Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren. I'm really glad you're here. Today we're continuing our series from Psalm 23 called Living in the Goodness of God. It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. In today's program, we begin with part one of a message called From Overwhelmed to Overflowing.

Rick Warren: Time magazine has said that today we live in an age of FOMO (F-O-M-O). It stands for fear of missing out. About 70% of the millennial generation, because they're on social media a lot, say they struggle with FOMO, the fear of missing out. In a desire to keep up with everybody, people have overbooked their calendars, overspent their money, overdrawn their credit, overloaded their emotions, overworked their bodies, overcrowded their days, and overvalued the approval of other people. As a result, you may feel over-stressed, over-anxious, and overwhelmed.

Why do people do this? Why do we do overkill? It's the fear of missing out. They don't want to feel inferior or inadequate or unloved or left out. Today, I want us to look at the subject of moving from being overwhelmed to overflowing. I want to begin by explaining two fundamentally different approaches to life. You can approach life with a shortage mindset, or you can approach life with a surplus mindset. Big difference.

A shortage mindset means I never have enough and I never will. I'll never have enough and I never will. That's going to leave you feeling overwhelmed. I don't have enough time, money, energy, contacts, opportunities, knowledge, education, or whatever. It's the feeling that you're always a little bit short and a day late. That causes you to feel overwhelmed by life. In the Bible, words like lacking, wanting, and needing are used for this lifestyle, this shortage mindset.

Good examples in the Bible: There was a famine in Israel, and Elisha and his servant Gehazi had a discussion about this. Notice on the screen: The Bible says a man brought Elisha the prophet some loaves of bread. Remember, this is a famine going on in the land. Elisha said, "Give it to the people so they can eat." Elisha's servant said, "There's not enough here for a hundred people." Not enough. That's a shortage mindset, shortage mentality.

"Just give it to them," Elisha said. "The Lord has promised there'll be more than enough." That's a surplus mindset. So the servant gave the bread to the people, and sure enough, it says they ate until they were full and they still had some left over, just as God had promised. Shortage lifestyle: I'm never going to have enough. Surplus lifestyle: I've got more than enough.

The focus of a shortage mindset is I focus on my limited resources. I look at all the things that I'm lacking. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough energy. The result of a shortage mindset is an overwhelmed life. I just feel so overwhelmed by everything that's going on in my life. I'm always behind. I'm always in competition.

When you have a shortage lifestyle, you think that life is like a pie, and if somebody takes a bigger piece, that means a smaller piece for you. That there's a limited number of resources, and if they get more, then you're going to get resentful, worried, or anxious because there's only so much of the pie to go around. That's a shortage mentality. It leads to envy, jealousy, resentment, worry, and insecurity. If you have any of those things in your life, you're living on a shortage mentality, that there's not enough to go around, and if you get more, then I should resent it.

Instead, God wants you to have this other kind of lifestyle, which is the surplus mentality. The surplus mentality is this: God has more than I'll ever need and He'll never run out. God doesn't give us one pie; He's a pie factory. There will always be more pies because God will keep creating them. In the Bible, we have words like abundance, plentiful, abounding, and bountiful. God has more than enough to meet all your needs and everybody else's needs at the same time.

Let me give you an example. Have you ever worried that the person breathing next to you was stealing your air? Of course not. Why? Because God created more than enough air for everybody to have plenty of air, all you need and everybody else can have all they need too. The focus of a surplus mindset is instead of focusing on my limited resources, I focus on God's limitless resources. That changes everything. God's unlimited, limitless resources. He's got plenty, and the result is an overflowing life.

With that understanding, we can go to where we're going to go today in Psalm 23. We've been studying the "Lord is my shepherd" psalm now for many, many weeks. We come to the next phrase where David says, "You fill my cup to overflowing." I see the translation says, "You give me more than I can hold." The New International Version says, "My cup overflows." If you memorized this years ago in the old King James, you memorized it as "my cup runneth over."

What's he talking about there? He's talking about the overflowing life rather than the overwhelmed life. Compare this. We've been in this psalm for a long time. It's only six verses. In verse one, he says, "The Lord's my shepherd. I have everything I need. He gives me everything I need. I shall not want." Now in verse five, he says, "My cup runs over." He's taken it to the next step. Verse one: God gives me everything I need. Verse five: God gives me more than I need.

My cup runs over. I can't keep it all. My cup runs over. He gives me more than I need. What's your cup? What's the metaphor here? My cup is my life. When David says, "My cup runs over," he's saying my life is overflowing. I'm not overwhelmed anymore because I don't have enough time, energy, or whatever. Instead, I'm overflowing. There's like a river coming out of me. My cup overflows.

Jesus talked about this in John chapter seven. 2,000 years after David, Jesus said this: On the last day of the festival, it's the most important day. This is at the temple in Jerusalem. Imagine the drama of this. Jesus stood up and He shouted to the crowds. There's probably 50,000 people on the last day of the festival outside the temple. Imagine the drama of this. Jesus Christ stands up and He shouts to the people: "If you are thirsty, come to me. Everyone who really believes in me will have rivers of living water flowing out of their lives."

What's He talking about there? He's talking about the same thing David was talking about. My cup runs over. My life is not overwhelmed; my life is overflowing. I'm not worried about running short of anything because God is the source of my life. He can turn on one faucet and turn off another. I can lose one job; He can turn on another. When the faucet runs out of water, I don't think there's no more water in the world. I just get a new faucet.

Here is an overflowing life. He says there: "Anybody who believes in me, really believes." Circle that phrase "really believes." That word in Greek is the word *pisteuo*, and it actually means more than just having head knowledge, like I believe Jesus is the Son of God. It means to trust in, to cling to, to rely on, and to depend on. He says if you really, really, really depend on me, your life's not going to be overwhelmed; your life's going to be overflowing.

