Matthew 14:13-21, The King’s Miracle Feast

turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14 as we continue our study in Matthew's Gospel this morning as we look at what has been called the feeding of the 5,000 but is really more like the feeding of the 15,000 but what I'm entitling the Kings miracle feast Matthew chapter 14 verses 13 through 21 let's pray Heavenly Father we again commit this time to You Lord we know that we're living in a world that's starving both physically and metaphorically in reality and spiritually there's a heaviness and an emptiness and many many people wonder is there anything real is there anything true is there anything worth believing in and Heavenly Father we've staked our lives and our future on the truth of the gospel that a real Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and like Paul said whom i am chief each and every one of us has a story that we could tell about what it meant to walk away and live in rebellion and disobedience and I pray that everyone would one day be able to tell the story of how they returned how they abandoned their sin and how they gave their life to Jesus and how they purposed to live their lives and submission and obedience to him by grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit and so Lord we pray that you would stir up in our hearts a vision and compassion for people who need help and people who need hope in Jesus name Amen matthew chapter 14 beginning in verse 13 when Jesus heard it he departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself but when the multitudes heard it they followed him on foot from the cities and when Jesus went out he saw a great multitude and he was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick when it was evening his disciples came to him saying this is a deserted place and the hours already late send the multitudes away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food but jesus said to them they don't need to go away you give them something to eat and they said to him we have only five loaves and two fish he said bring them here to me then he commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass and he took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven he broke and gave the loaves to the disciples and the disciples gave to the multitudes so they all ate and were filled and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained now those who had eaten were about five thousand men besides women and children or in other words not including the ladies and the children so we can imagine how huge this crowd must have really been in Matthew's Gospel we move from the account of John's murder to a fresh set of miracles in the closing months of Jesus's earthly ministry he's going to concentrate on teaching he's going to concentrate on pairing the disciples he's going to perform a few more miracles and after the death of John the Baptist Matthew records three miracles each with their own special message this miracle is both a marvel and a parable in one sense we get a glimpse if we see something even in the miracle it's a vision of our world we are on a cliff we are on the very edge we are on the precipice if you will of brokenness and hurting people and again part of the challenge is we see a world that's perishing indicated by the crowds but we also see a powerless Church shown by the helplessness of the disciples and then we see a perfect Savior who embodies compassion tranquility calmness but also action a perishing people a powerless church is a recipe for disaster unless Jesus shows up unless Jesus is there and once Jesus shows up guess what we have the ability to exercise compassion we have the ability to feel need and feed people and provide what's really necessary which is hope now this miracle by the way is recorded in all four Gospels in mark 6 30 through 44 Luke 9 10 through 17 John 6 1 through 14 it is perhaps the greatest miracle in terms of sheer volume numbers of participants witnesses who saw what happened this isn't some ordinary church picnic this is manja and a miracle now at our church we have a thing called mangia and it's the Italian word for eat and it's probably the very first word I i think i remember understanding as a child because my mom and dad they would drop me off at my grandma and grandpa Tracy's house who spoke no English and so the very first thing I remember hearing over and over again was Mangia Mangia Mangia Mangia gusta it's a command in the Italian language it means eat eat eat in an Italian house if you were to come to my family's house in those days when my grandmother was alive and she would feed you she would feed you till you couldn't eat anymore and yeah and she would say do you want more and if you said yes she gave you a lot more and if you said no she gave you a little more there was no such thing as you get no more it's not just hungry bellies but hungry souls that need to be satisfied and so right from the start before we even get into the text I'm just going to give you a quick review of so many lessons that we're going to be talking about this morning Jesus loves us he's the king of compassion Jesus is never satisfied to simply notice need but will meet the need Jesus uses plain ordinary things and even ordinary people to meet needs and the King serves everyone he feeds everyone rich poor skeptic believer Pharisee sad you see everyone is full at the end of this extraordinary picnic and there's even a surplus everyone is physically satisfied but not everyone is spiritually fed and there's going to be opportunities in our own churches we have more mangia and more people coming and getting together and we eat and again many people in our church are just gifted with this supernatural ability to feed lots of people great food you can come here physically hungry or spiritually famished some will have their faith increased but others will have their selfish desires reinforced not everybody who comes to church really wants to be fed their content to remain in the emptiness that fills their heart but it doesn't have to be that way Jesus is the bread that's come down from heaven and so again in the passage were given a glimpse