Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. Why don't we stand this morning as we go to the Lord in prayer?
[00:00:05] Amen. Just want to mention to those of you who know Georgie Edgar, her mother passed away this morning. So if we could remember that family in prayer, that'd be great. And no, I don't know when the services will be, but we're getting a little better. I want to just mention one thing. If you've not registered to receive our newsletter, would you mind going to the web page? And then you can just register because we can't just send it to you. You have to let us know you're willing to receive it. I'll tell you why that's important. We keep communicating it minimumly once a month. Usually we don't bug you too often, but every once in a while, if someone passes away, there's a funeral service. We can notify the congregation and make you aware of it. Okay? So if there's something significant, we will get to you. But generally, we kind of give you the keys to what's happening that month. So if you haven't registered, you're not getting it. And the reason we can't just send it to you, by law, you have to request it. That's the way it works. So if you haven't done it yet, a lot of people in our church that have been here a long time didn't even know we do this. And so I just want to let you know of that. So, Father, we thank you this morning that you are such a gracious God. And we also thank you for your comfort in our time of sorrow and loss. And we think of the Edgar family right now as they're walking through this loss. We're rejoicing with our sister, who's now in your presence.
[00:01:27] But, Lord, we just pray for those that remain behind. Lord, we do grieve. The Bible says, but we don't always grieve like the society does. That have no hope. Our hope is that we are with you for all of eternity. We're going to talk about that kind of life. It's not only a forever life, but it's also a certain quality of life. And Father, we pray today that you would open our hearts, open the eyes of our understanding. You'd speak into our situations today, that we might hear your voice. And we thank you for that in all God's people said. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. So we're going to go back to the gospel of John this morning. We're in chapter six. Look at the first 21 verses. And I've entitled a sermon, how to experience a new dimension of living. So what really does bring true fulfillment in life? Once our basic needs are met, what then? For many, it simply becomes, well, we're just going to acquire a little more. Or maybe we're looking for more experiences or more adventure or more novelties in our life. And after a while, people eventually get bored. There's a lot of boredom in our society today. Listen, when you're living on the fringe of survival, you're never bored. But in an affluent society, boredom is a perennial problem. And so we find many different ways to entertain ourselves. But many times it leaves us at the end of the day, still sensing this restlessness, this emptiness in our lives. And the reason being is there's nothing that's temporal that can satisfy the human soul. We need to understand that, you and I, our souls are designed as eternal in nature, and so only the eternal things will satisfy our innermost being.
[00:03:11] I think it's Augustine who said, we will find that we're restless until we find our rest in you, O Lord. And I think that's so true. That's the most important thing.
[00:03:21] It can be summarized by the wisdom writer from the book of Ecclesiastes. This was kind of Solomon's experience, he said.
[00:03:30] He goes on to say, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. Can you imagine having the resources just do whatever he wanted to do? I refused my heart no pleasure. Isn't that amazing? He had the wherewithal and the means to do that. And yet, as D. A. Carson says, choosing to live in a purely naturalist world, the teacher or the coheleth, the preacher plunges himself into immense work, projects, sex, pleasure, learning, reflection, unrelenting self gratification. And you know what his conclusion is at the end of the book? And I think it could be the epitaph for secular humanism. Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. Everything is meaningless. And so a lot of people, they just get disillusioned, even with life itself. But there's really only one way out of the teacher's despair, and it's found at the very last part of the book of Ecclesiastes. He says it's a return to a theistic universe. Theism just means a belief in a personal God in which the Bible there says, remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come. And the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them. Wow. So the word of wisdom is simply this. We need to know God. We need to experience God's presence in our lives. So the purpose of God himself coming to our world in the person of Jesus is in order to give us life and that to its fullness. Isn't that a beautiful statement? I love John 1010. It says that this is a purpose statement. Jesus said, I've come to give you life.
[00:05:17] I've paraphrased it, life to its maximum, living life to its fullest. King James says, abundant life. And when I talk to people many times, I'll ask the question, are you experiencing life at that level? And you know what I've discovered? Most people can say, no. I've never heard somebody say, yeah, I'm experiencing it. But as a believer, we could say, yes, there are people experiencing life to its fullness because there's a certain kind of life that I want to talk about today. I called it a new dimension of living.
[00:05:50] So why is it so few people really experience this dimension of living? I think it begins with, number one, an encounter with Jesus. We have to meet Jesus. We have to surrender to his amazing love and purpose for our lives. Notice I didn't know. I just give my life to Jesus. I'm saying we have to embrace God's design and purposes for our lives. That's taking it to another level. How many say that? You can see there's a distinction there. I'm not just asking Jesus to forgive me here. I'm asking Jesus to take me on a journey with him, and I'm willing to surrender my agenda. Okay.
[00:06:29] Oh, I tell you, that means you have to give up control. I know some of you are just panicking right now, white knuckling it. You mean I got to give control up? Yes, you do. And I want to pop your bubble. You've probably never been in control. You just think you are, and that's the way it works.
[00:06:47] That's true about life, and you'll find that out. There's things that are way beyond us. I realize this is beyond my capacity, but I think it starts with knowing that we're loved. I think the greatest need we all have in this room is to know that we're loved just for who we are. It's such a powerful element in our lives. People want to be understood. People want to be loved. And I want you to hear something. God loves you. God understands you. But it's out of that security.
