Do What You Can With What You Have

Pastor KEVIN well, this morning in our continuing study in the Gospel of Mark, we come to one of Jesus best loved and best known miracle stories, the feeding of the 5,000. Now, we not only love that story and know that story fairly well, but his earliest disciples did as well. It's interesting that this is the miracle story, among others, that has made it into all four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And there are a couple reasons for that. One of them is because this miracle story is brings together, it marries together two of the favorite attributes of Jesus, his compassion and his power. We see both his compassion and his power on display in this story. It's also a well loved story because it's a story about food. And who doesn't love food. God certainly does love food and that's evident in this story. You know, sometimes when I'm working in my office on a sermon, I'll start remembering and start singing or whistling a song. Recently I've been whistling up and down the hallways. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas because I'm working on Advent sermons. So I'm all into the Perry Como and Bing Crosby thing and up and down the hallways whistling that song because I don't sing very well. But this particular sermon has me singing a lead song from the musical Oliver. Food, glorious food. That's what I've been singing in my office. Not outside the office, but in my office, when I'm the only one who can listen to it. Now when I thought about that, I thought, you know what? Oliver was onto something because food in the Bible is glorious food. And it's interesting how many times God shows his glory to us through food in the Bible. For example, the feeding of the thousands, tens of thousands, if not even hundreds of thousands of Israelites with manna from heaven. How about when Jesus says, I am the bread of heaven? Maybe you remember the night when he was betrayed in the upper room and he took simple things like bread and a cup and he turned them into reminders of his broken body and his shed blood or the marriage feast of the Lamb that we'll participate in if we know and love Jesus someday in heaven. Food, glorious food. Now this miracle is at face value on the surface, a story about Jesus multiplying food and, and satisfying the hunger of tens of thousands of people. But I would suggest that there is a second and an even deeper lesson in this story. It is no doubt that Jesus provides for us physically and materially. But I want us to understand that this miracle story is about how when we do what we can with what we have, Jesus will do the rest. When we do what we can with what we have, Jesus will do the rest. Read that with me. When we do what we can with what we have, Jesus will do the rest. And he will do it in very unexpected and unexplainable ways. And so let's go to this story, and let's look at it with new and fresh eyes this morning. This story opens, as you know, in verse 30. It runs through verse 44 of Mark chapter 6. You have to connect this story to verse 13 of Mark 6. Last week, we studied what we called a parenthesis in Mark chapter six. We kind of took a break. And instead of looking at. Instead of looking at Jesus and his disciples, we had spent some time with Herod Antipas, mean Herod Antipas, his even meaner wife, and John the Baptist. It was a parenthesis in our study. But now we're back on track with Jesus and his disciples. And as the story opens in Mark chapter 6, verse 30, the disciples who back in verse 13 had been commissioned and sent out to minister on behalf of Jesus, they were sent out to preach. They were sent out to heal the sick. They were sent out to cast out demons. The disciples have now come back from their mission. And in verse 30, they want to share everything that. That they saw and everything they did with Jesus. They're excited because they've seen powerful work through their own ministry to people. And as they come back and begin to talk to Jesus, others want to see Jesus too. And Jesus is popular. So literally, throngs of people are crowded around Jesus. The disciples can't get time with him to tell him what they want. Jesus recognizes that everybody's hungry, and he recognizes they need rest. And so he turns to his disciples and said, let's just go to a quiet place of rest. Bible says that they get into a boat with Jesus and they begin their trek on the Sea of Galilee to a quiet place of rest. Now, they couldn't have been very far from shore, because the Bible also says that everybody who wanted Jesus time watched him go, and they followed him. So they probably were running along the shoreline and they outran him. So that when his boat with himself and the disciples landed, they were there, the people were all there. And I don't know this, but I know human nature enough that I have to wonder if the disciples weren't a bit irritated at this point in time. I mean, I think many of us would have been like, hey, we're going to a quiet place of Rest. Hey. Hey. We'd like to spend some time with Jesus. And here you all are. You outran us. And it's the same crowd that we left behind. But Jesus didn't see it that way. Look, if you would, at verse 34. The word of God says that when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them. That means his heart went out to them because they. They were like sheep