of his compassion for people and hit and conviction that the disciples must learn to turn to him in order to meet the needs that they are going to face in that very present moment and in the future and Jesus will use meager means to feed the crowd and so we examine the Kings complete care for all the people look again in verse 13 he says when Jesus heard it he departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself but when the multitudes heard it they followed him on foot from the cities and when Jesus went out he saw a great multitude and he was moved with compassion for them and He healed their sick I want you to picture the picture because they're in Capernaum he gets into a boat the Sea of Galilee or the lake of Galilee is about seven miles long in about 3 and a miles wide it was probably a little bit bigger because of the control of the water flows back in those days so he gets into a boat and he's going to go on one side of the lake and he's going to sail across the lake to the other side because not all of the properties around the lake was filled with people there were little villages that dotted the Sea of Galilee in the ancient days now get the picture John is dead Matthew chapter 14 verses 1 through 12 we've already looked at that Jesus retires to a remote place alone but we know it's not completely alone because we know from Mark's Gospel that the disciples the apostles if you will have gotten into the boat with him they're following him in the boat across the lake and I'm reasonably sure that John's death wasn't just like something that you get on your mobile device to let you know that a headline event has taken place he is personally viscerally humanly affected this isn't just something where he is disconnected from his own humanity we have every reason to believe scholarship seems to support that John and Jesus were related so this isn't just something that's happened that will have no effect on him whatsoever and Jesus needs some time alone and we all struggle with the tension of the work that needs to be done and the real necessity of spiritual renewal that comes from specific times of solitude and reflection that we all need and so the report of John's death combined with Herod's antagonism combined with the unrelenting opposition by the religious leaders means that Jesus just needs a little time out but it prompts a question doesn't it how do we balance our time how do we do what needs to be done John Corson rights and I love this he says quote how do I know when it's time to plunge in and get involved versus time to retreat and be quiet before the Lord he says I believe the answer lies in this passage as with Jesus compassion within you and anointing upon you are good indicators that you need to get involved in the situation around you Jesus is going to retreat but guess what circumstances are going to be such that anointing and compassion are going to combine together to make it absolutely impossible for Jesus to do anything but help now I want you to understand what you're reading the multitudes follow Jesus into the wilderness they follow him they don't know everything about everything but they know that there's something special about him they know that there's something remarkable about him that he's able to do what no one else can do for the hurting for the broken for the grief-stricken and I'm going to suggest to you that they're hurting and they're broken and their grief stricken as well in part not just because of the consequences of living in a broken world but they literally love loved John the Baptist it's hard for us to understand just how it can be when a particular person has such a profound effect on the entire culture how literally millions of people will respond we saw that in brief in the 1960s when tragically john f kennedy was shot his brother was later killed Martin Luther King jr. assassinated it wounded literally millions of people and you've got to understand I suspect that that's exactly what's happening here and so again in hurt in brokenness in grief they want to get some semblance of help and hope and Jesus comes into a world swamped with sin and devastated by man's failure littered with broken Souls desperate shattered people who need help Mark's Gospel ads in mark 633 but the multitudes saw them that's Jesus and the disciples in the boat headed in a different direction departing and many knew him and ran there on foot from all the cities they arrived before them and they came together to him it says in mark 633 and so the crowd gathers even before Jesus ever shows up and Jesus sees them and the text says he's moved with compassion this is an intense word that translates a Greek word that's so very interesting it's the word Splunk kids Oh may I it means guts viscera intestine all of you have grown up in a world where some kid on a playground said I hate your guts it's their way of saying I hate you with a great deal of emotional vigor this kind of feeling that he's talking about is an expression of proof found deep-seated emotion like Moses in the wilderness Jesus has moved with a deep-seated profound feeling of tender mercy again in Mark's Gospel we read in chapter 6 verse 34 and Jesus when he went out saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd so we began to teach the many things it's an idiomatic expression in the language which doesn't mean you know I'm going to go through this encyclopedia of information but rather it means he began to teach them for a very very very long time that's what it means at great length and we're not even told what Jesus taught the text doesn't say he opened to the book of Psalm 23 he took out the scroll of Isaiah and began to preach from it all we like sheep have gone astray we've turned to our own way but the lord is laid on him the iniquity of us all whatever it is whatever it was that Jesus taught you can be sure that it fed their souls and starved their pride and exposed their sin and revealed God's grace and declared God's promises whatever it was he was saying whatever it was he was sharing with him whatever it was that he was telling them it was giving them hope he taught them and then he touched them the text