What is an overflowing life? Let me give you a definition: An overflowing life means to be filled beyond capacity with an endless supply of God's goodness. That's what I want in your life as your pastor, as somebody who loves you, as your spiritual coach. I want you to be filled beyond capacity. It's overflowing with an endless supply of God's goodness in your life. That is what an overflowing life is all about.

This illustration, this example, this metaphor that the cup is your life—my cup overflows—the Bible uses this all through Scripture. It talks about having a cup of joy, a cup of blessing, a cup of hope, a cup of peace, and a cup of salvation. He says I want your life to overflow with joy, hope, blessing, and salvation because God is a good God.

Remember, we've been in this series for now 10 weeks, and we've been looking at how good God really is. I want you to write this sentence down. If you really get it, it'll change your life: Because God is good, everything He does in my life is for my good. Anytime you doubt that, you're going to get in trouble. Anytime you doubt God's goodness in your life, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to worry. You're going to have all kinds of problems. Because God is good, everything He does in my life is good. Even the tough stuff He does in my life is for my good.

There's lots of verses in the Bible that talk about this. In Isaiah chapter 48, it says this: "I am the Holy God who rescues you. For your own good, I teach you and I lead you along the right path." The reason we have the Bible with all these principles in it, He says, is for your own good. I teach you. I don't do this to make life tough for you or rough for you. I do it for your own good. I do it so you can live a good life, live a better life.

He says, "For your own good, I teach you and I lead you along the right path." And then He says, "How I wish that you'd obey my commands, the ones I taught you, the ones that I led you in. How I wish you'd obey my commands. Then your success and your good fortune would have overflowed like the flooding river." Did you know that God wants you to succeed in an overflowing way? That God wants your life to overflow with good fortune and success?

Everybody wants to be a success. He says there if you would have just observed the commands I gave you, your success and good fortune would have overflowed like a flooding river. Did you notice the key to success in life? It's not going to self-help seminars. It's not watching some TV show. He says if you'd just do what I told you, if you'd just read the owner's manual—I did this for your good.

If you'd just treat your body the way I tell you to treat it, it'd be for your own good. If you'd just treat sex the way I tell you, it'd be for your own good. If you would just treat money the way I tell you, it's for your own good. Every time you don't listen to me, you're just messing it up. You abuse, misuse, and pervert the good gifts I've given you: sex, money, energy, reputation, everything else you've got. He says I want you to succeed in life. God is a good God. I have good plans for your life.

He said if you would just do what I tell you to do, you'd succeed in life. You say, "Well, I'd rather go on my own plan." How's that working out for you? Have you had the overflowing success in life that you thought you were going to have? No. Has your life been overflowing with good fortune? No. Why? Because He says if you would just do it the way I told you.

Listen to this: Anytime I disobey God—God says do it this way and I do it that way—at that moment, I'm doubting the goodness of God. That's the fundamental problem. Anytime God says do it this way and I go, "Well, I think I know better. I think I know what will make me happy more than God does. In fact, I'll just be my own God," at that point, I am doubting the goodness of God.

Anytime you doubt the goodness of God, you are making a fatal mistake because God knows what will make you happy more than you do. You don't even know what will make you happy. You think you do, and that's why we get off. When I think I'm going to make myself happy by doing something different than God says to do, it causes all kinds of problems in my life: stress, over-stress, over-strain, over-burdening, over-anxiety, and overwhelming because I'm doing it my way.

He says, "Look, I do this for your own good. I'm a parent who loves you. I'm your loving heavenly Father." Anytime you disobey me, you're just saying I don't trust your goodness, God. I really don't. I think what's good for me is more important than what you think is good for me. 2,000 years later, Jesus said the same thing in John 10 verse 10. I love this in the Amplified. Notice the verse. Jesus said, "I've come that you may have real life." That means we're not really living until we know Him. We're just existing. He says, "and enjoy it in abundance, to the fullest, until it overflows." Jesus says that's what I want you to have. I want you to have a full life, an abundant life, an overflowing life.

Guest (Male): What a great message from Pastor Rick today. There's something I always take away from his message. Here's Rick to tell you how you can help support this ministry.

Rick Warren: Jesus told His disciples that they should live their lives according to five specific purposes. He said you've got to love God with all your heart—that's worship—and love your neighbor as yourself—that's ministry. That's called the Great Commandment. Then Jesus said go make disciples—that's evangelism—baptize them into the family of God—that's fellowship, a sign of fellowship—and then He said teach them to obey everything I've taught you—that's discipleship. We call that the Great Commission.

We believe at Daily Hope that a great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will produce a great Christian, a great church, a great company, and a great community. I started Daily Hope so I could spread the good news about Jesus, not just across America but all around the world. We want people to know that God's word is filled with hope and truth, and the power that we need to follow Him every day is available to every single one.

You know as well as I do that the word of God changes lives. It's alive, it's active, and it breathes new life and new love into all of our lives. Wherever you listen to this, whether you listen on the website, whether you listen on a radio station, or whether you listen through a podcast, you're a part of the Daily Hope family, and I need your help. We could not do this without your support. We're 100% listener-funded.

Would you continue to pray for this broadcast, and would you continue to support us? Write to me. Let me hear from you. I absolutely love reading the stories that are sent to me. So write me, pray for me, and support this ministry. God will bless it, and God will bless you, and we'll get to heaven and we'll thank God for all the people going to be in heaven because you cared.

Guest (Male): If you'd like to support Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, just go to PastorRick.com. That's PastorRick.com. Or you can text the word "hope" to 70309. That's the word "hope" to 70309. Really, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next time when we look into God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.