Sufficient to Minister

 By: Lauren Thomas 

How confident do you feel about your ability to share the Gospel? The Spirit? God’s love? If this makes you nervous to think about – and it does for many Christians – I’ve got something you need to hear.

God has made you “enough” to minister the Gospel

And I don’t say that lightly. Because none of us are “enough” for anything.

 

Hot take on being “good enough”: Our culture promotes the message “you are good enough.” The reality is, no one is “good enough.” When God created Adam and Eve, He called His creation “very good.” But then sin happened. And we were tainted by the corruption and curse of sin. We are not enough, but Jesus is. And if we have Jesus, we have all we need. He is our identity; He is our rescuer and redeemer. This is not based on our merit, but on His goodness. He’s good enough, and because of that we don’t have to be.

 

But where it comes to ministering the Gospel, God has made you enough!

 

⁴ Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. ⁵ Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, ⁶ who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 ESV

 

Now, you could argue that the “we” or “us” refers to Paul and his ministry associates, but consider Luke 12:12 and Matthew 10:19-20, where Jesus encourages his listeners to not worry about what to say, because the Holy Spirit will give the words to say. Paul was an apostle. This was his office. But in the above passage he was talking about his “role”: minister of the new covenant. And this role is one that can be shared with non-apostles – us!

 

If we notice the context of 2 Corinthians 3, we see that Paul was comparing his ministry and the new covenant with Moses’ ministry and the old covenant. The word “ministers” comes from a Greek word that is also interpreted as “servants.” When Paul says we are ministers of a new covenant, he is referring to us as servants who mediate the Spirit.

 

The NIV uses the word “competent” rather than “sufficient.” Some of us dread our incompetence and run from anything that would convince us of its truth. But however incompetent you may feel, if you have the Holy Spirit, God has made you a competent minister of the Gospel!

 

So, what are your excuses? You have been made sufficient, competent. The Holy Spirit gives you the words to say. You can’t mess this up, because it’s not your responsibility to save people. So next time you hear of a volunteer need at your church, remember, you are competent to fill that role. Next time you sense that you need to tell someone about Jesus, you are sufficient for the job!

 

Reflection: 

Do you find it difficult or easy to believe that God has made you a sufficient minister? Why? If you believed God had made you sufficient to minister, what would change in your life? What would you sign up for? Who would you approach?