without a shepherd. And so he began teaching them many things. Unlike the disciples, Jesus was all in for the crowd. He was happy when he saw them there because he realized that they were like sheep without a shepherd, that they were hungry, and it wasn't just bread that they needed, it was the word of God. And so when he saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd, the word of God says his heart went out to them and he began to teach them many things. And. And I believe that as he taught them many things, he taught his disciples a very important lesson as well. And the lesson is one for us. When people have a need, you should do what you can, if you can, to help meet that need. When people have a need, you should do what you can, if you can, to help meet that need. Well, by this time, it was late in the day. And even though the crowds couldn't get enough of the disciples, and I think I can conclude that disciples had enough of the crowds. And this is what they say to Jesus. Jesus, this is a remote place and it's already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. Jesus, look, look, we can't keep doing this. It's late. This is remote. We're not even close to any kind of place where they can buy food. Would you just send these people away so that they can get food for themselves? Now, when I look at that, and when you look at that, I think it's fair to say that the disciples request is reasonable. They knew that it was suppertime. They knew that there was no place where they could get enough food to feed the thousands of people that were there. And. And they concluded that the people's hunger was their own issue and that they need to find their own place to get their own food. And, you know, you really can't blame them for that if we're being honest and vulnerable. I think many of us have been in the same situation where we've said to ourselves, I can't do everything for everybody. I just can't. I've done everything I can. I've exhausted myself. I don't have very much left. And so they're going to have to find someone else. Someone else is going to have to help them. What's interesting though, that wasn't how Jesus responded to the disciples. Verse 37. He turned to them, exhausted, weary, wanting Jesus to send them away. And he says to them, you give them something to eat. You give them something to eat. The disciples response to Jesus, I think is best described as emotionally charged sarcasm. Look, if you would, that would take eight months of a man's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? Jesus ignores the way they presented their complaint and he says to them, how many loaves do you have? Go and see. To their credit, the disciples do what Jesus asked them to do. They go and they look and they find that there are in that crowd five loaves. Oh, and they find two fish to go along with the loaves. Now, the loaves of bread in that day were basically 8 inches long, about an inch thick. The fish most likely were pickled or cured of some sort. Five loaves, two fish. It was a working man's lunch. It's the equivalent of Martin's potato rolls and sweet bologna with some brown mustard. That's what it is. That's what it is. If you want to put it into local context, it's a working man's lunch. And that's all. Now remember, this is a story in which there are 5,000 men plus women and children. Some scholars say that there were tens of thousands of people who needed to be fed. So what did you find? Well, we found five loaves and we found two fish. But then remember this. A little something in our hands can be a lot of something in the hands of Jesus. Can you say Amen to that? A little something in our hands can be a lot of something in the hands of Jesus. And so, with no further comment, Jesus directed the disciples to organize the people into groups of hundreds and fifties. And, and I love how Mark says this. And he had them sit down in, quote, green grass. There was no drought. The grass was green. Have them sit down in green grass in hundreds and fifties. And the Bible says, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven to his Father, Jesus gave thanks and he broke the loaves. Most likely the. The word of thanksgiving that he gave was, blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth. And then Jesus gave the broken loaves to his disciples along with the fish. And they distributed the food to the 5,000 men, plus women and children. And this is what Mark tells us in verse 43. They all ate and were satisfied. And the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. Can you imagine this moment? The disciples, the twelve disciples are given baskets, maybe they were about this size, filled with the broken pieces of bread, the fish that was found from among the crowd. And they began to make their way through the crowd of thousands of people and handing out bread and fish. And they had to be wondering why they weren't getting to the bottom of their basket, why there was always enough bread to hand out to the next group of 50, the next group of 100, the next group of 100,the next group of 100. And they had to be looking at each other and saying, do you see? Is this happening over in your basket too? It's the very first occasion of wonder Bread anywhere in the world. They had to wonder, what in the world is happening? You know, it's amazing. It is to me. It is amazing