[00:07:20] A lot of people are doing a lot of stuff because of insecurity and inferiority. Isn't that true? We get motivated by those things. And I'm saying, but isn't it powerful when we finally can find rest in the knowledge of God's amazing love and kindness and grace towards us. And it's out of that that you and I start living for a purpose greater than just ourselves.
[00:07:45] It's kind of a paradox. John's purpose, I believe, in selecting certain incidences and their messages is to enable us to come to a very important discovery regarding Jesus's identity. John's gospel really focuses in on telling us who Jesus is, and I keep repeating that. But John's purpose statement is found in the back of the book in chapter 20 and verse 30 and 31 where he's talking about, I write these things to you that you might know that Jesus is the son of God and knowing him, you can have life in his name. That's the purpose of the book. And so we're going to constantly be confronted with moments where we're experiencing and encountering the identity of this beautiful person called Jesus and what the right response to him should know. We need to respond to him. We can't stay in neutral. There's no neutrality with Jesus. We're either for him or against him. There's no fence sitting here. You can't just say, yeah, I believe he's good and that's know I'm not against him, but I'm not for him. No, there's no neutrality. And God will move you away from neutrality through experiences in life. You're going to have to choose and he's going to constantly push you to a choice. And that's what faith is all about. Faith is choosing, faith is acting. So what happens in our lives is that it brings about a kind of a future that's worth living.
[00:09:12] So what we're going to discover in John six is not just the nature of Jesus's identity and beyond the fact that Jesus can just meet our needs as a human being, which he can, but we need to have an understanding of the necessity of coming to Jesus on his terms.
[00:09:30] And it's not just based on our desires. And I think this is a critical point in our maturing as a believer. It's a critical point in beginning to understand the nature of God and beginning to understand moving, let me put it this way, moving away from being disappointed with God, I've come to a deep realization that when you don't meet people's expectations, they're disappointed with you. Isn't that true? And when God doesn't meet our expectations, we tend to be disappointed with God.
[00:10:03] And that's because sometimes our expectations are wrong. We're going to look at that in this chapter and how God wants to move us away from having a centered life on ourselves to moving away from ourselves as the center and moving our lives where our lives are centered on Christ and what that really means and how that expands our lives and we begin to live in a whole new dimension. And I believe we begin to live the abundant life. We begin to live at this wonderful level that God desires for us.
[00:10:36] What Jesus is going to demonstrate in the story is not only his power to meet every need, even with limited resources, he doesn't need a lot. We can all identify, I think, with having limited resources, particularly when we meet a need that is beyond what we thought was possible, we go, I just can't meet this need. It's just beyond my capacity. And I think we all come to those points in lives where that's true. The fact that Jesus is more than he can do, more than meet the need, is designed to teach us that our focus has to move beyond materialism. We've got to move beyond this thinking that life is all about what we possess or what we can see or what's temporal. God wants us to move to thinking beyond that and he's going to do that in our lives and we're going to see that in this beautiful story. I think we have to move beyond simply survival in life to experiencing what God really intends. So we can easily misunderstand the nature of eternal life as something futuristic.
[00:11:39] In other words, eternal life is in heaven. But the reality is eternal life is a quality of life that begins the moment I meet Jesus. And I think some of us don't quite understand that yet. And I think we need to be introduced to that concept that you and I can live. I'm going to say it in a new dimension because I think living the life that God intends for us is living a spiritual life. And it's a different dimension to where most people are living right now. And I'm excited about this life. This is the life that brings purpose and meaning and joy and hope and all kinds of beautiful things into our lives. So how can we experience this new dimension of living? I think it begins by accepting the person who invites us to live this life of deep satisfaction in the depths of our being.
[00:12:31] This is a place where striving ceases. A lot of us are striving. This is a place where we come to an acceptance of who God says we are.
[00:12:42] We're not functioning out of what we're trying to attain. We're functioning out of who God says I am and who God says you are as a believer, it's a totally different approach. It's what God is calling us to become and develop. And I believe that's so critical in our lives. I want to look at just two things this morning. The first thing is that enables us to experience this new dimension of living is just simply accepting the person of Jesus. Now, what I mean by that is that we accept Jesus based on who he says he is and what he has done for us. And then when we come to Jesus, we come to him on his terms and not on ours. Okay, so it's not, yeah, I'm going to give my life to Jesus, but this is what I expect Jesus to do. That's kind of where a lot of people are serving God today is. I'm really disappointed, because when I came to Christ, I expected this. Now, what we're going to ask, and I think God's going to eventually ask of every one of us, is absolute surrender. You got to give up your life. If you try to save your life, you lose it. If you're willing to give up your life for my sake, you'll find it, he said. So then we begin this great adventure of discovering God's plan and purpose for our lives. And here's where we often take a misstep. Because what we need is not always what we think we want. And what God knows you and I need isn't what you and I always want. That's a critical point.
