Welcome to the R.E.S.T. Podcast. The R.E.S.T. Conference is designed to refresh, encourage, strengthen, and train the Lord's servants. The messages and lessons you will hear have been taken from the past R.E.S.T. Conferences. It is our prayer that God will use this episode to encourage you in His work. Turn with me again to 2 Corinthians, and we're going to return to this passage one final time. We have marked in our Bible, at least I hope you have, these faint knots. The first and second Corinthians chapter four, verse one, therefore seeing we have this ministry as we've received mercy, we faint not. And then like bookends on this passage, you come to verse number 16, for which calls we faint not. It'd be a great study in scripture to mark all the faint knots of the Bible. Now, for example, way back in the book of Deuteronomy, when Israel was getting ready to go out to battle, God said, Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse number three, let not your hearts be faint. We're in a battle, can we all agree on that? And the tendency and temptation is to faint. Isaiah 40, verse 31, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and what, class? Not faint. Luke chapter 18, verse number one, Jesus said that men ought always to pray and not to faint. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter three, verse number 13. He said, I don't want you to faint at my tribulations for you. Galatians chapter six, verse number nine, he said that we will reap if we, familiar words, right? Faint not. Last evening, we studied that great passage, Hebrews chapter 12, unless you be wearied and faint in your minds, don't faint at the chastening hand of the Lord. So you got all these faint knots in the Bible, but let's just pause for a moment and admit that at times all of us have grown faint. You know, sometimes in meetings, they become almost pep rallies. We were trying to, I hate to use this term, but psych ourselves up. Like, okay, we're gonna get back in the battle, and we're gonna keep moving forward, and we're not gonna faint. But the reality is, there are moments where we do faint. And this is something the Lord recently has really just helped me with, and it is this, that the Lord loves the faint-hearted. For example, do you remember in the Old Testament when David and his men were pursuing and trying to recover all that had been taken from them at Ziklag? And there was a group of men by the brook Besor. The Bible says that they were so faint they could not go over. Everybody remember that? So David left those men there, they pursue, they recover all, they come back to the brook. And there's a group of men in David's army. The Bible identifies them as the sons of Belial. That's pretty strong language. It's like these are the devil's children. Do you remember what they wanted to do? They wanted to keep all of the blessing away from the fainthearted because the fainthearted had not pulled their share. And David said, absolutely not. These men who were so fainthearted, they couldn't go over the brook, they were still heart deep in the battle, and they're going to share in the spoils. Now fast forward to the gospel records and look at Jesus with the multitudes and the disciples saying, they're driving us crazy. Send them away so they can find something to eat. And you remember what the Bible says? The Bible says Jesus had compassion on the multitudes and he said he was concerned that they would faint in the way. And instead, he said, no, we're gonna feed these faint-hearted people. Just wanna remind you that right now we're on a spiritual mountaintop, and everybody's not really thinking a whole lot about fainting, but you might get in your car and get a phone call, or you might get home this evening to a meeting, or you might wake up tomorrow morning to a mess, and you may be tempted to faint. And I just wanna remind you that the Lord loves faint-hearted laborers too. And he has a way of ministering to us most when we are fainthearted. And in this final session, what we're going to do is really do like a 30,000 foot flyover, if you will, of the whole passage because there is a thread woven through all of the scripture we have studied. I don't know if you noticed or not. There is a little theme that keeps being reiterated over and over and over again. In fact, there are seven of them and I'm gonna ask you to mark them in your Bible and write them in your list because this is what we want you to remember as you leave. We want you to not forget what you have. There's a great tendency in our world today to talk about what we don't have. I just don't have the ability to do that. Well, you know, I didn't have that kind of education. Well, you know, he's got those talents and gifts, but I just don't have those talents and gifts. And in my travels with preachers week after week, there's also a temptation to concentrate on what we've lost. Well, those people left. I'm still hearing this. Well, you know, after COVID, I mean, that's been four years, right? So that's gonna be our point of reference forever? By the way, if they didn't come back by now, they're not coming back. And the reality is, they were probably gone before they left. That just revealed it. I hate to be so blunt, but let's get over it. There's a world of billions of souls out there that need Jesus. So we can sit around and talk about what we used to have, what we don't have, what somebody else has, what we've lost that we can't get back, or we can concentrate