Change Your Cup: Loaded Daily and Called a Friend of God

Sermon outline

God loads His children to capacity with benefits every day, and the first benefit is fellowship with Him: you are a friend of God, so you cannot lose.

1. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits

   He reads Psalm 68:19 and stresses the word 'daily': not yearly, not once in fifty years like Israel's Jubilee. He reads the verse in several other translations and tells the people to keep saying it whatever their situation looks like, because faith declares what it knows and not what it sees. The Word is not something you try; you commit to it completely.

   Illustration: Several years earlier he went through a great financial crisis and could not pay the bills. He told his brother-in-law that whatever happened, he had made up his mind to believe God, and God used that season to teach him the walk of faith.

   “You do not try the Word of God. You commit yourself to the Word of God 100%.”

   • Psalm 68:19
   • 2 Corinthians 5:7

2. What 'loaded' means: filled to capacity

   To load is to fill to capacity. God does not deal in half measures or little measures but in the full measure, as in the prayer that we be filled with all the fullness of God. If you are not experiencing it, the reason is the size of what you bring to Him.

   Illustration: A ship in the harbour has load lines painted on its hull; as it is loaded it sinks lower until the water line shows the captain it has reached its maximum. Come with a cup and you get a cupful; come with a container and you get a containerful.

   “You come with the cup, you get a cup full. You come with a bucket, you get a bucket full.”

   • Ephesians 3:19

3. What 'benefits' means: what kicks in when the crisis comes

   A benefit is something granted to you that improves or promotes you, a payment or a series of payments, and it is given when a crisis arrives. God has already placed everything that pertains to life and godliness inside your spirit, and He preserves you as you travel. You make the withdrawal by confessing the Word, praying in other tongues and singing to the Lord, on a dark day as much as a bright one. Complaining about how bad things are gives the devil praise.

   Illustration: Medical aid and salary benefits only kick in when you have a crisis. The person who says 'I couldn't pay my rent this month, the devil's after me' has just given the devil praise, when he could have said, 'By the end of this day this bill is paid.'

   “When the crisis comes on, the benefit kicks in.”

   • Jude 1:1
   • 2 Peter 1:3
   • Ephesians 5:19
   • Romans 8:31

4. Your joy is full: you are in fellowship with the Father

   Reading 1 John 1, he tells the church their joy is full, which means holding as much as possible. Joy, like faith and wisdom, is a spirit, so when something goes wrong you tell yourself to rejoice. The believer is not alone and needs no appointment: God is as near as your own hand. How you see yourself decides how the devil sees you.

   Illustration: Stand in front of a mirror and say, 'This is a man of God. This is a woman of God.' If you see yourself as a grasshopper, the devil will see you as a grasshopper; if you see yourself as a king's kid, he will say, 'Don't touch him, we get burned.'

   “If you see yourself like nobody, the devil will see you as nobody.”

   • 1 John 1:3-7
   • John 7:38
   • Philippians 4:4
   • Numbers 13:33

5. Benefit number one: fellowship with God

   God is faithful and cannot let you down, and He has called you into the fellowship of His Son. Fellowship means communion, companionship, intimacy and friendship: you can speak to Him and hear Him. Moses spoke with God face to face as a friend, Abraham was called God's friend, and Jesus told His disciples, 'I call you not servants, but friends.' You are chosen and already ordained, so you pray as someone who already has God's attention.

   Illustration: A story he heard from another preacher: a complaining pastor's wife dressed all in black and wept because 'God died'. Her husband preached to her that God cannot die, and she answered, 'Because the way you behave, I thought God died.' He also has the people say 'I'm a friend of God' with feeling, the way a husband should say 'I love you' to his wife.

   “I'm not trying to get the attention of God. I've got his attention. He's my friend.”

   • 1 Corinthians 1:9
   • Hebrews 13:8
   • Exodus 33:11
   • Genesis 5:24
   • Isaiah 41:8
   • John 15:13-16

6. A friend of God cannot lose

   People may steal from you or cheat you, but God balances the books and adds to you in this lifetime. Being a friend of God means you are well connected, confirmed and ordained by the great High Priest, and you do not need crowds or an institution to approve you. God only promotes upwards and forwards. He adds that God has favourites, like the disciple who leaned on the Master, and you can make yourself one by pulling aside when He calls instead of being too busy for Him.

   Illustration: Some years earlier a man told him, 'Pastor, I'm the biggest tithe payer in your church. I'm leaving. I'll see what happens to you.' Three months later the church bought a new building, and a couple of months after that its finances doubled. He also retells a story from one of Dr Paul Yonggi Cho's books, in which Dr Cho's secretary would not put the president of Korea through because the pastor was busy in prayer.

   “Don't let circumstances tell you who you are. You tell circumstances who you are.”

   • Mark 10:29-30
   • John 10:27
   • Hebrews 4:14
   • John 13:23

7. Born of God: free to live for Him because you love Him

   Reading 1 John 3:1-9, he teaches that we are now the sons of God and that the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, which happened in your life the moment you said Jesus is Lord. The believer is born of incorruptible seed, is free from condemnation and is not living under the Ten Commandments, which were given to Israel. That freedom is not a licence: you abstain, pray, tithe and give to the poor because you love God, not because you are forced to.

   Illustration: We call the man smoking a cigarette a sinner while someone sits in church with hatred in the heart that nobody can see. 'We're judging the wrong things.'

   “It is more difficult to manage freedom than bondage.”

   • 1 John 3:1-9
   • James 4:8
   • Acts 3:19
   • Romans 8:1
   • 2 Corinthians 5:17
   • 1 Peter 1:23
   • Romans 6:13
   • Romans 8:2