How many of you had a good Lord's Day? Would you raise your hand? In this, rejoice not. but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. How many of you ever have a difficult Lord's Day? Would you raise your hand, please? You know, the great thing about being a Christian is no matter how the sermon goes, you're still saved. That's right, good, right? It was Martin Lloyd-Jones that told a group of young preachers, you boys better find something to rejoice in besides your own sermons. And then he went on to say, because someday you may not be able to preach those sermons, but there will never be a day that we don't belong to Jesus and He doesn't belong to us. I'm glad to know Jesus, aren't you? And I'm so glad we get to spend these days together. For me and my wife, this is something we look forward to every year. not just to speaking in it but to having our own hearts ministered to and the fellowship of God's people and we're going to have a great time in the Word. Now, every year we choose a theme and the idea behind that is that there is a point of emphasis, something that you can carry home with you and this year the theme, you see already, is we faint not. It comes directly from Paul's writing in 2 Corinthians, and I want you to open your Bible with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 as we begin this particular conference. And once you find 2 Corinthians 4, get you something to write on. We've given you something, I think, and something to write with because I'm going to ask you to write a number of things down tonight, and I hope you'll do that in every session. The theme comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse number 1. It's a great verse. Paul says, therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. You might want to take your pen and mark the last three words of verse number one, we faint not, and right in the margin of your Bible, verse number 16, because this is really a beautiful thing, he repeats those same three words later in the same chapter. So in verse one and in verse 16, you have this divine repetition, we faint not. Now the reality is all of us have moments when we get weary and we are tempted to faint. Can I get a witness there, yes? There are moments when you think, I can't put one foot in front of another, I can't get up and preach, I can't go to this meeting, I can't deal with these people, I can't, you fill in the blank. But the reality is, if the God who gave us the ministry also gives us the mercy, then that means the Lord is gonna give you what you need at every moment to do the work He has called you to do. If God calls you, God equips you. And the equipping does not all come at one time. You get the idea, maybe, that there'll be some magical moment in ministry where you get everything you're going to need for the rest of your ministry. I would argue you do theologically because you've got all the Holy Spirit you're ever going to receive. But moment by moment, as you learn to depend upon Him, God gives you fresh enablings so that you can do the work He wants you to do. And this is the real irony of the Lord's work. The longer you are in it, the weaker you feel. When I started preaching as a kid preacher, I thought I had all the answers. And early on, working for a pastor as a staff member and staying there all those years, I thought I knew certain things. And even when I went into evangelism, I thought I had a certain understanding. And this is really interesting to me, but the longer I'm in God's work, the more ignorant I feel. How many of you are with me on that? And not only the more ignorant, the more incapable I feel. In fact, there's so many days now where I think I don't know what to do, and if I did know what to do, I don't have the strength to do it. And here's what I'm realizing more and more. That is a very good place to be. Because the end of us is the beginning of Him. And when you get to the end of yourself, the divine resources really begin to become a reality in your life. Now, the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians, I would call Paul's manifesto of ministry. I wish we had time to study all of it. We're going to study a good portion of it over the next three days, but I want to begin in this first session back a few verses. So, go back in your Bible from our theme verse into chapter number two, if you will. We're going to jump right in the middle of Paul's description of the ministry he is in. In fact, let's begin in verse number 14. Now, thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet saver of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish, to the one we're the saver of death unto death, to the other the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men, forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart, and such trust have we through Christ to Godward. And I'd like you to read verse five out loud with me. Ready? Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. I want you to take your pen and mark two things. In chapter 2, verse number 16, I'd like you to mark the question at the end of the verse, who is sufficient for these things? And of course, the resounding answer to that is, no one is sufficient for these things. If Paul did not think himself sufficient, if Paul had no confidence in the flesh, then may I ask you a question, why on earth do we think we are sufficient for these things? And this is what's so beautiful. The Holy Spirit not only records His question, He records the divine answer. Connect chapter 2 and verse number 16 to chapter 3 and verse number 5. And notice the emphasis here on the sufficiency. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves, but this is the great text I want to talk to you about. Our sufficiency is of God. The longer you're in the Lord's work, the older you get, and the more you have to deal with, the more you realize that there is an end to us. But blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no end to our God. If He's really the infinite God, and there is no searching to His understanding, and there's no plumbing the depths of His wisdom, and there is no exhausting of His power, then the ministry does not depend on my weak, feeble attempt to make it happen and get it done and press it forward. No, instead, it depends entirely on the sufficiency of Almighty God. And I gotta tell you, that is tremendously encouraging to me. In fact, let me show you the context of the whole discussion. Back up to the early verses of chapter number two, and notice what it's all about. I'm not gonna read it all, but just scan the first 11 verses. If you just breeze over the first 11 verses, he's dealing with a bunch of Corinthian Christians who are a little out of sorts. He's dealing with a man who has fallen and gotten in trouble, and in the midst of all of that, if you look at verse number 11, he's trying to keep the devil from getting his foot in the door. How many of you think that sounds like your ministry? So we're dealing with people and we're dealing with problems, and it is not just relational, it is spiritual. Look, if it was just people, that'd be one thing. But you're not just dealing with people, you're dealing with the devil. And when you think, well, there's conflict, remember this, that is never just personality, there is always spiritual warfare going on. And he says, we're trying not to let Satan get the advantage of us. Then look at verse number 12, furthermore, When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord." So stop just a minute. Look what all he's dealing with. In the first 11 verses, he's dealing with problems, and in verse number 12, he's dealing with opportunity. There's open doors. Isn't it strange how at the same time there's conflict, there's opportunity? That sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? A great door and effectual is opening to me, and there are many adversaries. Dr. Bob Jones Sr. used to say that the door of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition. The reality is, if any good thing's going on at your place for God, and people are gonna be reached with the gospel, don't think the devil's gonna like it. He's gonna poke his ugly head up and do everything he can to stop it. So the opportunity and the opposition always go together. And then, on top of that, you got yourself to deal with. Look at the next verse. Verse number 13. I had no rest in my spirit. Some of you say, that's my testimony. That's exactly where I am. This is a rest conference. But let's get real for a minute. There are lots of times in the Lord's work we have no rest in our spirit. Sometimes you can't even put your finger on it. It's not physical. You take a nap, you don't feel better. You take a vacation, it didn't help. You think I need to back off some of these responsibilities? If I could just, I know, I know what it is. If I could just get another staff member, that would fix everything. No, it would not. The sufficiency isn't self. The sufficiency isn't staff. The sufficiency is not your spouse. Sometimes people say, well, you know, if he would do better, if she would do more. Stop putting the burden on another broken person. You really think two broken people can make everything complete? The burden's not on me and the burden's not on her, the burden's on Jesus. And I think sometimes we get so restless in our spirit and we think, I don't know what's wrong, we just need a change, that's what we need, we need a change. Maybe if I move to a different place, maybe if I have a different assignment in ministry, maybe if I can get out from under this junk, things will get better. Number one, if you get out from under that junk, you're just gonna have something other junk to deal with. I was sitting in the auditorium of the Temple Baptist Church years ago on a weekday afternoon and I was having a hard day. We were dealing with lots of things at that time, and in the middle of it. And I was scheduled to preach somewhere that night, and I was sitting in that auditorium because I thought no one could find me there. Most of the lights were out, and I'm just