[00:14:15] I would take a mental note or note that in my little notepad right now. I'm just going, God is interested in actually helping you meet the need that you really have, not the want list that we have, which is a little different at times. We have to move beyond our self focused ambitions of life to a life of self denial and a focus on serving others as an expression of our love and service towards God. It moves away from, it's not about me, it's about you. The moment I move there, then it becomes, what about the other people?
[00:14:48] I always find it fascinating. You can always tell where people are at, how self centric we become in our lives, how focused we are there by the way we talk and our aspirations.
[00:15:00] We have to move beyond ourselves. That's a state of immaturity when it's still about us.
[00:15:06] God wants us to move beyond that. He wants us so that you and I expand our souls, expand where we start taking in more and more of people. I think one of the reasons why God allows us to be parents is because we have someone dependent on us. It makes us grow up. And eventually he wants to expand beyond our nucleator families so that you and I begin there. You have to begin by taking care of the people God brings into your life. And sometimes that's the most challenging because they're twenty four seven, right? But then you got to move beyond that to care about a lot of other people around you. And you expand your soul that way and it becomes about other people in the process. As you're losing your life in loving others, you discover real love in that place where it's no longer trying to be understood. You're trying to understand other people. As you're doing that, you begin to understand in a way you never have before. It just seems to be the opposite of what we think should be happening.
[00:16:02] So I think Jesus is going to shatter a lot of our wrong assumptions and priorities of our lives in the feeding of the multitude. And so we see the setting of this miracle. This is the only time that John has Jesus in the galilean settings. Matter of fact, this feeding of the 5000 is mentioned by all four gospels. But their approach to the story is absolutely a little bit different and there's different emphasis in the story. We gain a little sense of the timing of this miracle because he frames it. We're going to see that in a minute here at the second passover. So Jesus actually lives through three passovers in his earthly ministry. This is actually in the first year of Christ's ministry and it's drawing to an end. And it's described by the other gospels as happening in an isolated location. There's no resources for these people to receive food from. The other important criteria in John's narrative is the mention of the statement. And great crowds were following him. I want you to know the key idea in chapter six, the two words following him. They were following him. Are we following him? And to what level will we follow him? That's the idea that John wants to get across.
[00:17:15] And they were following him because of their needs. Our neediness is so often the reason why we first come to Christ. It certainly was in my life. And you know, one of the reasons why people can't come to Christ, they don't sense any need in their lives. And one of the great tragedies of living in an affluent society is people don't see their need because their material needs are being met and they're looking for material things to satisfy their emotional levels and they're looking for material things or people to satisfy some of the psychological. But you know what they don't know they're spiritual and that doesn't satisfy the spiritual part of our being. Only God can satisfy that. And so people don't come to that realization and so they don't recognize. They know something's missing but they can't put their finger on it. But that's what's know. This miracle had multitude had seen the signs of healing and therefore there were many sick people who were coming to receive a miracle from Jesus. Let's pick up the story. It says sometime after this Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was also on that day known as the Sea of Tiberius.
[00:18:22] And a great crowd of people followed him. That's the two words I want you to catch. Great crowd were following him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. So now we're told what's motivating him to be followed was the fact that sick people were being healed. How many go that'd be pretty impressive watching people who couldn't see now could see, couldn't walk now can walk, couldn't hear, can now hear. I mean that's pretty impressive. How many said be very impressive? You wouldn't mind just kind of watching and seeing some of this stuff and especially when you had the need yourself and you had tried every avenue and now you find out that people that you know are being healed, you're going to look to know. Then Jesus said went on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples and the jewish Passover festival was near. So that's the setting of the story. Craig Keener relates the significance of the Passover being mentioned in this context. And I'm just going to throw this in here because I thought was interesting. He said the most important function of John's mention of the Passover is it's setting the rest of the chapter in the context that Jesus is really the paschal lamb. That's what he's going to talk about.
[00:19:33] John again invites us to understand Jesus's whole ministry in terms of the passion leading to the cross. I don't know if you realize this, but John's gospel, 21 chapters, half of it is last week of Jesus's life.
[00:19:50] So what is the emphasis on the passion of Christ? That's what we need to understand. Jesus actually came to die. Jesus actually came to be a sacrifice for human sin. That's what we're supposed to understand and that's setting us up to understand this point. And we're going to hear that in this chapter, that's why he brings John mentions that little statement, it was near the Passover time.
[00:20:21] He goes on to say that it's not those who begin to follow Jesus, sorry, but those who persevere and remain his disciples.
[00:20:33] I can't emphasize this enough. I don't know over the years, I've been a Christian now for almost five decades. And what has struck me is how many people start the journey but don't continue.
[00:20:44] Have you noticed?
