospel and do some more. Incredible missions and 1537 Barnabas was determined to take John called Mark, but Paul said they shouldn't take him because he's a pansy and 1939, the contention was so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus.

These are godly people. We're talking about Paul and Barnabas, right? They're about ready to go do ministry, about ready to do missions, and, and they could not sit down and have a good little conference to, hey, let's all stay on the same page here. Let's, we're, we're, we're rolling in the same direction.

Let's not let this divide. The apostle Paul couldn't get it done. And so they went off. What about Yodia and Syeche?

and Paul's writing in the Philippians, this, epistle of joy, and, he says, I implore Yodia and implore Syntache to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel. These, they've done amazing ministry with Clement also and the rest of the fellow workers' names in the book of life. I'm not questioning that Yod and Sintaki aren't in the book of life, but help them be of the same mind.

And rejoice in the Lord always. There's, there's probably people right there in Philippi that weren't rejoicing because of the conflict between Yode and Syntheche. They're like, why do I have to deal with this mess? Why can't these two sisters get along?

And so Paul has to exhort them, hey, rejoice even in this. When you look at our New Testaments, it's just amazing that just about every epistle deals with some specific sin or problem or sufferings, not in the lives of unbelievers, but in the lives of Christians. You look at James, you look at first John, you look at Colossians, you look at First Thessalonians, First Corinthians, First Timothy, it goes on and on and on. And so we have this need to understand that we are slanted towards self.

If Paul could be slanted towards self and Barnabas could be slanted towards self, then that can happen to us just like Yodia in Syntake. And so we need people to come around us and help us. This is what humans do and Christians are human. Whoop, she almost knocked that down.

what sounds insulting, however, I hope you don't feel insulted at what the Bible is trying to teach us, but what sounds insulting is actually liberating. It liberates us. It's actually a key to friendships. I don't know about you.

If, I don't know if you've had any close friends where it just seems like they do nothing wrong. they read the Bible twice as much as everybody else. They pray twice as much as everybody else. They evangelize better than everybody else.

You start talking about doctrine, you've got your doctrine wrong, they know the doctrine better than you. Every time you meet with them, it's always about how they do everything better than you do. And those people don't have a lot of friends, quite honestly. There's people that will be kind to them, but I'll tell you, a lot of the best friends I have are people that we just, we know, I can't fool these people.

Maybe to you, I'm Pastor Mike, but I have people I hang out with where I'm just Mike Or I'm what I was called in, in school, Huckleberry or, or whatever, Shadrack, whatever other, names I had. But love travels along the lines of a biblical view of self or a low anthropology. We are a community that are bound by our love for the savior, bound by our unity in Christ, but we are also bound by our weakness. You are not enough.

Without Christ, you can do nothing. Let's talk about a final. fundamental, and that is, you are loved by your limitless, unconflicted, selfless savior. Amen.

You're loved in spite of the fact that you and I are limited, that we are double, that we are selfish. We are loved in that by someone who is different, in fact, opposite of us. Jesus Christ. Remember when Paul confronted Peter about his partiality, what did he do?

He says, Hey, Peter, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, implication, and you, and gave Himself for me and for you. He, he loves you, Peter. He died for you.

He is not like you. Jesus is not impartial against these Gentiles. You're being impartial right now. You're not being a very good representative, representative, but guess what?

He still loves you, Peter. And that's what gives Peter motivation to repent again. Peter, as we looked at, last week, he had no ability to give up his life unto death for Christ. Christ didn't need him to die for him, but Christ gave up his life for Peter.

Christ gave up his life for Paul. Christ gave up his life for Barnabas and me and you, and all the other believers. Christ loves you. He And he is not limited, he is not double, he is not selfish.

He is a selfless savior, and he comes alongside of us even when our sins can get the better of us and even when we feel abandoned by others. Consider Paul, towards the end of his life, you would think that, Paul, you, you see just how the Lord knocked him off of his horse, he comes to know Christ, there's just all this amazing stuff that's happening. Yeah, there was that little incident with Barnabas, but that got cleaned up later as he had a real respect for Mark. But then towards the very end of his life in 2 Peter 4:16, he says this, at my defense, no one stood with me.