on what we do have that the devil cannot take and people cannot touch. And that's the spiritual realities. In fact, before I walk you through the passage, could I show you something? Look at verse number 16 again. For which cause we faint not, but though, and would you mark this, our outward man perish. How many of you are living that dream right now? The body decays and things fall apart. That's just, that's life. Our outward man perish. Oh, praise God for the yet. Yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Would you mark the outward man and the inward man? And then come to verse 17. For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Mark in verse 17 a moment and eternal. So in verse 16, you've got outward man, inward man. Verse 17, you've got a moment and you've got the eternal. Come to verse 18, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. In verse 18, Mark, the things which are seen and the things which are not seen. Do you understand that the Lord's servants are always living and laboring in two worlds at the same time? So look at it, in verse 16, you're laboring in a world where you have the outward man, but don't ever forget you also have the inward man. You're laboring in a world, verse 17, where there is light affliction, but you're also laboring in a world where there's an exceeding eternal weight of glory. You're laboring in a world, verse 18, where there are things staring you in the face that you see, and sometimes those can bother you, but you are also laboring in a world of spiritual realities of things you cannot see. There's always two realities. And the question is, which one are you gonna fixate on? The only way the psalmist could say, oh God, my heart is fixed, is because his heart was intentionally, personally, consistently, concentrated, not on his circumstances, but on his God. And so let's look at what we have in the Lord. We'll walk through it back up to chapter three. Here's the first one, verse number four. The Bible says, and such trust have we through Christ to Godward. Number one, would you write this down? Don't forget what you have. First of all, we have trust. The Christian life is a faith life. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. What was the lesson Jesus was always trying to teach the first preachers? Have faith in God. And what does the writer of Hebrews say? Without faith it is impossible to please Him. What does John say? This is the victory that will overcome the world, even our faith. And I think sometimes in our work we forget the faith element. And we're working hard. I'm looking across this room at pastors and staff members and preachers' wives and evangelists and Christian workers, and look, we're not lazy people, we're working at it. How many of you are working at it? You've got stuff to do when you get back home. But don't ever forget that the power is not in your effort, it is in His enabling. And that is accessed not through you trying harder to make it happen and get it done. That happens only through faith. I really thought at some point in the ministry it would get easier. I really did. I thought, I know that was young and dumb, but I thought at some point you learn enough, you get enough experience, you get enough under your belt, and then, you know, you just, you operate in that. And I mean, I always heard you dig a deep well early on, then you draw from it the rest of your ministry. So I had in my mind, at some point it gets easier. How many of you know it's not getting easier? And then I met some older men, very deeply spiritual men, who said to me, Scott, I don't wanna really bust your bubble, but I've had some of my greatest battles and burdens near the end of my ministry. And I thought, how is that possible? May I, could I just remind you of something? God is always going to give you something you have to trust him for. He is never gonna let you get to the place in his work where you can do it without his resources. And that is why everything that drives you to God, everything that makes you pray, Lincoln said at the height of the Civil War, I've been driven to my knees many times by the realization I had nowhere else to go. Everything that brings us low lifts us to God. And so everything in the outer that works on the inner, everything in the temporal that makes us think of the eternal, everything that is light affliction that makes us run to the eternal weight of glory is actually God's gift to every one of us. And so number one, we have the trust. Look at the verse, verse number four. The trust is Godward. It is trust in God, but it is through Christ. Anybody need more faith in God? Concentrate on Jesus. And we've been encouraged in this meeting to do that. But what do we have? Number one, we have trust. By the way, just a footnote before I give you the second one, I was thinking about this this week. Do you remember when Jesus said to Peter, I've prayed for you? He prayed a specific prayer. He prayed that one thing would not fail. What was it that he prayed it would not fail? That his faith would not fail. Isn't that interesting? Did he fail in courage? Yes or no? Yes, he did. By the way, one of the great studies of Scripture is how God's servants most often failed not in the area of their weakness, but in the area of their greatest strength. Moses, meekest man that ever lived, failed in anger. Peter, bold, failed in courage. It's really interesting. All these great men of faith, Elijah, you talk about a man of great