sitting off on one of the wings by myself. And to be honest with you, I was talking to the Lord, but I was sulking a little bit. And Pastor Sexton came in, one of the far doors. He was headed back to a little studio room that he had where he did some recording and he was walking along and he spotted me and I spotted him and he made a little detour and came left and came over and sat down next to me and didn't say anything for a minute or two. He knew exactly what we were dealing with that day and people and things to deal with, always things to deal with. I will never forget that conversation. He said, well, when he finally spoke, he said, well, he said, I guess you're probably sitting here thinking, If you didn't have all this mess to deal with today, you could really concentrate on preaching tonight. I said, actually, that was what I was sitting here thinking. He said, Scott, it's the exact opposite. He said, tonight, when you go to preach, he said, you will preach different because of what you have had to deal with by God's grace today. And he said, when you preach tonight, it won't be you. It will be the divine enabling. And he said, you only find that when you get to these moments. I've never forgotten that conversation. Who is sufficient for these things? Not that we're sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves, but, praise God, our sufficiency is of God. Now wait a minute, we all say we believe that. We all give mental assent and a hearty amen and say, that's right, preacher. But the reality is, in the midst of the messes, it's hard to remember that. Matter of fact, look at the rest of verse number 13. Why was he restless? He said, I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus my brother, but taking my leave of him, I went from them into Macedonia. He's concerned for the church, but there's a very human aspect here. Don't miss the humanity of the Apostle Paul. We look at a man like this and say, what a mighty man of God. And sometimes we try to put up that persona, you know, like we got it all together. You preachers, you're human too. And preacher's wives are human, and sometimes you get lonely, and sometimes you get sad, and sometimes you get disappointed, and sometimes Titus doesn't show up when you wish he'd show up, and sometimes things are falling apart at the church, and you think, I don't even know what I'm going to do. And that is the very moment when God Almighty reveals His great sufficiency. That's the context of what we're studying. So scan the verses a minute. Verses one through 11, you've got problems. Verse 12, you've got opportunity. Verse 13, you've got no rest in the Spirit. Look at the first word of verse number 14. After all of that, what's the first word, class? What is it? That's where you gotta live. You gotta live in the now. And you gotta labor in the now. And you gotta work through the now. So many people miss what's staring them in the face, because they're wishing things will get better someday. And I think somewhere in the future, listen to me, God didn't call you to live in the future, God called you to live in the now. And our God is not a future tense God, he's a present tense God, his name is I Am, and he is a very present help in time of trouble. And I love this, I just love the fact that in the midst of the restlessness, he finds the divine sufficiency. And before I walk you through the passage, let me show you something. Go back one page in your Bible to chapter number one, because there's a lot going on in this man's ministry. Look at verse number eight, he describes it a little bit, he's not whining, but he writes in verse eight, for we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. You ever been there? I think I'm gonna die under this burden. I can't live like this. Look at verse nine, but we had the sentence of death in ourselves that, We should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the dead. Somebody said, I feel like a dead man. Well, he specializes in that. Somebody said, I think it's all dying. Well, he brings dead things to life. Ben Sabner said, when you get to the bottom, you find out the foundation's still there. Every now and then, the Holy Ghost will just, psst, let all the air out of your balloon. let you hit a wall, fall flat, call it whatever you want to call it, come to the end of yourself, exhausted, mentally spent, emotionally worn out, physically tired, spiritually drained, and you just throw up your hands like the psalmist and say, I'm at wit's end, and I think heaven applauds and says, good. Because that's where God does his greatest work. I have no idea who I'm talking to, but I guarantee you there are people in the Lord's work in this room right now you feel like even the props have been knocked out for money, all the crutches are gone, people you leaned on and things that were certain and circumstances you thought would never change and suddenly it's all changing. Do you know what that is? That is God's gift to you because that humbles us and it reminds us don't lean on your own