That's a strange statement. You think about all the people that, that Paul invested in. And at his defense, No one stood with me. But all forsook me.

Think about that. He's not talking about unbelievers. He's talking about people he has taken, he has invested in. He's poured his heart out for people, led them to Christ.

He's been their spiritual father. And then he goes before court, expecting that somebody's gonna show up to be there with him. And nobody shows up. Just like Christ.

Nobody shows up. What does Paul say? May it not be charged against him. Paul had learned by this point to love his brothers and sisters in all of their not enoughness in the times when they would not behave like Christ.

But the Lord stood with me, he says, and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me. He finds a sufficiency in Christ and you want to study this idea of sufficiency and enoughness. You are not enough, but Christ is enough. A great book to study positively on that topic is 2 Corinthians.

You have Ecclesiastes that gives us, the The, the bare humanity. But 2 Corinthians is amazing and how much it talks about the sufficiency that we have in Christ. For instance, in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul cried out to the Lord Jesus 3 times that this thorn might depart from him. And Jesus said to him, my grace is sufficient.

It's enough for you. For my strength is made perfect in what? Weakness. My strength is made perfect in the fact that you realize you're not enough, and I've sent this thorn into your life to help you see that you're not enough, that the power of Christ may rest upon me, Paul says.

Therefore, I, I'm taking pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, and needs and persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, I'm what? Strong. Later on, when he's talking about giving to the church, he says, God's able to make all grace abound towards you, always having all sufficiency, all enoughness in all things may have an abundance for every good work.

You're not enough to do all the good works, but Christ is enough to move you to do good works. Good works, by the way, that you're not earning any favor before God because even your best works are filthy rags, but God has prepared works that you could walk in beforehand. In fact, we are his workmanship. We are God's good works.

2 Corinthians 2:15. For we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Those of us, we had a bunch of us, a bunch of our church go out to UCR to, to share the gospel and to be the fragrance of Christ. Hallelujah.

he says to the one, we are on aroma of death leading to death, to the other aroma of life leading to life, and we are sufficient for such things. Is that what he says? No, he says, who is sufficient? Who is enough for such things, that we would have the opportunity to go out, we weaklings to go out and talk to people about Jesus Christ, and to present to them to be an aroma of Christ, where some are gonna go to heaven and some are gonna go to hell, who's sufficient for that?

Not you, not me. But he goes on, he says, and we have such trust through Christ, toward God, not that we're sufficient of ourselves. He's talking about him as an apostle and other apostles. We're not enough of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our enoughness, our sufficiency is from God.

Even in Paul talking about his apostleship, he's like, I have no enoughness, I have no sufficiency in and of myself, but all of that comes from God, who also made us sufficient, made us enough as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. The letter kills and the Spirit gives life. at one point, Philip came to Jesus, he says, Lord, show us the Father, and that'll be enough. What does Jesus say?

Have you been with me so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father. Jesus is enough to give you the whole heart of your father.

Through the Spirit Jesus is enough. Without him, you can do nothing. You are not enough, but with Christ, you are enough because you are in Christ who loved you and died for you, gave us life for you. Now why do these fundamentals matter?

Let's talk about some thoughts for prayer, discussion, meditation, maybe some of these things you could bring up in your care group. I'm gonna fly through these fairly quickly. But some, just to talk about why this, this doctrine, why a biblical anthropology. a view of humanity matters.

First, a biblical anthropology has a nosebleed high view of God. A high Christology. God does what you and I can't do for ourselves. That's just what he does.

It's not shy about sanctification., biblical anthropology doesn't avoid the topic of sanctification in our growth in Christ, but it acknowledges that it's Christ that makes the rain to fall, and it's Christ that makes the grass to rise. It's actually more optimistic because while God does, use our vigor, our human vigor, he is not dependent upon it. just consider Paul. Paul was going to kill people.

And the Lord knocked him down and sent him a different direction. Many times you and I, we are heading in a prideful direction, and it's the Lord that humbles us so that he may pour his grace upon us. I can't tell you how many times I didn't choose to humble myself, I got humbled. I got humbled by circumstances, whether it was health or whatever.

