Lesson 3 - Inferiority

I want to thank you for coming and we're having a wonderful time studying about our emotions, how to get a handle on our emotions. And there's not a mother's child around that does not need to get a handle upon his or her emotions. The thing I love about the Bible is, the Bible is deeply spiritual but intensely practical. And we're going to find out that the Bible has a whole lot more to say about our emotions than some psychiatrists, some psychologists. I thank God for them. I admire them and respect them. But there is some truth in God's Word that no one knows apart from God's Word about how really to deal with how we feel to get a handle on our emotions. Now, what I want to talk to you about in our study is how to deal with a feeling of inferiority, how to deal with what this world puts on us sometimes, to put us down. And sometimes we come back with this sense of bravado. But underneath, we know that we're posturing, we're putting on a front because we have this deep-seated, this deep-rooted sense of inferiority. And it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. When man was expelled from the garden, it's just incipient in human nature to feel inferior. And the pride is just really a sense of perverted inferiority. A man's trying to bluster through what he knows on the inside is wrong with him. So, I want you to take God's Word and turn to Ephesians chapter 1. And we're going to learn something about who we are in Christ. That's very important, who we are in Christ. Now, let me give you a great principle. It sounds like pop psychology, but it is Bible truth. The me I see is the me I'll be. The me I see is the me I will be. Now, let me tell you how the book of Ephesians is written. We're in the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians begins with who we are in Christ. Then it moves into the next chapter 2, how we became who we are in Christ. And then toward the end of the book, it begins to talk about how to live like who we are. Now, if you pick up a Bible, somebody's Bible, and just thumb through it, you'll find the dirtier pages, the ones that are marked, the ones that are smudged, the ones that are earmarked are the ones that deal with how to live, how to behave, the behavior passages. But we just tend to skip over the doctrinal passages to get to the behavioral passages. I've been preaching long enough to know that is true. But learn this, Christianity is not behavior modification. You cannot purify the water by painting the pump. You've got to get down to the root to see, first of all, who you are in Christ. And then you learn how you became like who you are in Christ. And then you learn how to behave like who you are in

Christ. So what I'm going to be talking with you about tonight is who you are in Christ. So you won't have an identity crisis and an energy crisis. Don't know who you are and I'm too tired to find out. I want you to learn who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now why is that? Well, the Bible says, you should know the truth and the truth will what? Set you free. Now listen to me. The truth does not set you free. Ah, wait a minute, pastor. The Bible says the truth sets you free. No, the Bible says knowing the truth sets you free. It doesn't set you free if you don't know it. You know the truth and then that sets you free. That's the truth that I want to get in your heart so you can be free. If you've ever been to the circus and most of us have, you see that circus elephant? He's sitting there and are standing there really and he's got this iron ring around one leg and a short chain and that chain is fastened to a stake, a stob or an iron peg that's in the ground. That peg may be in the ground about a foot driven in the ground. This is a huge elephant. He could pull that out if he only knew he could but he has no idea he can. As a matter of fact, he's firmly convinced he cannot and he will sit there, you know, rocking his head back and forth, throwing that hay over his head. and so forth, rocking back and forth and that one leg is out there just tied to that. You've seen him. That chain is back there, chained to that pig. Now why doesn't he pull that out? He is convinced he cannot do it because when he was a baby elephant, they chained him to something he could not pull away from and now he is convinced he will never do it. So he won't be free. He won't be free. Now he could be free if he knew the truth but he doesn't know the truth. And so it's knowing the truth that would set him free. Now that's true to us.

Now let's look here in Ephesians chapter 1. I'm going to read the first 6 verses. And this... Oh listen folks, this is great truth. I pray God, He'll write it on your heart and my heart. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now if you don't mind marking your Bible, just underscore the phrase, in. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places... And here's this word again, in Christ. According as He hath chosen us, here it is, in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted... And here's our word again, in the beloved. Now that little word, in. I-N, it's a small word in the Greek language, it's a small word in the English language but a small key can open a big door to a vast treasure