[00:20:46] Know it's not how you begin the journey, it's how you end the know. My prayer is that you'll all end well, that you'll live well, that you'll serve God well, that you'll end well, that you'll do the right thing. See, it says that you have to persevere. Jesus challenges them with what they consider an offensive and difficult remark that they did not understand. And therefore, as we come to the conclusion of this chapter, we read these words that they basically it says, from this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. Are you catching on? The theme of the chapter, it's about following. Now Jesus is going to say some things. We're not going to touch on all of them today. We're going to talk about that. We conclude the chapter. But let me just go back here. In other words, their initial faith is inadequate as they do not continue to grow in their relationship with Jesus. So the point is simply this. We could stop and make an application. Am I growing and will I continue to grow? And is this a priority in my life, that I will continue to develop and grow in my life so that when I come to the end of the journey, I am not know I have given up because there's been some challenge or difficulty or test that's come my way. I have committed myself to following Jesus no matter what. It's a pretty intense commitment. Can you see that? This is an important thing to consider. Okay, let's take a look at the insufficiency of human resources for humanity's needs. I spent humanity wrong there, but I fixed it for the blog. Okay. The great challenge today, humanly speaking, is the overwhelming needs of people. How many say that's true? The needs are always greater. I mean, if we want to look at resources in our world today, we could just talk about the inequality of how some countries have so much more than other countries. We could start right there. How many people are starving in our world today and how many people in North America were spending money at such a high rate that we're actually spending our futures money.
[00:22:47] We're spending our children and grandchildren's resources today because we're so caught up in consumption. We could just talk about that.
[00:22:56] I could just say to you that the human capacity for absorbing things is so high that our needs are beyond anybody to actually meet. And that's why I just say, humanly speaking, we need help.
[00:23:13] We were never designed by God to live independently of him. And when as a society we turn our backs to God, we will always be in lack.
[00:23:24] And I look today at our society and I go, we're lacking.
[00:23:28] We're in deficits. We could talk about it. Deficits economically, I would say we're in deficits relationally, morally, spiritually. We're just living in deficits today. And you can't even argue that point. It's true.
[00:23:41] We're going to discover that needs are always greater than addressing the physical or material aspects of our lives. There are spiritual needs that most people are not even aware of. And yet even here, in the very simplest need to have food to sustain us, we need God to help provide for us. And here we pick up the story. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Now, this isn't a small group of people. The Bible says that they fed 5000 men and many people believed there were women and children. So this was a large group of people. Anybody ever do anything? Banqueting? Ever fed people before? Anybody ever been involved in feeding a handful of people? Could you imagine feeding thousands of people? That's a big task. Isn't that true? This is what Jesus was faced with. He says that to test Philip, I love this. He asked this only to test him. He already had in mind what he was going to do. So Jesus raises a question, but he already has the answer. Okay, verse seven, Philip's answer.
[00:24:47] Philip now goes in high calculation mode.
[00:24:52] He says, you know what? Take a half a year's wage to buy enough bread for everyone to have a bite.
[00:24:59] He's figuring it out.
[00:25:01] This is going to take a lot of resources. It's beyond what we have available right now. So then I thought of this question.
[00:25:10] Well, first of all, I think we're learning the magnitude of the miracle. That's one of the reasons why John is framing it this way. This is a miracle on an astounding know. I read the Old Testament miracle where Elisha fed a hundred people. This is thousands of people. Okay? So this is even more significant. And it's going to help us understand probably a more fundamental question. And here's the question I want to raise. Why does God test us? Why are there tests of faith? How many think that's a good question? Because a lot of us, when we're going through a difficult time of going, why is God letting me go through this experience right now? You've never asked that question, right?
[00:25:52] Why is God running me through this pace right now?
[00:25:56] Why is this happening in our lives at this time? Why this experience? Why this challenge? Why this test? Why this difficulty?
[00:26:05] Anybody ever asked that question? There's a few of you. Well, let's take a look. Know I look in the Bible right from the beginning, Genesis, God asked Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a test. Remember that? Sometimes later, God tested Abraham. Now I want you to know God already knew what he was going to do. How many know? God knew there was a ram caught in the thickets on the top of the mountain. Did Abraham know that? No. Did God have that there? Yes, God made a provision. Can I just say that in every test there's a God provision.
[00:26:37] You might want to write that one down if you're in a test right now. There is a provision in my test from God. Okay, he's testing.
[00:26:46] What was God looking for in Abraham's life?
[00:26:50] Will Abraham continue to obey me?
[00:26:55] Is Abraham going to do what I've asked him to do? That's really the know all of our tests. Are we gonna do what God's asking us to do in the midst of our know, God even allows false prophets and teachers to come into our lives. Look what it says here in Timothy. It says, if a prophet or one foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or a wonder. And if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place and the prophet says, let us follow other gods, gods you have not known, and let us worship them, he says, do not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is what testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
[00:27:37] God's going to test us. He's going to find, does God really know what's in us?
[00:27:44] Yeah, I think he does. Do we really know what's in us? I think we're clueless. I think we think we know what's in us. But once the test hits, now we go, oh, I'm finding out what's really in me.
[00:27:57] How many go. It's an amazing moment when you have a test and you actually pass the test and you go, wow, I didn't think I was this strong.
[00:28:05] But then there's times in our lives where we don't do so well. We're actually flunking the test. Anybody ever fail some of God's tests? Oh, yeah. And just go, wow, I did not handle that well. I didn't trust God through that experience. I whined and cried like a baby.
[00:28:24] Anybody relate to that? Why is he testing us? He wants us to serve him and worship him and follow him with all that is within us. Jesus here is testing his disciples'faith. Why? To prepare them for an even a larger test to come.