what happens when you do what you can with what you have and trust Jesus to do the rest. Can you read that with me? Do what you can with what you have and then trust Jesus to do the rest. One more time. Do what you can with what you have and then trust Jesus to do the rest. There are many lessons in this story. Lessons about God's provision, lessons about God's career. There are more lessons next week about God's care. But I believe that one of the principal lessons in this much loved miracle story is simply when you do what you can with what you have and then trust Jesus to do the rest, you will be amazed at what he does. I wonder if everybody who was sitting around eating bread and fish knew what was happening. You know what's interesting about that? There is no indication in the Bible, the oohs and ahs, like nobody is saying, oh, Mark is very careful to tell us when all the people are amazed. He doesn't say all the people were amazed. It makes you wonder if this miracle was principally for. For the 12 disciples, so that as they were reaching into their basket that never ended, a bottomless basket of bread, they were learning the lesson, just do what you can with what you have and then trust Jesus to do the rest. I believe this miracle was intended to teach that lesson. A miracle of trusting Jesus and watching him do the unexplainable in our lives. Follow me on this. When Jesus saves us, it is not simply to give us A ticket to heaven. Jesus saves us to give us a new and abundant life that is an eternal life that is to be lived to his glory and to the blessing of others around us. We are to live out the greatest commandment, and that is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. We are saved to serve. We are not saved to sit on our hands. We are not saved to enjoy the benefits of for me, myself and I, we are saved to bless others. In Ephesians 2, 8, 10. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And that gift of faith, it is not something that we give to ourselves lest we should boast. It is a gift of God. And so when I awaken to my sinful condition and I realize that I need Jesus Christ as my Savior, it is by his grace that I'm aware that I'm a sinner. It's by his grace that I'm aware that he is my Savior. And it is the gift of faith that he gives me that I am able then to confess him as Lord and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead and I am able to be saved. But then Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 that we are then God's workmanship who have been created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Good works will not save you. Religious acts will not save you. You don't do good works to please Jesus and get saved. You do good works because you have been saved and you are filled with gratitude and filled with the Holy Spirit and you want to do what you can with what you have and trust Jesus to do the rest and watch him do amazing work out of this story. I think there are three simple lessons that Jesus wants us to take away with us, and the very first is this. Jesus is asking us to focus on what we have. He is not asking us to focus on what we don't have or what we once had. And here's the critic one what what we wish we had. He's not asking us to focus on those things. He's simply saying to us, what do you have? What do you have? Here's the second lesson. Jesus is asking us to do what we can with what we have. After we've identified what we have, what gifts, graces, skills, abilities, resources we have. He he wants us to do something good with it and not hold it just for ourselves. He wants us to do something that reflects our love for him and our love for others. Pastor Brian Wilkinson Pastored at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts. His parents actually retired to Willow Valley, Fort and Barbara. And in his sermon on this particular miracle, he writes this and I edit it a little bit for us. Jesus isn't asking if you have 40 hours a week to serve people, or 20 hours, or even 10. He's not asking if you have. What he's asking you is do you have an evening to invite a neighbor over for dinner? Or do you have an hour to visit someone in the hospital or nursing home? Or few minutes to call someone that you noticed hasn't been in church lately? Jesus isn't asking if you have thousands of dollars to give to the poor and needy. He's asking if you could skip going out to eat once or twice a month or maybe one or two coffees a week and support a missionary from your church. He's asking if you have enough money to drop off some groceries for the food bank, maybe at Slanko and maybe at Water Street. Jesus is not asking if you've been to seminary or if you have a degree in counseling. He's simply asking if you can offer someone a listening ear, if you can sit on a chair or on the floor in a preschool or elementary classroom and help children learn the truths about Jesus, or whether you could read the Bible to someone in a nursing care facility who is losing their eyesight and can no longer read the word of God. Jesus isn't asking us to give what we don't have. He's simply asking us to look again and see what we do have and then do something good and glorious with it. Here's the truth of this powerful miracle. Jesus is asking us to focus on what we have. Jesus is asking us to do what we can with what we have. Here's the critical Jesus