How many of you celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with a special meal? [How many had turkey? "Tofurky"?]
Whatever was being served, how many left the table still hungry? Or, how many had to let our their belts a notch or two?
It is a tradition on Thanksgiving, not only to have a special meal, but to feast. To go beyond merely consuming enough food to eliminate hunger pangs. We eat more than we really need, we fill up every nook and cranny of our stomachs until there’s no room left. We keep eating until we’re absolutely full, until we can’t eat another bite – and then we force down one last piece of pumpkin pie. Right? On Thanksgiving, simply put, we pig out. And we really don’t feel guilty about it. It’s part of the holiday. Grandma would be offended if we didn’t take a second helping of her special oyster stuffing. Aunt Mabel absolutely insists that we pass her homemade rolls around the table again. Besides, we’re all going on a diet right after Christmas, so what’s the difference?
Well, this morning I’m not going to get into the ethics of the Thanksgiving meal. I’m not going to try to make you feel guilty about how much you ate. If you overindulged, I’ll give you a one-day exemption from the sin of gluttony. But what I would like to do is contrast that abundance of God’s blessing and provision which we celebrated last Thursday with what we often assume He wants for us every other day of the year. On Thanksgiving, we sit down to a table groaning with food, a table surrounded by friends and family. We get up, groaning from having eaten our fill and more. We watch the children playing, children who come to us as a blessing from God. And all day long, we enjoy an abundance of leisure [most of us don’t have to work on Thanksgiving, unless you’re an emergency room nurse or a linebacker for the Cowboys]. We watch our color televisions in our warm, dry houses; we sit on comfortable sofas and recliners, we spend the day eating and drinking and talking and relaxing, and at the end we drive home in our automobiles. We give thanks on this special day for God’s abundant blessings – material prosperity, children, family, friends, leisure, health. We recognize that all of these come to us from God’s hand, that they are a gift from Him to us. And yet, it is too often the case, during the other 363 days a year, that we doubt God’s goodness; that we doubt His desire or ability to bless us; we second-guess His care over us; we act as if He can’t really be trusted to provide for us.
Too often, instead of believing that God loves us and intends to bless us, instead of believing that He knows what we need and has the power to provide it, instead of placing our trust in Him to do what is best, we do the opposite. We worry. We fret. We agonize. We toss and turn, wondering anxiously what the future holds; wondering how God will provide; wondering what God will provide; wondering if God will provide; and whether it will be sufficient. It’s almost as if, deep down, we harbor a suspicion that if we gave ourselves fully to God, our needs wouldn’t get met. As if God either wouldn’t, or couldn’t, take care of us. And so we hold back. We trust God to a point, but when it comes to making sure we have what we need – food, clothing, shelter, friends, husband, wife, children, job, career – we hedge our bets, we make sure we’re in control. That way, even if God doesn’t quite come through for us, we’ll still be OK. In other words, we aren’t living as if the God of Thanksgiving is the same God we serve and worship the rest of the year. Instead of living in confidence and joy, we’re too often living in fear and worry. It’s almost schizophrenic. On this one special day, we rejoice in God’s provision and blessing. But the rest of the year, we often act as if God might not provide, might not bless.
[Example: What if your children were always checking the cupboard to see if there was enough food; examining the checkbook to see if there was money; asking whether the mortgage had been paid? How would that make you feel?].
Does that describe you? Are you hesitant to fully trust God, to fully commit yourself to following Christ, because deep down, you fear that your needs won’t be met? That your financial and material needs will be unmet, or that your emotional and relational needs will be unfulfilled? What I’d like to do this morning is remind us that our God is a God of abundance, a God of blessing, a God of overflowing grace and mercy. His provisions are not only adequate, they are ample. He is a God who delights in giving us even more than we need. I’m going to do that by looking at one of Christ’s miracles, the feeding of the five thousand. And the question we’re going to consider is this: How can I enjoy God’s abundant blessing on my life? Not “How can I survive,” or “How can I make sure I get the bare minimum I need,” but “How can I enjoy God’s abundant blessing?”
Now, just so I don’t get accused later of doing a “bait and switch,” I’ll warn you in advance that God’s idea of abundant blessing might not match ours. When that happens, the problem is not with God’s provision, but with our false ideas of what abundance involves. But we’ll get to that later.
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee … and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.
Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. – John 6:1-13 (NIV)
Acknowledge that the need exceeds our ability
How do we enjoy God’s abundance? First, we acknowledge that the need exceeds our supply, that we are not able to provide everything we lack. Most people either underestimate the need, because they take so many things for granted, or they overestimate their capacity to meet the need. Example: Do you have the ability to ensure your physical health and safety?
Consider this:
* Our bodies are incredibly complex. Most of what’s going on you don’t even know about, much less control. Breathing / heartbeat / digestion. You don’t decide what chemicals to dump into your stomach to dissolve that turkey and dressing [“OK, time to secrete some bile, generate some enzymes].
* 15,000 medical diagnosis codes (CPT codes), each one representing a different disease or medical condition, with new ones being added constantly. Everything from measles (072) to an accident involving a spacecraft (E845). And that doesn’t include the things that can go wrong which we don’t even have numbers for.
* Can you absolutely prevent accidents? Even if you’re as careful and as skilled a driver as I am (ahem), you can’t control what the other guy is going to do.
* You can diet and exercise, but you can’t choose the genes you inherit from your parents. If they’ve passed on a genetic weakness of some kind, you’re stuck with it.
You can work to improve your health, but you cannot guarantee health and safety; not your own, or anyone else’s. The need exceeds your ability to supply. There is no area if life in which you are able to guarantee your needs.