[00:28:40] You and I need to get, how do you handle bigger challenges? You have to have smaller ones and smaller challenges help you handle the bigger challenges. And it's like developing muscle. It's like growing in our faith. God wants you to be able to handle bigger things so you can handle bigger challenges. You go, well, why does God want me to grow up?
[00:29:06] How many appreciate it when your kids finally grow up?
[00:29:09] And I'm a little older now and I have another generation underneath me, and it's really beautiful watching your children grow up and become mature and begin to see life and from a mature point of view, and they're taking on responsibilities and they're doing the kind of things that need to be done, and you're saying to yourself, yeah, they're growing up. It brings joy to your heart. That's why you're preparing your children to help them mature and grow up.
[00:29:35] Anytime you have somebody that doesn't grow up, you get worried about them. You get concerned. They're still immature. They're behaving immaturely. Yeah, they may have an adult body, but they're acting like an adolescent. They're so immature. It's all about them. They haven't matured, and that's a deep concern. And God wants us to mature. We need to grow up. We need to become more like him. People go, well, if you're a Christian, you'd behave like that. Most people are comparing you to what Jesus is like and how many know. It's pretty hard. You have to point out to them, yeah, I'm a maturing Christian. I'm not exactly like Jesus. Wouldn't it be awesome? But I'll just point this out. Some people get disappointed with Jesus. Well, if you don't do what I want you to do, then, you know, you're not that nice.
[00:30:17] Well, they blame Jesus for the same stuff. You don't do what I want you to do, Jesus, I'm leaving, I'm checking out. And that's an issue not with Jesus, but with the people.
[00:30:29] We got to understand that sometimes we take everything personally and go, yeah, well, they got to grow up. They haven't learned anything yet. They're still figuring this. Hmm, interesting.
[00:30:40] So God uses what we surrender to him.
[00:30:45] I like this part. God can only use what I give him. So if I'm holding on to things, God can't use it. Are we willing to invest in what we have in God's program and watch God do with it what we have given to him? You know what's so amazing about the story is the commitment of a little boy who hands over his lunch. That's a pretty big commitment. I mean, he could have just ate his lunch and everybody else could have gone without. He didn't do that. As a matter of fact, another one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up and he says, here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many? In other words, well, Jesus, look at, this is all we have, right?
[00:31:29] But the little boy's there and he's handing over his lunch. I've read theologians that tried to make it like, these are two tunas or I'm going, come on, guys, it's a little boy's lunch.
[00:31:42] This is going to be a miracle, folks.
[00:31:45] This is some little kid's lunch.
[00:31:48] And he hands it over to Jesus and Jesus tells the disciples, now, when did you have all these guys sit down in groups of 51 hundred, not in John's gospel, but in others. And he breaks the bread and he prays a blessing and he hands it out. And pretty soon the next thing you know, people are eating a little boy's lunch that Jesus is multiplying. This is so amazing. So whatever I give to Jesus, Jesus can multiply it. That's a beautiful thought.
[00:32:17] All the time, I give him the efforts, the resources, my life. It's amazing what God can do with it. But if we hold it back, nothing's going to happen with it. This is part of living in the new dimension. It's the surrender of our lives. It's the willingness for God to take your life and use it in whatever way he thinks it's best. Now, I'll tell you, God's so smart. He designed us, so why wouldn't he get us to do exactly what he designed us to do? And once we decide it's not my life, it belongs to him, and I'm not living for my comfort. I'm living for his glory. It's amazing what God can start doing with us. How many go, that's a paradigm shift. Can how many see? That's going to be a big shift in some of our lives because if we're still living about, it's all about me all of a sudden. I'm telling you, you're not even living in the new dimension. You're not living the abundant life, you're living the worldly life and you're carnal and you're not going to be experiencing the joy and the peace and the meaning and the significance that God has in mind for you. So what are you going to have to do is have a moment where you give God absolutely everything and you trust him with everything. And you know what? God can take care of you a lot better than you can take care of you. How's that?
[00:33:33] Some of you don't know, but I'm telling you, it works that way. Okay? John goes on to say, he says, have the people sit down. Plenty of grass in that place. And they sat down, which is another expression of it was around the Passover times, giving you a little bit of what's happening there. About 5000 men were there. And if Jesus took the loaves, he gave thanks, he distributed to those who were seeded as much as they wanted. They ate as much as they wanted. Isn't that a miracle? I mean, they weren't like, I'm just taking a sample here. No, they ate. And I know one thing about people. When you put food out, they eat. They'll just keep eating. And they ate and they ate as much as they wanted. And he did the same with the fish. And it says, when they had had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. Interesting. Well, we see that with God there's always an abundance and there's an encouragement. No waste.
[00:34:31] That's kind of a challenge. I think sometimes as a culture we're quite wasteful. We could probably learn from this miracle. So what's the outcome of the miracle? Well, aside from our needs being met, what was it designed to do? Well, I think it was designed to point to Jesus. It was designed to reveal his identity.
