Powerpoint Slide: (theme - How Big is Your God) Pray…. Many of you know we were gone on a vacation to Yellowstone Park for nine days and we drove. Personally I like driving… even with 3 kids in the car. It’s about 900 miles and I’m the type of person that is very destination oriented. So, after church a couple of weeks ago – I told Ann, my wife, we gotta get outta here, because I wanted to make it to
Slide: Wallace, Idaho that night. Well, we not only made it to Wallace, we made it all the way to
Slide: Missoula, Montana. So, I figured I would have about 2 hours less of driving the next day – and Yellowstone would be a breeze. So, the next day, we got up started driving… and decided that we would enter Yellowstone though the West entrance – so we took Hwy 287 south and we were really doing great – making great time – getting closer and closer to Yellowstone. But then we came to the town of
Slide: Ennis, Montana. Ennis is a old style western looking town
– with all sorts of shops – behind an old western façade. As we started to drive through Ennis – Ann says to me…Wow… look at this town… Honey, we’re stopping here. I say, “come on Ann – we’re getting close to Yellowstone” … she says, “Brad – we’re on vacation now! – we’re stopping.” Now, we’ve been married for 14 years this month and we’re had this conversation before.. So, I said – “ok, but don’t be too long.” So Ann initially takes Sarah our 10 year-old and Nathan our 2 year-old into an art shop… and Willie and I go to the Fly shop – and after a while – I’m getting a little bored – Ann comes out of a shop and picks up Willie and drops Nathan off with me.. about a half-hour later – Ann comes back by the car –and Willie has as set of guns – & a holster… cap Slide: guns like I had when I was a kid – I mean it fires real caps… So Willie is in heaven… Now I’ve got Willie and Nathan, and Ann and Sarah are off to another few shops. Anyway,
Slide: Willie is having a ball… he’s shooting up the town. He’s hiding behind walls – pretending he’s a cowboy. I’m thinking – “These guns are great in Ennis, Montana, but what was Ann thinking – guns are not going to fly in Sherwood, OR. This isn’t the 1960’s anymore – People are going to think we’re teaching our child that Guns are ok – and someday – he’s going to shoot someone. But, then I looked at him – he was having a ball. Kind or reminded me of Spanky on the little rascals. And I thought – Ok – these guns are cool. But then we got to Yellowstone. Willie started firing his caps outside our cabin at Yellowstone. And if you’ve never been to Yellowstone. Yellowstone is the one of the most beautiful places in world…
Slide: Moose, Slide: Elk & Slide: Buffalo Slide: Old Faithful Slide: And Roaring Waterfalls and the Yellowstone river in the canyons - Yellowstone is pristine virgin land and you just have a hypersensitivity to keep it that way. Well, Willie shooting his cap gun and these caps come in red rolls – 1 intact roll. But as you shoot them off, well suddenly they start to explode – makes a big mess and hundreds of little red pieces of caps are all over the place outside. What was amazing – is – in a matter of minutes – these caps had multiplied into a big mess -- I thought – how can this happen. Well, we eventually cleaned in all up and I implemented rules for Willies cap Gun… but as I was in Yellowstone and looked at all the incredible beauty and I saw first hand how Willies caps miraculously multiplied into bits and piece in a matter of minutes - I couldn’t help but stop and think of God and how all His Creation is a miracle. And I also thought of God’s son – Jesus Christ, who performed many miracles while he was on earth. And one of those miracles was when He took a few loaves of bread and a few fish and miraculously multiplied them and fed thousands of people with them. And we’re going to look at that miracle today. It traditionally has been called – the Feeding of the 5000. And it’s recorded as a real historical event in all four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In fact, it’s the only miracle Jesus performed that is recorded in all four Gospels. So, that makes in even more significant. But before we get into this Story. I want us to understand,
Slide: What is a miracle? First… A miracle is not magic… If you know anything about magic – magic is the art of deception… smoke and mirrors. What appears to our eyes to be real – is nothing but a trick – and, when we understand how a magician tricked us – it’s perfectly logical.
On the other hand – the Miraculous defies logical naturalistic explanation. Like when one of our children make a big mess in a matter of seconds… it defies logic – right… Actually, This is what the Concise Oxford Dictionary says a miracle is,
Slide: an extraordinary event attributed to some supernatural agency. That’s a pretty good definition. But, let me go a little further.
Slide: A miracle is “a real historical supernatural event – that cannot be explained in naturalistic terms.” In other words – Science or medicine or Psychology has no logical natural explanation for it –apart from the Supernatural. Meaning a miracle points to God. Now, here a big question for you.
