Jesus Can - Week 4 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny

Jesus’ miracles (and his explanations for them) remind us that God holistically loves us. That’s why Jesus used his power to feed and forgive, to meet physical and eternal needs. That same Savior hasn’t changed, which is why we call upon his power for daily bread and the “food” our souls need. 

What is 922 Ministries - The CORE & St. Peter Lutheran?

The episodes are the weekly sermons from 922 Ministries (St. Peter and The CORE) of Appleton, Wisconsin.

Good morning once more. Welcome back to week four of Jesus can. Do you consider yourself a confident person?

We're confident means hopeful. It means strong. It means optimistic. It's leaning away from feeling anxious, feeling afraid, being worried about the future. It's wrestling with the what about outs and what ifs and moving really quickly over to.

But God's got this and has a plan for this. It's getting your chin off of your chest, keeping your head high, just being positive about the future. If confidence was a class that you had to take in school, what letter grade do you think you get? I can remember about 30 years ago when I was a middle school kid. Picture me about 97 pounds with poofy hair and double bar glasses.

Before they were cool, there was this aftershave commercial that I can remember even now, 30 years later, it was an old actor named Jack Palance. I'm not sure if any of you remember that name. Picture like western guy. Chiseled, steely gaze, and he looks into the camera, and he confidently says, I don't need any fancy cologne to feel like a man. He pours the aftershave into his palm, he slaps it on his face, and without wincing, he says.

He looks at the camera and he says, confidence is very attractive, don't you think? And 14 year old me said, I do think that, yes. This dude seems so sure of himself, so confident, and I didn't. I think he was right. The confidence is attractive.

I think it's something that all of us want, no matter what your background or your church experience. I don't know anyone that just wants to freak out and curl up in a ball and be anxious and afraid and worried about the future. I think all of us want to approach all the ups and downs of life with this optimism and this hope and this confidence. So I was thinking the other day, well, where does that come from? Aftershave doesn't make you confident.

What does make you confident? And I came up with an equation that I think kind of describes why there are some times in life where you feel optimistic and confident and hopeful, and sometimes when you definitely don't. If you're taking notes at home or in your program today, here's what I'm going to call today. The confidence equation. Confidence is when you believe that your resources are greater than your needs.

So when you face a situation and you realize that you need this, if you think that your resources are here, you'll probably feel confidence. But if you look around and think that your resources are down here, you'll feel the opposite of confidence. For example, let's say you're trying to buy a new car or used one. You're trying to find your first home, and you realize how much money you need to make the purchase. Are you confident that you're financially going to be okay?

Are? Well, I would say it really doesn't depend on the price of the house or the price of the car. Your brain is automatically going to calculate, well, what kind of resources do I have? Do I have enough money? Do I have a good enough job?

Do I have people that can help me with a down payment? If your resources are bigger than your needs, you'll tend to feel confident. And if they're not, well, then you won't. Or think about school. Are some of you students here going to pass the exam?

Are you going to graduate? Is your GPA going to be 3.0 or 3.5 or higher? Well, your brain starts to think, well, what kind of resources do I have? If you have a whole semester full of good grades and on time assignments, if you have good study habits, if you're historically a good test taker, you probably feel pretty confident that the school year is going to be okay. But if you're really insecure about your study habits, if you missed a bunch of assignments, if the resources that you have feel like they're less than the need, well, then you're going to be a little bit worried how the school year is going to turn out.

Confidence happens when your resources are greater than your needs. Or think about dating. Are you confident that the girl you like from work is going to say yes if you ask her out, or that that guy you just grabbed coffee with is going to want a second date? Are you confident your marriage is going to make it through the chaos of having one kid and then two? It's going to make it for the long term until death do you part.

Are you relationally confident?

Well, as I give you a second to think, your brain is trying to calculate, right, okay, well, I guess you need this level of commitment and energy and love and respect, and you're trying to think, okay, am I charming? Did the first date go well? Do we have good communication skills? Have we gotten through difficult things in the past? Do we have a history of getting through tough stuff?

