Do you ever feel inadequate? Do you ever feel that maybe you are inferior?
A man paid a visit to his local psychologist. When the doctor asked him what had prompted the visit, the man said, “I’m suffering from an inferiority complex.” Over the next few weeks, the psychologist put his new patient through an extensive battery of tests.
Next came the long wait while the test results were being evaluated. Finally, the doctor called him in for another consultation about the test results. The doctor began, “I have some interesting news for you.” The man asked, “What’s that?” The doctor responded, “You don’t have a complex … you are inferior.”
There is no question that some of us have infinitely more to feel inferior about than others. Abraham Lincoln was wrong: all men are not created equal when it comes to various mental and physical capabilities. But we have more ability and capability than we will ever need. We must not forget that. You see, the power of the human body and mind exceeds anything we can imagine and we only use a small part of what we have at any given time. We are adequate before God for whatever He intends to do with us and through us. In spite of this, so many of us feel inferior.
Some Helpful Observations
I want to make a few general observations about inferiority and then we will look at some examples from Scripture.
First of all, inferiority feelings are not necessarily related to intelligence. In fact studies have shown that people with higher I.Q.’s are often more inclined to have feelings of inferiority. I know that’s true in my case. People with an I.Q. of 130 and above are often the ones who feel inferior. Where people with lower I.Q.’s often do not feel it at all. So inferiority feelings are not related to intelligence.
Next, an inferiority complex is not always noticeable on the surface. Sometimes we hide it. We work hard to hide that we feel inferior. Sometimes we are sarcastic to try to hide our feelings of inferiority. People who are always acting superior or who are especially sarcastic are probably trying to hide their feelings of inferiority.
A third observation, or clarification, is that an inferiority complex is not unique to the non-Christian world. We Christians wrestle with the problem just as much, or perhaps even a bit more, than non-Christians. Some of the most genuine problems of inferiority are often found in the church. That should not be and I will show you why. The main reason is we have God. When we have a confidence in God we are not going to feel inferior.
We need to understand that our growth in Christ is vitally important to offsetting feelings of inferiority.
Three Biblical Candidates For An Inferiority Complex
I want us to look at three men and see how they coped with feelings of inferiority.
Moses
READ Exodus 3:1-10
Sometimes we feel inferior because we have a background of failure. That is what was wrong with Moses. We find Moses at 80 years of age on the backside of a desert ... watching sheep. He was living with his in-laws, his wife and three children. He thinks that maybe
• God has passed him by
• that time has passed him by.
• responsibility beyond his own personal family has passed him by.
Then God suddenly appears in his life again.
That happens to some of us. We think maybe we have been put on the shelf when we have been put on the back burner. But then God comes along one day and says let me have your attention.
God got Moses’ attention with a burning bush. At that burning bush God said, “I heard the cry of My people, I have seen their affliction, I have come down to something about it.” Those people were the children of Israel who were slaves in Egypt. Moses had been concerned about that for some time. He grew up in Pharaoh’s home as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. An adopted son. But he did something ... with a right motive but a wrong action. He killed a man in order to try to correct the oppression. He took matters into his own hands and then having messed up he ran from God and man. He tried to hide in the desert. God comes to him and says, “I am going to do something.” Then he says, “I am going to send you.”
When God spoke at the burning bush the only thing Moses heard was God saying “I send YOU.” That greatly concerned him. You see he had feelings of inferiority because for forty years he had considered himself a failure. He tried to do something but he messed up. Now he feels inferior. That is not humility ... it’s inferiority.
He says, “I can’t go. I am just not qualified. I can’t do it.” But God says, “I will go with you.” Moses says, “Who am I that I should go?” God says, “I will go with you.”
This whole thing is played out in a scenario that is somewhat intriguing. God is having to deal with Moses, this man that wanted to please God; wanted to do God’s work and he does it in a rather dramatic fashion.
Moses has a rod in his hand. God says, “What is that?” Moses says, “It’s a rod.” “Throw it on the ground, now what is it?” It is a snake.” You have heard this story and our imaginations can play havoc with it. He said, “Pick it up.” He reached to pick it up by it’s tail. Would you do that if God asked you to do it? He did and it became a rod again. What God is saying is, “Moses, if I can turn a rod into a serpent and then back again, I can change Pharaoh’s heart and I can do through this tongue tied shepherd.” You see, Moses has his eyes on himself and not on God. That is the problem with many people in the church. We can’t do it! You know what? You are right. We can’t do it. But God can.
