Jentezen Franklin - The Overflowing Cup
All right. Here I go. John 6:7, "Philip answered him 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them," listen to this part, "that every one of them may have a little". Notice his mentality, a little. I mean, just a little. They're hungry. There's 5,000 people plus hungry, and he said all I can imagine us being able even if we had it, which we don't, we could meet their need a little. And then, of course Verse 9, there's a lad here with five loaves and two small fish. Go to Verse 11, "Jesus took the loaves and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples sat down likewise the fish," watch this, "and they ate as much as they wanted". They ate as much as they wanted. Next Verse 17, "and when they were filled," everybody say filled. "Said to his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing is lost.' And they gathered them up, and there were 12 baskets of the fragments of the barley loaves and the fish that had not been eaten".
We see such a beautiful picture in this, and I'm reading that story and then I wanna connect it to Psalms 23 because that's really where I'm going. But Psalms 23, if you know it, if you don't, the screens are on the wall, but this is a good one to memorize, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures". I want you to read it out loud watching online wherever you are. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies". "Thou anointest my head with oil," and the very next thing is what happens, "my cup runneth over". And the next one is connected to that, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever".
I wanna focus in on that Verse that said you anoint my head with oil and it causes me to have a cup that runs over. I'm preaching today on living at a level of the overflowing blessing of God, of recognizing and living on the level, understanding and comprehending the level of an overflowing blessing of God. I love the fact that when the Creator God in the flesh Jesus is standing there, and he says, "What do you have to feed these hungry people"? Andrew spoke up and said, "Lord, if we had 200 denarii" or dollars or whatever, that was their currency in that day, "worth of food it would be just enough for everybody to take a little". He had a minimum mentality like many in the church that if God would give you anything He would only barely, tiny, minuscule, minimum mentality to even believe for anything. But Jesus said, "Give me what you've got". He blessed it. He broke it. He multiplied it.
And the Bible said, and I love that next verse, the Scripture said that Jesus basically was making an announcement don't listen to minimum people. I want you to pig out. And Jesus said I am not a minimum God. Jesus said I'm the maximum man. I don't barely meet your need. I don't barely just supply enough. I want you to... notice what the text said. The text said, "and they ate as much as they wanted". I mean, this is open buffet. This is not one of those fancy restaurants where they bring something with a little leaf or something, and it's about that big. No, this is all you can eat, and they ate all that they wanted, the next verse said, "and when they were filled". They were receiving from a cup that didn't just meet the need, but it was overflowing. Overflowing. And then He didn't stop there. He gathered up the fragments that they couldn't eat 12 baskets full.
I'm preaching today that there is always an overflowing cup of God's blessing. You may feel like today because of the stumbling blocks life has thrown at you that your cup has gone dry, but you're as wrong as wrong could be. You have a God who is always overflowing with goodness, always overflowing with kindness. I don't care what the conditions are in your life. Always overflowing with love that you cannot even imagine for you. Always overflowing with the favor and the blessing of God on your life. God is not a grudging God. God is not a stingy God. God is not a minimum God. He is one with His gifts. He says I have an overflowing cup of gifts and of goodness and of kindness and a blessing. In other words, God gets a kick out of blessing you. God wants you to enjoy His goodness, His favor, His blessing. "Well, I don't feel that way". It's because you're focused on the problem more than you're focused on the cup. Jesus is the cup that is the overflowing blessing. So great is His mercy toward you and toward me.
That the Bible said in Ephesians 2:4 that "He is rich in mercy". He's rich in it. He's got so much of it that He can't give it all away. He delights in mercy and when you mess up, His cup is so overrunning that He allows it to fall over and splash on you and splash on your children and on your children's children. He is a rich God in mercy. "Well, I wonder if He'll forgive me". I can't tell you the times people have asked me as a preacher, "Can God ever forgive me"? All He has to do is just lean His cup towards you just a little bit. Really, He don't even have to lean it. He's rich in mercy. I don't know what kind of God you have in your mind; one who hates you, one who loves to see you fall on your face, and one who's just giving you a little bit of mercy because you're sorry and you did it again. That is not who the Bible says God is. He is rich in mercy, and under the Old Covenant He had to keep that mercy to Himself because, and I don't have time to break it all down, but when Jesus showed up, all you see is mercy.
Bring me that woman caught in adultery. Bring me that woman who's a prostitute called Mary Magdalene and has seven demons. Let me splash her with some mercy. I'm rich in mercy. Bring me your addiction. Bring me your shame. Bring me your abortion. Bring me your divorce. Bring me your pain. I've got it. I'm rich in mercy. I can cleanse it all. I can forgive it all. I can heal it all. I can revive you, renew you, refresh you. I'm rich in mercy. Your cup is overflowing. Tell somebody my cup is running over, and I might splash over on you this morning. When I say my cup is overflowing, I don't mean I don't have problems, I don't have needs. I might be out of money, but my cup is overflowing. I might be in bad health, but my cup is overflowing. Jesus is never diminished. You can never get to the end of Him. He's just always overflowing.
I guess what I'm trying to say is the good in your life outweighs the bad. What I'm trying to say is you've got more, you've got more blessings than you do burdens, so quit acting like the burdens are bigger. "Well, I just don't know why that did". You don't deserve the blessings. You don't deserve the good times, so don't whine about the bad. Just rejoice in whatever place you're in because the cup is faithful. The cup will never leave you. The cup said I'll give you power, and you're more than a conqueror, and the cup says keep going because hell ain't in charge of the water supply, heaven is, and He said I won't leave you dry. I'm gonna supply your needs. If you'll praise the Lord, I'll cut it five minutes short. But you've gotta praise the Lord.
