I hope that you're registered
to vote. You have to be registered 30 days before election day,
so I hope that you'll get registered. I think one of the best things
about this ugly process of the presidential election is probably
the humorous things of making fun of the candidates that I
have seen and the emails I got. I was watching, I think it was
Saturday Night Live, and they were taking Mr. Romney apart,
but I laughed till I cried. It was just very amusing. I got this morning an email.
It says, one sunny day in January of 2013, an old man approached
the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue where he'd been sitting
on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard
and said, I would like to go in and meet with President Obama. The Marine looked at the man
and said, sir, Mr. Obama is no longer president
and no longer resides here. The old man said, okay, and walked
away. The following day, the same man approached the White
House and said to the same Marine, I would like to go in and meet
with President Obama. The Marine again told the man,
sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Obama is no longer president
and no longer resides here. The man thanked him again and
just walked away. The third day, the same man approached
the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine saying,
I would like to go in and meet with President Obama. The Marine,
understandably agitated at that point, looked at the man and
said, Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here
asking to speak to Mr. Obama. I told you already that
Mr. Obama is no longer the President
and no longer resides here. Don't you understand? The old
man looked at the Marine and said, Oh, I understand. I just
love hearing it. The Marines snapped to attention,
saluted, and said, see you tomorrow, sir. Your hide has to be pretty tough
to run for President of the United States, whoever you are. I want
to invite your attention to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. 2 Corinthians chapter
3. I've told you many, many times
that the acid test of any sermon, of any church, of any song, of
any testimony, of any message is who gets the glory. Always
judge your church, judge your preacher by that rule. Who gets
the glory? Is God getting all of the glory
and praise and honor? The real church gives God glory
and praise. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, beginning
with verse 1. Do we begin again to commend
ourselves or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation
to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistles,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. For as much
as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ,
ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the living God, not in tablets of stone, but in fleshly tablets
or tables of the heart, and such trust have we through Christ
to God. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. Paul gives some account of what
God has done with him and through him and describes the work in
these words here in Corinthians 3. You are our epistles. You are the epistles of Christ
ministered by us. That's why every one of our lives
as the people of God, and especially those in leadership, people are
watching. And they should see Christ. Am
I right about that? I'm up here, so look up here.
Epistles. People are reading you every
day. They either think you're real
or you're phony. Right? That's why it's important that
ministers, pastors, elders, men of grace, women of grace, anybody
that stands on this pulpit, you're being read every day. That's
why you can't be drunk on Tuesday and stand up here on Sunday.
Because people are reading you. And people say there's nothing
to that. Or when a preacher messes up,
people say there's nothing to that. And many people have quit
attending any kind of church service because they've been
disappointed in people. The Apostle Paul, he said, you
are manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ ministered
by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living
God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the
heart. Paul said, you, have experienced
a miracle. You've got a new heart. And God
used us. We were the instrument. We were
the ministers. We were the tool in God's hand
that were used of God for you to get a new heart. It has pleased
God through the foolishness of preaching instrumentality to
save them that believe. You see, I'm preaching today
to dry bones. There are many in here who are
dry bones, who don't know Christ. Your heart is hard. It's going
to take a miracle. And Paul says, who is sufficient
for these things? If you look at 2 Corinthians
2 and verse 16, the latter part of verse 16, Paul says this,
and who is sufficient for these things? He says, yes, God has
used me to organize churches all over the known world. Thousands
and thousands of people have been converted. They've had a
heart change. They've had a heart transplant.