and I want to tell you this little key, this word, in, is a wonderful, wonderful word. Now, I don't know a lot about you. I don't know a lot about you except you're devastatingly handsome. I don't know a lot about all of you but I want to tell you one thing. I know about every person in this circle tonight. If you tell me it's not so, I'm going to say, you're not telling the truth. I know three things that you want and here's what you want. You want significance, you want sufficiency and you want security. Now don't tell me you don't. I know you do. You want significance, you want to know that you matter. You want sufficiency, you want to know that your needs are going to be met. I'm not saying you want to be wealthy but you want to have sufficiency and you want to have security. You want to know that whatever it is, I cannot lose it. Am I right? Did I get it right? Okay, now what I'm going to show you here in the book of Ephesians in these first six verses is this is what we have

in the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have significance. Now let me show you what your significance is. Look in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, how many saints are in this circle? Now don't answer out loud but most of us will say, well, you know, I'm a Christian but I'm not a saint. Now let me tell you something. If you are a Christian, you are a saint. There are only two categories of people in the world, the saints and the ain'ts. Now if you are saved, if you've come to the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted Him, the Bible calls you a saint. Now a saint is somebody who has been saved, somebody that God has set aside for Himself. Now a lot of us would say, well, Pastor Rodgers, I'm no saint, I'm a Christian and here's the way, you know, people just kind of get all hung over and they say, you know, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. I know I'm not what I ought to be but you know... And they call that humility. That's not humility, that's poor posture. And to say that you are a sinner saved by grace, technically, that is true. You are a sinner and you are saved by grace

but that's not the Bible definition. That's not the Bible description. The Bible does not describe you as a sinner saved by grace. Do you know how the Bible describes you? The Bible describes you as the righteousness of God in Christ. Now why is that important? Well, the me I see is the me I'll be. If you see yourself as a sinner, you're going to behave as a sinner. If you see yourself as a saint, you're going to behave... as a saint. What is humility? Humility is accepting what God says about you. It's not saying you're no good. Listen, Jesus died for you. You're a royal blue blood. You're a child of God. You are a saint. So you just call me Saint Adrian. Ha-ha and look at yourself in the mirror and say, I am a saint. Let me give you a verse of Scripture from Romans 12, verse 3. Listen to it. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Now, how are you to think of yourself? Not with inflated exaggeration.

Not with false humiliation but with reasonable expectation and reasonable belief of who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you about the grace of God. The grace of God will exalt a man without inflating him and will humble a man without debasing him. I am what I am by the grace of God. So remember that you are a saint. Now can you be more significant than being a saint? And when you talk about telling people they are saints, others say, oh no pastor, you just have to keep on telling people how bad they are because if you tell them how bad they are, then they'll want to be better. Well, let me ask you a question. Who is more afraid of dirt? A man in a white tuxedo or a man wearing a pair of greasy overalls? The man in the white tuxedo is more afraid of dirt than the man in the greasy overalls. Isn't that right? See, we need to understand. It's not that I'm saying we don't sin. We sin and we have to ask God to forgive us and to cleanse us but in God's sight, we are saints and that is significance. So that's the first thing we have in Christ. We have this significance. Now, here is the second thing we have in Christ. Not only significance but we have sufficiency. Let me ask you a question now. How many of you in this circle, in this room, have all of the faith that you need?

Now don't answer out loud because I don't want to embarrass you. How many of you have all of the wisdom that you need? How many have all of the love that you need? How many have all of the courage that you need? Well, most of us would say, I don't have all of those things that I need but look if you will in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with... What's the next little word here? All spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now is patience and love and wisdom and faith are those spiritual blessings? Has God blessed us with them? He says He has. God has blessed, not will bless, has, past tense, blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. Love is a spiritual blessing, faith is a spiritual blessing, wisdom is a spiritual blessing, patience is a spiritual blessing. Well you say, but I don't have those things. Well, now I want to ask you a question. Who is right, you or God? Now God says that you are a saint. We say, I'm just a sinner. So God says you're a saint and God says that you have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Well you say, now okay, if I have all the love I need, how come I don't have all the love I need? If I have all the wisdom I need, how come I don't have all the wisdom I need?

