Michael Reeves - Overflow: How the Joy of the Trinity Inspires our Mission

2021 by
MICHAEL REEVES

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked HCSB are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible, Holman CSB, and HCSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

All emphasis to Scripture has been added by the author.

Edited by Pamela Joy Pugh
Interior design: Brandi Davis
Cover design: Derek Thornton / Notch Design
Cover image of waves copyright 2014 by Benjamin Schedler / Stocksy (331016). All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reeves, Michael (Michael Richard Ewert), author.

Title: Overflow : how the joy of the Trinity inspires our mission / Michael Reeves.

Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: The Trinity has everything to do with the practice of missions. When we see the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that overflows into creation, missions wont be a chore. Instead, delighted by the abundance of Gods love, we who have received it delight to tell the world-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021003061 (print) | LCCN 2021003062 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802422613 | ISBN 9780802499417 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Trinity. | Missions. | Joy--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Classification: LCC BT111.3 .R447 2021 (print) | LCC BT111.3 (ebook) | DDC 266--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003061

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003062

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To

Martha
Jemma
Nicole
Danielle
Daisy
Eliza
Sylvia
Timothy

This is the joy I want for you.

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

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The Moody Publishers Team

That is the bizarre thing about the good news: who knows how you will really hear it one day, but once you have heard it, I mean really heard it, you can never unhear it.

CAROLYN WEBER

P erhaps I should have called this book From Drudgery to Delight, because thats my aim here. I want you to step out from any begrudging, bored, going-through-the-motions religion into a heartfelt happiness in Christ.

Ive been through that change, and I know where it comes from. It comes from knowing God as Trinity. Now, Id known that God was Father, Son, and Spirit for years, but it had seemed to me like a bit of mere stained-glass decoration on Christianity. In other words, the Trinity was there, it was even mildly interesting as an idea, but it didnt do anything. It was just pretty window dressing.

But when I came to appreciate who God is and saw that Gods being Father, Son, and Spirit is why He is glorious Love, I saw how different the triune God is from all my bored and fearful ideas of God: thats when I started to adore Him. He became staggeringly delightful and precious to me. Thats when He became more lovely to me even than the thought of going to someplace called heaven. Heand not some abstract reward of eternal lifebecame the center of my hope and joy. And thats when I started, instinctively, to rave about God. Knowing God as Trinity started me speaking with relish of God. The Trinity pushed me beyond a tick-the-box-of-duty evangelism into a fuller life of intentional mission with glee. And thats what I want for you with this book. I want you to know a God who is not mean and pinched but overflowing with life, goodness, and beauty. For when you are full of Him, you too will overflow and be a spring of life-giving water to all around you.

So this book is for those who feel spiritually empty and discouraged. Its for those who feel the sneaking suspicion that God must be fed up with them. For those who hardly dare think it, but sense that God is a bit of a bore, a demanding boss who just wants to take from us. For those who feel unworthy or unable ever to tell others of Jesus. For those who just dont find God interesting enough to want to shout about Him to the world. My aim is to take you to the fountain of life so that you can be refreshed and so satisfied in Him that you cannot keep it in: you overflow to the world.

The substance of this book comes from three addresses given at the Moody Bible Institutes Missions Conference in the fall of 2019. It seemed appropriate material for that event, given how the extraordinary evangelistic and mission work of D. L. Moody all started in a Boston shoe store on April 21, 1855, when Edward Kimball told him of Christs love for him. And who was Edward Kimball? A workingman who taught the Sunday school class seventeen-year-old Dwight Moody attended, who overflowed with a loving God and went on mission to visit his student at the shoe store where he worked.

It was the knowledge of such a loving God and Savior that turned Moody inside out, transforming a self-obsessed man into a blazing star of the gospel. You may be the Edward Kimball in someones life. Or you may be called to a different arena, as Moody was. But in the pages of this book, we will get to know the living God as Trinity and why that matters. Well see why He is so beautiful that we cant help overflowing with love for Him and bringing His love to others. Thats our privilege and our mission.