[00:34:50] And so we see here, and I wrote down, well, once they gathered the twelve baskets, what you see here is there's an inadequate confession. What do you mean? After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Now, the Judeans rejected Jesus. The Galileans seem to be accepting him here, but on their terms. Watch what happens now. We will not gain an understanding of what they're saying here unless we go back to the wilderness experience with Moses and the words of Moses found in deuteronomy, where he says, the Lord, your God's going to raise up for you a prophet like me, from among you, from your own fellow Israelites, and you need to listen to him. So Moses is prophesying of Jesus right here. He goes on to say, I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words, that the prophet speaks in my name. So the law itself, Moses, the know. Remember earlier in the story, they thought they were relying on Moses. Jesus going, don't rely on him. He's telling you to look to me. Now. These guys seem to have gotten it. But Carson points out, Donald Carson, doubtless Jesus'provision of so much bread to so many people in the wilderness area prompted some to think of Moses'role in providing manna. And we're going to get into that discussion later, not today. The evangelist does not suggest that the people were wrong in identifying Jesus as the coming prophet. He does suggest that they were wrong in interpreting his significance on a material and external plane. In other words, they were locked into. This is what getting the food in the wilderness is a great thing, but they were locked into a material thinking. And I think a lot of christians in North America are locked into a material Jesus. It's all about the material know. That's what the prosperity message is about. It's motivating people on a material level, but that's not enough.
[00:36:57] When the true interpretation of his significance was made plain to them, most of them took offense.
[00:37:03] See, when Jesus tells you, you got to do something that you don't want to do, people are going, I'm out of here. I'm disappointed with God.
[00:37:12] They were deciding to embrace Jesus for what he could do for them physically. It is basically seeing life in terms of what can be done for us in the material realm.
[00:37:21] So what were they doing? It says, this is interesting. Their response was, Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. In other words, they were saying, we want you to be our king, and we're not taking no for an answer. And Jesus could see this mounting in the hearts of these people, because Jesus knows the hearts of people.
[00:37:49] Rv Tasker says, when Jesus miraculously multiplied the five barley loaves and two fish so that they became sufficient to feed 5000 people with surplus of broken pieces enough to fill twelve baskets. The galilean crowd did what the Jews at Jerusalem had not been willing to do. Though they did it from a wrong motive and with the wrong intentions. They accepted him as that prophet that should come into the world. The prophet like Moses who fed the hungry Israelites in the wilderness with the manna which came down from the sky. But in their enthusiasm, they would have done more than that. They wanted to seize him and proclaim him a king. From this fate, Jesus at once escaped by withdrawing to the hills to pray in solitude. For had he consented to their wish he would have completely frustrated the purpose of his mission.
[00:38:38] You go. What's that? He had not come to satisfy men's material needs but their deep seated, if not always recognized need of forgiveness without which they could not enjoy eternal life.
[00:38:51] In other words, most people are dissatisfied. Give me a good life now. I don't care about tomorrow. Jesus goes, no, no. I want to deal with the bigger problem. It's called sin and I'm going to address that problem so you and I can have not only eternal life so that we live at a certain dimension in this world but that you and I have forever life with him. Let me move on to the second thing. Trusting Jesus when we're in the storms of know this new dimension will help you deal with the storms of life. I'm going to make a statement. God's not going to spare you the storms of life.
[00:39:25] God's not going to spare me the storms of life. We're going to have storms in this life and everyone in this room. If you're really authentic and honest you'll say, I've gone through storms and I'll probably go through a few more. Okay, we're going to have storms. So, what does it mean to be able to handle the storms? That's the most important thing here. We can quickly question why God is allowing the storm to arise. It's interesting that John moves from the miracle of the 5000 to Jesus joining the disciples who had now left by the boat. Okay, now it says here, these are the verses I read earlier. It says, when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake. When they got into the boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rode about three or 4 miles they saw Jesus approaching on the boat walking on the water and they were fighting. And he said to them, it is I don't be afraid.
[00:40:21] Now we know the feeding of the 5000 is told in all the gospels. Each writer is making a different point. John here is telling us that they want to make him the king, okay, by force. And Jesus'response is no, I'm not going to do that. He withdraws and praise. Now the phrase that strikes me is that they intended to come to make him king by force.
[00:40:45] They would have given him no choice. But Jesus is now aware of the human heart and he rejects that plan. It does seem so. Oh, we want Jesus to be the prime minister of Canada.
[00:40:58] He's going to take care of things that are happening in our province that we may not agree with.
[00:41:04] Jesus goes, no, I didn't come to be the prime minister. I didn't come to be the king of Israel. I didn't come to overthrow Romans. That's not my purpose. That really bugs, you know, Jesus is not on their agenda, right?
[00:41:20] That's true, he wasn't on their agenda. Now here we see the sense of urgency in Jesus to get his disciples away from the crowd. Now we don't pick that up in John's gospel, but let me point you back to the gospel of Mark because there's a sense that you and I were easily shaped by the culture and its expectations on our lives. How many say that's true? We're all shaped by it. Don't pretend we're not. It's affecting us. It's squeezing us, it's putting pressure on us. So this is what Mark tells us about what happens immediately. Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and to go on ahead of him and then he was going to go deal with the crowd. Isn't that interesting? So they got in the boat. John just said, well, they got in the boat and headed out. But Mark tells us Jesus told him to get in the boat and get out of there because he could see what was about to happen here and he wanted to deal with that situation.
[00:42:12] Now the word he made them is a very forceful word.