God has taken that heart of stone out of them and given them a
heart of flesh. It's a miracle. They've become
new creatures in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away and
behold, all things are become new. But he said, who's sufficient
for these things? And then he says, certainly not
me. Paul said, I'm not sufficient. In other words, who can turn
hearts of stone into hearts of flesh? Who can write without
ink? Who can write on the heart? Who
can so write that what is written shall be there eternally throughout
the ceaseless ages of eternity? Who is sufficient to do these
things? That's the question the Apostle
Paul asked. And I'm going to tell you this,
the Lord only has one true church. And His true church is a grace
church. My friend, if you're not hearing
grace, you're not in a true church. The unmerited, undeserved, sovereign,
matchless grace of God, the miracle that takes nobodies and makes
somebodies out of them, So the more we study grace. In fact,
that's why the Apostle Peter says, grow in grace. Not grow
in tongues. Not grow in miracles. Not grow
in prophecy. Grow in grace until grace becomes
amazing grace. Oh, what a wonder that Jesus
found me. Is that where you are? Every day, is that where you
are? You lift up your hand and say, I'm a miracle of the sovereign
free grace of God. Grace. Study grace. The work of grace wrought by
God in the heart using the ministers of God. Who's sufficient for
these things? To raise the dead. You know,
every Christian in here was dead. You were dead. When God came
to you, you were not moving. You were not breathing. There
was no spiritual life in you. You didn't make the first step
toward God. It was not your will. All over
this world, Protestant churches are preaching the free will of
man. Man's will is not free. Man's will is enslaved to his
nature. And God has to set you free from
your own will. You were dead in sins and trespasses. And God came to your cemetery
where you were inactive toward God. Oh, you were active alright
in the hood. You were active in the crack
house. Some of you were active in the church house, sitting
there all pious, thinking you were sufficient. You were just
as dead as the crack addict. In fact, you were in a double
darkness. People who are churchy, people who feel themselves better
than others, people who are self-righteous are in a double darkness. At
least if you're in the hood smoking pot or using crack or heroin,
you know you're lousy. Or you have some understanding
that it is not well with your soul. But you get all camouflaged
in a churchy situation where you're sitting there thinking
you're, you know, Most of the membership of this church are
called those people. You are those people. Are you
still with me here? Okay. Still with me. The marvelous
grace of God that gives people life. That really, Paul said,
opens the eyes of the blind. Causes the deaf to hear. You
see, you will not hear me today unless God opens your ears to deliver men from the fascinations
of sin and Satan. Some of you in here, you loved
your drugs. You really did. You did it because
you liked to do it. And God had to turn you around.
And now you hate what you once loved and love what you once
hated. That's a miracle. That's a miracle
of Almighty God. So Paul is asking, who's sufficient? When he talks about how God has
used him, he follows up with, yes, God has used me in a mighty
way, but it was not my sufficiency. Don't be bragging on me. So having
asked the question, Paul gives us the answer to these words
in the text. with regard to who is sufficient. He says, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. Our sufficiency is of God. All these wonders have been wrought
by God. To God be the glory. Men had
their minds written upon by the finger of God. You love Scripture. You read Scripture. You love
coming here, hearing the Word of God. You know why? Because
God has written His Word on your heart and in your mind. That's why you don't carry around
the Ten Commandments. Hating them. You don't even know
them. But you carry around the very heart of God in you. A love
for God. Since all of these things have
been done, there must have been some kind of sufficiency in the
means by which they were done. Let me make that a little clearer.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. What I do is
stand up here in this valley of dry bones and preach. And
I know I am not sufficient. to change any heroin addict into
a God-loving, Christ-loving Christian. I know God has to be here. There has to be a miracle take
place here in this church. That's why we talk about we want
God to be here. If God's not here, nothing's
going to happen except we're going to go through some kind
of religious exercise. That's the truth. Where does
our sufficiency come from? It comes from God. It's not natural. It doesn't come naturally. And
preachers. It's not the preacher's education
or the degrees behind his name. I can't practice my sermons or
imitate Billy Graham or somebody else. That's not where the sufficiency
comes. The sufficiency comes from God. See, truly, you will go out the
way you come in unless God does something here today. Paul answers
the question by telling us what that sufficiency was not. It's
not of us, he says. He answers his own question.
Who is sufficient for these things? He says our sufficiency comes
from God. So, let's first answer Paul's
question. Who is sufficient for these things? Of course, the
negative reply is not that we are sufficient of ourselves.
