Why Am I So Inadequate?

Why am I so inadequate? I should have titled this, why are you so inadequate? Listen to this, James chapter 4 verse 14, that you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Boy, that sounds negative, doesn't it? The most of us know exactly what James is saying. I'm here today and tomorrow I may be gone. Somebody asked me last week if my grandkids move away, some of these like 3,000 miles away, didn't that kind of tough? Yeah. I said what I began to think about. I'll probably see him 10 more times in my lifetime. Make 10 trips back, you know, once a year. Man, I might have 10 good years and and Richard Lyman looks at me and says, you'll be lucky if you get three trips back.

And he's probably right. Life is short, isn't it? Especially when you lose somebody of your own age. I remember years ago when I was just in my early 30s, I had a very close friend that we had been close in high school and he was murdered when he was about 38 years old. And man, you know, it's like you come face to face with your own mortality. And then you begin to think, well, what is life all about? What is it all about? I mean, it just goes around and around and around and around is, you know, what is real quality of life? The materialist says, well, if you get more things, it'll make life, you know, much better. But listen to what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes. He said, vanity of vanities, which means emptiness, frustration, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

What advantage does man have in all his work, which he does under the sun? He goes on. He said, I said to myself, come now, I will test you with pleasure. He had the resources, by the way, Solomon. And so he says, I will test you with pleasure. He's going to find out if he can find some meaning in life. And so he says, so enjoy yourself. And behold it, too, was futility. I said to laughter, it is madness and a pleasure. What does it accomplish? I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely. And how to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under the heaven, the few years of their lives. I enlarge my works.

I build houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. Vanity. Verse 15 in Ecclesiastes 2 says, then I said to myself, as is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise? This is the wisest man on the earth. He had asked God for wisdom. He said, what advantages there to me to be wise? This too is vanity. So I hated life for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me because everything is futility and striving after win. And then it doesn't get better in chapter 5 verse 10. He says, whatever exists has already been named and it is known what man is for he cannot dispute with him who is stronger than he is. For there are many words which increase futility.

What then is the advantage to man? But then the amazing thing is after he does all of this, he ends the book this way. The conclusion when all has been heard is fear, God, and keep his commandments because this applies to every person for God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it's good or evil. After he looks at all his utility, after he looks at all of these answers that are proposed by the materialists and the humanists and everyone else, he looks at the vanity of life and he says that the only answer is to have a relationship with the living God. Jesus said in Luke chapter 12 that even if a person has many things in his very rich, life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

And all of you know this statistically that rich people are not happier than poor people. You know we have in our mind in this country that poverty produces crime. That's funny to me. Most of poor people I've known aren't, didn't commit crime. It's been people with a lot of money who commit crime. Kierkegaard said, listen to this, Sergeant Kierkegaard, life can only be understood backwards. It must be lived forward. That's the dilemma of you parents. You know if you have teenagers in your house, you're 50 years old and you can look back and you can understand but they have to live it forward and so they can't believe you. They can't receive your wisdom so much at the time because until you live it you don't see it.

The things we need to know in our teens we find out in midlife and we ultimately find out the material things do not satisfy. And the answer to the human is heaping up many many relationships without God does not satisfy either. For all those relationships, in fact Solomon himself said, when all your resources are gone so are all your relationships in this life. The Christian though says this, Christ is the answer. Christ is the answer. He is the purpose of life. He's the reason for living. Relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That is the answer. And we proclaim that. Christ is the answer to the question of life and that's the purpose of life. But here's the problem. We are honest with ourselves and even though relationship with Christ does give meaning to life, we discover that there is still frustration.

There is still frustration. Why is that frustration apparent in our lives? Why is it apparent in the life of believers? Why are we so unfulfilled as believers? We found the purpose for living. We understand how those people outside of Christ struggle and they're frustrated with life. But why do we struggle? Why is it that even believers experience frustration in life? Why is that? Well, our text today addresses that very issue. And it's really glorious. Look at Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 18, I'm going to read all the way down to verse 30. This is what he addresses. Why is it that we as believers who have found the answer, who have entered into relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who have been justified and received and made sons of God?

Why is it that in this life we still experience frustration? Listen to this. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Now he's answering. He's giving you an explanation of verse 17 because in verse 17 he says, if we are children, we are airs, airs of God and fellow airs with Christ. Imagine what your inheritance is. If you're an air of God, a fellow air with Jesus Christ, but then he says, if indeed you are an air of God, if indeed you suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Suffer? You mean Christian suffer? Somehow that has integrity, doesn't it? For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

The creation was subjected to futility, that is emptiness, frustration. It was subjected to frustration, not willingly, not of its own fault. The creation wasn't subjected to it because the creation did something. It was man for whom creation was created, but because of him who subjected it, in hope because the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons. And we're waiting eagerly, this repeated here several times, means to stretch out your neck in anticipation.