understanding, don't lean on others, lean on Jesus because our sufficiency is of God. Show you one more scripture, go over to chapter seven. This is really interesting. You should connect our text that we just read in chapter number three, that no rest in his spirit waiting on Titus, to chapter seven and verse five. For when we were coming to Macedonia, our flesh had, ah, does that look familiar? What's it say? No rest. Why? But we were troubled on every side. You should mark this in your Bible. Without were fightings, within were fears. How many of you know there's external battles and internal battles? And by the way, sometimes the worst battles are the ones nobody knows about. They're not always the outside enemies. Sometimes it's the fear on the inside. Isn't that right? Oh, but thank the Lord for the next two words in verse six. Nevertheless, God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus. Notice, he thought he'd get rest simply by Titus showing up, but I love this. When he records Titus's arrival, he points out it wasn't Titus that gave him the rest, it was God who gave him the rest. God may use many channels, but there's only one source, friends. And by the way, God still knows where you are. He has his eye on you, his ear open to your prayer, he has every hair on your head numbered, he's not failed you to this moment, he's not about to start right now. God is going to meet you right on time in the midst of the fighting and in the midst of the fears, our God is all sufficient. And so we return to our text and I wanna show you three great things that the Lord shows us as the sufficiency we draw from. Let's start here. Look at verse 14. Now, thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. Would you mark in verse 14 Christ? And somewhere right down, first of all, we have the sufficiency of Christ. It was Spurgeon who said, when I discovered the sufficiency of Christ, I realized the absurdity of doubt. The truth is, all of us are trying to get the people we minister to to believe God, and sometimes we're not very strong in faith, are we? I wish I had time to take you to the end of 2 Corinthians, but you know the passage. We're in chapter 12, where God looks at him and says, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. We love to be strong. Look, I've never one morning gotten out of bed and said, dear Lord, make me weak today. I wake up and say, Lord, give me strength today. How many of you pray that prayer? But sometimes God will give you weakness. Do you know why God gives you weakness? God gives you weakness because he doesn't want you in your strength, he wants you in his strength, and sometimes the only way to get you to his strength is first he has to get you to your weakness. So you get to the place where you can't. You can't figure it out, you can't fix it, you can't talk your way through it, you can't make it happen, but this is the moment where you discover the sufficiency of Christ. Look at this verse, verse 14. What does he do? In the midst of his restlessness, he gives God thanks. He turns prayer into praise. Instead of complaining, he begins to give God thanks. Remember, God inhabits the praises of his people. I found for me, when I don't feel spiritual, when I don't feel like praising, I most need to do it. And sometimes you just need to stop and say, thank you, Jesus, that I'm never going to hell. And thank you, Lord, if it all falls apart tomorrow, I'm still your child. And thank you, Lord, that though the sermon didn't go like I hoped it would, your word will not return into your void. I mean, sometimes you gotta stop lecturing everybody else and just thank God yourself that Christ is enough. I mean, is he enough or not? And He's not just enough for lost people, He's enough for preachers, He's enough for time and for eternity, for saints and for sinners. In fact, look at the sufficiency of Christ. In verse number 14, He is sufficient at all times. The Bible says, thanks be unto God, which always calls us to triumph. Does your Bible say always? So at all times, even in difficult seasons, even when you don't feel like it, even when things don't look good, Jesus is enough. Look at the verse again, He's sufficient in every place. Look at the end of the verse. the saver of his knowledge by us in every place. That certainly means geographically. As an itinerant preacher, I'm grateful to God for that. But I think it means more than that. I think it means circumstantially. Sometimes you're up here and sometimes you're down here. But wherever you are, Jesus is, and Jesus is more than enough. And then look at the two verses that follow. He's not only sufficient for every time and every place, he's sufficient for every person. Everybody you're going to ever minister to is found in verse 15 or verse 16. They are either those who are saved or they are those who are perishing. You're either dealing with saved people or you're dealing with lost people. Is that right? Well, this is so wonderful. Jesus will be more than enough for both of them. What does this mean? It means