In a previous podcast, ‘Walking Blamelessly Before Almighty God: Why It’s Good,’ we began talking about the nature of overflow. The fact that effective ministry comes from flowing in the overflow. The following illustrative story references three powerhouse preachers of yesteryear, F.B. Meyer, Charles Spurgeon, and G. Campbell Morgan. When F. B. Meyer was pastoring Christ Church in London, Charles Spurgeon was preaching at Metropolitan Tabernacle, and G. Campbell Morgan was at Westminster Chapel. Meyer said, “I find in my own ministry that supposing I pray for my own little flock, ‘God bless me, God fill my pews, God send my a revival,” I miss the blessing; but as I pray for my big brother, Mr. Spurgeon, on the right-hand side of my church, ‘God bless him’; or my other big brother, Campbell Morgan, on the other side of my church, ‘God bless him’; I am sure to get a blessing without praying for it, for the overflow of their cups fills my little bucket.”¹ Do you hear the humility in this statement about overflow? Flowing in the Overflow: Why It’s a Powerful God Thing, that’s our focus on this week’s Light On Life.

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Why You Should Be Jubilantly Expecting Increase

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Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put it into operation.
This weeks call is:

Get acquainted with your heavenly Father. Learn who He is via His Word. Walk with Him, Know His nature and His character and then look to Him with expectancy.

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Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: Do you see your Father God as a God of abundance. If you don’t, why? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on the subject above by clicking on the links above.

1. Why You Should Be Jubilantly Expecting Increase
2. How and Why You Should Monitor the Presence of God in Your Everyday Life
3. Why Tithing Brings Great Increase and Blessing

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 37 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com.

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Podcast Notes

The Overflowing Effect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

• God the Father is a complete planner to the very last detail.
• His attention to detail is beyond knowing, astronomically off the charts.
• The plan to send Jesus as a substitute for man was perfectly thought out in the mind of God, fully foreordained and forward-thinking, and utterly capable of covering all of man’s ills.
• Governments try and pass laws to right wrongs and bring about their idea of fairness.
• But, at best, they fix one problem but cause another — they right one wrong but do a disservice to another.
• A fallible man can’t create an infallible plan.
• But, God is not a man.
• His plans are of a different sort — they are perfect, perpetual, powerful, and positively pleasing to all of heaven and receptive mankind.
• And, with that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.

A.B. Simpson is reported to have said that the gospel “Tells rebellious men that God is reconciled, that justice is satisfied, that sin has been atoned for, that the judgment of the guilty may be revoked, the condemnation of the sinner canceled, the curse of the Law blotted out, the gates of hell closed, the portals of heaven opened wide, the power of sin subdued, the guilty conscience healed, the broken heart comforted, the sorrow and misery of the Fall undone.²

• God’s salvation plan addresses the whole shebang.

God is a God of Overflow

• God is a God of overflow, and since He is, why wouldn’t the salvation that He offers through Jesus Christ be that way also — loaded, comprehensive, and overflowing?
• God is a God of serious abundance.
• Everything He puts His hand to is laden, affluent, complete, and over-the-top.
• In the book of Deuteronomy, the Lord rebuked Israel for their short-sightedness in choosing to follow Him because of His overflowing nature.

Deuteronomy 28:45–47 (ESV) — 45 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. 47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things,

• What is He saying?
• The Lord is trying to communicate that I blessed you with a saturating downpour of blessings, and yet, you refused to follow me.
• Did you hear that?
• We need to serve the Lord joyfully, gladly, and because of His willingness to sow abundance into our lives.

Job 36:30–31 (ESV) — 30 Behold, he scatters his lightning about him and covers the roots of the sea. 31 For by these he judges peoples; he gives food in abundance.

• God’s plan for your life is to flow in the overflow.

Filled to the Overflow with His Fullness

• So, here are some verses that reference this concept of fullness and overflow.
• Do you remember the illustration of getting up from sleep to get a glass of water?
• How much water would you put into your glass to get a drink?
• You can’t max out the glass, and you can’t fill it to the brim because if you do, when you tip the glass to bring it to your mouth, you would end up spilling some of the water onto the ground.
• So, normally, you only fill a glass half full or almost full but never ‘to the rim’ full.
• The glass God wants you to drink out of – His gospel glass has no such complication.
• His glass is full and overflowing.

Psalm 23:5 (ESV) — 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

• God’s plan is that you partake of His glass — His blessings — and drink those blessings in until you are full of His fullness.

Jesus Weighs In On Overflow

John 7:37–39 (ESV) — 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

• Did you hear the nature of God’s overflow? — rivers of living water.
• Not a little dripping trickle of water, not a bottle of water, or a running brook of water, but rivers of water.
• Rivers, plural, did you hear that? — Not a single river, a whole bunch of rivers.
• That’s an abundance of water flowing.