Here is a man who was called of God to be an apostle. The
Lord Jesus Christ personally appeared to him. He was a man
of zeal, activity, and of remarkable ability in the things of God. He was not a wit behind the chief
of the apostles. He was an expounder of truth. He was a founder of all of these
churches. He was the father of thousands
of souls. Yet he says, not that we are
sufficient, ourselves. He had been taught of God deeply.
He had preached the Word fully. Yet, he says, I am not sufficient
of myself. Here was a man inspired by the
Holy Spirit. A man who wrote epistles to the
churches. A man who wrote three-fourths
of the New Testament with divine authority. A man who would not
allow his authority to be questioned. He felt he was truly sent of
God. Yet, he bows his head before
the throne of grace, that omnipotent grace, and he says, it wasn't
me. It wasn't me. We're not sufficient
of ourselves. Aren't you appalled that God
saved you? Aren't you in amazement that
you're a Christian? It took a miracle to hang the
world in space. But when He saved my soul, cleansed
and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace." Think about
this. I thought about this this week.
If Paul said he wasn't sufficient, I thought of this and implied
this to myself. Who are you, Ken Clark? Who are you? If the greatest apostle said,
I am not sufficient, I can't change men's hearts. I can't
save anybody. Then who are you, Kent Clark? It is God who makes us to differ.
Paul said we're not sufficient even in our thinking. Do you
know you can't even think right? Do you know you need thinking
grace? You need thinking grace. If you don't have thinking grace,
you'll get to thinking you're something on the end of a stick. I can't tell you how many people,
when I talk to them about their Christianity, say things like
this. Oh, don't get me wrong. I was a sinner, but I never used
heroin. I never used crack. I never,
you know, I never committed adultery. I never... Your thinking's messed
up. Besides that, you have committed
adultery in thought or word. Amen. At least all the men ought to
be saying, Amen. If you look upon a woman to lust,
you've committed adultery in your heart. Is that what the
Scripture says? Of course, that does go both ways. You need thinking
grace. If you don't have thinking grace,
you will think more of yourself than you ought. How are you going
to praise God when you think you're something? You know, that's why I use the
terms, you know, in my flesh dwells no good thing. And you
in your flesh are nothing but a worm, a maggot. Not even worth a warm pitcher
of spit. Oh, let's really get down there.
Oh, I know. I know. Some of you right now,
you can't believe I just said that. You're kind of like this.
He can't say that about me. I mean, he's gone just a little
too far. The Bible says you're totally
depraved, and in your flesh dwells no good thing. And until you
see yourself a sinner, you don't need a Savior. If you're just
a little sinner, little sinner, let me in. Let me tell you this, only big
sinners get saved. If you've never seen yourself
a big sinner, that's why you have such a puny little Savior,
that you and Jesus did something for yourself. You're not sufficient. You're not sufficient. With the
sinner, only God can intrude into the secret chambers where
men are born from above and get you to think right. What a glorious
thing it would be if while I'm preaching, people break down
under the burden of their sinnership and cry out for mercy. You need
thanking grace. That's why we pound grace here.
And we pound grace here. And we pound grace. Because it's
by grace are you saved through faith. And not of yourselves. It's the
gift of God. Yeah, Dr. Grace will never, ever
let you think more of yourself than you ought. So many Scriptures. Let him that thinketh, he standeth,
take heed lest he fall. Now let's look on the positive
side of this matter. Verse 5 says this, that our sufficiency
is from God. In the omnipotent grace of God
lies a fullness of might. That's why I've never met a sinner
that I thought they couldn't be saved. They had gone too far.
You know why? Because I'm not sufficient, but
God is. That's right. That is right.
The stony heart is transformed by God. I was thinking about myself some
as I was preparing this message. You know, we preachers, at least
I am, I'm nothing but a poor, leaky vessel. And the only way
to keep me full is to put my pitcher under the perpetual flow
of boundless grace. You know, because I'm a leaky
cistern, I'm a leaky pot, I'm a leaky pitcher, I have to just,
that grace just has to keep flowing because there's a leak in there.
