We're in this
series going through the book of Matthew,
and we're going to start chapter 14 this morning.
So if you brought your Bible with you,
I want you to open to Matthew 14
and just put your finger there.
I'm going to tell you right now, we're going to go through a lot of Bible today.
I don't expect you to flip through it all.
It's on our app.
If you have our app, you're going to follow along with the scriptures there.
I'll read a lot of it for us in reference quite a bit, but we're going to
primarily be in Matthew 14.
These we're just going to look at two events in the top part of Matthew 14
and this two. These two events don't look like they're connected.
They just look like two separate events.
But I want to suggest that what we call
theologically the study of God, they're connected theologically.
And I'm going to I'm going to walk I'm going to walk us through that.
But there's a big idea, overarching this whole thing.
And I want to share with you the big idea for these two passages this morning.
And I suggest this because Jesus is King now.
And that's what Matthew in his gospel is, is, is making the point
that as the Messiah, the Jewish expected one that was to come,
the deliverer of God's people, the bringer of salvation, that's King.
What it means to
follow him as discipleship and discipleship involves these things
cost, courage, compassion, commands, and cooperation.
So because Jesus is King.
Following him,
being a disciple involves some things, and those things are.
And we'll see them in this, this portion of Matthew 14 cost.
There's a cost involved to being a disciple to follow
in Jesus and requires great courage.
And we'll see that.
And it requires us to develop the compassion of Christ.
He is going to give us commands,
and he's going to ask us to cooperate with him
in his kingdom rule in the world.
And so that that's where we're going with this.
And so I'm going to read a couple passages.
I'll make some some observations, make some application.
And then I'm going to
I'm going to draw us back to some Old Testament stuff that really
these disciples should have had in mind as their, as, as they're going through
what we're going to read about in, in Matthew 14,
let me say this about the Bible, and here's my approach to it.
And here's what we do on Sundays.
I believe very strongly in the truth of Second Timothy 316,
which says, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching.
That's what I do on Sunday mornings, especially on Wednesday nights I teach.
I do a lot of preaching, I teach, I teach the Bible
because what that does is it's profitable for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, for training and righteousness.
That word reproof, this is the first thing the Bible does.
It really means rebuke.
What that is.
It points out error.
That's what it does.
First, here's here's what's wrong with our thinking.
Here's what's wrong with our mindset.
Here's what's wrong with our, you know, living like here, here's what's wrong.
And then correction, here's what's right.
Here's how we course correct.
And that process of rebuking error
and getting things straight is training in righteousness.
So that's what we do.
And that's what the Bible does.
And that's what we do as we interact with the Bible.
So because I've been accused in the past many times are going to fast.
Was that slow enough?
Well, okay. Okay.
So that's what we're going to do as you look through this first passage
in Matthew 14.
So let me just read it.
Let me read it first.
These first 12 I'm going to make some,
some comments as we go through this Matthew 14 verse one.
At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus.
And he said to his servants, This is John the Baptist.
He's been raised from the dead.
That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.
And then in verse three, Matthew kind of tells us the back story
about John the Baptist being dead.
And so here's the backstory for heritage
sees John and bound him and put him in prison
for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife,
because John had been saying to him, it's not lawful for you to have her.
And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people
because they held him to be a prophet.
And when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced
before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath
to give her whatever she might ask.
Prompted by her mother, she said, give me the head of John
the Baptist here on a platter.
And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths
and his guests, he commanded it to be given.
He sent and had John beheaded in prison, and his head was brought on a platter
and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.
And his disciples came and took the body and buried it.
And they went and told Jesus, let me unpack this a little bit.
Herod the Tetrarch
interview Bible students.
You remember back when Jesus was born, there was a king in the area named Herod
the Great. You remember Herod the Great.
Is that ring a bell?
Okay, so that's Herod the tetrarch, daddy.
So Herod the Great
pronounced himself as the king.