is asking us to trust him to do the rest. I don't have much Jesus. What I have isn't that great. I mean, honestly, is this what you want me to do? I can't stand up and preach and teach and lead worship like everybody. That's not what he's asking. He's asking, what do you have? What can you do with what you have? And will you trust me to do the rest? This is a very practical sermon. And so let me give you some very practical examples of how this works out in life. Let me tell you a story. I told it years ago here. It was from our first year in ministry. Jenny and I went to Baltimore, Maryland. We were tasked to start a church in Baltimore, an EC church. There we were given 18 people stand up in front of 18 people. And you realize quickly you need to multiply those numbers. You've got to get more unchurched and unsaved people in there. And so one Sunday, I was 24, Jenny was 23. I said to the congregation, do you know anybody that doesn't go to church? If you know anybody that doesn't go to church, give us the name afterward, and Jenny and I will knock on their door. I hadn't talked to Jenny about knocking on the door before. I volunteered her. She said she'd follow up after they get into church. So I'll go knocking on the door. So Glendora Martin, my church treasurer, comes up to me, and she says to me, I don't know anybody that doesn't go to church, But I know a Lutheran woman who lives over on this street at. And I think she knows somebody that doesn't go to church. Okay? So she gave me Estelle Gronow's name and address. And I went and knocked on Estelle Gronow's door on a Monday morning. I said, I'm Pastor Mike Sigmund. She said, glenn called me and told me you were gonna come and asked me if I know anybody doesn't go to church. I said, that's why I'm here. She said, I know a woman on Odell Avenue who doesn't go to church. She used to go to church. She doesn't go to church anymore. You ought to go knock on her door. Okay. I go down to the city line. I go up to the door. The woman's name is Carolyn Zelinsky. She's now with the lord. She was 74 years old at the time. I knocked on her door. As I stand here, she opened the door and she said to me, I don't want any, and slammed the door. And I thought, I got 18 people back in that building, and you're gonna get what I have. So here you go. And I knocked on the door again. She opened the door. I said, hold on a minute. I'm not here to sell you anything. What are you here for? I'm a pastor. I know Estelle grow now. Oh, she's my friend. I know. She says that you're not going to church right now. I thought, I'm just gonna spill the whole thing right here. I mean, that's the only chance I got. You're not going to church anywhere right now, and maybe you're interested. She said, well, I'm not really interested, but come on and tell me about your church. I walked in I told her about our church. Her husband Eddie was sitting in the chair. He was not impressed at all. She was interested. I thought, this is what church planting is. Hallelujah. So she came to church that Sunday. She came to church the second Sunday, the third, the fourth. We used to give altar calls there. We called people down the aisle to kneel at the front to receive Jesus. She came the fourth Sunday to the altar to. She surrendered her life to Jesus Christ. That Sunday, I went to her house and she said to me, jesus has changed my life. I want to serve him. That's it. That's Ephesians 2:10. We're God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. But then she said, I. I don't have any skills, any abilities, any gifts. There's nothing I can do. I said, carolyn, we need to pray that Jesus will show you what you have that he can use. Listen, if you're sitting here this morning, you say, I don't have anything, you ask Jesus, he knows what you have. He'll tell you. After we prayed, she honestly, right there in that moment, she looked at me and she said, I have this little phone book, okay? I'm a toy demonstrator. I said, what is that? She said, I have parties in people's homes and I sell toys in parties in people's homes. And in this book are the names and the phone numbers of all the people that I've done toy demonstrations for. I'm going to call every one of them and invite them to church and find out whether they know Jesus. To make a long story short, in the next 10 years of Carolyn Zelensky's life, she led 34 people out of her phonebook to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. All she had was a phone book with names and phone numbers. All she did was call them and tell them that she's going to church. Now. Could you join me on Sunday? I'll save a place for you in my pew. A pew is an old fashioned thing that's wooden and, you know, it doesn't have padding. And she was personally responsible over those 10 years of introducing 34 people to Jesus. One of those people was Ann Crandall. When she introduced Ann to Jesus, she introduced a whole family system to Jesus. Oh, man, those pews filled up pretty quick. Ann said, I don't have anything that I can do, but I do love children. Man, we were, we were all over that one. There was no green grass that grew that day. You love children? Oh, I love children. How would you like to teach Sunday school? I've never taught Sunday school. How would you like to work alongside Jenny Sigmund? She's taught Sunday school. She'll teach you to teach Sunday