If God's Holy Spirit doesn't help me, I'll begin to think
more of myself than I ought. I could listen to people. I mean,
after all, I am Michiganian of the year. You've got to watch listening
to people. When people start telling you, you know so much
Bible. I think the pastor ought to let you fill in for him every
once in a while. You know, you're such a great leader. You know
what? I just think you're something
else. Don't ever get to thinking you're something else. We are made sufficient by God. You know what? If God can change
my heart, He can change yours. Boy, if I thought I had to save
this bunch over Grace and His Hope, you know how much mess
there is every week goes on? People look at Grace Centers,
oh, what a marvelous, what a marvelous. You don't see what I see. And
I'm not going to tell you either. But I could tell you some real
stories. It's not quite as marvelous as
you think. What makes Grace Centers of Hope and Grace Gospel Fellowship
a mighty place is because God's here. Without God being here
and doing things, nothing happens. And we bear witness to God's
new covenant promises and His grace makes us sufficient. That's
why the Apostle said, we can do all things through Christ
that strengtheneth us. We're made much by God, but we
of ourselves are nothing. And if you can just get this
picture where Ezekiel was put out there in the valley of dry
bones. Valley full of bones. Nothing but bones. And they weren't
connected. They were scattered. And the
prophet says they were very dry. You know, if you've ever been
out in the field hunting or on the farm somewhere and you come
up on a deer that's been dead for a long time, there's nothing
but a skeleton there. And it's been out there in the sun, parched
by the sun. Dry bones. They're just dry. And God said, preach to those
bones. And God said, Ezekiel, can these
dry bones live? And the old prophet said, thou
knowest, Lord. And he took off preaching. And
bones began to rattle. And the hip bones connected to
the leg bones. And flesh formed on the bones.
And there was a full body. But they were still dead. And
God sent the wind to give life. And breathe life. That's the
miracle. We're not sufficient for that.
But God is. We're ministers of the New Covenant.
I hope this church learns more and more about the new covenant.
If not, you'll become legalists. You really will. There's the
old covenant of law. And the giving of the law was
spectacular. In fact, in this chapter, the
Apostle Paul says, there is a covenant that is more glorious than that
of the covenant of condemnation. The two covenants. One of condemnation,
which was the giving of the law. You don't want to go to law.
The law is nothing but a mirror for you to see you're dirty.
The law says thou shalt not. And you say, I did that one.
I did that one. I have a dirty heart as I look
into the law. It was a glorious ministration
of condemnation. You know, I look at our world
today. And the mess we're in here in
this country. And I say to myself, there's
so much injustice. I go to court and see so much
injustice. There's just injustice everywhere
with everything. You know what made the law glorious? There was no injustice. It was
pure justice. If you do it, I'll kill you.
If you do it, I'll damn you. No paying off the judge. Pure
justice. It's glorious. It really is.
Pure justice is glorious. You remember there was thunderings
and lightnings and earthquakes when God gave the law. You don't
want to go to Mount Sinai. I hear about people leaving grace
and going to the law. And I say, they're crazy. If
you've ever been to Mount Zion, the Mount of God's amazing grace,
you're never going to go back to law keeping. You just don't
want to go back there. The grace covenant. The law says,
do this, old man, and you shall live. Don't do it, and you go
to hell. You've got to be perfect inside
and out. The grace covenant says this, do this, old Christ, and
all you do it for, they shall live and have everlasting life. It's true. It is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."
Don't trust your own sufficiency. Oh, your inability and mine is
real. I just don't think I can hold
out. No, you can't. But greater is He that's in you
than he that's in the world. I meet people who tell me this
occasionally. You know, I'm kind of a deep
thinker. I'm a deep thinker. And usually what that means is,
I'm a deep thinker. I'm self-sufficient. I'm really
deep. I'm not shallow like other people.