faith and boldness to stand up to Ahab and to call down fire on the prophets of Baal and then you see him sitting under a tree asking to die. It's not our weaknesses that are our problems, it's our strengths that are our problems. Someone once said that an unguarded strength is a double weakness. Because if you're not careful, you lean on the strength instead of leaning on the Lord. And so, Peter was courageous, but he failed in that. He was a talker, but he failed in that. I mean, he failed in lots of ways, but I think Jesus got his prayer answered. There was one thing that did not fail, and that was his faith did not fail. And we may fail in lots of areas, but brethren, if you can keep your faith in God and believe Jesus is enough and you have the divine sufficiency, you have everything that you need. Let's get a second one. It's found in chapter three and verse number 12. Notice what the Bible says. Seeing then that we have such hope. So not only do we have trust, but we have hope. And what is the hope? Well, look at the source of it. The source of it is the glory of the gospel. Verse 11, that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. I love the much mores of the Bible. Romans 5 is a great much more chapter. Well, look, when Jesus came, we didn't get back what Adam lost. Blessed be the Lord, we got much more than Adam ever had. Jesus doesn't give you enough to eat by. No, we live in the abundance in Christ. So our hope is the hope of the gospel. But look at the second part of that verse. He said, because of that we use great plainness of speech. If the gospel is the source of the hope, then this is the force of the hope. It causes us to speak with certainty and conviction and clarity. I love that expression, plainness of speech. When you speak, speak plainly. Give a certain sound. You know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. I am hearing so many Christians, and I hate to tell you this, I'm hearing so many preachers speak in unbelief. What are we going to do? We're gonna trust Jesus. Adrian Rogers said, people say, what is this world coming to? He said, it's coming to Jesus. We're not going down. We're going up. And if you're not careful, you can live on a diet of conservative news so long that you start looking at the world through the lens of conservatism instead of the lens of scripture. And that is very dangerous. And I'm going to tell you what it creates. Instead of creating faith in you, it creates anger in you. and frustration in you, and anxiety in you. No, we have great hope. And brothers, sisters, if we have great hope, let's talk like it. Use great plainness of speech. Your speech betrays you. Your mouth tells on your heart, death and life are in the power of the tongue. So if we really have it, let's talk like it. Too many Eeyore ministers today. Everybody remember Eeyore? Everything's bad. Everything on the down note. Something's wrong with that. Lift up your head. Our redemption draweth not. People say, oh, I wish for the good old days. Number one, they probably weren't as good as people made them out to be. And number two, I think we're living at the most exciting time in the history of the world. Do you understand that some generation of Christian workers is gonna be giving out the gospel when the trumpet sounds? We may be on the welcoming committee for the Son of God. I think it's a privilege, a privilege that God would let us live near the end of the story. You're not first century Christians, but you may be the last century Christians. Now imagine meeting Jesus with that and kneeling at the nail pierced feet of the Son of God next to an army of martyrs through the ages and telling Jesus what a hard time we had with our culture. Something's wrong with that. It's time for us to use great plainness of speech. And I'm not talking about just being an optimist instead of a pessimist. Let's survey. How many optimists are among us? Would you raise your hand, you optimists? That's good. How many pessimists are here? Come on now, you pessimists. How many of you like to think of yourself as a realist, somewhere between the two? My wife says that I'm the unrealistic optimist. I always think it's gonna be better than it's gonna be. But I'm not talking, look, when we talk about hope, I'm not talking about your optimism or your pessimism. I'm talking about the fact if the gospel is true, and it is still the power of God and the salvation, and God's still on the throne, and Christ is still building his church, and the Holy Ghost is still with us, then we ought to speak with hope and certainty. Don't forget what you have. Let's get a third one. Look at chapter four and verse number one. Therefore, seeing, here's the third one, we have this ministry. So we have trust and we have hope and now, number three, we have not just a ministry, no, no, no, look at it very carefully, we have, what's the Bible say? This ministry, might I say? It's not yours, it's his. And it's not many things, it's one thing. They asked Mr. Moody, they said, how did you get so many things done? He said, because I live by this motto, this one thing I do, not these many things I dabble in. They asked Prime Minister Gladstone at the end of his time, how did you get so much accomplished in the kingdom? And he said one word, concentration. You know what we've gotta do? We've gotta get back to concentrating on this ministry. You know what the context of this passage is? Gospel ministry. Now, look, I'm an evangelist. I'm giving