You're looking and looking and looking and waiting and anxiously anticipating. And he says, even we believers who had tasted the first fruits of the Spirit, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees, but if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, but we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he for new, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the first born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, he also called and those whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. Paul here speaks to this issue, we experience a frustration because even as believers, we have not arrived at the place we are going to in our Christian life. We have not arrived. There's been a movement in not just an American evangelicalism, but in other parts of the world as well called the manifest sons of God, the kingdom now theology.

And the idea is that there is an experience that you can have and you can enter into becoming a manifest son of God right now. That you can have this experience so you're no longer that Paul is referring to in the future, the redemption of our bodies. There are those who have taught that you can enter into that now through their teaching and this experience that they offer to you. And you're no longer limited by all this frustration and they promise you this bliss and this perfection. And one of their chief preachers back in the Midwest used to preach this stuff and had entered into this manifest son of God. And he was, in fact, if I said his name, you'd know him because he was on TV for a long time.

Some of you would recognize his name. And when he became a manifest son of God, when he entered into this redemption of his body and he wasn't even going to die, imagine that. And only that it gave him privileges. And this is what brought his downfall because he decided since he was a manifest son of God, he was okay for him to sleep with any woman in the church who wanted to sleep with him. He's still in the ministry. He still wears a clerical collar. And they call him reverent. You know, reverent means fear. That guy out of fear. That guy out of fear. You see, Jesus, Paul is teaching us here that we have not entered into this and we're not going to in this life. There's a future coming. But you know, until that happens, we're going to experience frustration.

We're going to experience futility in this life. But did you notice the emphasis in this text, as I read it, the longing, the groaning, the sense of frustration that we feel and even creation itself feels? This longing for God's purpose to ultimately be performed in our lives. That's what this life is about. It's a wonderful life, but it's a life of frustration, isn't it? You know why? Because you must go the way of the Lord. That's the way the Lord went. The Lord Jesus, the Calvary Road. Every believer, when you sign up for this, Jesus told us, he made it clear, Luke 14, he said, look, you want to be my disciples? Then you have to hate your father, mother, sister, brother, your own life. Take up your cross.

Hate your own life. Yeah. You have to love Christ with such intensity. You have to see him as so valuable. You have to treasure him so greatly that even life itself is secondary to having this treasure of Jesus Christ. And you know what? We go this way that Jesus went. The Calvary Road, there are going to be frustrations. Why does creation grown? He says here that creation grows. Creation grows because we're told in Genesis 3 that when man fell, this creation that God has created for man to live in and reflect his glory also became cursed. The curse fell upon the earth. The effects of creation no longer cooperated with man, but was subjected to frustration. And now we have what scientists call the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Everything is an increasing entropy. The creation is running down. Things to tend to decay. It's just the opposite of evolution. You know, we could go, we could buy all the building materials for our building and put them out there on our property. And hope that in 10 years we could come back and the building would have evolved into a worship center. But what we would have discovered instead is that materials themselves are beginning to decay and rot and corrupt. Wouldn't it be nice to be free from this? Frustration that the creation experiences is because it is unable to attain the ends for which it was created. It was created. It's like Godade describes it as a bride's maid at the wedding and the bride and groom die at the wedding.

Adam and Eve, the creation is there in this glorious event of creation of mankind to live upon the earth and to rule over it as under the authority of God as regents over the earth. It's a beautiful event and then man is plunged into sin and creation grieves. Creation groans. And so when God created everything, he kept saying it is good. It is very good. It is very good. And now it's under a curse. A waiting, groaning. And it's in hope that it will be set free to participate in what the Bible referred to as the eschatological glory of the sons of God. The glory we're going to enter into when we are changed and brought into the very glory of Jesus Christ. And even our bodies are running down. Some of you aren't experiencing that yet, but it looks like some of you are beginning to experience that a little bit because creation is subjected to frustration, futility.

Things are coming to an end. Creation groans for the revealing of the children of God. Wow, groans for the revealing of the children of God. Look in the text again, verse 19, for the anxious longing of the creation, the longing of this anxious longing of the creation, it's this deep down desire and longing after something waits eagerly. That is it stretches itself out looking for the revealing of the sons of God. That is when we will be transformed into the image of Christ. But the creation was subjected to this emptiness and frustration, not willingly, not because creation did something wrong. You know, people are right when they say the problem with the world is men. The reason their earth is have problems because of mankind.