Slide: Do you believe in Miracles? Do you believe that God does miracles? Is He big enough to do miracles? You don’t have to answer that – right now.. We’ll come back to it. Because today – we’re going to Learn
Slide: 3 Keys To Making God Bigger in Your life. So, let’s get into the story of the feeding of 5000. We’ll be looking at John’s Gospel account found in John Chapter 6. It’s in your program and it’ll be up on the screen as we go along. Follow along with me starting in verse 1,
Slide: John 6:1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), Now, John, the writer of this gospel , makes it clear – where this actually took Slide: place – the sea was called Galilee – but some years later, when John wrote this Gospel – the Romans had changed the name of the Sea to Tiberias. Kind of like – if I say, The Mariners came to play an exhibition game at Multnomah Stadium – that is PGE Park. Some of you who have been around Portland for a while know that PGE park used to be called Multnomah Stadium. But they are the same place. So, Sea of Galilee and Sea of Tiberias were one and the same. And, A large portion of Jesus Ministry was around the Sea of Galilee. So Jesus and His disciples are up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and in verse 2 it says,
Slide: 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.
Jesus had been healing sick people – enabling blind people to see. Doing all sorts of great miraculous stuff and the word was getting out. And people wanted to get a piece of Jesus. So, in verses 3 & 4 it says,
Slide: 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
The Passover feast was Like the Fourth of July to the Jews – It’s essentially Independence day for the Jews – Independence day from Egypt. And it’s an intense time of remembrance and it’s still celebrated to this day. It’s remembering how God saved the Jewish first born from the angel of death about 1400 year prior to Jesus …. when the Jews were all slaves in Egypt. If you You’ve seen the old Movie the Ten commandments… Moses- was played by Charleton Heston and Eul Brenner was Pharoh… and you remember Pharoh wouldn’t let the Hebrews go – even after all the plagues God sent through Moses.. – but the final plague God sent was the angel of Death to kill the 1st born sons and the first born animals in all the homes in Egypt. And, to protect the Jews – God told Moses to have each family kill an unblemished lamb and take blood from the lamb and put it on the sides and tops of the door posts…. Which would serve as a sign to the Angel of death – to Passover that household and not destroy anything in it. Which is exactly what happened. Anyway, because the Passover feast was near – there would have been a lot of Jews from all over the Mediterranean coming to Israel…which would increase the crowds and Jesus understands what’s going on. And it says in vs 5
Slide: 5 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?" 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, "Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"
So, there’s a huge crowd converging upon Jesus… it’s dinner time… and Jesus want’s to feed them. But, notice in verses 5 and 6, Jesus asked where they could get bread for everyone… but really wasn’t intending to buy everyone dinner. He had something else in mind he was going to do. But, to get a feel for the situation and the magnitude of the crowd -- Philip answers – not even two hundred Denari some translations say… or eight months wages could buy enough bread so that each person in the crowd could have a single bite. In other words – Philip could only think in logical naturalistic terms. And from Philips perspective – the situation was absolutely hopeless. He probably thought for a moment that Jesus was out of his mind. The furthest thing from Philip’s mind was a miracle… even though Jesus had already performed many miraculous signs as vs 2 already told us… and Philip, being one of Jesus disciples – would have been an eyewitness to many of those miracles. Yet even so – he was looking for a logical, naturalistic way to solve the dilema. Philip couldn’t think in Supernatural terms. Philip is a lot like us sometimes. We get stressed out about a certain situation – and we try to figure it all out ourselves… without asking God the Supernatural for help. …. I think Jesus really asked Philip to test him and see if Philip would say, “well Jesus… we could really use a miracle now… I’ve got faith that you can do it and hey – there are other people here – maybe together we can pull this one off… who knows.” But, instead, Philip – responds – “it’s hopeless”, because Philip doesn’t really embrace the supernatural. This give us the first Key to Making God bigger in our lives.
