Preparing for a Miracle
Mark 6:35-44
Admit your need
Assess your resources
Assign your resources to God
Anticipate God’s multiplication
Intro
Good morning.
Slide
I am excited today.
We are beginning our “Paving the Way” series and focus which will be a time that I believe is going to be transformational to each one of us personally as well as in the church as a whole.
We are over the next few weeks going to be spending time focusing on
what we are about as individuals and as a church and
how God wants to work in us and through us to accomplish His will and bring fulfillment into our lives as we Pave the way for His gospel to continue to go forth in this community.
Before we get into that though, I want to recap a bit where we have been over the past month.
The Spirit – Fruit and Gifts
During the last month, we spoke about the fruit and gifts of the Spirit and how we use our gifts as part of the body because that is how our gifts are best used.
Our hands work best when attached to our arms and controlled by our brains.
Cut off from the rest of the body, they are not as valuable.
As we live life being part of the church, part of community that is when we are going to live and experience the fullness of life the Lord has designed us for.
Over these weeks leading up to Easter, we are going to be talking through how we as individuals can truly unite together as the body of Christ, grow deeper spiritually, and be a part of something that is bigger than any one of us individually, and accomplish what the Lord is calling us to do, that we would be unable to do on our own.
To do the things He is calling us to do, to reach out to more of this community with the gospel of His Son, is going to take an unbelievable work of God.
It is really going to take a miracle.
This morning we are going to be looking into God’s word at an awesome miracle of the Lord and see if there are ways He teaches us in His word that we might prepare ourselves the for the work He wants to do.
Are there things we can do to begin
Preparing for a Miracle
Slide
Now there are many people here today, and I am sure there are some if not most who are facing some issues and circumstances in your life that truly need God’s intervention, that truly needs a miracle of God.
Maybe you are facing a financial situation that you are completely overwhelmed by.
Maybe you are without a job, maybe the bank is calling demanding their money.
Maybe you are wondering how you are going to send your kids to college this year.
Maybe you are wondering how you are going to be able to eat this week.
Maybe you are facing a medical diagnosis you were fearing.
Do you need surgery? Do you need therapy? Is it cancer?
Maybe you are struggling through a relationship issue.
Is your spouse seeking a divorce? Has there been a rift in a relationship?
Do you need God to intervene? Do you need a miracle?
Well, I have good news for you. God is in the business of doing miracles. He wants to work in your life and He wants to glorify Himself through the work He does in and through you individually and as part of the church.
Turn with me to Mark 6:35-44
Slide
Today, we are going to take a look at a familiar story of one of the Miracles recorded in the Bible, the only miracle recorded in all 4 gospels.
It is the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
Let’s see if there are things we can learn to prepare for the Lord to do a miracle in our life and in our church.
Ok, just a little background.
Jesus is teaching the crowds late into the day and in
Mark 6:35-44 (p. 712) it reads,
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat."
37 But he answered, "You give them something to eat."
They said to him, "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?"
38 "How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see."
When they found out, they said, "Five-and two fish."
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
Pray
Now I have preached from this passage before, but I want to take a look at it from a different angle.
First, I want to remind you when it gives the number of men who ate at 5,000, it doesn’t include the women and children who were present.
There were probably more like 10K to 20K people that the Lord fed and He did that with 5 small loaves of bread and 2 small fish, truly a miracle if there ever was one.
What can we learn to prepare ourselves for a miracle of God?
If the Lord is going to do a miracle in our life the first thing you need to do is
Admit your Need
Slide
Mark 6:35-37
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat."
37 But he answered, "You give them something to eat."
They said to him, "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?"
The disciples were recognizing that they had a problem from a human standpoint.
It was late in the day and the crowd of people was going to need to eat and they did not have the resources to feed them.
It would take 8 months wages to feed this many people.
People, when they can’t do something themselves, will often either ignore the problem or push it off on to others.
“Send them away so they can eat because I can’t feed them.”
When we face something that is bigger than ourselves, and the Lord is leading us to fix the problem, we start to get uncomfortable.
I believe that is because it makes us feel weak when we can’t do something ourselves.
The reality is however, that we are weak in ourselves. There are things that the Lord desires for us to do, that we cannot do on our own.
Why is that? Is he just some cruel God trying to humiliate us?
Not at all.
It is when we can recognize that we are weak, that we can admit we have a need, that we can turn to the Lord and find real strength in Him.
Paul faced some physical hardships that hindered him from doing what the Lord called him to do in His own strength.
And he says in
Slide
2 Corinthians 12:8-10
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV
We have to recognize our weakness and admit that we have a need that that is too big for us, that we are too weak to handle on our own. It is then that God is going to work powerfully through us and in us.
Until we can get to this point, we are denying ourselves the help that God wants to give us, and the miracle he wants to do through us and in us.
The next thing you need to do is
Assess your Resources
Slide
Mark 6:38, Jesus says to the disciples
38 "How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see."
When they found out, they said, "Five-and two fish."
Now I think it is important that we take careful note of what Jesus says and what He does not say.
He doesn’t say, “How much are you short?”
He doesn’t say, “Go Find enough.”
He asks them what they have.
What have you already been given from my hand?
We operate much like the disciples.
We don’t assess what we do have, we assess what we don’t have.
“We don’t have enough to feed the people…It would take more than we have”
Do you ever do this?
“Lord, I can’t do what you are calling me to do, I don’t have the ability, I don’t have the resources.”
Jesus is saying that we need to assess what we do have.
The Disciples go and find that all they have is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.
Still not very much from a human standpoint.
But again, he wants us to look at what we do have not what we don’t.