preachers have to go back to simplicity, the simplicity that is in Christ. It means that you gotta live consciously in the presence of Jesus yourself and believe that Christ is gonna be more than enough for you, that you're drawing from his sufficiency every day. May I just challenge you? Don't get in such of the mechanics of ministry that you lose your own passionate love for Jesus Christ. Do you remember why you got in the ministry to start with? I mean, did you get in the ministry to build buildings? Did you get in the ministry to write bulletins? Did you get in the ministry just to deliver sermons? Did you get in the ministry to counsel people? Or did you get in the ministry because you loved Jesus and you wanted to serve Jesus with your life? I'll tell you what kept Paul at center, it was Christ. It was all Christ. And then you not only live in that sufficiency, you labor out of that sufficiency, meaning that at every turn you must point people to Jesus. Let me testify for a moment. As an evangelist, one of the great temptations in different places every week is to try to preach something people have never heard before. And for me, I've had to die to that. And maybe this is not true in your place, but people bring in an evangelist or a special speaker, they want him to hit a home run, whatever that means. They want him to preach the greatest sermon he's ever preached. How many of you know no preacher preaches the greatest sermon they've ever preached every time they preach? But actually you can, because the greatest sermon you ever preach is Christ. And for me, if I can do nothing else but point somebody to Jesus, that's enough. And by the way, it's liberating. I don't have to preach a good sermon. I don't have to impress you people. No. Nobody's gotta brag on it when it's done. All I've gotta do is one thing. I've gotta point people to the sufficiency of Christ and believe that Jesus is enough and that will meet the needs that I don't even know about. And though I preach on lots of different subjects and lots of different texts, my favorite thing to talk about is Jesus. And I'm gonna tell you why. Because when you start talking about Jesus, the Holy Ghost speaks up. Because that's what he wants to talk about too. And when you start lifting up Christ, I'm not trying to be spooky or mystical, it's spiritual and it's powerful. God does what no preacher on earth can do and nobody says the preacher did it. Everybody's talking about Jesus and I think that's the way it's supposed to be. a few weeks ago. I rarely get sick, and I thank God for that, the Lord's helped me stay healthy on the road, but I came down with something, only Jesus knows what it was, some plague that I got somewhere, and I was scheduled to speak in a church on that Sunday, it was the oldest Baptist church in the state of Tennessee, it was their big anniversary day, and it was gonna be a great day, and everybody's excited, and lots of visitors coming, and Tammy and I drove down on Saturday, and I just wasn't with the program, I just wasn't with it. You ever had a Saturday like that? And we got there about eight o'clock that night and went into the place where we were staying. I'm unloading things from the car. And I said to Tammy, where's my briefcase? And I'd left it at home. I didn't have a Bible with me. And so I called the pastor and I said, this is kind of awkward, but do you have a Bible I could use tomorrow? He said, sure. I was glad he was an authorized version man, that was very good. And so I get back to the house and get my thoughts together, and I was preaching to a new pastor of scripture, new for me to preach to, and I was really excited about it, and I'm trying to get it in my heart and mind, because it sure don't have the notes now, you know. I went to bed, and I got up the next morning, and they had a very early service, 8.30, 8.40, something like that. It's hard to feel spiritual at 8.30 on a Sunday morning, you know. And I didn't feel good, and mentally I was foggy, and I've got this Bible that I've never used before, and I'm trying to get ready, and I got dressed, and I went to put my shoes on, and I said to Tammy, Lord, help me. She said, what? I said, I have no socks. She said, what? She said, you really don't feel good, do you? I said, no. I was just out of sync, you know, I stay packed pretty much most of the time. So now I gotta call the preacher again and say, this is really weird, but do you have a pair of socks I could use today? I started to be the cool pastor, you know, with a really nice suit and shiny shoes and no socks, and I thought, man, that's probably not the best thing to do. And I preached all day long in another man's socks with another man's Bible. And really, I didn't feel good most of the day. And God gave us one of the most amazing Sundays. And it was a very humbling thing for me. Because it reminded me, Paulie, it's not you. You just get to be there. You're the messenger boy, that's it. Because our sufficiency is of God. So first you got the sufficiency of Christ, and you say, oh, that's