Slide: Think Supernaturally… Think God can do for you what what you can’t do for yourself. Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m all for Logic…. But if we leave the Supernatural out of the Logical equation of our lives… it can really make life hopeless. Lately, the economy has been really bad – and I know things in many homes have been a bit stressful --- money and finances have a way of really stressing us out. And it’s hard to get away from. Every weekday the stock market opens and closes – lately it closes lower. Everyday there’s some new twist on the economy… some economic guru like Alan Greenspan tells us one thing or another. But, a headline never reads… “What’s God’s take on this economic situation.” Why, because we leave God out of our logical thought process. Often we spend more time looking in the newspaper or the internet trying to figure it out – than on our knees asking God for supernatural wisdom … and we just continue to get stressed. Now, I don’t know about you … but, in my lifetime… I have never been without food for a whole day… I have never been without clothes… I have never been without a place to sleep. Certainly there have been times that have been leaner than others and I’ve made some bad financial decisions at times… but God has always provided for me. The irony is… is when things get bad financially, often we get real fearful… in essence we lose our sense of logic about God… we don’t think or we forget to think… “Gee… in all my years… every single day of my life… God has provided for me…” If God is big enough to have taken care of me so far…. Surely, God is big enough to get me through ANY scenario that confronts me. Now, I’m aware that there is starvation in the world. And it’s really sad… but it’s not because God hasn’t provided enough resources. It’s amazing what He has provided. In fact – a guy by the name of Colin Clark – who was the director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University said, If all farmers used the best methods available
Slide: “Enough food could be raised to produce an American-
type diet for 35 Billion people.” That’s 6 times as many people as exist on the earth today. If we slimmed down and went with a healthier Japanese style diet…- Sushi… teriyaki chicken – Rice - Slide: he says we could feed over 100 billion people. So, God certainly provides… Jesus knows that and Andrew, another one of Jesus’ disciples is beginning to think Supernaturally… because, while Philip has come to the conclusion the situation is hopeless in logical Naturalistic terms… Beginning in Verse 8 it says,
Slide: 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
So here’s Andrew… he doesn’t have the whole situation under control… but in essence he says to Jesus – “Hey… it’s a start.” Andrew says, “ Look Jesus.. here’s this boy – he’s got five muffins and a couple of fish in his lunch box” and Jesus is probably this kid’s hero by now… kid’s are often a lot more perceptive and accepting of spiritual things than adults…Andrew is humble – the boy is humble… And I can imagine Jesus smilin and thinking, “now I’ve got something to work with.”
That’s the next Key to Making God Bigger in our lives..
Slide: Get Humble. See often, we get so overwhelmed with a situation.. We give up. We don’t even try. Perhaps you’re currently in deep debt. Perhaps you have a personal family issue.. maybe a parenting or marriage issue and you can’t see any hope at the moment. Maybe you have an illness that is really debilitating – maybe you’re depressed and it just all seems so hopeless. Listen… God is big enough to help. But… he first wants us to get humble. Because when we get humble… God suddenly has something to work with. And getting humble isn’t staying in bed and pulling the covers over your head… I get that…I’ve done it… but it never helps. Humble isn’t thinking --- “I can’t let anyone know about this situation…it’s too embarrassing” or … no one will care anyway.” No that’s not humble…actually that’s arrogant in a twisted sort of way. I was killing flies yesterday… one of my favorite pastimes – anyway… I had killed four flies and there was like one left… and he was flying around looking for his friends… but he flew right up and landed right on my fly swatter. I thought – no humility… That fly wasn’t humble … he was arrogant. He died. Arrogance will eventually kill us. That’s why…getting humble is so important. Humble is… writing on your communication card – “I need help… call me.” Humble is, “I could use some counseling through this mess I’m in.” Humble is getting into a small group to get help with your finances or marriage or parenting… and sticking with it … realizing we need one another to make it through life. Humble is being teachable and not thinking we know it all. See, when we get humble…smaller… God gets bigger. When we remain self-sufficient… God is really small in our life. So, get Humble… it’s amazing how God becomes bigger when we get smaller – humbler. Well, Next Jesus seats His guests …in verse 10 it says,
Slide: 10 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.