myself to the work of the gospel, and some men are called of God to do that, but all of us are to do the work of an evangelist. We got to get back to sounding the gospel note, friends. In a world of bad news, people are looking for good news right now. We can give it to them if we have it. This is our ministry. Some people say, well, you know, our ministry is kinda like this, and our ministry is this. Well, this is my ministry, what's your ministry? That's nonsense. This ministry is definite, and it is divine. This ministry is specific, and it is the ministry of the spirit of the living God. As a matter of fact, back up to the last verse in chapter number three, and then read into chapter four. We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry. You understand this is not our work, it's the Holy Ghost work, and we just get in on it. So take some pressure off, would you? You don't have to make it happen. You don't have to get it done. That's not your job. That's not my job. My job is simply to, with great plainness of speech, give the gospel, preach the Bible, point people to Jesus, and when you do that in faith, the Holy Spirit will do the rest of the work. We are laborers together with God. Isn't that glorious? You're in the yoke with Jesus. You remember Mark chapter 16, he said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And the Bible says, they went everywhere preaching the word. And then it says this, oh, this has helped me so much, the Lord working with them. Isn't it great to be on the Lord's work crew? He's the foreman of this crew. We're not the boss of this crew. This is not my crew to manage. He's the manager. I work for him. And if that's true, it's his ministry, not my ministry. The results are in his hands, not mine. My responsibility is just do what he's given me to do. So what do we have? Number one, we have trust. Number two, we have hope. Number three, we have this ministry. Number four, look at verse one again, we have mercy. Would you write down somewhere that all ministry is mercy? It's all undeserved and unmerited, that ministry is received, not earned? And I'm gonna tell you when we have the hardest time remembering that, after we've been in it for a while. When God first called me to preach as a boy, I was so overwhelmed that God would let me be in the ministry. I remember preaching with a tender heart and with tears because, number one, I was scared to death, and number two, I was just in awe that the Lord would let me be a preacher. How many of you know what I'm talking about? I'm gonna tell you the danger for all of us that after a while, you get a little education, you get a little understanding, you learn how to give a sermon, you learn how to do certain things in ministry, and somewhere you become a religious robot. and you're going through all the motions, and you're saying all the right things, and you're doing all the right things, but something is missing. It's not that you don't have the ministry. You still have the ministry, because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. God put you into the ministry, but I'm gonna tell you what you're missing right now. You're missing mercy, and do you know why you're missing mercy right now? It's not because God doesn't offer it, because God's mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness, and the mercy of the Lord endureth forever. You're not operating in mercy right now, because you're thinking that it's all about you instead of all about him. and at some point we can start to think, maybe we earned this, maybe we deserve this, maybe we deserve more, maybe we deserve better. Never forget, the only thing any of us deserve is hell. It's all mercy, people. It's mercy for the messengers. It's mercy for the ministers. It's mercy in our weakness, and it's mercy for our work. It is all mercy. Every time I get to stand and open the Bible and open my mouth and give the message of Jesus, I'm not just preaching mercy to them. I'm experiencing mercy myself at that moment. It'd be good if all of us reminded ourselves of that. This week in my study and reading I noticed something, maybe you've noticed it, I had never paid any attention to it. You take all the Pauline letters, all of the letters of Paul, Almost without exception, they all start the same way. He gives an opening prayer that was sort of a common greeting among the first century Christians. All of them. I'm talking about Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, the first and second letters to Thessalonica. Take all of the letters of Paul to churches, they all start the same way. You know it, right? He prays for two things. He prays for Grace, and he prays for peace. And by the way, there's a divine order there. We got a world of people trying to find peace without grace, and you don't get it that way. You gotta have grace if you wanna have peace. This week, I noticed something. There are three letters Paul wrote, not to a church, but to individual preachers. That's 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Did you know that only those three letters, he adds something to his opening prayer? Hold your place, just hold your place. Take a detour with me for a second. Flip over to 1 Timothy chapter one and verse number one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, read it with me, would you please? Grace, mercy, and peace. What does he add? Sandwiched between grace and peace, what is it? Turn to 2 Timothy chapter