And the more resources your heart thinks that you have, the more confident you're going to feel. The confidence equation says that it's not necessarily a situation that makes you feel confident or not, but instead your perception of the resources you have to face. That situation. Enough resources equals a confident person. A lack of resources equals a concerned one.

But since we're here in church today, and since you probably are watching at home to learn a little bit more about God, let's not talk about your romantic life or your financial situation today. Let's talk about your spiritual confidence. Do you consider yourself a spiritually confident person? Which means, as you think about life, are you just optimistic and hopeful that you are blessed and will be blessed? If I put you on the spot and it was just me and you, are you absolutely confident that God is on your side?

That he's with you, that he loves you, that he's for you, that he likes you? If today was the day when you had to stand like before God and be judged, how confident are you that the thumb would go up, that he would smile and accept you? That the pearly gates would swing open wide and paradise would be your forever future? As you think about how your heart processes this life and the life to come, how confident do you feel?

Well, once again, your brain starts to think, well, maybe not. Sometimes you're strong and sometimes you're weak. Sometimes your faith is good. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you make good choices.

Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you're obedient. Sometimes you're sinful. Even in a church, spiritual confidence is no given what we're always trying to think. I'm facing this situation in life.

I'm going through this at home. The breakup, the divorce, the cancer, the election, the headlines. And I have my own mistakes and story. My shame, my sins, my history. So do I have enough resources to meet that need?

That's a good question. And something lots of us, even as Christian people wrestle with, like, can I actually have peace? Can I be absolutely confident that I'm going to make it through this and I'm going to make it to God?

If you wrestle with some of those worries and fears like I sometimes do, today is the perfect day to be in church. Today we get to grab the Bible and try to, I would just say this singularly, try to turn up your spiritual confidence. That's my goal. You can let me know in the lobby after church if it worked. My goal is to tell you a really famous story about a really famous thing that Jesus once did when he fed a massive stadium's worth of people with a little kid's lunch.

And as you read the story, I want you to think about a resource that sometimes even spiritual, church-going Christian people forget. A resource that always makes your resources greater than your needs, which leads you to incredible Christian confidence. Let's grab our Bibles today and jump into Matthew, chapter 14 where Jesus's friend Matthew, an eyewitness of this very event, tells us of the time when Jesus fed over 5000 people. It starts this way when Jesus heard what had happened.

That's a reference to the brutal murder of his friend and relative, John the Baptist. Jesus is grieving. John was beheaded simply for being a bold Christian. When he heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Jesus wants to get away.

He needs to grieve. He's very human. His heart is heavy. He's exhausted, he's tired. He gets in the boat, gets away from the crowds.

But look what happens hearing of this. The crowds follow Jesus on foot from the towns. They get all like crazy paparazzi on Jesus. Where Jesus launched his boat and to where we think he landed was about a ten k around the sea of Galilee. Like these crowds, by the hundreds, by the thousands, are chasing Jesus down.

So when his boat lands there, the people are with all their needs and questions and desire for healing. How would you feel if one of your closest friends, your mom or your dad, your son or your daughter just died and you just needed to get away to think and to process the grief and you tried to go home or get away to an Airbnb and there was a mob of people wanting your time and attention. How would you feel? I know how I'd feel. I would say things that pastors should not say to other human beings.

Right? Give me some space. But I don't want you to miss this. It's really quick in the text, but look how Jesus feels. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion.

He had compassion on them and he healed their sick.

Jesus is the most compassionate, patient, understanding these people were intruding on his grief. And yet the love that he had in his heart was so profound that even then he had compassion on them. He taught them and he reached out to touch them. He told them about heaven and he healed their sick. The minutes and then the hours went on of Jesus pouring himself out in love and compassion.

And as he does, his friends are kind of standing on the side and they're starting to lose their confidence. They're looking around and doing some quick math and they're noticing that there is a great and growing need. And they're also looking around and realizing that they have not enough resources to meet that need. Remember, the confidence equation is that we feel confident and hopeful when the resources are greater than the need, but in this case just the opposite. Look how Matthew tells it.

He says as evening approached, the disciples came to Jesus and said, this is a remote place and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food. Jesus replied, they do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.