wonderful, thank God for Jesus. By the way, look at this, I gotta show you this word in verse 14. Thanks be unto God, which always calls us to triumph in Christ. Would you circle the word triumph there? The word that he uses was a word the Romans understood very well in that empire. It was a word used when the emperor came back from a battle, and he had won the victory, and he's carrying the spoils, and he's got the hostages The captive's coming along behind him, and the throngs have met him at the gate of the city, and the city gates go up, and everybody's singing, and the trumpets are blowing, and the soldiers are shouting because he has triumphed. He has conquered. Oh, this has helped me. Look at that verse. The Bible says, we're more than conquerors to him that loved us. He always calls us to triumph in Christ. You say, well, I don't feel that way. This has nothing to do with your feelings. This is a settled fact. In a sense, we are the conquered ones. We've been conquered by Calvary, conquered by grace and mercy and love. And by the way, when our king conquers us, he doesn't lead us to death, he leads us to life. I'm glad I've been conquered by Jesus. How about you? But when you look at that verse, we're not just the conquered ones, we're the conquering ones. He's leading and we're marching. And the gates of hell are not prevailing against the church and we're moving forward. Watch this. If you're following the nail-pierced footprints of Jesus, just know this, you're still moving in the right direction. because you're moving forward with Him and we're celebrating and worshiping and praising and saying, thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory. And so we have the sufficiency of Christ. Come to verse number 17, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God. Everybody mark in verse 17, the word of God. So you've got the living word, that's the Lord Jesus. Now you've got the written word, the scriptures, the word of God. We're not as many which corrupt the word of God. That word corrupt there means we don't peddle it. We're not peddling the truth. We're not watering it down for gain. But as of sincerity, but as of God and the sight of God, speak we in Christ. Write down a second thing. We not only have the sufficiency of Christ in our ministry, we have the sufficiency of the word. Now I'm gonna tell you something that God has really had to deal with me about. We talk a lot about the sufficiency of scripture, but we don't always practice it. I think we put way too much stock on the sermons that men give. If we can get the right preacher and he can preach the right sermon, if I can just get the right outline, nobody ever had their life changed and eternal destiny changed because of a good sermon. The power is not in the sermon. The power is in the word of the living God. It's the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. It's the sword that divides soul and spirit. It is the lamp and the light and the food. It is everything. It is all sufficient. And that means this, in the ministry, our great job is to point people to Christ and give them the Word of God. That's it. We're not called on to do everything. We're not commissioned to give people in the community everything. We're not called on to be everything to everybody. We are called on to give them the Word of the living God. In fact, how many of you preachers know what I'm talking about? That sometimes when you feel like you've done your worst, God does the most with what you just preached. How many of you know what I'm talking about? I was just with a pastor the other day. He said, man, he said, I just blew it. He said, I preached a sermon and I thought that was the biggest bunch of mumbo jumbo I've ever delivered in my life. And he said, I've gotten more people who've come to me and said, God used that to change my life. And I said, welcome to the club. It's the sufficiency of the Word. Look at the verse. You've got the power of the Word because it's the Word of God. It's not our words, it's God's words. I'll give you a little practical suggestion here. Even in your outlining, in your preaching, sometimes we become homiletical, you know, machines and we love our... political ways and our outlines and all of that. But if we're not careful, we start putting more stock in our words than God's words. I'm just going to tell you, you can't say it any plainer than God says it in His Word. Like if the Holy Ghost chose that Word, use it. Because that Word has life in it. For me, years ago, and look, I'm not on a crusade against this, I like alliteration. Sometimes I use it. When it's natural, I use it. When it comes easily, I use it. But I got to the place, it was ridiculous. I mean, I was alliterating the subpoints of the subpoints of the subpoints, and I spent as much time in the thesaurus as I did in the Bible, and something's wrong with that. Give them the word. It's the Word of God. And by the way, when you read the Bible, don't rush through your scripture reading, because the most profound thing that ever comes