God humbled me, broke my heart, and then he poured his grace out on me as if I did it. Which sounds just so silly. Without him, you can do nothing. I love this quote from Ken Jones, pastor Ken Jones.

He says this about the true things that last forever. In that wounded savior is the oddness of human conduct or the enoughness of human conduct, and the justice of God is being satisfied for those who can't do what the savior has done. There are things that you and I can't do. We can't die for our own sins.

We can't raise ourselves from the dead. You and I can't go love God with all of our heart, mind and soul. You and I have no ability in and of ourselves to love our neighbor as ourself. But that wounded savior.

Who is enough? Fulfills the justice of God, satisfies justice in doing for you and I, what we cannot do for ourselves. So A biblical anthropology has a nosebleed high view of God and Christ. It's what the reformers, what, what they've, what we've called for about 500 years now, monarchism.

God does everything for you that you can't do for yourself. God gives, we receive, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whoever just believes, and by the way, he grants us belief, would not perish but have everlasting life. Realizing too, a second thought, realizing that you are not enough, you are not the Messiah, will give you a more compassionate view of yourself and others.

It'll just make you more compassionate. You don't have to hide your weakness. You don't have to live as a very skilled self-swindler. Proverbs 28:13 says, He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

We don't have to cover our sins. We can confess them and then confessing them, you are forsaking them. You're forsaking an allegiance to your sins when you confess them and admit that you're not enough. You can reject the assumption that no one else is struggling with their own portion of suffering.

No, you are not alone. When you show up on any given Sunday and you're hanging around with other believers or just humans in general, try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Guess what? Everybody around you is struggling too, whether you realize it or not.

You don't have to be shocked and appalled when the waves of other people's sins and selfishness come crashing down on you. Because guess what? They're not enough. Guess what, even Christians can get slanted towards self, even Christians can have a doubleness about them, even Christians get tired and cranky.

Right, has that happened? Christian? Yeah, I do get tired and cranky sometimes, especially when I don't have curry and kebab on a Sunday. That's a joke.

I, I love what Luther has to say about Noah's sin and John 9. Anybody familiar with drunk naked Noah? You guys study that in Sunday school, Drunk naked Noah? Oh, we skipped that.

We don't have a flannograph for that one. so. Yeah, you guys know the story. this is the righteous guy.

He's the righteous guy on the planet. You get to the very end of the story, you should be seeing rainbows and butterflies. All of a sudden, Noah goes, plants a vineyard and he gets drunk and he's naked in his tent. And then you have this whole crazy thing that happens with the sons, and it's like, what is that all about?

Why does this movie have to end like that? Well, notice what Luther has to say about this, very interesting. He says that the Holy Spirit wanted the godly who know their weakness and for this reason are disheartened to take comfort in the offense that comes from the account of the lapses among the holiest patriarchs. In such instances, and let me see if I can pull up this part of the quote.

Let's see, where am I at? In such instances, we and we see, why can't I find myself in my notes? OK, when we see saints fall, let us not be offended, much less let us gloat over the weakness of other people or rejoice as though we were stronger, wiser, and holier. Rather, let us bear with and cover and even extenuate and excuse such mistakes as much as we can, bearing in mind that what the other person has experienced today, we may perhaps experience tomorrow.

We are all one mass and we are all born of one flesh. Therefore, let us learn Saint Paul's rule that, that, he who stands should take heed lest he fall. I think that's just very beautiful, shepherding and understanding that That we can see the foibles of one another and what, I think what he means by extenuate an excuse that we, how like, we all by nature make up excuses for our own sin, right? If, if I sin or you sin, where does our mind go?

Well, I was tired or I didn't have enough to eat, or you said this, so I did that, we just, that's what we do. But what Luther's encouraging us to do is when we see saints in the Bible that fall in sin, and when we see other saints in our church that fall in sin, we start making up excuses. Maybe they didn't get enough sleep last night. Maybe that, maybe somebody in their family just died.

Maybe they have health concerns that I don't know anything about. we have people in this church who have various disabilities that you could not observe it just by looking at them, but they have a disability nonetheless. And you might take offense at some way that they go about their business, but you just don't know that they have a disability. So that's, that's another food for thought.