It says “the men sat down… about five thousand of them.” The 5000 – that’s just the men… we know there were also children.., because of the boy that has the bread and the fish… and you can be sure there were women as well. So, if there were five thousand men… the total head count– including women and children – was probably around 20,000 people or more. Picture the Rose Garden full of people – 20,000– no concession stands open. People have been there all day. A kid comes up to donate 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish… And Jesus is in the Rose Garden …. And in verses 11-13 it says,
Slide: 11 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. 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. So Jesus took the bread and Gave thanks – and the verb used here For “Gave thanks” in the original Greek is Eucharistesas… if you have a Catholic background – they still use this word for the Lord’s Supper or communion – they call it – the Eucharist. It means Thanksgiving… So Jesus thanks God for His incredible blessing… And everyone is fed full--- and there are 12 baskets full of bread left over – left over after everyone – all 20,000 had their fill – All from 5 small loaves and 2 fish. Friends – that’s a miracle… there is no naturalistic explanation for it. Do you believe it? … Really? Here’s the big question again…
Slide: Do you believe in miracles? Does the God you believe
in… Does He do miracles? … And what about Jesus… was He really God who came to earth? I’ve had people say to me… “Brad, I believe in God and I think the Bible is great – it has some good stuff in it… but… those miracles Jesus supposably did… come on. That’s pushing it a little too far.” You know what I say, I say, “Listen, do you believe God created the Heavens and the earth.” “Sure” they say. I say, “Then, why do you have such a problem with the miracles Jesus did? Surely, the miracles in the Bible are nothing when compared to creating the Heavens and the Earth…. I mean making a few thousand muffins and fish sticks has to be child’s play when compared to making all the plants and fruit producing trees growing on the earth and all the animals and fish in the sea. My former pastor used to say, “Miracles are recreational activity for God.” And this miracle… The feeding of the 5000 – really over 20,000 tells us something even more about Jesus… In verse 14 it says,
Slide: 14 After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." See, the people saw the miracle and all the bread – and they couldn’t help but recollect Moses …when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and God supplied Manna – bread from Heaven while they were journeying to the Promiseland. And these folks Jesus just fed -- they were in awe.. and they were trying to figure out exactly who Jesus was. Many thought Him to be a prophet … like Moses… Others thought him to be the Messiah – God come to earth. And this is the big question every person has to answer for themselves
Slide: Who do you say Jesus was and is in Your life? See many people will accept all God provides for us each day…food, clothing, shelter -- our daily bread as the prayer says… But accepting Jesus as our Lord, our leader… our forgiver and sustainer - the very Bread of our Life is a whole other issue. See, the last and most important Key – to making God bigger in our Slide: lives is to Embrace Jesus Christ as Your Lord --- your Leader, your Forgiver, your Supernatural friend. See, with Jesus – God isn’t just something out way there… with Jesus God gets up close and very personal. It is through Jesus Christ – that the God of the universe relates personally to each one of us. It is through Jesus that God forgives us of our sins… no matter what we’ve done. It is through Jesus that God made it possible to have eternal life – to be with God forever in heaven. So, I would ask you to think about where you’re at with Jesus. And, in a minute we’re going to have communion… which represents Jesus Christ… His death on the cross for our sins --- and the eternal life He gives us when we embrace him… Like the Passover feast … What were going to do is stop… and remember who Jesus is… See, I believe if we don’t stop individually– and really examine who Jesus is – and what we believe about Him.. we’re simply going to miss God. So, I’m going to ask the band to come up… and in a minute we’re going to pass out the bread… but before we do – if you don’t know… the bible says, if you really haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as you’re forgiver and Leader of your life… you Lord and Savior - You should take a pass as the elements come by…It’s ok – you’re in the right place to keep seeking and getting answers… but, right now, what I want to do… is give you an opportunity in prayer to embrace Jesus Christ – maybe for the first time. So, let take a moment and pray.. Let’s pray. Dear Lord… you’re an amazing God. You are a Big God… So big – you got small… Humbled yourself – and became a man… the Man Jesus Christ.. Who died for our sins… that’s a miracle lord. And if you have never embraced Jesus… or if God has become distant to you… Now’s the time to get humble and Just pray these words – in the quietness of your heart between you and God. Say, “Lord Jesus… I need you… I need the forgiveness you provided for me.. when you died on the cross… Please forgive me all my sins. … And please get personal with me. Be my Leader and Friend… now and into eternity. In Jesus name … Amen.
If you said those words and really meant them…. Know that you’re truly a Christian now. Just like that… it’s a miracle. And as we pass the bread… take it and remember what Jesus did for you. So, if the ushers will begin to pass the bread… as we pass the bread – please hold onto it and we’re going to sing a reflective song… and then we’ll eat together.
Song: Show us who you are.
The Bible says, On the night Jesus was betrayed, by one of His
friends… Jesus took a loaf of bread – which represented Himself
and He broke the loaf in half and gave thanks and said… this is my Body… broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me… Let’s eat together. Eat… I’m going to ask the ushers to pass out the cup now. The bible says, In the same way Jesus took the Cup… and said, This cup represents the New Covenant which is in my blood… And this is really significant. Often, Christians sing about the Lamb that has been slain and the blood of Jesus… See, like the Passover feast that the Jews celebrate and the Lambs Blood that was put on the door posts in Egypt as a sign – so death would pass over them… and not take them. When we embrace Jesus… the Blood that Christ shed on the cross… cleanses us of our sins and in a very real sense death passes over us… not on this earth.. but, through Jesus’ blood… God gives us eternal life.. Death passes over us for all eternity and we have life with God forever. So, before we drink, let’s reflect on that and worship God.
Song Slides: It is you. Let’s drink together – The cup of the New Covenant. Well, God is good and He’s really big… and there is no One like him… so let sing one last song and praise God together.
Song Slides: No one like our God