They're right. It's because of the fall. It's because we are in rebellion against God as a race. He says, but it was subjected because of him who subjected it. That is God himself, but it was subjected in hope. He didn't subject the earth and the creation to this frustration without hope. He gave them hope. The hope is that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The best you can do in the meantime is get a facelift once in a while. Because I can tell you, it's not going to last. It's not going to last because everything is running down. Man, that's pessimistic, isn't it? Creation groans. But then Paul says, we also groan ourselves because God is not finished with us.

There's threefold groaning in this passage that I read to you. There is the groaning of creation in 1922. Then there's the groaning of believers in verses 23 through 25, and then finally the groaning of the Spirit. And that is our deliverance, the groaning of the Spirit. There's a symphony of size going on here in this groaning. Why this threefold groaning? The key to our groaning as believers is found in verse 29, and look at it, verse 29, for those whom he forenew, he also predestined to become conformed into the image of his son so that his son would be the first born among many brethren. That is so that there would be this massive group of people who have been transformed into the very character and image of Jesus Christ, not a bunch of clones, but an entire gaggle of fellow heirs with Jesus Christ who are like him in their ability to love God and to reflect his glory.

That's why we groan. It is because God has a purpose for us to make us like Christ, and all of us become so aware every day that we're not like Christ yet. There's so many ways that I'm not like Christ yet. That's why we're frustrated because we haven't arrived. We're not there. We still sin. We fall short of the glory of God. We groan within ourselves because God's purpose is not yet fulfilled in our lives. So as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, instead of us pretending that we've got it all together and our families are perfect and we're all perfect and we go out into the world and put on these plastic faces and images and pretend as though we found the answer and you can see it in our perfection.

And the world wants to gag because it's not true. In fact, it's really interesting. And second Corinthians, Paul says, you know what God uses in the life of the minister in the New Covenant? Brokenness. You feel called to the ministry of the gospel, then expect to be broken. I got these emails. I got two emails. Actually, I got three that all said the same thing. It's just amazing. I guess God wants me to know this. I had one guy, an old student of mine sent me this email and then he says, Paul described ministry in a phrase, and this is a phrase, we have this treasure in jars of clay. These jars were the cheap, breakable, easily discarded dishes of the first century. God does not need you to be without blemish.

That's the role of his son. He's the treasure of grace. God needs you to be yourself, the vessel. He chooses to use broken people with a variety of personality styles to accomplish his purposes. The core of ministry is the proclamation of grace by broken people. Actually, that's very encouraging to me, that he can use me and he can use you because he chooses to use clay pots. Somebody said, crack pots. Then another email came from Uganda from Jim Robinette who just arrived in Campala and he sends me this email and he gives me this long quote, listen to this. If you want to be used mildly by God, get yourself out of it. Learn to see yourself as a garbage fail or in the words of Peter, close yourself with humility.

It's not you. It's not your personality. It's the word of God. He doesn't need the intellectuals. He doesn't need great people, fancy people or famous people because the people aren't the power. The power is the message that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. If you look for a human explanation for Paul's success, there isn't one. People have said to me, I'm studying the Bible to see why Paul was successful. I'll tell you why he was successful. He preached the truth and the truth is powerful. Or you will say, we want to come to your church and the guy that's writing this has a huge church, about 10,000 people. He says, we want to come to your church to find out what makes things tick here.

I'll tell you what makes things tick here, the truth of God, the truth of God and the power of God. Those are what make things tick. The surpassing greatness explains a transcendent might of superlative power from God on the souls of those who hear the truth. We preachers are clay pots at best. We have nothing to offer, no beauty or power. Paul knows that. And he says in 1 Corinthians 1, I was with you in weakness, fear and much trembling. So Paul said, I was with you Corinthians. I came to you with the gospel. I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. In the end, it's okay that you're so weak and so afraid. I want to give you God's word. Paul said, so he's quote, he's actually summarizing Paul.

I want to give you God's word, Paul said, so that your faith would rest in the power of God. In 1 Corinthians 3, he also said neither is the one who plants anything or the one who waters anything, but God is everything. You frustrated? I'm frustrated, too. I get frustrated with life. I get my check, put it in the bank. I never see it again. Things just go around and around and around. The mundane life that you have to live and you mow the lawn or my wife mows the lawn and he comes around. She has to mow it again and clean the yard. You have to go back and clean the yard again. It's day after day after day after day. Sometimes it feels so frustrating, doesn't it? But you see, this is the way of the cross.