This isn't in the text, but they said, the Bible says we have here only five loaves of bread. The greek word is like a dinner roll. We got five dinner rolls and two fish. They answered, yeah, the need. Matthew's about to tell us that there are about 5000 just men plus the women, plus the children.

And it's getting late. Like we've all missed dinner time. So it's not just like the 14 year old boys who are getting hungry. Everyone's hungry. They're on the borderline of hangry.

And how many resources do we have? Anyone see a chili's nearby? No. Like we are in a remote place and all the food we could find was like this kid's lunchable. Like the fish platter with a couple of extra rolls that you asked the waitress for.

This one feed one or two people, much less 5000 plus people. There's a baseball stadium here where I live in Appleton, Wisconsin. It currently seats, I think this is right, 5900 people. Imagine if you're at a game. Every seat is packed, everyone's getting hungry, restless.

So you run over to the concession stands and all they have left are two hot dogs and five things of popcorn. How confident do you feel about this situation? It's exactly how the disciples felt. Jesus, what are we going to do? There's this huge obvious need.

There's obviously not enough resources. They panicked. They lost their confidence and hope because they had forgotten one little bitty thing. Do you know what it was, Jesus?

I love how the story ends. Verse 18. Bring the bread and the fish here to me, Jesus said, and he, jesus directed the people to sit down in the grass taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven. He Jesus gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he, Jesus gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the people.

And how'd it go? They all ate and were satisfied. And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about 5000 men besides women and children. Like in the text.

Matthew does not want you to miss the math. Maybe that's why they called him. No, I'm not going to go there. It's terrible. It's a terrible joke.

But he is all about the numbers. He says in verse 19, like, there were only five little loaves and two fish. And in verse 21, he said there were 5000 men plus the women, plus the children. But what happened when Jesus stepped in? Everybody ate and everyone was stuffed, like they buffeted out.

They loosened the ropes on their robes, they sighed and sat down on the grass. Some dude, I'm sure, took a nap. And when all was said and done, what happened? There were twelve. Not one or two, but twelve basketfuls.

Not handfuls or armfuls. Basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. It seemed that the resources were much less than the need. But then Jesus.

So I got a new equation for you. It's the christian confidence equation, how christians can be confident as followers of Jesus. Here's how this works. If you're taking notes, the christian confidence is that Jesus is always greater than my needs.

You and I face big situations, complex problems, things that we simply don't have the human resources to fix. But please, please, do not forget Jesus. Bring the little that you got to me. Jesus said back then, and he does miraculous, surprising things. And he says the same things to his friends today.

Bring it to me and watch what happens when Jesus gets involved.

Now, what exactly does this mean for our lives today? We're not sitting in some remote hillside in northern Israel. We're not trying to figure out how to make the bread and the fish work. How do we apply this truth to our lives today? I can think of two ways that this is super helpful.

One, when I think about the needs of our bodies, and two, when I think about the needs of our souls.

So let's try to take this concept and apply it first of all, to our bodies, our physical life here and now on earth. And let's think about our souls, our spiritual life, and our connection to God. So first, our body. You don't have to raise your hands for this one, but anyone got something going on with their body here today? An ache, a pain, cancerous cells or cramps, depression, diabetes, sprains, surgeries coming up.

Anyone facing something right now that you can't fix? If there was a pill, an exercise, an easy way to make it go away, you would have done that a long time ago. Anyone facing something physically, that just is like freaking you out and making you worried about tomorrow and the future and one or five years from now, I can relate to that.

Some of you heard the story that two weeks ago I was playing soccer just another day running around in the field. Ball comes to me, I trap it, and I run to kick it. I plant my leg. You know what happens next?

I found out later on the MRI that the sound that I heard was my ACL first snapping and then my femur and my tibia crashing together. Both bones were left severely bruised. When it was all said and done, I crumpled. And since that has happened, I've thought a lot. I've tried not to worry or panic when the doctors say surgery and rehab and nine months of no playing soccer.

Plus I got all these, like, 50 year old guys saying to me, you should maybe never play soccer again. And I say, shut up. Just shut up. You might be right. I don't want to think about.