A 3rd 1. would be this A, a biblical view of humanity and mankind does not propagate the law of God as a means to enoughness. It is realistic with our crisis of capacity. Christ confronts us with our limits.

That's what we saw last week when Peter was like, I'm gonna lay my life down for you. I'm going to death for you. Will you lay your life down for my sake? Most assuredly, I say, you will deny me 3 times.

What's Christ doing there? He's confronting Peter with his limits and his lack of enoughness outside of Christ. Mark 2:17 says this, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I did not, but those who are sick, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And there's a, an aspect of that verse and that thought that we need to carry with us throughout our lives.

That when Christ looks out at this body, what does he see? He sees people that he loves, but he also sees people who are sick. He's he sees people that are not righteous in and of themselves. He sees, he sees people who sin against one another.

And Christ looks out at you and he says, Yeah, I'll die for that. I'll take that. Yeah, that, that one back there, yeah, they, they seem really messed up on point in that direction, but generally speaking, right? That one's really messed up.

I'll take that. I'll own that. That's part of my pride. That's part of the gospel is, is the way that the Lord comes around his people and confronts us in our limits.

Lastly, Another thought that you could take to care group or home, a Christ-centered view of self doesn't shy away from suffering and death. Those who are already down resonate. The Bible says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that's part of what Christ is after in your life and my life through the Sermon on the Mount, through the whole Bible, as he wants to get you to a place where you see that you are poor.

You are not enough. You are poor in spirit, and you need something outside of yourself because you are never gonna be perfect as your Father is in heaven in this life. But as you come into Christ through faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for you, you are enough. Without him, you can do nothing, but in Christ, you can do all things.

And he makes you enough, and he's bringing you someplace where you are going to be perfected and you will not have the same kinds of limits that you have here. No, you are not the one on the mug. You are not the hero of the story. We are a lot more like the fleeing armies of Israel than David.

But David's life, even though we see many ways he failed, David's life in this moment was an incredible shadow of the son of David. As he came against Goliath, as he came against the serpent to crush the head of the devil that was promised in Genesis 3. He came and defeated this enemy as a pointer, as a shadow to the fact that Christ would die on the cross for your sins, my sins. And when the devil thought that he had finally won, that was when he really lost.

Because then Jesus was raised up from the dead to give a receipt that you and I had been made enough. Through Jesus, simple faith in Christ. No, you are not the Christ. You and I are not the Christ.

But we can follow Christ. We can be pretty good followers like we see in this final meme. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. We got Christ.

Got Paul. I, I'm not like Paul, but that's me right there. And I can come along. I can be an OK follower of Christ through the spirit.

I can be a lover of Christ. I can be an imitator of Christ, but let's not get mixed up about who needs who. Christ does not need you. He does not need me.

But he wants you He wants you Through the means God has provided you in His Son, in his Spirit, in the word, in this church, you can grow to be a vibrant Christian. But you will always make a terrible Christ. You are not enough, but Jesus is enough. Jesus is your enoughness.

Jesus is everything we could never be and has done what we could never do for ourselves. And this knowledge about Jesus liberates you and me, who believe in Him, from the exhausting quest for enoughness. And it frees us up and ignites us. To have properly motivated, loving works of righteousness.

Which is key, a key to gracious relationships in the church. Let's go ahead and pray. Oh Lord, we thank you so much for your wisdom that you have announced to us in the Word of God. That we really aren't all that different from Abraham, from Moses, Noah.

When we think of the work that you did to the likes. Of Gideon, Samson. And Peter and Paul, Yodia and Sintaki. Barnabas, John Mark.

Lord, we thank you, Lord, that you have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We pray that this day, through your Spirit that you would help us to repent. We pray, Father, that you'd help us to change our minds about our sin. As the thinking that it's not that big of a deal or in the thinking that our sin is unforgivable.

Lord, help us to change our minds, to think that you are not a just God, you will not punish sin. Help us to change our minds that you are not a God who is disposed towards forgiveness. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so are your ways above our ways, and so are you so inclined towards forgiveness. That just blows us away.

You are enough, we are not. But in you, Lord, we can have our rest. We pray this in Christ's name. All God's people said, Amen.