[00:42:19] As a matter of fact, let me just continue to read this. It says Jesus wanted to be rid of the disciples so he could dismiss the crowd by himself because the disciples are not unsuccessful to the messianic contagion of the crowd, so the disciples are reluctant to leave. The apparent sense is that Jesus must expeditiously remove them from the scene in order to persuade the crowd to disperse peaceably and thus avert a revolutionary groundswell.
[00:42:53] I remember when I first read this I thought what's going on here? Well, you know what? There was a brooding revolt, a rebellious heart in the jewish people who wanted to overthrow the Romans. Hey, there were 5000 men there. Can you imagine if they could make Jesus the king? What they were thinking?
[00:43:12] They wanted Rome out of there.
[00:43:16] Now, it's interesting.
[00:43:22] It's interesting that the focus of the text here is actually on the dismissal of the crowd. Jesus reveals like he is unlike most leaders.
[00:43:32] He's not motivated by popular or swayed by popular opinion. He realizes that their aspirations are theirs, not his. That's not what he's about. He knows that their approach to the oppression is not his approach to their pain and sorrow. He knows that a greater evil exists than political oppression. This is a very strong statement and I think as christians we need to recognize this. There is something more damaging than even political oppression. It's the oppression that attacks every human heart. The oppression of our own sin.
[00:44:05] And Jesus is prepared to give his life for this ultimate oppression and slavery. So the next action of Jesus is very, very telling. After he leaves them, he goes up on a mountainside to pray. Now, we need to understand that Jesus is praying for us at all times. So he's praying for you and me right now. He's continuously praying for us. But Mark points out on three occasions that Jesus is seen praying in these gospels. And Edward says it this way.
[00:44:35] Each prayer is at night and in a lonely place and finds the disciples removed from him and failing to understand his mission. And in each, Jesus faces a formative decision or crisis.
[00:44:48] Goes on to say, following the feeding of the 5000 Jesus reaffirms by prayer as calling to express his divine sonship as a servant rather than a freedom fighter against Rome. He goes, no, this is what I've been called to do. This is not what I've been called to do. You know, a lot of times people are going to try to push you to do something that you're not asked to do by God. We need to figure out what is God asking me to do and I need to do that and not let people pressure me to do something I'm not asked to do by God.
[00:45:17] So to give you an idea of what was happening to the disciples meanwhile, the Bible says that they were rowing. It says they were literally, they were straining at the oars.
[00:45:29] It says when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake and he was alone on land. And the disciples were straining at the oars because the wind was against him. Now that word straining is a very, very strong word.
[00:45:47] So first of all, most writers put down that Jesus is praying for himself in order to overcome the challenge. But I agree that he's doing that. But I think he's also deeply concerned about his disciples, that they would embrace the real mission that he had in mind for them.
[00:46:04] That was a temptation for them, too, that they had the wrong understanding. And so Jesus is concerned about that. To give you an idea of what's transpiring here, it says that word straining actually means being tormented. So they're out in the middle of the lake. And that word often is used to mean torment of demonic possession. It can also refer to dire straits and other forms like contraction of childbirth, suffering in hell, or their torment of righteous souls forced to live among the unrighteous. The strong word straining, this is vexing them. They were in difficulty. This was a hard thing that they were experiencing. These were guys that had been. They were fishermen. They were on this lake. They knew what it was all about. They were going at it here. Now, they were literally rowing through most of the night. They'd been rowing for 8 hours against the wind. Are you getting an idea? This was not a fun experience for them.
[00:47:03] Now Jesus is seeing their struggles. He's paying attention. So he goes to them, and he does so by walking on the amazing. You know, there's a verse of scripture that says, God treads the waves. Jesus is actually a water walker. Only God can pull this trick, guys. He's walking on the water, and there's a willingness to receive Jesus despite their fears. Remember, I told you this chapter is about following him. Think about what's happening. When they had rode about three or 4 miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and they were afraid. They were frightened. And he said to them, oh, no, it is. I, don't be afraid. Here's the most important verse here. Then they were willing to take him into the boat.
[00:47:47] The willingness to allow Jesus to come into our storm, into our pain, into our struggle, into our difficulty, the willingness. Even though they were afraid, they were afraid. Can you see that? You know, sometimes God comes to us in a storm. Listen, when God spoke to job, he was in a storm. God is not going to always come to you in a nice way. Sometimes God comes to us in the middle of our trial. Sometimes we go, this is terrible. I'm in this trial. I want you to change your thinking about that trial right now. I want you to say, jesus is going to come to me in my storm, and I can't be afraid of it. I'm going to let him into my boat. They received them into the boat and what happened was they reached the shore where they were heading. Immediately the boat reached the shore. Most commentators say this is another miracle. They've been straining for 8 hours. All of a sudden, boom, they're at their destination. Have you never noticed in a trial that sometimes in the heart and the heaviness and the intensity of a trial, you have this moment where you surrender to Jesus or something happens and immediately it's all over. Even though the trial may continue to go, but inside of your soul, your soul is still now the battle's been fought, the battle's been won. There's been a victory on the inside. Immediately it's come to an end and it's just a matter of it playing itself out, and it does very quickly. And we see that here in the story.