from your pulpit is what you're reading. Slow down and read it so people can understand, and draw people's attention back to it. If we really believe the Word's sufficient, give them the Word! Look at the verse. You don't only have the power of the words, you've got the purity of the minister. Because he said, we give it as of sincerity. It literally means to be transparent. A life that is transparent and motives that are transparent and a message that is transparent. Be clear. So much duplicity in our world today. So much guile and hypocrisy, so many lies. I mean, honestly, who do you believe anymore? But may I say to the men in this room, the people who hear us preach the Bible ought to know we're going to give them the unadulterated Word of the living God. People don't need more of our ideas, opinions, and preferences. They need more of thus saith the Lord. What does the Bible say? And then you've got the purpose of the preaching at the end of the verse because the Bible says, as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. The purpose of our preaching is one thing, please Him alone. Maybe nobody says, that was a wonderful sermon, Pastor. But if you can lay your head on your pillow and know you gave those people the Word of God and pointed them to Jesus and did it for the glory of God, rest in that and believe you did everything God told you to do. Because our sufficiencies of God. One more, there's the sufficiency of Christ, there's the sufficiency of the Word, and when you come to chapter number three, notice please in verse number three, for as much as you're manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, here is the sufficiency of the Spirit. Who is the Spirit? He's Christ within. He's God at hand. He's heaven's resources at our disposal through faith, the Spirit of the living God. And I wonder how many times I have stood to teach or preach the Bible, resting on my study more than on His Spirit. Someone asked me the other day, why do you use a handheld mic? I do it for voice reasons. When you're speaking this much, it's helped me. Everybody has found what works for them, but every sound system in America is different. And every PA man in America is different. and I have a little more control over it, and I started doing it, I don't know, probably 10 years ago when I was having some problems with my voice, and I made some changes. Matter of fact, I remember a conversation I had with Johnny Pope, and I said, Brother Pope, help me, because you've been preaching a long time, and he still preaches like a wild man, and I love it. And I said, you've kept your voice, how have you done it? He talked to me about breathing. I don't know if you remember that conversation. You helped me with some things. And I changed some things. I started drinking water and a certain kind of tea and lots of different things. And I started doing this because I was just trying to keep my voice. And the last few weeks, actually, since being sick, I've had to really, really work on it. But this is going to sound weird to you, but some of the greatest meetings I have ever been in, I was barely able to speak. I wonder why that is. I remember a meeting right now in Mansfield, Ohio, where I apologized to the people. Someone had to read my text for me. And I whispered for seven or eight minutes. It was terrible. I felt sorry for the people. And it was one of the sweetest meetings I've ever been in. And I remember standing, weeping, standing behind that pulpit, looking at people in the altar getting saved and people getting right with the Lord. And the Holy Spirit said to me, you do understand that it's not your voice that gets this done. That it's not your ability, your oratory, your rhetoric, your ability to hold an audience. It is the Spirit of God. You know what we need? We need a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. We need to return to more than just mental assent and the sufficiency of the Spirit to actually believe He's gonna do what He came to do. In the first three verses, he speaks. Do you see him speaking here? He speaks to us, Jesus said in John 14, to guide us into all truth. He speaks for us, Romans chapter number eight, at the throne as our prayer partner. Aren't you glad the Holy Spirit prays for you? But in this passage, he's speaking through us. This is powerful. Look at verse number three. Paul said, you're our epistle, ministered, By us, but written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Watch this. We're just the pen. Can I borrow your pen just a minute? We're just the pen, the instrument. Lord, keep me a clean instrument. Keep me a yielded instrument. Keep me in your hand, Lord. But the ink, that's the Holy Ghost. On the paper, that's the hearts of the people. There's a great letter of testimony to the glory of God being written in your church and in your ministry at this moment, but it's not how fancy the pen is. It's not how beautiful the instrument is. It's not how capable we are. It is the Spirit of God flowing through our lives. It's not the branches. It's