The Cup Sermon

Here we are. The first Sunday in 2013 and I have an important question for you. How many of you here this morning, “ would like to have a fresh start in your Christian life? ” Many of us here this morning have made many mistakes this past year and in our lives as Christians. We have experienced many setbacks and failures throughout our lives. Sometimes we allow these mistakes, these setbacks and failures to enslave us to the point that we never enjoy the full Christian life that God has given us to enjoy. And for some, the failures of our lives have kept us from fully taking Jesus into our lives. In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Friends, many of us have been stolen by a thief called Satan. This morning I want to paint a picture for each of us with the hope of understanding that God still Loves us no matter where we have been, no matter how long we’ve been there, no matter what we have filled our lives with; God, always has and always will Love us and He is ready to take us in and clean us up to be used for His glory.

Today's morning message is a story really. I want to share you the life story of a cup. It's not any ordinary cup but a special cup and by the end of today's story, I do hope you will be able to realize just how very special this cup truly is.

Many years ago there was a Master Potter that produced drinking cups. He spent hours upon hours creating each cup, making each one with Love and close attention to detail. He poured His heart and soul into each one. Some were big, some were small, some were thick and some were thin. There wasn’t two alike, each one was made special but each one was made for the same purpose; to hold a very special refreshing water that this particular potter also produced in the highest mountains on earth.

You see, this potter was the only one that had the knowledge and the resources to obtain the best drinking water the world had ever known. The cups he formed were made to only house this perfect life giving water.

The potter distributed the cups he made all throughout the world. They were literally everywhere. You could find them in Wal-mart, Cabella’s, the Dollar Store, and even in remote villages on the other side of the world. Shelves were stocked with them in every store you could think of.

One cup was sent to a Cabella’s in Wichita, KS. Now, just stay with me here as we all know Cabella’s in Wichita is less than a year old, but that’s not the point of our story today. This cup that was formed with patience and love from the potter was unpacked by a Cabella’s professional un-packer, dusted off, inspected and place on a shelf of its family of cups.

This cup sat in Cabella’s for many years and it saw many things but it never saw the cash register, it never was purchased. It only sat there to see its fellow cups picked up buy adoring customers as they left the store and started their lives in homes all across Wichita.

Until one night. Some drunken teens, probably from Douglass High School, came stumbling into Cabella’s. They were extremely disruptive all throughout the store. They had no regard to any of the merchandise, they knocked items off of the racks, and they were even loud and rude to the employees.

One of them came upon the famous cups and his eyes locked onto the cup that had been sitting there for so many years waiting and hoping to be purchased. The drunken teen grabbed the cup and slipped it into his coat. He snuck out of Cabella’s, stealing the cup.

The teen painted the cup with black paint and decorated it with skulls and scenes of death and destruction. He filled it with whiskey one night at a party in Andover and drank so much the he became sick and vomited into it. Another night he decided to use it at a keg party at the Butler County Lake and drank beer until he passed out.

The next morning he woke up with a horrid hangover and thought that some marijuana would help his hangover so he used the cup as an ash tray.

Seth Turner was working that morning and he was doing his daily rounds when he came upon a cloud of smoke from the teen’s vehicle. Seth approached the vehicle with caution and discovered what the teen was doing. He ran his tags and dispatch sent him a message back, “Wanted for theft and drugs, arrest on site”.