says and He healed their sick you know it's almost cliche to say that jesus loves you we can just blow it off brush it off dust it off but he really does it's really true it's true even if you don't believe it let me change that especially if you don't believe it at least nine times in the New Testament we read of the overwhelming deep-seated profound compassion of Jesus and now even in heaven and his glorified body we know that Jesus feels our infirmities it says in the book of Hebrews he's deeply sympathetic Isaiah 53 for surely he has taken up our infirmities surely he has carried our sorrows yet we considered him stricken by God and afflicted in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15 we read for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin so that when you open up your Bible and you're reading this book and you come into this church it's easy to forget sometimes just how much he really cares for you Jesus saw them a sheep without a shepherd lost lonely dependent defenseless Charles Pankhurst wrote quote sympathy is two hearts tugging at the same load I love that true sympathy is usually born in sorrow and pain and it can sometimes lead to despair if you don't have a way to get some sort of meaningful and significant hope in what looks like an awful circumstance the whole nation heard the news of a small child being taken on of all things a little or line out of all places orlando florida in all places disneyland it's bad enough that a tragedy happens and it's bad enough that it happens to a child and it's bad enough that it happens in Disneyland and so you see the images and you maybe even see the grief-stricken parents and how can your heart not be broken and grieved when you hear something so horrible and terrible and so sometimes it can lead to despair when a person is diagnosed with cancer or like this week a childhood friend of mine called me and said hey i just thought i would let you know that I've been diagnosed with ALS ALS Lou Gehrig's disease it's a neurological condition that is clearly not curable there are certain treatment protocols that are available but it will eventually weaken you and then it will eventually take your life so how do you pray how do you respond when the unthinkable happens Jesus is willing to bear your burdens Jesus is willing to share your sorrows the world hungers for compassion and sympathy and it might not be in the very far distant future where you wind up at Coors Field or you wind up at bronco stadium you're in some sort of venue where there's a large group of people and you look out on the crowd and you're there to watch the game and you're there to watch and play but if for a moment just for a split second you just begin to look at the rows of people and you begin to look at their face and you begin to look at their life and you begin to think about their circumstances and you wonder how many of these families are hurt and broken how many of these families are suffering economically or socially or emotionally how many these people are are dealing with so many different problems the world wonders at what point you'll notice by the way it should prompt yet another question what motivates you to respond to the needs of others what are you willing to accept as evidence that someone needs your help I heard the story of a minister who operated an orphanage many years ago and was told of a shivering boy and ragged clothes he comes to his door for food and lodging and just to see what the boy would say the kindly director said what are your credentials and the little boy said credentials oh you ain't got none if these rags and credentials enough I don't know what is they let the boy in credentials but look what it says in verse 15 the Kings cooperation it says when it was evening his disciples came to him saying this is a deserted place and the hour is already late send the multitudes away that they may go to the villages and buy themselves some food not you have to understand a little bit about Jewish culture and the reckoning of time you'll notice in the beginning of the verse when it says when it was evening in the Jewish culture they reckon time from sundown to sundown that's what constituted a day so in a very real sense in their culture and in their mindset oddly enough there were two evenings the first began at about three o'clock and the second was when the Sun got came down and so it says when it is evening almost certainly in this instance means sometime after three o'clock they all began to say hey wait a minute we're in a place where unless we get to the place where we need to be by the time the Sun Goes Down chances are nobody's going to eat it's late they're hungry send them home and again it would seem that the ministry began in the morning it continued throughout the afternoon it was now again into the middle and the late afternoon Jesus is the servant Jesus is the king in Mark's Gospel chapter 6 verse 31 it says and he said to them come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile for they were many coming and going and they didn't even have time to eat it says so they were so caught up in the ministry that they neglected to feed themselves and sometimes there's things going on at the church and Mary will go did you eat I'll go no eating is always the last thing on the list to do as always Jesus gives of himself neglecting his own needs Paul frost says man's strongest instinct is towards self-preservation grace grace as highest calling is self-sacrifice now remember again in that area there's no chick-fil-a there's no fast food restaurants there's no convenience stores there's no cafeterias that people can go to so the disciples say to Jesus send the multitudes away now again this prompts something there always seems to be at least two responses to human need and the same is true in our tax the disciples solution to the problem tell them to go away Jesus solution to the problem you take care of it you feed them how interesting two reactions to human resources the disciples we don't have anything that really matters we don't have anything that could possibly help in this situation Jesus reaction give me what you have give me what