[00:49:10] Okay, James Edwards speaks regarding our faith. Let me close with these remarks here. Mark again reminds us that faith is not an inevitable result of knowing about Jesus or even being with Jesus. Faith is not something that happens automatically or evokes inevitability.
[00:49:29] It's a personal decision or choice.
[00:49:33] So what's the point that Jesus is making, or, sorry, John is making here? That it seems that we are willing to accept what Jesus offers in our need, but Jesus will not surrender to our demands.
[00:49:47] Jesus has his own agenda for each of us. We will never experience that new dimension of living or eternal life unless we accept Jesus on his terms.
[00:49:58] We need to recognize and accept him as lord and savior and then trust him. Despite the challenges that you and I will face in this temporal life, this earthly life, we're all going to face them.
[00:50:13] But can I just say, I read this little illustration here this past week, and if you're reading through our Bible plan, talk about a little boy that was one years old, broke his back, and so 13 years of his 17 years he spent in the hospital. And somebody said, aren't you disappointed with God? Aren't you upset, mad or frustrated? He goes, are you kidding? Just wait till I get to eternity.
[00:50:36] He says, God's going to make it up to me.
[00:50:40] You see, if you're living only for this life, you're missing the point.
[00:50:46] This life goes by so fast.
[00:50:49] We need to realize we're not just living for the here and now. We're living for all of eternity. But I believe if we live the kind of life that Jesus is calling us to, we'll actually live the result of this eternal life in the here and now, a life of joy and hope and peace. Even when the storms come because we have confidence that Jesus is in control of every situation and what he's allowing to happen in our life, there is a purpose for it. Let's stand.
[00:51:22] So maybe you're here today and you're saying, so how does this apply to me? Well, I can say it really quickly. If you don't know Jesus or you're serving Jesus on your own terms, you need to surrender to him.
[00:51:37] That's when this life really makes a difference. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
[00:51:43] Until you give everything, you're only letting God use a little bit of you.
[00:51:49] But if you fully commit to him, he can use all of you.
[00:51:53] And you can imagine that little boy, he gave up everything. Look what happened. God used it.
[00:51:59] God's going to use our lives if we'll let him, but we have to be willing. He never takes it from us. We have to surrender it.
[00:52:08] But when we do that, we find the kind of life that he's calling us to. And I believe that if we're only living for this temporal world, we'll be totally disillusioned and dissatisfied with it. It's empty. In the end.
[00:52:22] You can gain everything the world has to offer, but it won't satisfy your soul. But if you're willing to say, lord, for your sake, I'm willing to give everything.
[00:52:32] I can tell you in the end, you will be overjoyed. You will be overjoyed.
[00:52:38] And as you get and more mature and keep walking, you realize how wise that really is. You're grateful.
[00:52:47] Everything that you surrender to God, you may feel like you're giving up something. I'm going to argue. You're gaining know it was Jim Elliott that said this beautiful statement. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep because it's temporal to gain what he cannot lose, which is eternal.
[00:53:07] So with every head bowed this morning, how many say, you know what I want to surrender.
[00:53:13] I want to give myself fully to God because I want God to use all of my life and everything about it to whatever agenda he has for it, and I want to embrace it without complaining or murmuring or being frustrated. I just give it to him and I'm allowing him to have authority over every part of my being. But I know I have to surrender to him. He's not going to just take it from me.
[00:53:37] That's the gift I'm giving to him in light of the gift he gave to me. If that's you this morning, just raise your hand. You're saying, yeah, I'm giving it all. I'm just giving it all. I'm letting it go, I'm surrendering it. I'm going to trust him with whatever I have and just see what he's going to do with it. You and I have no idea what he can do with it. I don't know the little boy's name, but I'm sure in heaven he's a big hero, right? Can you see that? Everyone's going to go, man, that was so amazing. It is amazing for him to do that, but to give every day is even more challenging.
[00:54:15] Sometimes you think, well, if I'm a Martyr, that's the greatest thing. Remember I reading one time, it's harder to spend $1,000.25 at a time as it is to spend it all at once.
[00:54:27] In other words, if I spend every day of my life fully to God, I could spend a lifetime doing that. That's more significant sometimes than just giving it all at one time. So I'm challenging you as you give up your life to Jesus today. It's not just the spending of it. Oh, yeah. I made this commitment, Lord, I'm challenging you to spend it every day, wholeheartedly for him. Day by day, I keep giving him and keep giving him, and keep giving him. Amen. So, Father, we thank you this morning. We're amazed by how great you are. And we know this morning that whatever our needs are, you can meet them. You can meet our emotional needs today, our relational needs today, our physical needs today, our spiritual needs today. You can meet every need. That's not a problem with you. We see that, Lord, the real issue in our life is, will we follow you on your terms. That's what we're hearing. You're calling us to follow. And my prayer, Father, as a pastor, is that every one of the people that are listening to me, even today, they're listening to me, even streamed, even when it's recorded, they're going to say, I'm going to follow Jesus every single day until the day I meet you face to face. I'm just going to keep following. I'm just going to keep following and spending my life for you, Lord, because it's the most, the wisest investment of my life is to spend it for you. I'm going to invest it for you. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave our.