Are you just playing games with words, Pastor? No, here's the problem. We have not possessed our possessions. We have not possessed our possessions. I think I can illustrate it this way. How many in our circle have books in your library that you haven't read yet? Let me see your hand. Okay, now question. Are those your books? Yes. Have you possessed your possession? No. When the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt, going into Canaan, the promised land, God told Joshua, now you cross over the river Jordan and then God says, every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, now listen to this, that have I given you. He didn't say, I will give it to you. He didn't say, put your foot on it and I'll give it to you. He said, I've given it to you, put your foot on it. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you." Now, what he was saying, Joshua, go in there and possess your possessions. It's yours. You see, when we got Jesus, we got everything. It's all in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Him, the fullness of God dwells bodily

and He dwells in us and so is He love? Is He wisdom? Is He righteousness? Is He sanctification? The Bible says He's made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption and we have Him. People talk about getting a second blessing. Well, people ask me sometime, have you gotten a second blessing? I say, yes. I say, well, tell me about it. The second blessing is discovering what I got in the first one when I got Jesus and the third blessing is discovering I didn't discover it all in the second blessing. Friend, I'll go deeper into Jesus but I'll never go beyond Jesus. In Him is the fullness of the Godhead and so when we have Christ in Him, remember that little key that unlocks the door. In Christ, we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. One time, we were having a Bible conference here and in the church where I pastor and there was an intermission and I have a deacon friend here who's a very wonderful man. His name is Gene and he has a wife named Betty. Betty had gone to the restroom and the preacher who was there whose name was Peter said to Gene,

Gene, would you do me a favor? He said, yes and he said, Gene, I'm going to take Betty's Bible here and I'm going to put a bill in her Bible, a $5 bill. He took a $5 bill and put it in the Bible like that and closed the Bible and he said, now don't let Betty know that I put that $5 in her Bible and said, I'm going to ask for a volunteer and I want you to help Betty to come up the platform. So he's preaching along. She has no idea any of this has happened and he said, I need a volunteer. You lady, would you come up here? Me? Yes, you. Gene said, you better take your Bible. So she took her Bible and went up there. He said to her, Betty, do you believe I'm a man of God? She said, yes. He said, do you believe I tell the truth? Yes. Do you love me? Yes. If I would ask you to do something, you could do very easy, very simple. You could do it right here where you are. For me, would you do it? She said, yes. He said, would you give me $5? She said, let me go get my purse. He said, no.

I said, you could do it right here now where you are. She said, but I don't have $5 with me. He said, didn't you say you trust me? Don't you believe I'm a man of God? Didn't I tell you I wouldn't ask you to do anything you couldn't do right now where you are? Give me $5. She said, but I don't have $5. He said, you said you would do it. She said, Gene... He said, don't call Gene. I'm asking you right here. Give me $5. She said, I don't have $5. He said, is that your Bible? She said, yes. He said, may I have it? And he began to go through it and he did just like I'm doing now and he pulled out $5. She said, how did that get in there? He said, I put it in there. And then he told her what I want to tell you. God will never ask anything of you that He's not already given you. Great truth, great truth. Every demand upon your life that God makes upon your life is really a demand upon the life of God in you. And don't you dare say, I don't have enough love. You say, I love Jesus. Don't say, I don't have enough patience.

Say, I patience Jesus because all that God asks of us, He has given us, He has blessed us, not will bless us but has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Amen? That's a great truth. That is a great truth. And so if we understand that truth, then not only do we have significance, we're saints but we have sufficiency to be all that God wants us to be. Let me give you another verse that's very similar to this. 2 Peter 1 verse 3, According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Now God has done that. He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. So when you run out of your love, run into His. When you run out of your patience, run into His patience. It is there. You need, you've got a neighbor you can't get along with. Don't say, God help me to love her. I hate her. Just say, I love Jesus. I love Jesus and let His love flow through you. Now here's the third thing that we want. We said you want it. First of all, you want insignificance.