you have now again in the growing list of amazing miracles that Jesus has already performed turning water into wine healing the sick raising the dead healing the multitudes it only seems reasonable that someone would ask Jesus to feed the people but Jesus asks them look what it says in verse 16 but jesus said to them they don't need to go away you give them something to eat are you ever disturbed when Jesus asks you to do something that seems impossible the Lord speaks to your heart says hey guess what I want you to do this whoa what you're talking what in the world are you saying and by the way you give them something to eat is both emphatic and in the text a command it's not a suggestion in Mark's Gospel chapter six verse 37 it's all so emphatic in a command but he answered them and said to them in the original language it says give them something to eat you know this is very very interesting and they said to him in Mark's Gospel shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat even nine months way couldn't feed this crowd 200 denarii a denarii is a is a coin that you would use in with that coin you could buy two glasses of wine you could buy a loaf of bread you could buy a place to stay it could very well be that out of all of the ministry resources that they had available it may have even been that Judas who was keeping the purse said if we literally exhaust everything that we have everything that we've set aside in order to make ministry possible for the duration of this ministry if we spent every penny it wouldn't even give everyone even the smallest provision the disciples are in effect saying we can't do this even if we took everything that we had and then we put it in into everything that we could possibly get with everything that we have it really wouldn't make a significant difference and so what's the lesson the lesson has to be it's not what you don't have that counts it's what you do have and what you give it to and that's the key the disciples have nothing they have next to nothing and you might say exactly the same thing hey that sounds exactly like me I don't have anything or next to anything and what I have I can't give do you have anything to say no I can't preach I can't teach I can't serve in the children's ministry can you learn no I can't even do that I can't show up to a men's bible study or a woman's bible study i don't even have time to learn can you play an instrument no can you sing again that falls into two categories those who think that they can and those that everybody else around them knows the truth that they really can't well tell me what it is you're good at I'm not good at anything I'm bad at everything well the good news is that God can and will take what you're good at and even what you're not so good at Jesus is willing to take everything that you have for his glory the Lord Jesus I want you to think about this for just a minute the Lord Jesus is willing to use your strength Jesus is even willing to use your weakness Jesus is willing to use what you think is weak and worthless and there's a deep deep hunger in the world i read a statistic lately that says in the next 10 years one out of every three people in the world will be living in a slum I watched a documentary this last week as and in the documentary it spent three hours in a manila slum and in the course of the three hours of the manila manila slum I saw the most egregious and wicked things that you can imagine but I haven't just seen it in the documentary I've seen it in real life and in the kabira slums in Nairobi in the Calcutta slums and Mumbai slums in other words they're slums everywhere and soon soon soon almost one out thirty-three percent of everyone is going to live in the most unbelievable squalor most people go to bed hungry every single night in the world americans spend five billion dollars a year on fad diets and five billion dollars a year on pet food now don't get me wrong I'm not quoting that statistic to discourage you from losing weight or feeding your pets you might think Geno just said that I should just stay fat and let the dogs go hungry that's not what I'm saying I'm quoting that statistic in order to help you think from a different perspective in our own country hundreds of thousands of children will go hungry and for some the only balanced meal that they'll receive tragically is in a government school they'll get a place to eat in a government school and then wind up getting their souls poisoned I want you to think it through for just a moment 48 1.1 million Americans live in food insecure households that's 32 million adults 15 million children fourteen percent of households that 17 million households won't have enough food households with children food insecurity were significantly higher in those homes where you had a single mom or a single dad households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included people with children people with children headed by a single mom black non-hispanic households in 2013 5.4 million seniors that's people over the age of sixty nine percent of all seniors in the country literally struggle with eating right these numbers are like tombstones in long rows monuments to lives neglected a hundred million people in the world have no shelter whatsoever 770 million people won't receive enough food today 500 million will suffer from iron deficiency anemia 1.3 billion people don't have a way to drink water every day and you might think what can I do about that and it's obvious that we can't do everything for everyone the issue is just simply going to be are we going to do something for someone and it's not just the pastor in me or the Christian in me although I am a pastor and I am a Christian there's something Italian in me that insists that everyone who comes to this place has something to eat physically and spiritually most importantly most assuredly spiritual physical deprivation can kill you but spiritual depre vision can kill you for ever and ever and ever and so one of the things that we get to talk about is the fact that the way that we get to impart information and spiritual feeding is both a privilege and a responsibility and look at verse 17 look