How To Live In God’s Overflow (Full Sermon)

To experience a life of supernatural blessing, protection, and provision, believers must understand and embrace their new identity in Christ, moving from self-reliance to accepting the gifts and unmerited favor God freely imparts. This is the core of reigning in life.

The Principle of Divine Impartation and Gifts

God operates by giving freely; the Lord can give you gifts or abilities you naturally do not possess. This concept is crucial because the world emphasizes strength and effort, but the Bible confirms that the battle is not always to the swift or the strong.

Receiving Spiritual Gifts

A spiritual gift can be imparted spontaneously by God, sometimes unexpectedly during worship. For instance, a gift, such as the anointing for worship leading, can “drop” from heaven during a service, elevating the experience to a higher dimension.

Other methods of receiving spiritual gifts include the laying on of hands by men of God. The Apostle Paul expressed a desire to impart a spiritual gift.

Examples of Gifts for God’s Kingdom

God imparts various gifts for His kingdom’s sake:

• Diligence and Business: The gift of being able to make money is not wrong (though idolizing money is). This gift helps fulfill the promise that “the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous”.
• Encouragement: The gift of encouragement helps fulfill the new commandment to love one another. This gift is vital in a world where many people are depressed, lonely, and full of self-doubt. Believers should be sensitive to the “flow of love” toward a person; following this flow is being led by the Lord.

Understanding the Gift of Righteousness and Identity

Upon salvation, a believer receives a new, permanent identity: they are the righteousness of God in Christ. God sees reality precisely and sees the saved believer as righteous. This is not a self-designation, but a divine declaration: stop calling yourself a sinner; you were a sinner, but now you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

The Robe of Righteousness

This new identity is likened to Jesus placing a robe of righteousness on the believer. This robe contains many “pockets” of blessings, including:

• Healing for the body and mind.
• Peace that passes all understanding (a peace so aggressive it guards the heart and mind from worry or needing to understand a situation).
• Favor.

This transaction is a divine exchange: God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.

The Power of Righteous Prayer

The status of being righteous gives prayers effectiveness. The Bible states the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Since believers now pray as righteous individuals, their prayers have powerful impact. This means believers must be careful what they pray for, as their words now manifest results that previously might have only “hit the ceiling”.

The Unmerited Favor of God (Charisma)

Favor (charis in Greek) is unmerited and undeserved. The world calls it charisma (the gift of favor). Favor is given by God and can be lost only when one tries to earn it, as this negates grace.

Favor with God and Man

While a believer stands on “favor ground” with God forever because of their righteousness, God also imparts favor with man.

Examples of divine favor include:

• Esther: Of all the women presented in a powerful Persian kingdom’s beauty contest, God positioned Esther and “gave Esther favor” in the king’s eyes.
• Joseph: Betrayed and sold into slavery, Joseph obtained favor; “the Lord gave Joseph favor in the eyes of his master Potiphar”. This favor allowed him to rise above hundreds of other slaves.
• Business: When God “breathes His favor” on a company, things happen, and the people find themselves “at the right place at the right time”.
• Ruth: Her “hap” (old English for happiness or happening) was to “light on the field belonging to her future husband,” a man of wealth, positioning her at the right place at the right time. The source attributes this “luck” (hap) to God giving her favor.

Favor in Weakness

God’s grace and favor often manifest most strongly in areas of personal weakness. For example, the very area of stuttering or nervous public speaking can become the area where grace is strongest, leading to powerful ministry, because the individual cannot depend on their own ability.

The Kingdom of God: A Reality of Abundance

When Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom of God on earth, He showed what life is meant to be like under divine rule.

In God’s Kingdom:

• No Disease: There is only health and life.
• No Lack: There is only abundance and “more than enough”.
• Demonstrated Provision: The feeding of the 5,000, using just five loaves and two small fish (diminutive term in Greek), resulted in 12 basketfuls left over, demonstrating the “more than enough” provision. The prodigal son was ultimately brought home by realizing that his father’s house had “bread and more than enough”.