Triple “B” Religion
ITS BEEN A WHILE SINCE I WAS IN SCHOOL, but I remember those dreaded words from the teacher, “Take out a pencil and a sheet of paper. Its pop quiz time.”
What really amazed me was that the teacher seemed to know the nights I had not studied!
Well, I’m not going to ask you to take a pop quiz, but I do want to give you a test. What one miracle of Jesus is recorded in all four gospels?
Out of over 30 miracles that we have recorded in the gospels, only one is included in all four.
❏ The raising of Lazarus?
❏ Jesus walking on the water?
❏ Healing of the man at the pool?
Answer: The feeding of the multitudes with the loaves and fish. This is a miracle about Jesus as the answer to those deep hungers of our spirit. But it is also a miracle about what Jesus can do when we dare to put what we are into His hands.
Let’s look together at Mark’s account of this event, found in Mark 6:34-44.
34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
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.
One thing is for sure–those followers of Christ that were there that day would forever remember this principle: LITTLE BECOMES MUCH WHEN ITS PLACED IN THE MASTER’S HAND.
The whole key to what Jesus can do with our lives lies in Mark 6:41. Three elements are necessary for our lives to be transformed and they all begin with the letter B–hence, the title of the sermon: Triple “B” Religion.
1. BRINGING
Jesus took what was brought to Him and in His hands the miracle happened. What we become depends on thaat initial step of faith of bringing all of who we are to all that we know of Christ.
When John told the story, he said that a little boy was the only one who brought his lunch that day. I raised two sons so I can imagine the conversation between that boy and his mother before he left home:
“Mom, I’m gonna hear Jesus preach today.”
“That’s good, son, but be sure to take your
lunch.” “But mom, nobody else will have a
lunch. I’ll be a dork!” “You heard me, son,”
his mother replied. “You’re not leaving this
house unless you take something to eat, and
that’s that!”
Having been a little boy myself, I know that most little boys are afraid of one thang more than any other–being different. We may owe this miracle to the insistence of a caring mother.
But regardless of how the bread and fish got to Jesus, the point is that they were placed into His hands. It was the bringing of all that was available–not some of the fish or one of the loaves, but ALL that he had.
When we come to the house of the Lord, we come to see Christ. And we all bring a multitude of things with us–things like, temptations, disappointments, failures, trials, and unsurrendered talents.
This is not easy. It never has been. It wasn’t easy for those first disciples either.
❏ They focused on the problem (5,000 men plus women and children).
❏ They looked at the possibilities (5 loaves and 2 fish).
❏ They concluded that the people needed to be sent home before they had a riot on their hands.
What they failed to factor in was the power of Jesus!
These are the same disciples who had already seen miracles such as the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the calming of the raging sea. They were so overwhelmed by the immense need that they forgot what can happen when life is put in the Master’s hand.
Billy Graham tells the story about a little child the was playing with a very valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not withdraw it. His father too, tried his best to get it out, to no avail. They were thinking of breaking the vase when the father said, “Now my son, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then pull.” To their astonishment the little fellow said, “O no, dad, I couldn’t put my fingers out like that because if I did I would drop my dime.”
Smile, if you will but thousands of us are like that little boy, so busy holding on to the world’s worthless dimes that we cannot accept liberation. Drop the trifles in your life. Surrender! Let go, and let God have His way in your life.
2. BLESSING
Look at verse 41 again: “...and looking up to heaven He gave thanks.”
What a contrast! The disciples were grumbling, “We don’t have enough. Send the people away.” Jesus is giving thanks for what they have.
Illus.: “Grumbling Because of Lack of Soap”
In some parts of Mexico hot springs and cold springs are found side by side. And because of the convenience of this natural phenomenon, the women often bring their laundry and boil their clothes in the hot springs and then rinse them in the cold ones. A tourist, who was watching this procedure commented to his Mexican guide, “I imagine that these women think Old Mother Nature is pretty generous to supply such ample, clean hot and cold water here side by side for their free use.” The guide answered, “Not really. There’s a lot of grumbling because they have to bring their own soap!”
Chinese proverb: WHEN YOU DRINK FROM THE STREAM, REMEMBER THE SPRING.
Thank God for dirty dishes
They have a tale to tell,
While others may go hungry,
We’ve eaten very well.
With home, health, and happiness
I shouldn’t want to fuss,
By the stack of evidence
God’s been very good to us!
3. BREAKING
Again, in verse 41, Jesus “gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to His disciples to set before the people.”
Notice the order here. First the breaking and then the supplying. The spiritual truth here is that God needs to break us and then remake us before He can use us to bless others. God touched Jacob in the sinew of his thigh.
We come with our pride, resentments, jealousies, and our lack of expectation that God can do very much with us–and these things need to be broken.
Sometimes the Lord will allow tragedy, or some trial or pain to enter our lives so as to break us and show us how weak we are without Him and how strong we can become with His power working within us.
Speaking of breaking, there are five broken things in the Bible.
1. Broken pitchers (Judges 7:18,19) and the light shone out.
2. A broken box (Mark 14:3) and the ointment was poured out.
3. Broken bread (Matt.14:10) and the hungry were fed.
4. A broken body (I Cor,11:24) and the world was saved
5. A broken will (Psalm 51:17) and a life of fulfillment in Christ was realized.
John Tesh told Larry King, “My Christian counselor told me, ‘If you have to choose between pain and pleasure, always choose pain. It will teach you something important–something you need to learn.
A student once asked his rabbi, “I don’t understand Deut.6:6. I don’t understand why it is written the way it is.” So the rabbi read it: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart.”
“What’s the problem?” asked the rabbi. The student responded, “Why are we commanded to place the commandments on our hearts and not in them?” The rabbi answered, “Its not within man’s power to place the Word of God directly in his heart. All we can do is place them on the surface of the heart so that when the heart breaks they will drop in.”
Broken and spilled out just for love of You, Jesus
My most precious treasures lavished on Thee
Broken and spilled out, poured at Your feet
In sweet abandon, let me be poured out and used
up for Thee
Strength for living comes only when we put ourselves in Jesus’ hands. The reason that it is the only miracle found in all 4 gospels is that it is there to remind us that our greatest need, the greatest miracle–is to put our life in the Master’s hands and see what He can do with it.