And so when these wise men, these Magi, came from
the eastern parts and said, where's the one born king of the Jews?
It was a threat to her, the great.
And so in response, you know the story, he makes this edict
that all the little boys two years older and little be killed.
That's this guy's dad.
Okay, that guy here, the great, was decrepit and evil and demonic.
He killed his first wife.
He had a lot of ways. He killed one of them.
He was supposed to be here.
His favorite one killed murder.
Two of his sons. That was said.
It's.
It's safer to be Herod's dog than it is his son.
He was just a horrible, horrible, evil individual.
So this is this one of the sons that he raised, that Herod the Great is gone,
and he took his kingdom, and he divided between three sons,
one a son, he gave half of his kingdom, and then two others a quarter each.
This is Herod the tetrarch, Herod the quarter part leader.
So he's ruling a quarter of the kingdom
where his brother Philip is in Rome.
Okay, so Herod Philip, there's Herod the tetrarch, and Herod Philip.
Well, as the history tells us, Herod the tetrarch goes with his wife,
who was this Nubian princess all treasured,
goes with her to Rome to see his brother Philip.
And while he's there, he's like, hey, Phil, I like your wife a lot better.
I like my wife.
And so he kind of woos her and seduces her.
And that wife of Herod, Philip.
Her only agenda is to be a woman in power.
That's your only agenda.
And I won't go.
I won't bore you with all the details.
We can go through history and watch how her life and unfolded.
All she is is chasing the title of the King.
She wants to be the first lady.
And so she's just positioning herself to be that.
And so she leaves Herod of Philip
and she hooks up with Herod the tetrarch.
Well, Herod the tetrarch can't have two wives.
And so he gets rid
of this Nubian princess, which causes all kinds of geopolitical problems.
So this is just a mess. This is a mess.
And so in the middle of that,
well, all that's going on, verse four,
John had been saying, that ain't right.
He's telling them that's you can't do that.
It's immoral, it's unjust, it's sinful.
It goes against basic morality and God's law.
You can't do that.
And in response,
by pressure from Herodias,
Herod has him arrested and thrown in jail.
Because here's the deal when evil can't refute truth,
it tries to silence the truth tellers.
Cancel culture way back in the day.
It's been around forever.
So let me just shut your mouth.
If I can't, if I can't refute it and that's what they say, throw them in jail.
So in the meantime, here it has this part, this birthday.
Now get this Herodias, the woman
whose chastened power.
She wants John dead.
And so she tells her daughter Salome,
she subroutine 14 and 16 years old.
She says, I want you to dance before
Herod the tetrarch,
which is in actuality her uncle.
And she does.
And when the Bible says she danced before him, it's not like swing dancing.
Just like this is an extreme,
seductive striptease that this mother had.
Her 14 to 16 year old daughter danced before
her uncle.
Do you understand how bad this is?
And this?
This uncle is so base
and so out of his mind and so drunk.
He gets so excited by this little girl
that he says, I'll give you whatever you want, man.
And so she, of course says, mama, what should I ask?
And she says,
John the Baptist head.
And so as a result,
evil camp,
silence, truth, chase and power.
John's beheaded.
The disciples of John.
Get his body.
Bury it in the go.
Tell Jesus that's the scene.
And in
verse 1413, now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there
in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
Jesus is just, I can't, I just need to.
I need to go away for a little bit.
I need to be alone.
Even if it's been there.
I just can't right now.
Well, I'm going to come back to that.
But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot.
From the towns.
When he went ashore, he saw the great crowd
and had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said,
this is a desolate place, and the day is now over.
Send the crowds away to go into the villages to buy food for themselves.
But Jesus said, they don't have to go away.
You give them something to eat.
And they said to him, we only have five loaves here and two fish.
And he said, bring them here to me.
Then he ordered the crowds to sit on the grass and take in the five
loaves and two fish.
He looked up to heaven and said a blessing.
Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples,
and the gave them to the crowds.