school. That's fine. Ann Crandall became one of our gold standard Sunday school teachers because you know what she had? She had a love for children. So she did what she could with what she had, and Jesus blessed it. You saw a video up here and you heard a name. Betty Lafever. Betty Lafever was the wife of Ed Lefever. And they farmed and a stony lane on Stone Hill Road. Some of you know, this son, Carl Duffel Fever lives there. Now, Betty Lefever is a farm wife. And what she had was a love for God's word and a love for children. And she married the two together, and she volunteered when no one else would. And she taught fourth and fifth grade Sunday school. And my life will never be the same because Betty Lafever did what she could with what she had, and she trusted Jesus to do the rest. She's the one who said to me, and I was 9 years old, you're going to be a pastor someday. And I'm thinking, I was just looking forward to going to the pool this afternoon, Conestoga. I wasn't thinking about being a pastor someday. And you know what? When I was a junior higher. Bonnie. Bonnie, where are you? You always sit right over here. Oh, you're three rows back from where you normally are. Bonnie Aller was my junior high youth leader. Nurtured faith in me. Bonnie did what she could with what she had and trusted Jesus to do the rest. Back in 2011, Dean Baker, who's sitting right back here in the back row along with Sean Spencer and Fred Stamen, said, we ought to start a men's ministry. Let's get the men together and we'll meet up at the diner. They got two booths up at the diner. And that's where our men's ministry of hundreds of men today began. Because those men did what they could with what they had and trusted Jesus to do the rest. Twice a year, we ask you to take a baby bottle and fill it with your loose change. And people have said to me, I mean, really loose change, how much do you get? The last baby bottle collection was $18,500. You guys must save 50 cent pieces. I don't know. I'll tell you what. Because you did what you could with what you had, and you trusted Jesus to do the rest. In this church, there is a ministry called grief share. Men and women who are in the midst of a grief journey have been helped incredibly. Do you know how that began? Two widows, Irma Souter, now at Quarryville. Sheryl Lefever, relocated to the villages in Florida, having grieved the loss of their own husbands, decided that God had given them the ability to love and care for others in grief. They've never done anything like this before, but this is what they have. Jesus, we're going to do what we can with what we have. And out of it, they trusted him to build the grief ministry of our church. Never, ever minimize what you have. Give it to Jesus and watch in unexplainable ways how he uses it to meet needs, to bring blessing to the lives of others, and to bring glory and honor to him. God does more with what we have than we could ever expect or explain. And so I want to ask you today, what do you have? And if you are struggling to figure out the answer to that, ask Jesus. He's got the inventory on you. He knows what you have. And what are you going to do with what you have? Would you pray with me, Lord? It is encouraging to read your word and in reading your word, to learn more about who you are, Jesus, that you are the God of all compassion, that you are the God who powerfully provides for us and for others. But then to recognize this morning that. That your disciples said, lord, you send them away so they can get something to eat. And you said to them, you give them something to eat. How many times have we wanted to send people away or said, well, it's a big church, somebody else will do that? Well, I serve my time. Now it's time for someone else. And you just look past those comments that we make and you turn it back to us and say, you. You give them something to eat. You. You teach that class for second graders. You help with the toddlers. You. You volunteer the gifts that God has given you with the youth in our church. You. You've gone through that journey of grief. You come alongside of folks who are going through that journey now, and you help them. You love older people and you love to visit, and you go into that nursing home and you read the word of God and you bring the light of Christ. You've been blessed financially, you've been blessed materially. You have the ability to build and you have the ability to counsel and you have the ability. To build bridges to people in other cultures. You have that. Lord, forgive us for the time times that we want to turn all those needs that are around us over to somebody else. And all the time, all the time, if we're willing, we can do what we can with what we have. And trust you, Jesus, to do the rest. And you, you will do it. You will do it. Lord, my prayer is that you'll make us sensitive and selfless as you impress upon us areas of need, both within our church and outside of our church and the worlds in which we live. And that our first thought will not be someone else, but our first thought will be, what do I have? How could I meet that need? Trusting in Jesus. Thank you, Lord, that every gift, every grace, every skill, every ability, every resource we have comes from you. It belongs to you. May we be selfless, madam, and return it to you for your glory and your honor. In Jesus name, amen.