the sap flowing from the vine through the branches that brings the fruit. It is the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit. Look at verse number four, he not only speaks, but he strengthens. From verse four down to verse number six, he says, trust have we through Christ to Godward. Now that we're sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves are sufficient of God. Look at verse six, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament. Not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. You should read what E. M. Bounds wrote about the letter and the Spirit. It's profound. I was reading it the other day, not for this, but just for me, and he reminded me that you can get the letter all right, but if it doesn't have the Spirit in the letter, it never accomplishes what God wants it to accomplish. He strengthens. And then the rest of the chapter, Beginning in verse 7 all the way down to the end, look at verse 17 and 18, now the Lord is that spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But 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. He not only speaks and strengthens, he shows. What does he show? He shows Christ to us. He transforms us into the image of Jesus so he can show Christ to others. In recent days, I've been praying less that God would make me a better preacher and more that God would just make me a better Christian, because I need that. I'd like my wife to have a better husband, not a different husband, a better husband. And I'd like my kids, now grandchild, to have a better dad, Papa. I'd like my friends to have a better friend. Only one way I know to do that, I'd like to be more like Jesus. And only the Holy Spirit can do that in us. And you know, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, but I think sometimes people who are greatly used to the Lord, we can get enamored with them and we start studying their lives and we think we discover the secret of their blessing. And almost without exception, we miss it. Because we look at the peripheral things, the secondary things, the things we can observe, and we miss the inner reality of the Spirit of God on that man or in that woman. One of the men who worked closely with Charles Haddon Spurgeon said that he sat near the lectern there where Spurgeon would speak every week, and near enough to observe things, and he said for the longest time when Mr. Spurgeon would ascend those stairs to speak on the Lord's Day, he could see him muttering something under his breath, and he tried to ascertain what it was, and he got closer, and he watched his lips, and he listened carefully, and he said, finally, after weeks and weeks and weeks, He realized what Spurgeon was saying as he walked those steps, muttering to himself on his way to speak. He said every week he said the same thing, I believe in the Holy Ghost. Interesting, isn't it? That the prince of preachers, the last thought he had before he opened his mouth to preach to anybody was not about him, but about the Holy Ghost living inside of him. Maybe it'd be good if all of us started walking up the platforms and I believe in the Holy Ghost. And face your problems, I believe in the Holy Ghost. And develop your Timothys and your Titus as saying, I believe in the Holy Ghost because the sufficiency is not of us. Our sufficiency is of God. Give you one little footnote before we pray. There's a key word, mark it in your Bible. Look at verse number four. And such, what's that next word? Mark that in your Bible. Do you know how you access the sufficiency of Christ and the sufficiency of the Word and the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit? It is always by faith. Such trust have we through Christ to God. What book of the Bible are we in? What book are we in right now? The other day I drove past a church, Corinth Baptist Church, and I thought to myself, I wonder why I never see Philippi Baptist Church. Have you ever seen Ephesians Baptist Church or Corinth Baptist? And it's really interesting, but we get to 1 and 2 Corinthians and we just pick them apart and we talk about their carnality. Could I just remind you, Corinthians is not in the Bible to show you their carnality. It's in the Bible to show you your carnality. Because the Word is never a microscope or a telescope to tear somebody else apart. It's a mirror to see yourself by. And as I've meditated on this passage the last few days on the sufficiency of God, it dawned on me that the sufficiency of God was the only thing that was gonna break through in Corinth. And you know what we are? We're a bunch of carnal people, every one of us. And we're dealing with a bunch of carnal people, because we're all a bunch of sinners, and we're living in a Corinthian age, and there's only one thing that's gonna get the job done. You know what it is? It is Christ, and the Word of God, and the Spirit of the living God. And if we'll begin to trust again our sufficiency is of God, we will have all we need to do all He's given us to do. 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.