one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son, read it please, grace, mercy, and peace. Interesting. Once more, look at Titus chapter number one, because it wasn't just for Timothy, it was for every preacher he wrote to individually. Now look at Titus chapter one verse four. To Titus, mine own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace. How many of you find it's really interesting that there are only three letters that Paul inserted mercy and all three of them were not addressed to churches collectively but preachers individually? Would you write this down somewhere? We need more mercy than anybody. Nobody in the church needs more mercy than the preacher does. Do you understand how unworthy we are to speak the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ? Stand in awe of who God is, that God would count us faithful, putting us into the ministry. We have mercy for the ministry God has given us. Go back with me to our text. Look at verse number seven. Let's add another one. We have trust, we have hope, we have this ministry, we have mercy. Look at verse number seven. We've studied it already today, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We have this treasure. What is this treasure? Well, we know by now it's Christ. It's Christ. It's all Christ. More of Jesus and less of me. He must increase, I must decrease. Look at the passage around that statement. In verse six, it's Christ's light in us. In verse seven, it's Christ's power in us. In verse 10 and 11, it's Christ's life in us. In other words, it's all Christ. I'm gonna tell you what that does. It takes a whole lot of pressure off. I was probably maybe 24, 25. Tammy and I were serving at the Temple Baptist Church and Crown College and having a great time. I was learning a lot. And we were running hard. We were working in lots of different ministries and helping with lots of things. And I just started traveling some preaching And I reached a point of just utter, I started to say exhaustion, but it wasn't physical, it was exasperation. I was spent, I was spent, not just physically, it was what a good night's rest wouldn't fix. I was mentally spent, emotionally and spiritually. I look back now and realize that was the Lord working for me. Young preachers have a tendency to lean on gifts or abilities. And I was at the end of it. And I was tired, spiritually tired. I couldn't even put it into words. Somebody gave me a copy of a book Charles Stanley had written on the wonderful spirit-filled life. And I remember some about the book, but what I really remember about the book is in the opening chapter, maybe even the forward of the book, he referenced an old book called They Found the Secret by V. Raymond Edmond. Edmond was a missionary statesman. He was the last really good president at Wheaton College. I just met a woman the other day who knew something about Edmond's ministry, and he actually died in the chapel pulpit. He was literally talking about seeing Jesus. They said he staggered and fell over and was dead before he hit the carpet, and I thought, man, that's the way to go right there, you know? Lord, I was just talking about you a minute ago. Might not be good for the crowd, but it was really good for the preacher, you know? So he wrote this book called They Found the Secret, and I thought, oh, that's interesting. My Uncle James has been in the Lord's work now for more than half a century. Pastor of the same church, 52 years, is a real book man, and in the providence of God, about two weeks after I read that, I was walking through his study one day. I was here in North Carolina, and on his desk, he has a little rotating thing where he keeps things, journals he uses each day, and Bibles, and that kind of thing. And there was an old book on it, and I picked it up and looked at the spine, and it said, They Found the Secret. And I said to him, I just heard about this book. I said, do you like this book? And I'll never forget, James teared up a little bit. He said, actually, he said, I read a little bit from that every day. And I thought, maybe the Lord's trying to tell me something here. It was out of print at the time, and I found an old copy of it, ordered it from a used bookstore, and it came in just before I left for a trip to Washington State where we were gonna conduct a regional youth meeting. And I got on that plane for that long flight, and I sat down and settled in. And I've got to tell you, I was trying to get my mind around what I was supposed to preach and teach that week, but I was just so empty. It wasn't that my mind wasn't full of things, my heart was empty. Anybody else know what I'm talking about? This morning, just in the Prophets of God, this morning I was reading E.M. Bounds. E.M. Bounds said that the mind is the channel, but the heart is the fountain. And too many times, preachers work really hard at broadening the channel when they should be working to deepen the fountain. I thought that was really good. And I realized God was trying to deepen the fountain. I'm reading this book, and it was the life story of, I think, 20 different Christians in history who all found the secret of the spirit-filled life of Christ within. And I was reading the account of Hudson Taylor and how God brought him to the end of himself and how that glorious verse, Galatians 2, verse number 20, came alive in his life, not I, but Christ. And I can't explain it to you, but it was like a light came on. It wasn't some euphoric experience, it was just