And they all ate and were satisfied.
And they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces left over.
And those who aid were about 5000 besides women and children.
And so Jesus hears that John the Baptist, we call him the Baptist,
that John been beheaded.
This wasn't just some some guy out in the wilderness.
This was Jesus's.
This was a cousin.
It was about six months older than Jesus.
And John had the unique privilege
of being the forerunner of Jesus to prepare his way.
So Jesus and John were, in essence, working in tandem, John
going before to prepare people's hearts for what Jesus was going to step into.
And so they were very close, of course, related, very dear to each other,
loved each other dearly, worked
with basically for and with each other.
This was this was this was painful.
This was painful.
And if any of you have lost
somebody that's very dear to you, understand what we're talking about here.
And so Jesus says, I need to I need to get away.
But here's the thing Jesus isn't going away to be in isolation.
He's not going away to withdraw.
He's going to wait to pray.
He's going away to connect, not to withdraw.
And this is this is a difference for for us.
Usually when we go through something that's
really, really, really difficult and tragic, we just want to get away.
We want to disconnect.
We want to just I like I can't be around people.
I don't want to be talking.
I don't want to be like, just let me be by myself, right?
Anybody?
Let's do this.
Let's pretend like you're going to talk back to me.
Want to ask a question?
Like with your mouths open.
That would be really, really encouraging.
So do you understand what I'm saying?
Like, I just want to be.
Yeah. Okay.
Good good good.
That's great. Awesome. Great job.
Jesus doesn't withdraw because he wants to be alone.
He wants he wants to withdraw so he can connect it to his father.
There's an engagement to his withdraw.
There's not an isolation.
Our problem is we seek isolation.
We got to be real careful about this.
And he wants to withdraw, to connect to his father.
But what happens?
What happens? We just read it.
What happens
from everywhere?
They just keep coming
and they keep coming and they keep coming.
And the Bible says he had compassion on them.
They had compassion
that that word compassion means literally
his his gut was moved.
He's like, listen, I am hurting.
I'm saddened.
I hate what evil has done, but
these people are in need.
And it's not that I'm not still hurting,
but I need to address their need first.
It's amazing.
It's so courageous.
And he healed their sick
and evening came.
And this said, you know what,
this is somebody else's problem,
right?
How many of us know that it's real easy to identify someone's problem, right?
Rather than accept it as well? I'm here to.
I could do something.
That's not what they say.
It says their problems.
Let someone else take care of it.
All they see is what they lack, what they're not able to do.
And Jesus says, don't you ever send them away?
Why would you send them away when I'm here?
There are so many times, and we're going to see it in the in this passage.
In both of these, there are so many times when have we just remembered
what God had done in the past, there wouldn't be any anxiety about the future
if we'd just remember and we're going to see it.
Had the disciples just remembered what God had done in the past,
they wouldn't have any anxiety about their need in the present.
Why do they do that?
I don't know why do we do it?
If we just remember what God had done,
there'd be no anxiety about the present.
Cinema away
just says, no, don't send them away.
I'm here.
You give them something to eat.
And they said, well, we only have five loaves and two fish.
Listen, don't ever say to God, I only.
That's not a good reason.
That's not a good excuse.
I mean, that's where we go most of the time, though, right?
Like my only like, I can't do anything about this.
I only have this much free time in my schedule I don't have.
I can't do anything about this.
I don't, I don't I only have this kind of skill set I can't do, I can't do this.
I only have this much money.
I can't do that.
Don't ever say I only have the God.
God never asked how much you have.
He just asked what you have.
He said.
People
bring them here to me.
You're the crowd. Sit down on the grass, taking five loaves. Two fish.
What are you?
He looked up to heaven.
He gave blessing.
That's how they prayed. They nobody prayed.
Nobody prayed like this, ever. In the Bible.
They all looked up to him because they were expecting something from God.
So they looked up in expectation.
And Jesus says the prayer, the typical Jewish prayer.