We've gotta get to a point where we stop sipping the cup and start slurping. Are you a sipper or a slurper? Because when you understand you have an overflowing cup, you'll quit sipping, and you'll start slurping that if I wanna be free I can be free. If I wanna never touch a drink or never do something again I can find it if I'll quit sipping. That's our problem. We've got too many sippers in this church and not enough slurpers of the overflow of all of God's goodness and mercy that He wants to give us in every weak area of our life. I'm telling you, your friends may go, but the cup will stay. Your money may go, but the cup will stay. Your health may fade, but the cup will stay, and it's always overflowing. And the question is, and I'm preaching to people today at every one of our campuses; you're in one of these two categories: sippers sit and stare, slurpers shout in praise. Which one are you? Do you sit and stare or do you slurp and shout in praise, "My cup runneth over".
I close with this. Psalms 68:19, "Blessed be the Lord," watch, "who daily loadeth us with benefits," notice daily. "Blessed be the Lord, who daily". As we're going into a new year, daily. Not have a little. Take a little bit of my goodness and my mercy and my favor and my kindness. "Daily loadeth us". Loadeth means it's not past tense. It just keeps coming. He's got a dump truck of it. When's the last time you got loaded? He daily loadeth us with what? "With benefits". What's a benefit? It's a freebie. It's something you didn't pay for. It's something you didn't earn. He just likes you, and He says I'm gonna daily load you down. You're running over, your cup is running over, and I'm gonna daily load you down "with benefits" that you didn't earn, you don't deserve. It's not 'cause you deserve it. It's cause I love you, I'm kind, I'm good, and my mercy for you will always endure from generation to generation. Psalms 86:5. Everybody, class participation. Ready? Read, "For thou, Lord, art good," stop.
Did you hear what the text just said? You're not bad. You're not mean. You're not cruel. You're not unfaithful and unjust. Lord, I wanna declare today that you are good, and my cup is overflowing with your goodness. Secondly, ready, "and ready to forgive," stop. Ready. Ready. Hyperactive about it. When you get a revelation of a father who's standing out on the porch every day checking the old, dusty road from the swine pits of hell, and he's looking. The Bible said David yearned for Absalom. Every day he was not there. He's ready to forgive. What part of ready don't you understand? Not when you quit. Not when you stop. Not when you get a handle. Not when you do better. Not when you can lay it down. Not when you can finally after you get out of rehab. That's not what He says. He's ready to forgive you right here, right now, and give you all you need to get to the finish line. He's ready, and here it is, "and plenteous," that word means limitless, measureless "in mercy unto all them that call on Him".
Everybody say He's good. He's ready to forgive. He's plenteous in mercy. You see, God will give you a promise. There's the promise. There's the promise. He's giving people promises even while I'm preaching this morning. And then there's the performance. Oh, my God. It's happening. But in between is the pause. God controls the pause, and it's in those times you either focus on the problems. You know He gave you a promise. You know the performance is coming, but you're in the pause. That's when you turn your eyes and go to another level of overflowing cup of blessing that says until I get to the performance, God's in control of the pause. Hell, demons are not in control. God is in control of the pause, and I will trust Him, and I will believe, and don't let the fear images, that's what the enemy wants to do is fill your mind with fear images.
But watch. This is how it ends. Psalms 23. Once you get a revelation of an overflow, once your head has been anointed, then your cup starts overflowing. Once your cup is overflowing with a revelation of the goodness, the kindness, He said, "Surely," surely comes right after that. "Surely". Surely means there's no doubt. Surely means I'm not questioning it anymore. Surely means even in the pause this is not I hope so. It's not a question mark behind surely. It is a definite mindset. "Surely," no questions, "goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord". Why? That verse says, "Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runs over".
Isaiah said that God would take away from us the cup of trembling. Many under the sound of my voice watching by television, in our campuses, streaming, wherever you are, it feels like you've had a cup of trembling. "See," Isaiah 51:22, "I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling". And He says to you prophetically this morning, and I feel this down to my bones, a new cup is coming. It's the cup, and Jesus said that this communion cup is the cup of blessing. I'm gonna take from your hand the cup of trembling, chaos, trouble, storms, fear, intimidation, torment, addiction, shame, guilt. Give it to me. I'll take it out of your hand the cup of trembling, and I'll put in your hand the cup of blessing, but there's one more Verse. 1 Corinthians puts it like this, "You can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons".
Look at that verse for a minute. You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Give Him the cup of demons: shame, guilt, addiction, lies. All God wants from you is to take that cup out of your hand and put in a cup. My cup runneth over. My cup runs over. My cup is overflowing with His goodness and His mercy forever. Stand to your feet at every campus, please. I want you to take the bread out, and I want you to open up that cup of blessing. Everybody say this is my cup of blessing. This cup is Jesus's Blood that was shed for me. I trade in my cup of demons. I trade in my cup of trembling for a cup of blessing. And Jesus, you paid an awful price for me to drink from this cup, and it's an undeserved benefit.
I don't deserve it, but I receive it today. Mercy and goodness on me and my family, my children, and my children's children. Wherever I go, the watchdogs of goodness and mercy. You can't see them, but they're walking behind me right now. And not just me, but they spill over. They spill over to my children and my children's children. When you drink this cup, it washes you, it cleanses you, it heals you, and it anoints you. Take and eat. This is my Body. Take and drink. This is my Blood. Eat and drink. This do in remembrance of me until I come.