* Food – Unless you grow your own vegetables and raise livestock (and even then, only if you can control the weather and prevent every animal disease), you are not self-sufficient. You depend on farmers, and truck drivers, and grocers, and they depend on seed companies and oil companies. [Y2K reminded us how interdependent our economy is. Even though Y2K didn’t disrupt the economy, a war or a series of natural disasters could do so.]. Not only that, but your ability to pay for food (and clothing, and housing, and transportation, and medical care, and everything else) is dependent on your remaining healthy and able to work.
* Your relationships with your wife, your husband, your children, your friendships – none of these are completely under your control. For one thing, they all involve other people, and other people’s emotions are not under your control. You can’t make them do or feel what you want.
Whatever need or desire you might identify, its fulfillment is dependent on people and circumstances you can’t control. Given that, what do you think of Jesus’ question to Philip?
“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” – John 14:5-6 (NIV)
That’s the wrong question [not that Jesus was wrong, but He was testing Philip.] It’s the question we usually ask when we’re confronted with a need. “How am I going to meet this need? What are my resources? What can I do?” The problem is that this limits the answer to what we can imagine; it limits the response to what we can do.
Not only do we have to see the need, but we have to properly define the need. If you define the need narrowly, in terms of what you can do, you’ll come up short. Here, Jesus’ question is a test of Philip’s understanding and faith, because it assumes that the answer to the need is to for the disciples to buy bread for 5,000 people. But that won’t work. Even if they could have found that much bread where they were, out in the middle of nowhere, miles from a bakery (which they couldn’t), the disciples didn’t have the money to buy dinner for all these people. So to Philip the problem seemed unsolvable, the need unmeetable.
We react the same way. We don’t enjoy God’s abundant provision because we define the problem, and the possible solutions, too narrowly. We look only to ourselves and our resources, instead of Christ and His resources. So what’s the right question? “How is God going to provide?” “How will God meet this need?”
Place our trust in God to provide
Once we’ve framed the need in terms of what God is going to do, we need to place our trust in Him. Does that mean we just sit back and watch? Put our feet up and wait for Him to act? Not at all. We offer up ourselves and our resources to God for His use, trusting in His ability to multiply and extend those resources to meet our needs. You see, God isn’t limited by our lack. On the contrary, God delights in showing His power by doing great things with small things. Small people, small abilities, small resources, even small faith. Here, note how much the smallness of the boy and his lunch is emphasized in contrast to the size of the crowd.
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
- John 14:8-9 (NIV)
See the emphasis? First, it’s a boy, not a man. So he’s physically small. And he’s carrying a boy’s lunch. Five small barley loaves, two small fish. There is to be no question that what is about to happen is the work of God. It has nothing to do with the size of what’s offered. It has everything to do with the size of God’s power. God can supply your needs if you will offer up to Him for His use all that you are, all that you can do, all that you have. He can and will multiply what you offer Him.
Could Jesus have manufactured 5,000 loaves of bread out of thin air? Of course He could. But he chose to work through what was offered to Him in faith. He chose to take the meager lunch of one boy and transform it into the ample provision for hunger of thousands.
Perhaps you are discouraged because you look at your circumstances and can’t see how they are going to work out. Put yourself in God’s hands.
* Difficult relationships with family members? No advanced psychological training in conflict resolution or family systems theory? No degree in counseling? Don’t give up. Don’t say it’s hopeless. Obey God with the little amount of understanding that you do have. Act in love to the best of your ability, and watch Him magnify that little bit of understanding and obedience to bring healing in the relationship.
* Financial needs with no idea of where the money is going to come from? Obey God with the little amount of finances you have, and trust Him to multiply them.
* -- Fill in the blank. Whatever the need, it isn’t the great size of the need that matters, or the small amount of your resources. What matters is the power of God.
Note also that the disciples don’t have great faith, nor do they anticipate how Christ is going to meet the need. Andrew’s response is hardly a ringing statement of faith: “how far will they go among so many?" It didn’t matter. In spite of his lack of understanding; in spite of the weakness of his faith, he offered the loaves and fishes to Christ. And Christ did the rest. He offered Christ a small amount of faith, and Christ multiplied and enlarged his faith. He can do the same with you.
Finally, note that Christ’s provision is not merely adequate. It doesn’t say that most of the people had enough to eat, or that they received just enough to hold them over until they could get home. What does it say?
Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. – John 6:11-13 (NIV)
They all had “as much as they wanted”. There was more than they could eat. Jesus didn’t just meet their minimum need, He provided superabundantly. He can do the same in our lives, if we will place our trust in Him.
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” – John 10:10 (NIV)
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” – 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.” – Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)
They key thing for us to see here is that God loves to bless His people. Not just provide. Not just meet their need. But bless them “abundantly.” Does that mean we’ll always get what we want, or what we expect? Does it mean that we’ll always receive what we view as abundance? Does it mean we’ll never suffer, never endure hardship, never experience financial need? No. It’s clear from the New Testament that the apostle Paul himself sometimes went without. But God always gives us what is best. If we don’t get the blessings we desire, we will get something better. If we trust God, we always get the blessings that He in His infinite love, and wisdom and understanding He knows are best for us. He is able to provide, He knows what is best, and He loves us. If we trust Him, we will get His best.
Here’s the secret: true abundance is knowing and following Christ. True abundance is having peace, and joy, and contentment in every circumstance, whether our circumstances involve prosperity, and health, and positive relationships; or whether our circumstances involve financial hardship, or medical problems, or heartache.
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. – John 6:35 (NIV)
The true abundance wasn’t the physical bread Jesus provided. True abundance is Christ Himself. If we trust in Him and follow Him, we will always have more than we need of what is truly important.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