Blessed are you,
Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
That was the prayer.
It wasn't some long and get it.
Oh Lord God, we just pray
that there's a lot of people here.
They're coming from, you know, like Madera
and Chelsea and Fresno and Clovis.
I think they might be some here from Bakersfield.
There just a lot of people.
Oh, God, you know that they're hungry because they've been here a long time
and they've been listening and they're they're getting there
just so we just, like, there's none of that.
Like, that's how our prayer sounded.
So anemic.
Jesus. Real simple. Blessed are you, Lord.
Our God, rule the universe who brings forth bread from the earth.
That's it.
That's the prayer.
That's the acknowledgment of God and the knowledge of his ability to provide.
And then he says, pass him out.
5000 men
plus women and children, maybe 15, 20,000 people, five loaves, two fish.
Blessed are you, Lord.
Our God really brings forth bread from the earth.
Pass them out. What are they left with?
12 baskets.
How many disciples were there working with Jesus at this point?
12. He's saying, listen, listen.
I want you to remember that when you start with I only,
I end with, here's your basket full.
That's what he's saying.
When you start with I only
are you going to end with, here's your basket.
12 full by 12.
Well how many tribes of Israel were there?
12. What Jesus is saying is I'm all sufficient.
I'm more than sufficient for all my people,
more than sufficient for all my people.
So that's that's the
that's the that's the two accounts and they're tied together.
And I want to walk you through how I think they're tied together.
Two accounts of two meals.
Herod had a meal.
Jesus had a meal, right.
Herod's meal was a party.
Jesus Mill was a teaching.
Herod's meal ended in death.
Jesus's meal ended in life.
Herod's meal was in a palace for the powerful.
Jesus's meal was in the wilderness for the needy.
Herod's meal ended
with the head of a prophet on a platter.
Jesus's mill ended with an overflow of life.
Herod used his power to protect himself and his sin.
Jesus used his power to serve people
and to give himself away.
This is the difference between the two kingdoms,
the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God.
Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, the rule and reign of God in the world.
This is what it looks like.
The kingdom of the world is going to end in death itself, serving.
It's violent. It's debate.
The kingdom of God.
The heaven of God is life.
Herod used his.
It was a man of corrupt power,
a manipulative woman,
a foolish oath surrounded by powerful people.
And it looked impressive and powerful
from the outside, but it resulted only in death.
That's the kingdom of this world.
Jesus is meal ordinary people.
No palace, no elite, only
compassion and healing and fullness and life.
Unimpressed, unimpressive from the outside,
but resulting in life.
Here's what I want us to understand
about the kingdom of heaven and being disciples of God.
And this of that kingdom.
The kingdom of heaven comes with a great cost
from people of great courage.
The kingdom of Heaven comes with a great cost
and it requires people of great courage.
This was John the Baptist.
You go back in that first section of Matthew 14,
this this whole thing with John the Baptist confronting
Herod the tetrarch and Herodias, his wife.
It hearkens back to the Old Testament story of Elijah.
And if you don't know the story of Elijah, you could read about in First Kings
1819, 2021.
But Elijah was the great prophet of Israel, and Elijah was the one
that confronted evil King Ahab and his horrible wife Jezebel,
who did this battle of Mount Carmel with 400
prophets of Baal or God called down fire.
It was just this incredible
historical event
in the life of the of the Hebrew nation, through the prophet Elijah.
And John the Baptist is called, though generations later
he is called as one who came in the spirit and power of Elijah.
He said he was the Elijah who was to come.
Like there's a correlation between John the Baptist and Elijah, and has had
the disciples just understood what God had done in the past through Elijah.
They would understand what he was doing now in the life
and the death of John the Baptist, for instance,
Elijah confronted
evil King Ahab and his evil wife Jezebel.
What did John the Baptist to confront?
An evil Herod the tetrarch and his evil wife.
Erroneous.
Elijah exposed the corruption
and the sin of the powerful, powerfully elite.