Psalm 66:12 (ESV) — 12 you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water, yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

God’s Plan for Your Life Includes Overflow

• So, what is God’s plan for your life and mine, with all this water flowing all over the place?
• This passage in Ephesians gives us an expectation.

Ephesians 3:19 (ESV) — 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

• What’s this scripture verse saying?
• There is something about love, God’s love, that is wired to fullness.
• Know the overflowing love of Christ; drink it in so that you are filled with all the fullness of God, and to such a degree that love overflows out of you onto others.
• So, that’s the plan — that’s the will of God — that’s the target that we aim at — ‘filled with the fullness of God.’
• Put that up on your dartboard — filled with the fullness of God.
• Now, this ‘filling to overflow,’ in verse nineteen of Ephesians one, is part of a prayer that Paul prayed for that church.

Paul at Prayer: Lessons for the Church

• Listen to it now.

Ephesians 3:14–15 (ESV) — 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

• This a Bible prayer that the Spirit of God inspired the Apostle to pray for this church.
• Additionally, that same Spirit had this prayer recorded for your benefit — so that you might have an example of how you can pray for your church.
• Remember, the church is not a building — it’s people — you are the church — you are the body of Christ.
• So, this is a prayer you can pray for the people in your church.
• It’s a prayer you should pray for your company.

Acts 4:23 (KJV) — 23 And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them.

• Pray this prayer for your company.
• The ESV has it as ‘ being let go, they went to their own friends.’
• The Greek defines the word ‘company’ as people who are unique or specific to you.
• So, this God recorded prayer is one you should pray for the people who are unique and specifically yoked to you — people in your world.
• That’s your company.
• Paul says to the Lord, ‘Fill this bunch of folk — this group of Jesus followers who are uniquely connected to me — fill them up with your fullness.’
• Think about what a daunting task this is.
• Filled up with a God that even the heavens cannot contain.
• How do you get so much into so little?
• It’s like trying to fit the Milk Way into your bathtub.
• I mean, compared to God, we’re puny.
• The Most High is lavishly large, magnanimously magnificent, the very definition of awesome.
• A witness lineup of Blue Whales and Red Ants wouldn’t be enough of a size difference to distinguish between the muchness of God and the smallness of man.
• You’ve heard the expression, ‘that person has more money than he knows what to do with?’
• That’s a lot of words for overflow.
• The thing with God is that He is hyper overflowing with everything, except, He knows precisely what to do with it.

Talk to God About Overflow

• So, Paul, here in Ephesians, is praying about overflow.
• He is having a dialog with God of heaven about it.
• He wants Him, who is more than enough, to flood the Ephesians.
• Then, part of this ‘being filled’ to overflow is talking to God about ‘being filled’ to overflow.
• The will of God is that you be full.
• His plan for your life is to be saturated and splashing out all over the place with tsunami rivers of living water.
• Those who are serious about ‘walking with God’ know that communicating with Him is an essential part of walking.
• How can you walk with someone without talking to them?
• As the scripture states, Paul is bowing his knees to the Father; he is praying, there’s an exchange of words, communication is happening.
• Paul is talking to God — that’s what prayer is — it’s speak.
• Talking to God is part of walking with God.
• Now there is a piled-up plethora of personal communication between God and man — between heaven and earth.
• If God is God of the overflow, then it stands to reason that there is an overflow of communication happening between God and man.

God the Great Communicator

• God communicates.
• May does he ever.
• He does it in dreams, with visions, gifts of the Spirit, and angelic visitations.
• What about when He sends an intermediary to come to talk to you.
• You know that is when God speaking to someone else and telling that someone else to come to talk to you.
• What about when people wake up, and they have you on their mind?
• And then there’s your conscience, the referee that’s inside of you — what about when God, during the game of life, has that referee throw the red flag?
• Thank God for the conscience; it is one of THE main ways He talks to you.
• One gentleman said that the conscience is the voice of your human spirit.
• I like that.
• Then, if that’s not enough, there is His written Word.
• Scriptures come up on the inside of you; what is that?
• It’s communication — it’s the Lord talking to you.
• Then you know how it goes with your Pastor or Sunday School teacher.
• That same Word of God that came up inside of you now comes out of the mouth of your pastor.
• How did he or she know that you had that verse in you?
• The Lord did that — He’s an expert at talking.
• Open heaven of communication is an excessively abundant thing between God and man.
• Could we say the principle of overflow is apparent in this area?
• So, since talking to God is a part of walking with God, Paul is walking and talking.
• And, there are a plethora of words on the scene.

God-Created Overflow

• Mark it down; everything God-created thing has overflow built into It.
• God Is THE God of the Overflow.

1 Corinthians 3:5–6 (NKJV) — 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

• The word increase is one we should look at, and with that thought, here is the Definition of the Day.
• The word ‘increase’ in the Greek New Testament means “to grow to the limit” or “to attain great power.” It means “to achieve the highest position”³
• You and I plant according to the direction of the Spirit but it is God that brings what you planted to its full potential, to its utmost power, to its highest position.
• He is the God of increase — He is the God of overflow.
• He built overflow into nature.