That's crazy to me. I've been married for 20 years. I've been playing organized soccer for 40 years. I have loved this game longer than I've loved the greatest loves of my life. Just thinking about that, man.

I know it's small in the grand scheme of things, but there's just things that we go through with our bodies where we're like, well, what if. And what if this doesn't get better? What if I have to live with this for the rest of my life? What if this ends my life? What if the pain doesn't fix it?

What if I can't get the meds right? What if I have to battle these anxious. It's so easy to lose your confidence and freak out because there's this huge physical need that you and I just don't have the resources to meet.

Unless Jesus.

The reason we freak out, and maybe the reason we don't have to freak out is if we remember Jesus. Do you know what Jesus says about our bodies in the Bible, man, there's such a rich and beautiful theology of the body. Some of you know it. Some of you have never heard this. Here's what the Bible says to followers of Jesus, that Jesus, who is full of compassion and power today, just like he was back then, he will either miraculously heal your body now or miraculously heal your body then.

And if he doesn't do it now, it's because he has plans to bless you. Until then, I wonder if you believe that Jesus, man, he can work miracles even today. Sometimes we forget. Please, please, do not be so spiritually minded that you start to think that Jesus doesn't want to do any physical good. The vast majority of the miracles that Jesus had in the Bible were physical.

They weren't sermons. He preached. He fed people. He gave them wine to drink. Blind people saw, deaf people heard, mute people spoke, lame people walked.

Apparently Jesus cares a lot about how our bodies feel. He still does. And he can work miracles. Man, I'm not. Stop praying for a miracle.

The doctors say surgery. Maybe, maybe not. The doctors say maybe not. Soccer. You might be right.

Or maybe not. I believe that there is a God who sits at the right hand of our heavenly Father, who, whenever he wants to, could heal my body just like that. Do you believe that, too? Like, man, pray big. Have you heard this happening?

You go to the doctor and they say, I'm sorry. You only have six months to live, and six months comes and you're not dead yet, right? And then nine months, and then a year, and then five years later, you're like, what happened? Jesus happened. They look at the scan, and they're trying to figure out what happened.

We don't have any rational explanation for this. The smartest minds can't figure it out. What happened? Jesus stepped in. We theologically believe that the God who holds our bodies and futures in his hands, if he wants to, can heal us right now.

He still does. He still might for me and for you.

And if he doesn't do it now, the Bible says he's going to work a miracle. Then look at this passage with me from Philippians, chapter three. The apostle Paul, who experienced so many aches and pains with his body, said, the Lord Jesus will not. Maybe not. He's thinking about the Lord Jesus will.

I love the verb transform our lowly bodies. Lowly, broken, sin, sick bodies. Why? So that they will be like his glorious body. Did you know the Bible says that when jesus comes back, something's going to happen that we call the resurrection of the dead, where our bodies will not just be raised like this, but they will be.

I love the verb transformed to be glorious like Jesus. Man. No sickness, no pains, no snaps or cracks or pops, no worries, no fears, no chemical imbalances, no cramps, no cancer, no autoimmune disorders, no anxiety, like, all of it. He will transform these lowly bodies we're so used to into something so glorious, the Bible doesn't even have words for it. And I love thinking about that.

Like today, I'm one day closer than I was yesterday to my glorious body. And if you follow Jesus, you are, too. In fact, turn to the person next to you. This is the part where you get to talk in church. All right, don't fail me now.

I want you to look at them with an excited expression on your face and say, I'm getting a glorious body, right? I'm getting a glorious. I'm getting a glorious body.

I've hunted. There's going to be more than one dude who's going to be, like, strutting in front of the mirror today after church. Enjoy this now, honey. It's only going to get better after this. I'm getting it.

Glorious. I love mean theologically, we believe that Jesus heals the body either now or then. It's not an if, it's not a maybe. He will transform us sooner or later so that our bodies will be whole and healed and glorious. So if you sell medication, you better get your hours in now because it's not going to last forever.

And if you're a nurse, I hope you enjoy your career here on earth, because it's not lasting forever. And if you're a counselor, man, get your hours in now. Because my Jesus, full of indescribable compassion and glorious power, is about to transform these lowly bodies. And if Jesus makes me and you wait, if the miracle in body or brain doesn't happen today, the Bible says the only reason that God will make you wait for that day is because he has a better blessing.