What did John the Baptist you expose the corruption
and the sin of the powerful elite.
Jezebel wanted Elijah dead.
Herodias wanted John the Baptist dead.
She went evil.
Can't silence the truth of sin.
It will want to silence the truth teller
because it will not contend with it.
And that's why the kingdom of heaven requires courageous people
who are willing to pay a great price.
When wicked people cannot answer truth,
they try to bury the truth teller.
That's just how it happens.
And this isn't anything new.
This is part of the kingdom of heaven
that is pressing against the gates of hell.
And it's
always been this way, and it will always be this way.
See, there's a great danger in what's called Dominion theology.
Dominion theology says this.
Dominion theology teaches that, that there are some people who believe
that God's dominion should take place on the earth through the politics
and the power structures of the world before Jesus comes back.
It's like it's the it's taking dominion back from the evil whatever
and establishing this righteous way of living on earth before Jesus comes.
That's dominion theology.
And it's a real insidious because it creeps its way into our politics.
It creeps us away into our church.
I mean, hopefully not.
But like, we think it's our job to make sure that the godly, you know,
and there's nothing wrong with please understand,
there's nothing wrong with godly people being elected.
Please understand that.
But God, the politicians are not going to create heaven on earth.
It's still politics.
Let's not
get confused about this whole thing.
This stuff's just going to keep getting worse until Jesus comes back.
That's just how it's going to go.
Don't be fooled by Dominion theology thinking if we just get
the right people in power, all the evils are taken care of.
It'll never happen.
It's not supposed to happen. It's not.
It's not biblical.
And so the kingdom of God exists in a very corrupt,
evil fallen world, and it comes at a cost.
And courageous people have to pay it.
And it's going to be that way until Jesus comes back.
You follow.
I'm gonna keep pressing.
And this next of the feeding of 5000,
what should have been in their mind is the history of their people.
They should have gone
right back to Moses in the wilderness.
And what Jesus is saying, he's saying, listen,
I'm greater than Moses.
Moses.
Exodus 16.
Are you going to read about yourself?
Moses fed God's people, the people of God in the wilderness.
Was Jesus doing feeding God's people in the wilderness?
Moses prayed that God would sin and God he prayed and God sent manner from heaven.
Jesus said, I am the manner from heaven.
I'm the bread of life.
I'm greater than what Moses did,
what God did through Moses.
And see what's happening here is this
is this this presentation in living color, that Jesus
is the good Shepherd, and there's some really bad shepherds out there.
In Matthew 14, he went ashore, saw a great crowd,
and he had what compassion on them and healed their sick.
Mark tells the same account just from a different perspective,
and Mark adds this when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd,
had compassion on them, because they were what sheep without a shepherd?
That's important.
And they began to teach him many things.
The the shepherd part is important.
There's sheep without a shepherd
he has compassion on because there's sheep shepherd.
They should have gone way back to the Old Testament, because in numbers
27 it says, who shall go before them and come in before them?
Who shall lead them out, and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord
may not be as what sheep
that have no shepherd says, somebody's got to do that.
Somebody has to arrive on the scene that will lead them out and lead them
in a care for them and meet their needs and have compassion on them, because
otherwise they're sheep without a shepherd.
They should have seen.
We've been waiting for this.
Jesus is him, son of man.
This is a prophecy in Ezekiel prophesy against whom
the shepherds of Israel, all these corrupt ones of power,
of religious power, prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds,
thus says the Lord God, are shepherds of Israel.
You have been feeding yourselves.
Shouldn't you be feeding the sheep?
He's saying, listen, there are ravenous
shepherds out there who care nothing of this sheep.
All they're doing is using their power to feed
themselves, their own ego, their own sin, their own agenda, their own kingdoms.
And that's exactly what both the religious leaders of Jesus's day we're doing.
It's exactly what King Herod the Tetrarch was doing.
These false shepherds who care only for themselves.
