Wellspring Of Joy Series

Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool:

During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch.

With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.

Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.

At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large.

- The field has produced more than one billion barrels of oil, making it one of the largest in the United States

In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.

And Mr. Yates owned it all.

The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief.

A multimillionaire living in poverty.

The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.

- Wellspring – Source or fountainhead

- The supply considered inexhaustible

- It's not conjured up by yourself

- It's not hording in reserve the dribbles & splashes the trickles of joy that this life gives

Philippians 1:6 (AV)

6 Being confident of this very thing, that

he which hath begun a good work in you

will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Israel Discovered the Wellspring

Deuteronomy 8:3–4 (AV)

3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

Deuteronomy 8:6–9 (AV)

6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

- We can be absolutely assured of His Grace

- Today for ourselves it began at the cross

- Taking the penalty of sin – DEATH

Discover the Wellspring

- v.9 – "And this I pray"

- "Hey get this"

- This is the "Wellspring"

- When at wits end

- Prayer is something that compels us

- The deepest longings of your heart will come out in your prayers.

- So often prayer is about you

-- YOUR

• Needs

• Problems

• Questions

- If you pray -- VERY

• Infrequently

• Briefly

- It means that you have a cold heart

- What is the best thing to pray for?

- Here are some principles laid out for prayer

- He prays that you would discover the Wellspring

- Build upon one another

That Your LOVE May Abound

- Can you think of any greater joy?

- "ABOUND" (flourish, overflow)

- A flood of love

- 1 Co 13:2 .... If I have not love I am Nothing

- ABCNews reports - NJ Toms River resident Bill Bresnan, 74, has written 10,000 love letters every day to Kirsten Bresnan, 74, his wife for almost 40 years,

- There are more than 10,000 of them filed chronologically in 25 boxes in their attic home.

- Multiply the plans of an engaged couple

Amos 3:3 (AV)

3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

v.9 Philippians 1:9 (AV)

9 And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

- Wellspring of Joy that your love may abound

- This is knowing the truth

- Judgment - Then understanding the truth

In Knowledge and in all Judgment