I've been thinking about that a lot. Like when I'm super discouraged. What's going to happen if I can't play. I actually opened up a list in my annual planner and I'm keeping, one after another, the number of blessings that God is giving to me. That would never have happened if this hadn't happened.

And I can tell you, two weeks in, there are some beautiful things on that list. Lots of them come from you, actually.

Sometimes you don't know how much people care about you until you need to be cared for.

Sometimes you don't realize just how many good people are surrounding you who would do anything with a capital a until you need everything.

I think about people I can connect with that I couldn't have connected with before. I think about people in the medical community I'm meeting that I hadn't met in ten years of living this community. I think of doors that got my and this is just what I can see. My list as of this morning, is eleven things long. After less than 20 days, I wonder what's going to happen a year from now as God, who holds my body in the palm of his powerful hand, is working out something better than I would have had planned.

Running. I might have been blessed 50 times. Sitting. I might be blessed one hundredfold. I was just at my met my physical therapist and he says, well, what do you do?

I said, I'm a pastor. He said, where? I said, at the core. He said, oh, what are your goals? I said, I need to stand for, like, 30 to 40 minutes to talk.

He said, okay, well, why is that your goal? Because I'm a preacher, and we have this tv show called Time of Grace. And he says, oh, that's nice. He did not seem interested at all, but he's like, all right, someone from my team's going to be in here to schedule your next appointment. And before he leaves, Connie the scheduler walks in, she stops in the doorframe, and she says, hey, you look like that guy from tv.

I said, I am that guy from tv. And she grabs the doctor, like, she turns into Connie the evangelist, like, spreading the word about the goodness. I'm just sitting there like, yes, God. This would not have happened. This would not have happened otherwise.

This is what God does. The Bible says in all things, all things. Your broken body, lowly body, things. In all things. He's working for the good of those who love him.

And I know you can't always see it as clearly as I saw it the other day, but this is the promise of God. He knows about the pain, and he says, I'm going to take care of it today or on that day, I'm going to take care of it. And if I don't do it today, it's not because I've forgotten about you. Some of you feel that. It's not because I stopped listening to your prayers.

Some of you think that it's the God who sees the big picture, says, it's because I'm working out something for the church's good. How do you have confidence when you're going through life with these lowly, broken bodies? There's a simple answer. Jesus, the Jesus of compassion and power, is always greater than our greatest physical needs.

And that's not even the good part.

Jesus changes the confidence equation when it comes to here, now, earth, these bodies, but even more so, even more quickly. Jesus increases our confidence when it comes to our soul, our spirit, our eternity in heaven.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about a funeral that he went to of a man who was incredibly loved by his community. Because he had loved his community, incredibly, church was packed. He was one of those good people that everyone loved. He spent not a day or two, but years, decades, serving all the neighbors in his community. And so when his last day came, the church was packed as people wanted to honor his life.

But at the service, the priest who gave the message said something kind of revealing. He said that before the man died, during his final moments, he was not at all confident that he would go to heaven.

Wait, like the best guy in town isn't sure he's going to make it to heaven? Yeah, the guy was wondering, like, I've done a lot of stuff, but have I done enough? I've tried to be a good man, but am I good enough? We're not talking about getting into a state school. We're talking about getting into heaven.

He's God. What's the standard? What's the need that a person has to reach to be confident that they're going to be in the presence of God?

That's a huge question. I wonder if all of you have thought about that before, if today was the day. Like, do you know, on a scale of zero to 100, do you know you're going to be with God?

Last week, I've asked a young woman that question in a coffee shop, and I've asked a friend that as he spends his last days battling cancer. And I've asked a man that in a state prison, are you sure that you're going to go? Why?

Most of us, if we just slow down and push pause on life and think about it, we say, well, I mean, I'm not the worst, but I've tried to learn from my mistakes. But there's a big question mark on the biggest question of life, like, how do you and I know for sure that we're going to be with God? Think of it this way, it's hard to get into Harvard, and heaven's a little bit better than Harvard.