And Jesus is saying, look, I am the good shepherd.
I'll feed my sheep.
I'll lay down my life for my sheep.
Why would you look anywhere else?
Why would you be worried about anything else?
And we see the compassion
of Jesus, the kingdom of God.
It comes at a great cost.
People of courage have got to pay it.
But while we pay the great cost of the kingdom,
we have to keep our compassion.
John was so dear and so close and so loved by Jesus.
It was unjustly convicted.
He was murdered and he was martyred.
I want you to understand something.
He was not martyred because he was saying, Jesus is the only way to heaven.
He was martyred because he called out this sin and the debauchery
of life by the people in charge.
It's in your lifestyle is sinful.
Everybody knows it's a parent's obvious.
How can we pretend like this isn't a big deal?
And he killed him for it
and martyred him for it.
And most of us, if this was our experience, we would be.
And I understand we need some space, man. I need some time.
And we would move into those those positions.
Like we would get bitter,
we would grieve, we get tired of all.
And then we just rage against it.
And that's not what Jesus does.
People press into Jesus and ask compassion on him,
and he generously serves them.
It's incredible.
Now, I'm not suggesting that leaders don't need rest.
I'm not suggesting that
when we go through times of difficulty and pain that we don't need rest.
That's not what I'm suggesting.
Jesus will withdraw later.
But again, like I said, he'll withdraw to pray, not to isolate.
Jesus is not indifferent to grief,
but neither is he paralyzed by it.
He has his deep, incredible compassion.
He understands the cost of the kingdom of heaven, and he's willing to pay it.
But he never loses his compassion for those who are in need.
That's strength.
And my friends, he's got basket
full of it for you and for me.
It's a shadow of Psalm 23.
And the disciples knew this.
They they knew the Psalms, some Psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I won't be in want.
He makes a table before me in the presence of what?
My enemies.
You know why we have enemies?
Because the kingdom of God is costly.
I'll be courageous
in the face of them because I know I have this shepherd.
But not only like there's this connection
with Elijah, the great prophet, and Moses and this connection with Elijah.
Everybody say Elijah and then say Elijah.
So Elijah was the prophet that came first, great prophet.
And then Elijah took over for Elijah.
But Elisha said, I'll only do it if I get a devil portion
of Elijah spirit and power, which is really interesting.
Again, another tangent.
I'm sorry, this is just fires and I won't go off on this, but
let you know that Elisha, if you look at the miracles
that Elijah did, Elisha twice
as many a double portion.
So Elisha's this incredible prophet.
And again, there's this correlation.
Why it had the disciples just remembered what God had dinner the past.
There would be no over them in the moment.
God's going to give a command, just going to give a command of the disciples.
And have they just remembered what God had done previously?
They wouldn't have any problem obeying this command.
But the kingdom of God always comes with commands.
Let me read to you this story.
Second Kings 42nd Kings four, verse 42.
Three. 44.
This is Elisha with about 100 men that he's responsible for.
The disciples should know this.
A man from Baal shall.
Came from there, bringing the man of God.
Elisha, bread of the first fruits, 20
loaves of barley, and fresh years of grain in a sack.
And Elisha said, give to the men that they may eat.
But the servant said, how can I set this before 100 men?
It's not enough.
I only have 20.
So he repeated, give them to the men that they meet.
For the Lord says, they shall eat and have some left.
So he said it before them, and they ate, and had some left,
according to the word of the Lord.
That's part of their history.
That's what God's already done.
So when the disciples are on the plane and Jesus says, hey,
feed them, they come back with, we don't have enough.
We only have five loaves.
And they should have said, Oh
God, already did this back then.
Jesus is here now.
How much more is he going to do now? Right?
You follow.
Had they just remembered
there'd be no anxiety over the present
or about the future.
It's so interesting.
In Elisha, the command is given.
The disciples ask a question about it.
The commands given.
Again, people eat and there's leftovers.
That's their history.
Now, in this moment, the command is given.
