LESSON SEVEN

THE SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE

(Chapters 10 and 11)

CENTRAL IDEA

God’s grace enables us to persevere and grow despite any and all obstacles. God gives each of us the grace we need to fulfill the ministry and service He has given to us to bring glory to His Name.

Warm-up

Give an example from the past week when God’s grace was sufficient to enable you to meet some challenge.

The Sufficiency of Grace

Grace, as used in the New Testament, expresses two related and complementary meanings. First, it is God’s unmerited favor to us through Christ whereby salvation and all other blessings are freely given to us. Second, it is God’s divine assistance to us through the Holy Spirit.

We have seen that God’s grace assumes our sinfulness, guilt, and ill-deservedness. In the second meaning of grace, we see it also assumes our weakness and inability. Just as grace is opposed to the pride of self-righteousness, so it is also opposed to the pride of self-sufficiency.

God continually works to cause His people to realize their utter dependence on Him. We see that He does this through bringing each of us to the point of human extremity where we have no place to turn but to Him.

God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children. He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He intends to use that affliction for our good. God never wastes pain. He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son (see Romans 8:28-29).

One of the more dramatic and prolonged illustrations of God teaching His people dependence on Him is found in His provision for the Israelite nation in the desert. God provided food for the Israelites through a continual miracle every day for forty years. God wanted the Israelites to realize and remember their utter dependence on Him, so He used an extremity of need and a miraculous provision to capture their attention and teach them a lesson that is difficult to learn. Still, they forgot. How much easier is it, then, for us to forget when God supplies our needs through ordinary, mundane ways.

It is even more difficult, however, for us to learn our dependence on God in the spiritual realm. A lack of money for food or to make the monthly mortgage payment gets our attention very quickly, and the need is obvious. The money is either available or it isn’t. There’s no pretending. But we can pretend in the spiritual realm. We can exist for months —going through the motions, perhaps even teaching Sunday school, or serving as an elder or deacon —depending on nothing more than mere natural human resources.

Before we can learn the sufficiency of God’s grace, we must learn the insufficiency of ourselves. The more we see our sinfulness, the more we appreciate grace in its basic meaning of God’s undeserved favor. In a similar manner, the more we see our frailty, weakness, and dependence, the more we appreciate God’s grace in its dimension of His divine assistance.

The Holy Spirit strengthens us and enables us to meet in a godly fashion whatever circumstances cross our paths. God’s grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him. Modern society’s subtle, underlying agenda is good feelings. We want the pain to go away. We want to feel better in difficult situations, but God wants us to glorify Him in those circumstances. Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances. God’s grace —in the form of the enabling power of the Holy Spirit —is given to help us respond in such a way.

God’s daily distribution of the manna to His people in the desert illustrates the way He distributes grace. There is always an ample supply; no one ever need go without. But there is only as much as we need —and even that is only on a day-to-day basis. God doesn’t permit us to “store up” grace. We must look to Him anew each day for a new supply. Sometimes we must look for a new supply each hour!

In ourselves we are weak, unworthy, and inadequate. We really are! We are not denigrating ourselves when we recognize this truth. We are simply acknowledging reality and opening ourselves to the grace of God.

God’s grace is sufficient for our weakness. Christ’s worth does cover our unworthiness, and the Holy Spirit does make us effective in spite of our inadequacy. This is the glorious paradox of living by grace. When we discover we are weak in ourselves, we find we are strong in Christ. When we regard ourselves as less than the least of all God’s people, we are given the immense privilege of serving in the Kingdom. When we almost despair over our inadequacy, we find the Holy Spirit giving us unusual ability. We shake our heads in amazement and say with Isaiah, “LORD, . . . all that we have accomplished you have done for us” (Isaiah 26:12).

This is the amazing story of God’s grace. God saves us by His grace and transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Son by His grace. In all our trials and afflictions, He sustains and strengthens us by His grace. He calls us by grace to perform our own unique function within the body of Christ. Then, again by grace, He gives to each of us the spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill our calling. As we then serve Him, He makes that service acceptable to Himself by grace, and then rewards us a hundredfold by grace. (Taken from chapters 10 and 11 of Transforming Grace.)