If the need. The standard is that high for some earthly institution, what do you think it is where God is?

And the Bible's answer to that question is simple. That to see the face of God, a person has to be as good as God is. To enter into the pure holiness of heaven, a person has to be holy, like God is. Try your best is not the standard. To get in, you need much more than that.

Without holiness, the Bible says perfection. No one can see the face of a holy and perfect God.

I don't know if I'm the first one to ever tell this to you, but you can't. If you could rewind your life to 1020 years ago and be twice as good of a person, you still couldn't. If you would try three times as hard until your last breath to be more generous and patient and kind, that still wouldn't be enough. The standard of getting in to eternal happiness is not a little bit more effort from you. You and I can't ready for it, but Jesus can.

The Bible says that Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. The reason so often in church here we sing worthy are you God? You alone deserve the praise. It's because God is the only one that can get us into his presence. You cannot try your way to heaven, but Jesus can carry you to heaven.

You can't go back and forgive the sins that you've committed, but Jesus can forgive you of your sins. You can't jump across the chasm between humans and God, but Jesus can put you on his back and fly there by his perfection. I love how one of my friends, an amazing artist, depicted this picture. He said Jesus is the way the mountains of heaven are so beautiful and glorious, but they are so far away from broken, sinful humanity. The only way little people like us can get across is through the wounds of Jesus.

That if we look to the cross of Jesus and believe that there 2000 years ago he stretched out his arms to forgive us and save us and redeem us and restore us, you and I can feel a thousand percent confident. I told a young woman at a coffee shop this week, you're going to think this sounds arrogant, but I have zero doubts that I am perfect in the eyes of God, not because I've done it. All right man, I know too many of my sins for that to be true. But I believe in a Jesus who highlighted all my sins, hit delete and then emptied the trash. He drowned everything wrong I've ever done in the depths of the sea and he doesn't allow anyone to fish.

My sin is gone. And if you believe in Jesus, yours is too. I love what the Bible says. In Ephesians chapter three, it says God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Some of you are hoping that God would give you a second chance to do things right, but he gives us immeasurably more than that.

He gives us not a second chance, but his one and his only son. Some of you are hoping that God would grade on a curve so you wouldn't end up in hell. Now he grades on a cross so that you can go to heaven. Some of you are hoping that your good is good enough and God says, no, I got something better. I'm going to make you not good or better, but perfect.

By the blood of my one and only son, turn from your sin and turn to Jesus and you can be 1000% sure that heaven is your home, man. Jesus changes the game. Are you worried about body or soul? Are you freaking out? Staying up at night, worrying about today or tomorrow or forever?

Here's my one bit of advice. Don't forget Jesus. Bring to him the two fish and the five loaves of bread in your pocket and he will do something you would not believe possible. He'll give you peace in the face of your pain. He'll promise you paradise where the pain will be over.

You. And I cannot do such things. But thank you God, that Jesus can.

And if you ever lose your confidence, just peek inside that tomb.

I've never been there, but I've heard that just southeast of the ancient city of Rome there is an ancient Christian tomb. It's called the catacomb of Calyxus. It's famous not just because some of the earliest Christian leaders are buried there, but because it contains some of the oldest examples of christian art that have survived throughout history. One of the paintings that you can find on the inside of that tomb is this one.

It's a crude drawing of a couple of fish and a basket that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 loaves of bread.

And I thought, well that's an interesting story to tell in a tomb. I wonder why those early Christians, when they were decorating that place of the dead would remember the feeding of the 5000. But I think I know why. It's because on that day, jesus did what no one else could. Jesus worked a miracle in his compassion and power that no one thought possible.

And maybe these early Christians thought that the best thing to remember as you come to the end of your life, as you face your own upcoming death, is that there is a Jesus who can do immeasurably more. He can forgive you, save you, restore you and redeem you. He can reconcile you to God, convince you that God does not just love you, he actually likes you. He accepts you and approves of you in the mighty name of Jesus. My friends, do not spend the rest of your life looking in a mirror and remembering that you can't.

Instead spend the rest of your life and all of eternity looking at the cross and reminding yourself that Jesus can.