The disciples has a question about it, the commands given again
that people eat and there's a lot of leftovers.
Why do we forget what God's done
and have it over the present and the future?
You know, all this stuff.
That's all of this that we're seeing.
All of this is discipleship training.
He's training his disciples.
This is my kingdom is going to be costly.
You're going to have to be courageous.
I don't want you to lose your compassion in the middle of it.
You're going to have to, like, extend yourself.
And I'm going to give you commands.
Just obey me.
I'll take care of it.
But you have to.
You got to obey.
And this.
This is what this why I started with second Timothy 316.
This scripture
is good for teaching.
That's what we're doing.
So that will be rebuked.
Faulty thinking.
I just don't have enough.
I'm so worried about the future corrected.
Or don't be worried about it, because remember what God's done
so that we can be trained in righteousness.
Okay, well, I'm going to go forward.
Remember, God's done and no worries.
God's going to provide basket fools.
Do you see how this works?
Jesus has compassion on him,
and what he asks of us is just to cooperate with kingdom work.
Just cooperate.
He's going to give it commands as you're going to
your initial reaction going to be like, I don't know.
I don't have enough for that. I can't do that.
Just cooperate with the command.
That's all he's saying.
Disciples come say we don't have him to feed them.
He says, yeah, you do.
Just do it.
Here's what he's teaching them.
Here's the truth you are insufficient,
but you're not useless.
He's he's like, right.
No, I get it. Yeah.
You you don't have enough at all.
But you're not useless.
And the reason you're not useless is because of me.
Jesus says.
See, the
kingdom of God doesn't have supply problems.
The kingdom of God has distribution problems.
We think it's a supply problem
because we look at it and we're like, well, I don't have enough time.
I don't have enough energy, I don't have enough expertise,
I don't have enough ability, I don't have enough money,
I don't have enough, I can't, I mean.
God says, no, no, no.
I've never asked how much you've had.
I've only asked what you have because what you have, I will make enough.
And I'll make so much.
Once you give it to me, it will have baskets left over.
So don't give me the excuse of what you don't have.
I didn't ask what you don't have.
I didn't ask how much you. I asked what you have.
Because when you give
what you have the little bit that is to me, you're insufficient.
I'm not. I'm going to make basket falls.
And he's done it all through the past.
So why would we doubt they need to do it now?
This is making sense, isn't it?
Yes. Yeah.
We have a distribution problem.
All that's required of us is.
But the little bit that we have in Jesus hands. Here's the deal.
Jesus has never asked us to be the source.
He just asked us to be the servants.
That's all he's asked.
He's the source, the five and two thing.
Five loaves, two fish.
The disciples brought scarcity.
Jesus created abundance.
All the disciples saw was limitation.
Jesus saw opportunity.
Disciple said, let someone else take care of it.
You said, no, no, I'm with you.
You take care of it.
Never, ever, ever say to God I only.
That's not an excuse.
Here's the application.
When you don't have enough, remember the picture of disciples
walking away with a basket full?
When you don't have enough?
I don't have enough time. I don't have enough energy, don't have enough money.
I don't have enough resources.
I don't have enough expertise. I don't have enough training.
I don't have enough, I don't have enough. I don't have enough.
Get in your head.
A disciple walking away with the basket full.
That's what Jesus does when you take your not enough and give it to him.
Whatever the not enough is.
But what you have in his hand.
Baskets going to you're going to walk away with the basket.
Let me just this is not in the Bible.
I'm just going to tell you some real life metrics for our church.
This is this is just how what, how
churches in America run. And
just some basic metrics for a
healthy, growing church, for a healthy, growing church.
We are at our church flip side,
we are 44% under staffed
and we've been that way for years.
We've been functioning
nearly 50% understaffed for years.
We would have to increase
our staff load by 70 to 80%
to be at a healthy level
for a growing church,
and we have some new hires.
Come and thank you for your generosity.