You've got it, you're a saint. Number two, you want insufficiency. We're talking about spiritual sufficiency now. He's given you all things that pertain to life and godliness. The third thing you want is security. Security now, I want you to continue to read let's skip on down to verse 6 The Bible says God does this to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us Accepted in the beloved now most of us want to be accepted. We want security. We want to be an insider We don't want to be an outsider Everybody says private club stay out. This is not for you, whatever and And that we have this feeling of rejection It is inbred all the way since the Garden of Eden when man was cast out the Garden of Eden That's why kids sometimes will leave a good home and go off and live in a commune just so they can be accepted That's the reason why kids start smoking cigarettes. Good night You see a little 14 year old girl smoking cigarettes. That kind of looks kind of Dumb, don't you? She wants to look sophisticated She looks more like a child than ever before with that cigarette in her mouth A man starts smoking when he's 14 to show he's a man tries to quit when he's 40 to prove the same thing It's just but but why do they do that? It doesn't taste good. Not at first you have to get addicted to it It's to be accepted. It's to be a part of the crowd. Everybody wants to be a part of the crowd They want to be accepted. I think that's why rock concerts are so People love rock concerts so much to me. It's not music. It's noise Yeah, of course, I'm an old fuddy-duddy but At least they're one of the crowd they're one of the bunch they're accepted they want acceptance Well, where does acceptance come God has made us? Accepted in the beloved now, who is the beloved? The beloved is Jesus Christ in Christ. I am accepted who has accepted me. God has accepted me Let me tell you something wonderful There's nothing you can do to make God love you anymore and nothing you can do to make him love you any less God does not love you because you're valuable. You're valuable because God loves you

God is not changing you so he can love you. He loves you so he can change you it begins with his love I read about a dog man put an ad in the paper out west for a dog. He said lost dog He described the dog. He said he has he limps because he was hit by a car and has arthritis said he's blind in one eye, he has the mange and and Described this discrepant crippled old dog and then it says he answers to the name lucky Were you lucky dog, you know what you know why he was a lucky dog because somebody loved him Somebody wanted him. We are lucky dogs. We are blessed dogs because God loves us and we are Accepted in the beloved and the Bible says God does this to the praise of the glory of his grace Listen to it to the praise of the glory of his grace Where in he hath made us accepted in the blood the beloved is Jesus. Let me ask you a question How much does God love you? Be careful because you won't disagree with me God loves you as much as he loves Jesus. He said oh, no, no, no. No, wait a minute You are accepted in the beloved you are in Christ. You are part of the body of Christ Jesus prayed in John chapter 17 father helped them to know That thou has loved them even as thou has loved me Father helped them to know that I am in Christ What? Incredible love that's the reason the Apostle John said behold what manner of love is this That we should be called the sons of God and the word manner of love literally means love out of this world We are called the sons of God. We are accepted God accepts me now. Listen, I'm going to I'm gonna run through some things and see if you can follow me. First of all First of all grace is God's acceptance of us Grace is God's acceptance of us. Got it. Say got it. Okay. Got okay now now watch this grace is God's acceptance of me Faith is my acceptance of God's acceptance of me You see when I by faith I accept that God accepts me Then that's when I become a child of God for by grace you save through faith Grace is God's acceptance of me. Faith is my acceptance of God's acceptance of me now

peace is my acceptance of me If I know that God has accepted me then I can accept me I Hear people say you're not supposed to love yourself Well, where'd you get that not out of the Bible the Bible says that I'm to love my neighbor as myself Now if I don't love me, how can I love you? as a matter of fact a A man who doesn't love himself is dangerous. When I love me truly, then I can love you. That doesn't mean when I say, I love me, I stand in front of the mirror and sing, How Great Thou Art. If you do that, you're sick. But it does mean that I know that God loves me. Does God love me? Say yes. Was it all right for me to love what God loves? If God loves me, yes, I love me. I accept me, who I am in Christ. Faith is God's acceptance of me. Grace is God's acceptance of me. Faith is my acceptance of God's acceptance of me. Peace is my acceptance of me. And then love is my acceptance of you. Once I know who I am, once I have accepted me, once I have peace with me, I don't have to con you, jip you, manipulate you, put you down, lord it over you, strut in front of you. I know who I am and there's plenty of love in me. He's given me all that I need and there's plenty of love

and I'm no poor if I love you and I give away that love. I don't have to make you smaller to make me bigger. I can't get any bigger. I'm a saint. I'm a child of God and I have all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. So there I have grace, faith, peace, love. Love is my acceptance of you. Now fellowship is your acceptance of me. When I accept you for the first time, you're free to accept me and then we're one in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what in that glorious security? Isn't that wonderful that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ? So what do we have? Three things that we need, significance, we're saints, sufficiency, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and security. He has made us accepted. We are loved of God Almighty and he loves us as he loves his own dear son. Are these not glorious truths? Praise the Lord. And so why should we go around with an inferiority complex? Let's thank him. Father God, bring these truths to us and write them upon our hearts. We love you, our mighty God and pray in the strong name of Jesus, amen. ♪♪