what it says and they said to him we have here only five loaves and two fish in order for you to get an idea of how big the loaf is think of a tortilla not the big kind that you wrap into a luscious monstrous burrito it's the little one that you use to wrap tacos that's about the size we're talking about people are afraid to sacrifice what they have to help others fear of sacrifice can cause people to neglect the blessings of God for some they don't want part of a Christian faith where God or Jesus or anyone else for that matter calls for a sacrifice yet sometimes God does use us in the most extraordinary of circumstances in the most remarkable of ways some of them invited most of them not invited I read the story of a Nazi prison camp in World War 2 where a prisoner was caught escaping and his punishment the Commandant of the prison ordered that 10 men be placed in confinement and starved to death and one of the men chosen had a wife and several children a Polish priest father kolbe begged the Nazi guards begged the guards to take him rather than the young men the guard agreed all the men starved to death and the priest was the last to die and he lingered and he lingered and he lingered and the Commandant got so frustrated that he went into his cell and injected him with a lethal injection but in that South he scratched on the side of the wood with his own fingernails across and he prayed he spent that time in reflection solitude submission sacrifice Jesus love is demonstrated in Jesus's death this is exactly what Jesus is going to do he isn't just simply going to feed the people and walk away there is an in game that he has in mind in Matt Mark's Gospel chapter 6 verse 38 we read how many loaves do you have go and see he doesn't even tell us the amount Matthew gives us the amount in verse 17 we have five and two fish this is exactly their way of saying we don't have anything that really matters verse 18 he said bring them here to me now this is incredible Jesus would perform no miracle until they brought what they had isn't that interesting he is not going to just simply make food out of thin air although he can in fact do it it's not the type of food or even the amount of food that matters the important thing is that it was given rough things ordinary things common things leftover things things that you may think are useless can become useful for the kingdom and useful to Jesus you might be thinking in your in your own heart and in your own life I don't have anything worth having but it's not true in verse 19 it says then he commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass and he took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven he blesses and he breaks and he gives the loaves to the disciples and the disciples give to the multitudes every single word in that passage is important again we learn again in Mark's Gospel that the groups are divided into 50s and hundreds so he commands the multitudes to sit down but again from Mark's Gospel we learned that the disciples take them in groups of 50 groups of a hundred and then it says Jesus broke the bread gave it to his disciples and the disciples gave the bread to the people do you know why that's important remember what Jesus has already said you feed them they're going to be able to fulfill Jesus's command they're going to be able to do exactly what Jesus has asked them to do by simply giving him what they can't provide themselves you give him what you do have and then he gives it back to you and you give it to everybody else the food distribution was done decently and an order it was done in manageable groups but again you should see something special in that little little glimpse and the text itself that sometimes the best feeding the best nourishment the most wonderful opportunities are going to take place in the small group it's going to be in Peters Bible study it's going to be in Mary's women's Bible said it's going to be in the small groups that meet throughout the church and by the way we're going to be launching a whole new way of thinking about small groups if the most wonderful and powerful ministry is going to take place in these kinds of manageable groups it makes perfect sense that we should do that and by the way don't wait find a place a home group a kinship group a fellowship group a small group where you can form friendship and relationship John Corson rights she blessed and broke he writes and I love this in between blessing and giving thanks there's breaking that's how John Carson talks in between blessing and giving thanks there's breaking John Carson and his commentary goes on and he says gives illustrations of breaking and brokenness Mary anoints the Lord of Jesus with costly perfume she breaks the alabaster box to liberate the costly perfume anoint Jesus Gideon takes 300 men with clay pots filled with torches at a given signal the pots break the lights flood the darkness confused by the light the Midianites fight and destroy each other Israel is victorious even before the battle even begins a shocking and as surprising as it may be to you that Jesus doesn't just simply break the bread and the fish in order to feed the people that he might be about his father's business breaking you there might be something in your life that keeps you from honoring and serving and submitting to the Lord Jesus and so Jesus is going to break you he's gonna break you of that awful pride he's going to break you of the fear he's going to break you from the selfishness he's going to break you break you and as he breaks you guess what you are placed in a position where now Jesus can use you in the most remarkable and compassionate way ever in order to help people that you thought you would never be able to help and so I'm going to pray something that should alarm you maybe even frighten you I'm going to pray that you'll be blessed and broken so that you can be useful to the father so that you can do exactly what it is that God wants you to do Jesus will bless and break and distribute the food Jesus supplies the banquet but i want you to see one other thing quickly Jesus supplies the food but he doesn't force the people to eat I can pray and prepare and