We grown. This desires in us. It's created by the Holy Spirit himself. I want to be like Jesus. I want to be like Jesus and every day I find I'm not. Do you feel like that? I want to be like Jesus so bad. I want to be a husband like Jesus would be, but I'm not. I want to be a father like Jesus would be, but I'm not. It's frustrating because we long for the day when God's redemption is perfected in us. We long for the day when the salvation which God has begun in us has completed. Jesus comes again. We grown for that day. You know something wonderful about this groaning? Verse 22, this is the groaning of childbirth. It's like childbirth. Some of you've been in the delivery room. You've heard the groaning.

You've seen the pain. You know what? It's not a frustration because it's not to no purpose. It's to a purpose. There's life coming. Paul is saying there is a necessary and appropriate sense of incompleteness in our Christian experience and a consequent eager longing for that incompleteness to be overcome. That's what I want. I want to be completed, but this yearning, this is Douglas yearning for our final redemption should be characterized by patient fortitude. That's a translation of the word in verse 23. So Paul is saying that both Christians suffer. Christians and creations suffer at present from a sense of incompleteness and even frustration. And we eager a yearne for a culminating transformation that's in the future.

We read first John 3, 1 and says, what's foreign kind of love is this that we should be called the children of God and we are. But the any goes on to say, but it does not yet appear, but we shall be. The reason I've told you a thousand times, cheer up, you're worse than you think, is that you really are. You really are. In fact, some of you are very low self-esteem. You don't have to. If you just come to grips with the fact that you really are worse than you think, what you're depressed about isn't half the story. It's really worse than you think it is. But you don't have to be depressed because there's a day of redemption coming. And God is at work in your life right now. He's changing you. You're not the same person you were a year ago.

Now you may feel like you're worse than you were a year ago, but God is at work. Sometimes you have to get worse to get better, don't you? Sometimes you have to become more aware. God lets you go through seasons of absolute failure and frustration because he wants you to see the truth about yourself, and sometimes it takes a long time because he wants you to turn to him. Paul said it this way, I don't want you to be here in the fact. I was tested beyond my ability to bear. I even despaired of life in order that. I would no longer trust in myself, but in God who raises the dead. I don't know how I don't care how bad you are. You're probably worse than I think. But I want to tell you that Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for you to redeem you.

And he's not going to stop this process until he completes it. He's going to conform you into the image of his son and someday all the frustration is going to be over. And as you live in this frustration, cheer up. The spirit of God is in you. He's made you a son of God. He's given you eternal life. He's doing the work of sanctification. And one of our big problems, and this is really a key, the reason that one of the reasons we are so frustrated is we do not look at things from an eternal perspective. You don't look at your life from an eternal perspective. It's a great need for us as Christians to spend some time thinking about our lives from God's perspective. You really do need to think of that.

Life is so daily. It's so easy to get stuck in the mindset of the flesh and not see the truth of the big picture. You go to work. You do the same things day after day. You get a check. You put in the bank. You don't see it again. You say, what's it all for? Step back. Look up. Look at the big picture. You need to sit down and look at your life from God's perspective. If you've done that lately, where you really looked at where you're at and where you're going and how it fits into the purpose and plan of God, are you walking in line with the gospel? We need to begin to ask ourselves some questions. What really does count in my life? What really is important? Why am I here? What am I living for?

What is my purpose for life? What am I pursuing? What are my priorities? What would God have me to do? Are you really living your life according to an eternal perspective? You know what you live here, the way you live here, the things you do here have a great effect on eternity? You know that some people have this idea. It doesn't matter how I live here because when it's all over and it's said and done, I might get lashed a little bit at the Bema seat of Christ, the judgment seat of Christ for believers, but then I'll go into heaven and everybody will forget it that I was such a jerk when I lived on this earth as a Christian, that I never really followed Christ the way I should. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way and this isn't made to make you feel guilty.

The fact is that God, Jesus Himself said very specifically that the way that you learn now to walk by faith is going to have an effect on your eternity. Could this be why the church is so anemic in America? I don't know if you've seen these studies that have been done recently about the opinions of Christians versus the opinions of non-Christians, people in the church and comparison of people outside the church. You know that there is virtually absolutely no difference except they have theological convictions. But do you know that that immorality in the church is just as great statistically as it is outside the church? Does that surprise you? You know the divorce rate in the church is in some areas of this country greater than the divorce rate outside the church?

You know that the average church goer has an opinion, has opinions about this life that is exactly identical, that they love materialism just as much as non-Christians? John Henry Newman said, fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning. Some Christians are saved, but their spiritual lives have never really begun. We're called to a higher calling than simply being forgiven of our sins and know we're going to heaven. He's called us to be Christ's representatives in the earth today, to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ, to share the good news with the lost world. There is nothing that will thrill your soul, nothing will thrill your soul like leading somebody to Christ.