Exploring Grace

  1. In 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 we find a powerful passage about suffering and the sufficiency of God’s grace. Read this passage and then answer the following questions.
    1. a. What explanations does Paul give for why his physical suffering is not removed?
    2. b. Why do you suppose we don’t always get a clear explanation of why we are allowed to suffer certain things?
    3. c. Why can God express His power in our lives better through our weaknesses than through our strengths?
  2. Think of a weakness in your own life. It could be a physical problem, an emotional weakness, or difficult circumstances. In what specific ways have God’s power and grace become real in your life through this trial?
  3. About trials, James says that we are to “welcome them as friends” (James 1:2, PH). Read James 1:2-4.
    1. a. What do you think James means by welcoming trials as friends?
    2. b. Why does he encourage us to have this kind of attitude?
  4. a. Do you tend to feel closer to God when your life is relatively trouble-free or when you have problems? Why do you think this is the case?
    1. b. Is it necessary for us to experience troubles to be close to God? Why or why not?
    2. c. What can a person who has a pretty easy life do to get close to God, short of praying for trials?
  5. In the story of the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness we see the total dependence of man upon God in a dramatic way. Read Deuteronomy 8:2-3.
    1. a. Why do you think it seems so easy for us today to fall into the sin of thinking we are self-sufficient?
    2. b. Why is it a sin to think we are self-sufficient?
    3. c. Whether we realize it or not, we depend on God for far more than our physical needs. Is it easier for you to fall into an attitude of self-sufficiency in physical things or in spiritual things? Why do you suppose that’s so?
  6. In Romans 12:4-8, Paul explains that we each have different spiritual gifts. The Lord gives us these for the purpose of fulfilling the ministry or service He has given us. Look also at the list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.
    1. a. What spiritual gifts do you see evidence of in the lives of other group members?
    2. b. It is often easier to see the spiritual gifts of others than to see our own gifts. Nonetheless, we should be aware of the gifts God has given us so that we can put ourselves in positions where those gifts can be used. What spiritual gift(s) do you think God has given to you?
    3. c. Share a time when you were aware of God using your spiritual gift(s) in a specific situation.
  7. Read 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 and Ephesians 3:8.
    1. a. What was Paul’s perspective on his own ability to fulfill the job God had given him to do?
    2. b. What service or ministry has God given to you? (This could include raising your family, teaching Sunday school, being available for a friend in need, sharing the gospel with a neighbor, etc.) If you have trouble answering this question, spend some time in prayer, asking God to show you ways you can begin to serve Him right where He has placed you.
    3. c. How do Paul’s words help encourage you in whatever God is asking you to do?
  8. Look at the following verses. How do they drive home the point that it is God who enables us in everything we do?
    • Isaiah 26:12
    • 1 Corinthians 3:6
    • 2 Corinthians 3:4-6
    • Colossians 1:28-29
  9. As believers we will stand before the Lord and receive rewards by God’s grace based upon how we have lived this life. All of our growth and strength for service come from God. All the fruit of our labors is the result of God’s grace. We must labor. God doesn’t do that for us. But we must labor in dependence on His grace to enable us. Read 1 Corinthians 3:7-15, 2 Corinthians 5:10, and Ephesians 6:7.
    1. a. What is the basis of the rewards we receive as Christians?
    2. b. What happens to the Christian whose labors have had no eternal value?
    3. c. What is the purpose of these rewards? (See Revelation 4:9-11.)
  10. a. In what area of your life do you sense the greatest need to experience God’s grace?
    1. b. What barriers do you think you might be using to prevent God from working in your life?

Closing Prayer

Read aloud the poem by Annie Johnson Flint found in the “Pondering Grace” section. Then express your needs to the Lord and acknowledge His sufficiency. Confess your need to respond more to His working in your lives.

Going Deeper (Extra questions for further study)

  1. Read Philippians 4:4-13.
    1. a. What is the secret to being content that Paul refers to in verse 12?
    2. b. Have you learned to live by this secret in your own life? What specific things can you do to go deeper in living according to the principles Paul spells out in this passage?
  2. What attitudes do the men in these passages display toward God in the midst of their suffering?
  3. What do the following verses say about how God works in our trials?
    • Genesis 50:20
    • Romans 8:28-29

PONDERING GRACE (FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION)

The wilderness tested and disciplined the people in various ways. On the one hand, the desolation of the wilderness removed the natural props and supports which man by nature depends on; it cast the people back on God, who alone could provide the strength to survive the wilderness. On the other hand, the severity of the wilderness period undermined the shallow bases of confidence of those who were not truly rooted and grounded in God. The wilderness makes or breaks a man; it provides strength of will and character. The strength provided by the wilderness, however, was not the strength of self-sufficiency, but the strength that comes from a knowledge of the living God.

P. C. Craigie, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Deuteronomy

For men have no taste for [God’s power] till they are convinced of their need of it and they immediately forget its value unless they are continually reminded by awareness of their own weakness.

John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries

Day by day and with each passing moment,

Strength I find to meet my trials here;

Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,

I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure

Gives unto each day what He deems best —

Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,

Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Lina Sandell Berg

So [God] supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly.

John Blanchard, Truth for Life: A Devotional Commentary on the Epistle of James

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;

He sendeth more grace when the labours increase;

To added afflictions he addeth his mercy,

To multiplied trials his multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, his grace has no measure,

His power has no boundary known unto men;

For out of his infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Annie Johnson Flint