give you a message and encourage you but I can't make you eat I can put the food on the table but at some point you're going to have to swallow it and digest it and it's interesting in verse 20 it says so they all ate and they were filled and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remain they ate until they couldn't eat anymore i love this word because the word filled means glutted filled to the top it's the kind of eating that you would have done at my grandmother's house so sorry mrs. geraci I can't eat it sure you can't sure you can no no mrs. geraci there's no more room no clearly I don't see you spitting it out or throwing it up yet this is the kind of eating that takes place at Thanksgiving time or at Christmas time this is the kind of eating where if you go to the Chinese all-you-can-eat place or rodizio grill have you ever been to the rodizio grill it's that BBQ place of the Brazilian barbecue they have a little hourglass and on the top it's it's green and on the bottom it's red and if the top is green they keep bringing you food and bringing you food until you have to literally turn it over and say stop stop this is the kind of food that he's talking about they ate until everyone was satisfied have you ever eaten so much that you thought you literally thought I'll never eat again ever I'll never ever have to eat ever again but sure enough your body digests the food it moves on and you really will eat again you can be physically satisfied but the hunger is always going to come back but the spiritual hunger the spiritual hunger inside of you can only and will only be satisfied by Jesus like I said the crowd fifteen thousand twelve baskets gathered up not only did everyone eat again like an Italian house you eat now and you eat later and you might be thinking again the need is great and it is and again you might be thinking I can't help anyone not even myself and I want to point something out to you Jesus didn't feed the multitudes every single time they met Jesus fed them on that day when they found themselves far far away from the usual resources and so every once in a while things are going to be very very good but every once in a while things are going to be a little bit difficult you may or may not have heard of a ministry that we have here called open arms open arms is a ministry of our church that when someone house burns down or when there's a tragedy or a difficulty that people can come to our church and get help and by the way so long as I'm the pastor within my ability and within the resources that God has entrusted to us not a single child will ever ever never ever ever go hungry at our church there's so many lessons let me review them again quickly with you number one Jesus is willing to be inconvenienced by the needs of others even when he needed rest and time alone number two when the people came needing more demanding more in grief sorrow fatigue Jesus gave them what they needed and he didn't respond with criticism or excuse but with compassion and sympathy number three Jesus saw them as sheep who needed to be fed and nurtured and protected number four jesus fed their stomach but he first fed their soul and number five genus this honors what we bring to him this could be maybe one of the most important things that I want you to get Jesus will honor what you bring to him I only have very little bring it to him all I can do is maybe pray then pray time attention what could you give can you give compassion can you give sympathy could you give a smile can you pray on the prayer chain everyone has to have something that they should be able to provide Jesus honors what we bring him and a little becomes much in the Kings hands and jesus never pretended that the miracle was solely his he thanked God he broke the bread he gave it to the disciples so that they could do exactly what they needed to do and Jesus will give you exactly the resources you need in order to do everything that he's asked you to do Jesus asked the disciples and then used the disciples to minister to the others are you telling me Jesus was a user uh yeah he will use you not in a manipulative evil harmful way but to bring grace to bring grace to bring grace and mercy deal moody once was overheard over heard a man say the world is yet to see one man holy consecrated to the Lord what God might do through that man and deal moody thought to himself by God's grace I want to be that person I want to be that man in order for church to be church in order for it to be healthy it has to be a place where you can get help and give help that makes sense to you doesn't it a place where you can get help and give help let's pray Heavenly Father we thank you we praise you we glorify you Lord we thank you what you've entrusted to us and now we pray Lord that you would entrust the things through us and like I promised lord I pray for these men and women I pray for each and every man and woman and young person within the sound of my voice lord I pray that by the power of the holy spirit and your generosity and ever-increasing grace and mercy and love and generosity that you would bless these men and women that you would bless them exceeding abundantly above everything that they could ask or think and I also pray that you would break them according to your timetable according to the circumstances that you've planned according to the wisdom that only you know Lord I'm not wise enough to break people but lord I know that you are you can break them in such a way that they were never more useful and so lord I pray that the process would begin that the compassion would continue and that the generosity would be so overwhelming that we could with clear conscience give you all of the praise and all of the glory and all of the honor knowing that you have given us exceeding abundant above all that we could ask or think in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Calvary South Denver

Views: 1,723

Rating: 4.3684211 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary Chapel, Gino Geraci, Christianity, Bible Study, Miracles of Jesus, Feeding 5000

Id: VH0TMijFoJM

Length: 56min 42sec (3402 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2016