You know my first convert was, 32 years ago, that I know of. Maybe somebody else came to faith, but I didn't know it. My first convert was my son, six years old, greatest thrill of my life. Didn't even tell me the day, I remember the day, I remember the incident, I remember riding out to Penoe Valley to play basketball with Steve and John Fernandes and Kevin Shay and a bunch of guys and on the way out there, I've been talking to him about the gospel, talking to him about the gospel, talking to him about the gospel we go out there and that day I saw difference in his face. I didn't know what it was, but he just kind of stared into the distant. The next day he told his mother that he had rested his faith in Jesus.

And so I've watched him for 32 years. He actually did. It was a real conversion, greatest thrill of my life. Do you know that God wants to use you as an ambassador of Jesus Christ? Do you know that God has a purpose for your life in the midst of the frustration? Not when you get it all together. Most of you came to faith in Jesus Christ by somebody witnessing to you that didn't have it all together. Right? Right, Dewey? God has a big purpose for you. Huge, massive. And you can do it before you get perfect. See, sometimes even in our Christian lives appear to be futile. We're on a merry-go-round. Every that story about the farmer's wife, they went down to the carnival and never been to one and her husband decides he's going to ride this merry-go-round.

He gets on the merry-go-round and spends the 25 cents, which was a lot of money to them, rides this thing and she's standing there and pretty soon he gets off right where he started. And he said, she said, you wasted all that money and you're right back where you started. You didn't go nowhere. Isn't that how it is sometimes in your life? It's like you've never been, have you been anywhere? Are you going anywhere? Any change taking place? The other day, I'll close in two minutes yet. The other day I heard Dr. Don Campbell, who used to be the president of Dallas Theological Semaries. He's now 78, but he's not in good health and his voice is so shaky. And I listened to this entire sermon, about 40 minutes sermon, about Nehemiah as he's preaching just the other day back in Dallas at the at the Chapel Service to these new students.

And as he was preaching, I sat there and it was everything I could do to keep from weeping as I heard him. I've known this man a long time. We used to have him out a lot and he's still preaching the gospel. Still telling these young guys, stay at the task. It's worth it. This is worth pouring your life into. I call my uncle Munro Stevens. He used to be a pastor in Ania. I'm always meeting people in this town that he led to Christ. He was a real gospel preacher. I would say thousands of people have come to faith in Christ through his preaching. I called him the other day to talk to him about my mom. How was she was doing? He's 79, almost 80 years old. We were talking and he's had he has cancer.

He has lung cancer. And he's dying. And he doesn't have strength to get out. And I was talking to him. And I was, I just couldn't believe it. He said, he said, well, I got all these, you know, I got a full eye tenor. I've got a bunch of preaching appointment, but I just don't have the strength to do it. But he said, last night, one of my granddaughters who's living with us brought her boyfriend over. He's always bringing these boys over. And they're always changing. And Monroe preaches the gospel to them. He said, yeah, last night, my granddaughter brought this boy over. I began to talk to him about the Lord. And I preached the gospel to him. And he said, he broke down a web. God on his knees and we prayed and he received Christ.

He said, the first thing he did was call his best friend and tell him that he just received Jesus. This guy is dying. And he's still an ambassador for Jesus Christ. He's lived a life as he looks back over his life. There've been so much frustration. He had a daughter die when she was just a young, vibrant, young lady, a young mother, had a disease and struck her down. She used to sing like an angel. One of the best singers I've ever heard. So many heartaches. So then the son-in-law wouldn't let him see the kids and turned his back on him. He went through so much heartache, but his life's been worth living. He's lived a good life because not a perfect life, but a life that has the same frustrations you do, but a life that was going down this direction, understanding that he had an eternal purpose.

You have an eternal purpose. You have an eternal purpose. It's the glory of God, every one of you. I don't care if you've even if you've not received Christ yet. God created you for a purpose. He created you for his glory. You don't have a clue how much he wants to use you. Let him use you. Stop worrying about the frustration. No, you're not perfect and you never will be in this life. Hopefully you'll be a little better than you are now in a few years. But he wants to use you. He really wants to use you. Let's stand and pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have called us out of this world with a very specific purpose that we would be as the church, the evidence of the kingdom of God in this world and ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

I pray that you'd help us to invest our lives in eternal things, things which will never pass away, things which are going to usher in the kingdom of God into this world. Creation groans and we groan and even the Spirit is groaning within us for the purposes of God to be fulfilled in us. We are groaning for glory. No, God, we pray that you would bring it. Do your work in us. We pray, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you.