Is our sufficiency from ourselves or from God?
Our sufficiency is not from ourselves but from God. Scripture says we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; our sufficiency is of God. Even the highly educated Saul of Tarsus was not qualified by his background or training; he counted it worthless, serving as a humble servant of the Creator God.
Les explains that the believer's trust and sufficiency come through Christ to Godward, not from self. He notes that we are not sufficient in ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; our sufficiency is of God. He contrasts this with Saul of Tarsus, who was highly educated, the most educated Jew of his day, having sat at the feet of the greatest rabbi, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Though he could have claimed qualification by his training, he never did. In Philippians he called all of that dung and cast it aside as worthless to become the workmanship of Christ. His sufficiency was not because he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews or Pharisee of the Pharisees, but because he was a humble servant of the Creator God. Les points out this is an example of the difference between law and grace.