What has the Lord given you?
What talents has He given you? What gifts has He given you?
Too often we are saying, if only I had this job, then I would be somebody.
If only I could sing like so and so, then I could really do something.
Don’t assess what you don’t have. Assess what you do have.
Assess your resources.
Then, after you assess what you have, you
Assign your Resources to God
Slide
Basically we need to give it to God.
In the gospel of John, we find that the five loaves and 2 fish are from a small boy.
Can you imagine the disciples when Jesus asks them to find out what they have, you hear them asking and you are thinking to yourself, I only have this which is not enough to feed everyone so I’ll just keep it for myself.
But instead, this little boy offers up his lunch to the Lord.
The little he has, he gives to God.
God is glorified when we step out in faith, following His leading, saying, I will use what you have provided, the talents, the gifts, the resources you have already given me, for your glory, no matter how small or little I think they are.
Jesus, when He was with the Disciples at the temple when they were taking an offering pointed out a widow who gave 2 small coins to the offering, less than a penny, it tells us (Mark 12:41-44).
And He says that she put in more than all the others, because she gave what she had to the Lord, the other people, even if it was more that they gave, gave only a fraction of what they had.
God has given us everything we have. He wants us to use everything we have been given for His glory.
Now this doesn’t mean that I need to give every dime I make.
This doesn’t mean that if I can sing, I can only sing in church.
This does mean, though that I can’t just give a tithe and then use the resources I have left, any way I want.
This does mean that if you have been given several spiritual gifts, that you should only use one of them because even using your one, you do more than others.
The Lord tells us that
Slide
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:48)
As we have faith in the Lord and use what He has given us, no matter how small or how much, and we in faith say,” Lord I am your servant, I give you all that I am and have for your glory” He will do powerful works in us and through us.
Now maybe you are here today and your faith is pretty weak right now.
I have some good news for you.
For God to work powerfully, doesn’t require much faith.
Matthew 17:20 that
Slide
“if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ’Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
It doesn’t require much, it does require that we exercise the faith we have been given, no matter how small.
Now, realize that God doesn’t need your faith, or your stuff or your talents to do anything. He can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants.
But in His sovereignty, He has chosen to work through our faith and the things He has already given us.
He chooses to work through the willing sacrifice of people because He gets glorified when we trust Him enough with the things we value.
Matthew 6:21 says - For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Where is your treasure?
Is your treasure in your bank account?
Is your treasure your calendar and the control of it?
Or is your true treasure the Lord Almighty?
If the Lord is your treasure, If He has your heart, it will be shown in your calendar and your check book.
And When our heart is right before the Lord, and we in faith give cheerfully of our time, of our talents, of our treasures to the things the Lord is leading us to, God can do miraculous things.
So we Admit our need, Assess what we have and we Assign it to Him.
It is then , after that, we can
Anticipate God’s Multiplication
Slide
Look at Mark 6:42
42 They all ate and were satisfied.
With a little boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish, everyone ate and was satisfied.
And not only that,
Mark 6:43 tells us that “the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.
God took what little He was given, multiplied it, everyone ate and was satisfied and there where 12 basketfuls leftover.
They had more leftover than what they started with.
What kind of math is that?
That is God’s math, God’s multiplication.
God x faith x what we have = more than enough.
I want to ask you what is going on in your life today that needs a work of God?
Is it a financial situation?
Maybe it is a marital or relational situation?
Maybe it is a health situation.
Whatever it is
Admit your need.
Assess your situation.
Give your heart to the Lord through whatever means He is laying on your heart.
Ask yourself,
Is He the Lord of all of my life?
Where am I not trusting God?
Where do I need to trust Him more?
And then willingly step out in faith and trust Him with that.
If you aren’t trusting Him with your finances, then give cheerfully
If you aren’t trusting Him with your health, then tell Him, no matter what happens, you trust Him as a good God, knowing that He has provided eternal life, not just a temporary earthly life.
If you aren’t trusting Him with your family, tell Him Lord, my family is yours to do with as you please.
If you aren’t trusting Him with your job or how He is going to provide for you, tell Him you will do what ever job He wants you to do and that you will trust Him to work out whatever needs to be worked out.
And as you do those things, as you trust Him in whatever area you need to, Anticipate God to do a work in your life as only He can.
Conclusion
Through this Paving the Way series and time of refocusing, we are going to have opportunities to truly grow in our faith and exercise that faith in real ways.
But I believe as we do, we are going to see God work in some awesome and miraculous ways in our lives individually and as a church.
As we take the steps that we see in His word to prepare ourselves for God to work miraculously, I want to begin even now to exercise our faith by worshiping Him while we wait for Him to work.
That in itself is a powerful act of faith. When all we can see is the storm, when all we can see are the problems, we turn to God and praise Him and worship Him.
Listen to what the psalmist writes in Psalm 74 even as his circumstances are hard
Psalm 71:10-11, 14
10 For my enemies speak against me;
those who wait to kill me conspire together.
11 They say, "God has forsaken him;
pursue him and seize him,
for no one will rescue him."
His enemies are pursuing him on all fronts, everything seems to be about to crumble around him, but listen to what he says in verse 14.
14 But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.
He praises the Lord, He worships Him while He waits for the Lord to act.
Won’t you do that this morning?
The worship team is going to come up and close us in worship.
We are going to be singing “Glory in the Highest.”
Truly this is a song that worships the Lord and gives glory to Him.
Worship Him in faith this morning as we wait on Him and anticipate His miraculous work in multiplying what we give back to Him.
Let’s worship.
Glory in the Highest