something clicked. I remember getting to where I was going and they took me to my room and I, in that hotel room, I've shared this a time or two recently, but I really have never talked much about it because of how deeply personal and intimate it was for me, but in that hotel room, God, God met me in that room. And God brought me to a place of deepened understanding that I feel like I'm still going deeper into all the time, and it is this. We lean so much on what we can do and what we have to say and what we think, but really the power comes from recognizing what God put in you on the day of your salvation. and what God put in you on the day that He called you and commissioned you into this work. Look, friends, everybody's looking for the next bestseller. Everybody's looking for the next great formula. Everybody's looking for the next thing they can get a hold of that'll really make the difference. I came to tell you, you already have Him. He lives inside of you. And it's sad, really, to live your whole life and labor your whole ministry without recognizing that you already have what you need. It's like the story of Ali Hafed who sold his farm and went off on a lifelong quest in search of diamonds to spend the rest of his miserable existence crisscrossing the globe, finally took his own life at the bay in Barcelona, Spain, never found a single diamond. And the sad, tragic ending of the story was that Ali Hafed's farm was actually the largest discovery of a diamond mine in the history of the world. The great diamond mine of Golconda. If the man had just stayed home and looked and searched around what he already had, he would have discovered everything he spent his whole life looking for. And I think we've got a whole generation of ministers that are looking for something that is like the magic bullet, the secret sauce. We have him. He lives within. Don't forget what you have. Let's add another one. We have trust, and we have hope, and we have this ministry, and we have mercy, and we have this treasure. Number six, we have, verse 13, the same spirit of faith. Somebody say, well, I thought you already talked about trust and faith. I did, but notice the emphasis here is on the fellowship of that faith. Look at it. We have the same spirit of faith. You should mark that word same. Same as who? Same as all of God's people. This is what we have in common. Write down this reference in the margin of your Bible next to that verse. Psalm 116 and verse number 10. This is so good for me just to realize this. Do you understand that when Paul wrote 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he was meditating on Scripture? Let that sink in just a minute. He's meditating on Scripture. We know that because he quotes it. Do you know one of the things that will put fresh strength in you? Daily meditation in the Word. I'm not talking about simple Bible reading, and I'm certainly not just talking about studying for sermons. I'm talking about actual meditation on the truth of the word of God, and letting that get into your spirit, and talking to God about what God is trying to say to you. Just go to Psalm 116 for a second. Put your eyes on it. We don't know exactly who wrote Psalm 116, but whoever it is is having a hard time. Look at Psalm 116. There's death and tears and all kinds of things in this passage, but it's testifying about God's faithfulness to him. Look at verse number 10. I believed, therefore have I spoken. That's the part that gets quoted in 2 Corinthians. Look at the rest of the verse. I was greatly afflicted. Anybody ever lived in the second half of that verse? Matter of fact, it gets worse. Look at the next verse. I said in my haste, all men are liars. How many of you have ever lived that verse? Can't trust anybody. I love the next verse. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? We need to talk less of men and more of God. Pastors used to say to us, discouraged people always overstate their problems. When you are discouraged, don't call everybody. There may be somebody you need to call. Don't post everything you think. When you are low, that is not the time to speak out of unbelief. No, that's the time to run to the Lord and remind yourself, wait a minute, I got the Lord. If I got the Lord, I got everything that I need. On our way back, stop in Psalm 119 just a minute, would you please? This is the great Psalm of the Scriptures, and it is rich and wonderful, but look at the little section that is verse 49 to 56. You have this divided up by the Hebrew alphabet, Verse 49 to 56 all goes together. At verse 50, there's affliction. Verse 51, there's derision. Verse 53, there's horror. Verse 54, there's pilgrimage. Verse 55, there's night. Somebody said, I thought you were gonna leave us on an encouraging note, this is depressing. Look at the last verse, look at verse 56. This I what? Had, don't forget what you have. This I had because I kept thy precepts. Do you understand that in the word of God you have everything that you need to live and labor in victory? In the affliction, in the derision, in the horror, in the pilgrimage, in the night? No, you have all that you need in the Lord because we have the same spirit of faith. And so, it's rooted in God's word and it comes out in our words. Go back to 2 Corinthians, you'll see that he said, we have in the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken, we also believe and therefore speak. I wanna say to you, as we're getting ready to leave here, go home and