The Lord Not Only Made Fruit But He Built Increase Into It

Genesis 1:11–12 (ESV) — 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

• The God of the Overflow built increase into plants yielding seed and fruit-bearing trees.
• You can easily see it in the agricultural world.
• One corn seed, one kernel of corn, planted in the ground produces a corn stalk.
• A corn stalk has one maybe two ears off corn.
• Each ear of corn on a corn stalk has around 800 kernels or seeds.
• So, one seed of corn produces 800 seeds of corn on a corn stalk.
• So, if we went conservative with one ear of corn per stalk because sometimes it can be two, — one seed produces an 800 to one seed ratio.
• One seed — 800 kernels.
• Take that one ear of corn, with its 800 kernels, plant it, and now you have a potential yield of 640,000 seeds.
• That’s one small example of overflow in nature.
• Now, look at the stars.

In The Beginning, God Created Potential

Genesis 1:1 (ESV) — 1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

• All you have to do is gaze at the stars and see that our Creator God is staggering in His work.
• God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and galactic overflow gushed out of Him.
• One galaxy alone, the Milky Way, has one hundred billion stars.
• One website has the total number of stars in the universe at a stupefying ten billion, trillion stars.
• All that came out of one being.
• Why so many stars?
• Isn’t ten billion, trillion stars excessive?
• Of course, excess is the nature of overflow.

God Made Man And Built Potential Within Them

• What did the excessive God – the God of the Overflow — the God that is more than enough say?

Genesis 1:26–28 (ESV) — 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

• After God created the heavens’ enormous lights, he created man and told them to be fruitful and multiply.
• What does that number look like? – over 7.7 billion people on planet earth today.
• Do you think almost 8 billion people out of two created, made in His image, human beings qualifies as overflow?

Jesus Started With Only A Few Disciples

• You see the same with Jesus, the Son of the Overflowing God.

Matthew 10:1 (ESV) — 1 And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.

Luke 10:1 (ESV) — 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.

• Jesus started with 84 disciples – 12 in Matthew and 72 in Luke.
• How many are there now?
• There are over 2.2 billion Jesus followers on planet earth right now — out of a group of 84 inaugural disciples.
• Again, another example of overflow.

The Parable Of The Talents Shows The Principle Of Increase

• Maybe you are acquainted with the Parable of the Talents.
• You can easily the principle of overflow in that Jesus story.

Matthew 25:14–30 (ESV) — 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more…

24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.

28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

• So here’s a man who was entrusted with a certain amount of money — that’s what talents are — it’s money, not abilities.
• This man took what he was given to him and doubled the number of talents he had with the increase of God.
• That man realized a 100% increase.
• On top of the 100%, he also received the extra talent from the man who did zero with what God gave him — which is another 16% increase.
• Everything God touches, everything He breathes on grows.

The Fruit Of The Spirit Has Increase Built In It Because Fruit Grows

• Think about fruit now, spiritual fruit.
• The nature of fruit is to grow, to increase, to overflow.

Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV) — 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

• The nature of God’s Word believed and acted upon, is to grow.

The Word of God Is Seed, and the Nature of Seed Is Increase

Mark 4:14 (ESV) — 14 The sower sows the word.

• The Word of God is seed that increases when it is sown.
• What does sown mean?
• It means you took God’s Word and spoke it out.
• Sowing is speaking.
• Speaking is planting — it’s all the same thing.
• The seed of God’s Word spoken expands in you just corn seed expands.
• It increases with use.
• God’s Word spoken out of His mouth produces the thing spoken and then some.

Isaiah 55:11 (ESV) — 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

• Listen to Jesus echoing this exact thought.

Matthew 13:23 (ESV) — 23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

• Hundredfold, sixty-fold, thirty-fold are overflow terms.

Divine Expansion: The More You Have, The More You Overflow

• Now again in Mark four, Jesus says…

Mark 4:24–25 (ESV) — 24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. 25 For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

• According to Wuest,

The words “shall more be given” which implies that the reward will be out of proportion to the virtue, the knowledge acquired, to the study devoted to the subject.⁴

• The reward is out of proportion.

The idea is that more will be added to that which is your due. “There shall be given over and above, not to those who hear, but to those who think on what they hear: … the more a man thinks, the more he will understand, and the less a man thinks, the less his power of understanding will become.”

• Wuest goes on to translate this passage as…

Keep ever a watchful eye on what you are hearing. In the measure by which you are measuring, it will be measured to you; and it will be measured to you not only according to that measure, but there will be some added on top of that. For he who has, it shall be given to him. And he who does not have, even that which he has, shall be taken away from him.⁵

• We will talk some more about overflow in an upcoming podcast.
• You guys have a great God-week in Jesus’ Name Amen.

#S2-039: How to Release Your Faith with Words [Podcast]

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