I really think deep. Deep thinkers to me are like
a man that's drowning and you throw him a life jacket and he
says, I'm not going to take this life jacket until you tell me
who made it. And I want to know, does the company pay a good wage? And he's drowning. That's what
you deep thinkers do. Here's some deep thought. God
condescended into this world in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, died on the cross in the sinner's room, stead and
place. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved, deep thinker. Don't be content with
the letter of the law to this church, I say, trust no man's
self-sufficiency. The preachers of Christ – because
I won't be here forever – the ministers of Christ are more apt to weep than to
brag. I just want that to sink in.
They weep over many things. First, they weep over their own
failures. I'll just tell you flat out, I'm not the man I want
to be. I'm certainly not the man I used to be. I've been saved
by God's grace. But I really have nothing to
brag about. Let me just tell you that. I
have nothing to brag about. But I weep over your relapse.
I weep over the sinfulness of this world. I weep over the fate
of this country. We need a God intervention. God's men feel inability rather
than ability. I don't believe I'm able. Somebody
asked me last week, do you still get nervous when you stand up
to speak? I don't get nervous in the sense of being afraid
of your faces or public speaking. I don't get nervous about that.
But Johnny or Susie sitting back there in the back with needle traps? Or the little girl who comes
in here beaten to a pulp, has been prostituting, totally
lost, don't know who they are, don't know what life's all about.
doesn't understand their own state of affairs, filled with
anger and bitterness, and yet longing to belong and longing
to be loved and cared for, they come in here and leave the same
way? That can't happen. That can't happen. People ought to be converted
here every Lord's Day. If we were the kind of church
with the power of God here. People would be confessing Christ
every Lord's Day. Say, well, Pastor, you just don't
give an invitation. You don't invite people to come
forward. Listen, if God ever saves you, ever energizes you,
everybody better get out of your way because you're going to tell
somebody. If you become a Christian, it's
going to leak out on you. Somebody's going to be saying,
hmm, what happened to you? Or they might say something like,
you've been over Clark's, haven't you? You've been brainwashed. You're one of the cult. The man of God knows he's nobody,
but also knows the Lord can make somebody out of anybody. And the man of God knows he can
do nothing without the Lord. You can do nothing without me. So, let's never doubt the sufficiency
of the Gospel of God. You know why I was telling some folks that were
touring through yesterday, I was telling them they said something
about How long have you been here, Pastor?" And, well, that's
a long time to be, you know, here in the hood. And, you know,
you must have a great burden. And, you know, we're praying
for you." And I said, you know, I appreciate that, but I want
you to know something. Don't feel sorry for me. I feel
sorry for those suburbanite preachers. I got a big fishing pond here. Amen. Listen, if we could just
find some sinners. Let me tell you here, whether
you're from the suburbs, or you're from the inner city, or you're
a crack addict, or you're sophisticated, or whatever. You're a sinner. So you really fit here. You really
do. I want you to know you fit. And
to be under the sound of the Gospel. So, anyway, what I was
going to say to you is, knowing that our sufficiency is of God, That's the reason I know I can
go to the slums. Because it's not me. It's God. I expect miracles. I see miracles every day here.
Somebody said, well, you know, Pastor, I didn't think you believed
in miracles. I never see you healing anybody.
I see miracles every day. You'll never see a greater miracle
than what's going on right here. Because if you really knew the
truth, I mean, if you really knew the truth, Nobody has any
money here. Everything that's going on here
is something supernatural that can't be explained. It really
can't other than our sufficiency is of God. Actually, difficulties
become invitations. Somebody said, Pastor, you want
to have this inner city church with white people and black people
and Chinese people and all those other people. Never going to
happen. I got news for you. It's already
happened. It's already happened. I remember when folks said, Seneca
Street? You're going to start buying
houses on Seneca Street? Indian Hills would be a better
place for you to buy houses. We started with that little yellow
ragtag house. And look what a miracle God's
done. from homelessness to home ownership through the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Our sufficiency is of God. All
right, let's stand.