speak this way. Go home and talk to your people about the great hope we have. Go home and call people's attention to the glory of the gospel. Go home and make much of Jesus. Go home and speak out of the hope that has been renewed in your own soul. If you really believe it, speak about it. And then, let's get one more. Chapter five, verse one. Remember, chapter and verse divisions are not inspired. When you come through chapter four, which we've studied, look at chapter five. We have eternity. Think of this people, all of this and heaven too. Notice he doesn't speak in the future tense, we will have. What does it say? We what? You have a mansion right now waiting you. You have a new body right now prepared for you. You have unspeakable glory and joy awaiting you. You have rewards already reserved for you at the judgment seat of Christ. We have much to look forward to. Sometimes people say, I think the greatest days of my ministry are behind me now. Friend, the greatest day you're ever going to live is the day you see Jesus face to face. which means it doesn't matter how old you are, how low you are, how long you've been in this, how difficult it is, your greatest days are still ahead of you. We have eternity. Let's end in a different scripture. Go to 2 Peter with me just for a moment, would you? We've been studying what Paul had to say, but it's interesting that Peter came to the same conclusions. Don't miss what you have. Look at 2 Peter 1. Verse number three, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things. Does your Bible say all things? All things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." Would you mark that phrase? We have all things that pertain to life and godliness. You've got all the promises of God. You've got all the power of God. You've got all you need if you've got God. And today, as you head back to the work God has given you to do, instead of concentrating On who you don't have and what you don't have, concentrate on who you do have and what you do have in Him. Don't forget what you have. I had a friend, a pastor in South Florida. who had a daughter who was just a gracious Christian woman and sweet Christian and she loved people and she loved ministering to neighbors and the neighborhood and the community and there was a woman in their community that had a lot of physical and mental situations and she needed regular attention and faring back and forth to the doctor's office and to the hospital and this young pastor's daughter took it upon herself to make that her ministry. And so she would run the taxi service. She was like the Lord's Uber, that's what she was, carting this woman around. And the woman really didn't have much, but she knew that my friend's daughter loved to cook. And so every week or so when this precious Christian lady would take the neighbor woman to the doctor, to the hospital, she would give her a cookbook. She got a regular cookbook every time, cookbook, cookbook. My friend's relaying this to me, and he laughed. He said the bad thing was, he said that the lady that she was ministering to, he said she was precious, but he said she had a very distinct odor about her. She didn't smell good, and so the cookbooks all smelled like that too. And he said, so my daughter just had a habit, she didn't wanna throw them away, but she had a habit when she got back to the house, she had a shelf in the garage and she'd just stick the cookbooks on the shelf and let them air out a little bit, you know. And she said, after months of this, he said, after months of this, he said, my daughter had a whole shelf of these cookbooks, just a big, long shelf of cookbooks sitting in the garage. And one day, as she was putting another cookbook on the shelf, the one on the other end, the first one fell off. When the cookbook fell off, a nice, crisp $50 bill fell out of the cookbook. And she thought to herself, huh, maybe that woman forgot she had put some of her money in that book, and she picked it up, and she thought, I wonder, and she grabbed another cookbook, it opened up, found a $50 bill in it, and another cookbook, a $50 bill in it. There were dozens and dozens of these cookbooks, and in every one of them, she found a crisp $50 bill. And my friend said to me with a laugh, he said, isn't it funny that she almost missed what had been given to her and was right in front of her all along because she just didn't even take time to open the books. I think for some of us who, we spend a lot of time in this, don't we, for others. I mean, Sunday's coming, can I get a witness there? And some of you, while you're listening to the sessions this week, you're already thinking, you know, gotta get the outline, gotta get, hmm, there's a thought I might could develop. And we're always thinking, aren't we, always working on the next thing to give somebody else. You know what we need? We need to open the book for ourselves again. That's what we've tried to do this week with just one passage of scripture and say, look here, don't miss what you have. Don't miss the treasure. Look, it's much better than a $50 bill. It is eternal riches in Christ Jesus. And it's all you need. If you're going to go home and not faint, don't miss what you have. Thank you for listening. The Rest Conference takes place around Labor Day each year on the campus of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hickory, North Carolina. To access more resources, visit our website, therestconference.com, or follow us on social media.