It's enabled us to make some new hires, and I'm so excited.
And they're going to start
incrementally next gen, some worship stuff, some admin stuff.
I mean,
so there's there's a lot of there's a lot of there's a lot of ministry.
Come on.
I'm really, really excited for
and with all of the new hires that are coming, it'll get us to the point
of only being 20% understaffed, which is a huge increase,
but a very thankful to this staff, as are you.
And for many of you who do more than just, you know,
than more than just a little bit,
because we're we've not slowed down, man.
And for the most part,
we were able to keep our compassion for people.
But it comes at a great cost.
But we got a lot of work to do to make up.
And so you know how we're going to make it up.
Aside from the new hires, you know how we're going to make it up.
You you're going to make it up
because you're going to take the little bit that you have.
I got a little bit of time.
I don't have much a little bit of energy, not much,
not much expertise by I'm just finance.
But you just agree today to put all those SKUs aside,
you're going to take a little bit you have and put it in Jesus hands,
and you're going to walk away with the basket full.
And one of the greatest
opportunities you have to do that is in ministry.
The amount of kids we have
at this church, we should have just the metrics.
And that's not the Bible, but just healthy stuff.
We should have at least maybe two full time children's people.
And we got one working between 20 and 30 hours.
Now there's a lot of support, which is fantastic,
but there's a lot of opportunity.
Do you hear my words?
And right now I know what you're saying.
I don't I don't have much time for that.
Like I don't have a choice for I can't I don't know much desire
to talk about needing a basket full.
Take a little bit.
Put it in his hands.
You'll walk away with the basket full of what you don't think you have enough of.
Let us
know how and where you want to jump in with the Kingdom.
Work that's going on here with the little you have.
And this testimony of Scripture is that when you do, you will walk away
with a basket full of what you think you don't have much of
right now.
When we see inconvenience,
Jesus's opportunity,
and when you and I see lack of resource,
Jesus sees the supply of heaven.
Sometimes you see
needs as an interruption to our plans.
Jesus sees knees as an assignment for faith.
And so
courage
cost.
Compassion,
commands and cooperation.
Nothing less than that is discipleship.
That's what it means to be a disciple.
And that's the invitation.
Come be a disciple of Christ.
I want you to pray with me, father.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you that you love us.
That nothing we do can make you love us more.
Nothing we don't do can make you love us less.
It's constant.
I pray.
That we would choose to live
in the experience of that love.
I ask in the name of Jesus.
That by the power of your Holy Spirit you would reveal to us
when we have still been living in the other kingdom,
the kingdom of self-serving, and the kingdom of selfishness,
the kingdom of gluttony and sin,
that you'd help us realize the results of
that is death.
But you give us a mind
and a desire for your kingdom.
The kingdom of your son, the kingdom of life,
the kingdom of eternity.
And that we would work in cooperation with you,
that your kingdom would come, that your will be done
even in this moment, in this place and the ranchos
and rolling hills, and responding to sorrow through our church.
God, that we would take the little that we have, the little time, the little,
the little interest, the little ability, the little resources
and continue to place them in your hands.
And as we do, father, do what the testimony of Scripture indicates.
Return to us Basketful as.
We trust you
and we rely on you.
We thank you for the opportunity
to align ourselves with your kingdom.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
Church, I love you.
I'm proud of you.
Thank you for your generosity of your time, your resources, your energy.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
God's doing good things, but there's a lot more to do.
It's a lot more to do.
And I want you all to get to be involved in the joy of it all.
And so let us know how
we can walk with you, to walk you into all that God is doing.
I want you to.
I want you to experience it.
On that card at the Welcome Center QR code.
Let us know.
We'd love to follow up with you in that we used to come,
but God's doing something and wants to do it in you and through you.
So participate in him with him in that.
This week read Matthew 14 the whole chapter.
We're going to wrap it up in next week or a couple of weeks and
but read the whole thing.
Let it start living inside you. All right.
Let's see.