We are in the same spot Moses was when we have feelings of inferiority. We are looking at our resources and our abilities and we discount God’s resources and God’s abilities.
Now when Moses has seen this rod turned into a snake and then back again, do you think God has his attention? No. Because you can look in the next chapter and Moses says to the Lord, “Lord, I am not eloquent. I can’t speak.”
Can you feel something of what Moses feels. Some of you have been asked to teach down through the years, or maybe even this year. You say, “I can’t do that. I can’t even pray in public.” Have you ever had that feeling?
This always interests me. An inferiority complex is a satanic deception that keeps numbers of young people from considering vocational Christian service. Whether it is as a missionary or a minister, they think they have to be eloquent. They think they have to be witty and quick-tongued. The same is true for people who are asked to teach. You know who the best teachers are? Those who don’t have any great ability or gift, who must rely on the Holy Spirit to provide for them.
“And the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.’” (4:11-12). Moses, your ability has nothing to do with whether I can use you are not. As a matter of fact, you inability will make it easier for Me to work, simply because I can use anything that will be used. You see, God is not looking for ability, He is looking for availability. I am adequate for you. Moses, in his failures, has developed this inferiority complex, and he sees his limitations as insurmountable by even God. How foolish.
Yet, God, in dealing with him, points out that He will go with him and enable him to do all that God intends for him to do. That is the first example.
Jeremiah
The second example comes to us form Jeremiah. Turn with me to the book of Jeremiah. We don’t generally think of a prophet as being one who has inferiority feelings. They have always been thought of as brave, bold sorts of people.
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” That is a rather strong statement to make to a young man. But note what Jeremiah said in return. “Then I said, ‘Alas, Lord God! Behold I do not know how to speak. Because I am a youth’” (1:6).
• I am not a man yet.
• I haven’t learned yet.
• I haven’t developed my abilities yet.
• Lord I can’t do it.
Immediately that sense of inferiority comes. “But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am a youth.” Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, And all I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to deliver you,’ declares the Lord”
(1:7-8). Here God is saying to a young man, “I have called you to be a prophet. Before I formed you I new you and called you. Now I want you to get ready to go.”
He says, “I can’t go. I can’t speak.” Sounds a little like Moses. Then the Lord says, “Don’t say that you are a child ... that you are inadequate. That doesn’t have anything to do with it. You are going and I will take care of you. I will deliver you.”
Amos
Now let’s come to a third person and that is the prophet Amos. When we think of Amos, we think of a prophet who is bold and strong. And he was, but why was he strong and bold?
Imagine Amos. He isn’t like Jeremiah or Isaiah. Amos is a sort of rustic, rural type of man. He is a fruit picker. He is not well dressed.
One day God says, “I want you to go and preach My Word in Israel.” “Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam, the king of Israel saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words.’” (Amos 7:10). “Sir, we don’t like what he is saying. You don’t want to hear what he is saying. This man has come down here and he is making trouble.” Then Amaziah (now this is the priest, the king’s chief spiritual adviser, who is speaking to the prophet Amos). “The Amaziah said to Amos, ‘Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread and there do your prophesying!’” (7:12). Get out of here! We don’t want you here!
But what does Amos say? “Then Amos said to Amaziah, ‘I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock and the Lord said to me, “Go to My people Israel.” And now hear the word of the Lord’” (7:14). Here is a man who had every reason to feel inadequate. To feel inferior. But he didn’t. Why? Moses felt inferior because he did not have his eyes on God. He had his eyes on himself. And he had everything. Jeremiah felt inferior because he had his eyes on himself, on his own limitations, on his own youth.
He didn’t have his eyes on God.
Amos was not one to feel inferior. He would stand up to the king himself. Why? Because he had his eyes on God. That is where the difference is. He had every reason to feel inferior and he didn’t.
A Scriptural Viewpoint
Now let me sum this up and share some New Testament principles with you. I am going to give you several scriptures and you may just want to listen instead of trying to keep up.
I will give you the text and you may want to write them down so you can look at them later.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matt. 6:26, Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you be being anxious can add a single cubit to his life’s span? And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow, they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these.
But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much do so for you, O men of little faith?” (Matt. 6:26-30).
Oh you men and women of little faith.
God is interested in us. He has done so much for the least of His creatures and yet the creation made in His image and likeness He prizes more highly than any of His other creatures. We may think of ourselves as being inadequate or unworthy. But God has a high view of us. And Jesus is trying to communicate that.
Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Philippians 1:6: “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Who began a good work in you? Christ did. And Paul is saying, “I am confident that He who began the work will complete it.” The word perfect means to complete. We think of it being without flaw. It simply means to complete.
Have you heard the little song, “He’s still working on me”? If He who has begun a good work in us, is still at work in us, then why do we belittle His work.
Philippians 2:13: “...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” If we take seriously the fact that we have received Jesus Christ into our lives, and I am speaking to you as believers. We have asked Jesus to come into our lives. If we take seriously that He does respond to our invitation because He promised to do so, and if we give Him a chance, He goes to work. He is at work right now. That is what the Scripture tells us.
He is at work. He takes us seriously. He is at work right now in you. And if God is at work in you then He has taken into account your weaknesses, you inabilities, your inadequacies. He is dealing with your weaknesses as well as your strengths and all parts in between.
In Romans we read He is conforming us to the image of His Son. I think one of the things we really need to understand is that God is at work. He seriously listens to us and on our invitation comes to work in our life.
Why don’t you think of yourself in a team relationship with God. Instead of feeling like we are in competition with others, like we do when we try to compare ourselves with others, think of yourself and Jesus Christ in a cooperative relationship. Rather than running against His workings, cooperate with His workings. He is at work in you today.
Listen, the one who frequently feels inferior is the one who concentrates on the part that isn’t finished rather than on the part that is being completed or has already been set. If Satan can capture us and cause us to look at our weaknesses, or our inadequacies, or our failures, he can wipe us all out.
So often we ask people to serve in some capacity in the church and they will say, “I am not adequate.” As if any of us were adequate. I am not adequate. My life is not up to that level. Well the church thinks so. And one of the ways God speaks is through the church.
Yet, we will say, “No, I don’t feel adequate.” We are concentrating on the failures rather than what God is doing in us. We need to take our attention off of them and think about what God is doing and rejoice with God in that. God is working on you and He is not finished yet.
Do you recall in the passage in 1 Cor. where Paul talks about the body?
READ 1 Cor. 12:12-17
Do you really believe the church is really like a body? And that we all have our part to play in it and that we are all essential and vital and necessary to it? You know when you read this, you get excited because you understand that none of us, none of us can say I am not needed. None of us can say I am not adequate because we are all a part of the body and we all have a vital part to play.
Now one more passage. I want you to turn with me to Psalm 139. The psalmist is talking about his relationship with God. READ 138:13-16
The psalmist is just imagining what it was like to be developed in the womb and the psalmist gets excited and says, “God You did it and I am thankful.” And I was fearfully and wonderfully made and I realize I am a creature from Your hand. Now four things that may help to overcome inferiority. He does it from Psalm 139. Four R’s to make it easy to remember.
Realize you were prescribed before birth. God had you in mind before you ever saw the light of day. He was the one creating you. And He preordained and established His will for your life.
Remember the process is still going on. God is not finished yet. You may get impatient with the process but it is going on and it is going on in His time as we allow Him to work in us.
Realize, Remember, Refuse to compare yourself with others. Stop looking at those around you and start looking at the Lord. There is nothing that will give you greater confidence than that which gave the prophet Amos confidence.
Beyond realizing and remember and refusing. Respond correctly to your shortcomings. Try to change them if you can. If you can’t, pray about them as Paul did. View that scar or defect, not as a cross to endure, but as a unique marking of God on your life.
Do you remember when Jacob struggled with the angel and was hurt in such a way that he limped for the rest of his life? That limp said, “God has touched me.”
Until we can thank God for our shortcomings, for the scars in our lives, we will never conquer the problem of inferiority.
If we are going to get hung up on our limitations, on our inadequacies, we are never going to hear God when He asks us to do something. We are always going to say, “Lord, I can’t do it. Who am I? Lord, I can’t.”
We need to offer all that we are to the Lord; our failures, our frustrations, our defeats, our shortcomings, everything. And let the Lord take those as well as the rest of us and let’s let Him use us as He wants to.
Why not confess your struggles with inferiority to the Lord right now. It really boils down to what you choose to think about yourself. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. And God doesn’t think you are inferior. God thinks you are very special.
He created you in His own image. All He wants is for you to give Him permission to come into your life and go to work in your heart and life. To do a work within you so you can do a work for him out there in the world.
Let’s pray.
