Release Series

Release

Luke 9:10-17

August 20, 2017

Action: We’re here.

Background: All that we have, Jesus entrusted to us.

Crisis: Our resources are not enough to meet the demand.

Resolution: When we release what we have and who we are to Jesus, wonderful things happen.

Consequence: A deeper understanding of who Jesus is and how wonderful He is

One of my favorite movies, Father of the Bride…George is upstairs to go to the bathroom, starts looking thru the bank book of his daughter’s future father in law, and gets cornered by 2 doberman pincers. The word he’s trying to come up with is…Release.” But he can’t think of it. (show clip beginning with dropping the book under the desk until he falls in the water and she drops her head—edit out the 1:07 minutes from the time he runs out of view of the window after dropping out of the window until the dogs appear to force him in the pool)

Turn to Luke 9:10-17. We are in this series entitled Wonders. The premise is that we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of our lives, distracted by work and school and parenting and the hurry up which is our 21st century American culture. We miss the wonder of Creation. We miss the wonder of the wind rustling the branches of our trees. We miss the wonder of the seasons brought on by the change of the rotation and tilt of planet earth. We miss the wonder of of the changes in barometric pressure that indicate changes in the atmosphere signaling the coming of rain that replenishes us. Heck, tomorrow we’ll have the 1st total solar eclipse was over 38 years ago, and I’ll be half of us in the room won’t even make the effort to step out at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon to see it. And yet, the movements of the planets and moons are a part of a delicate ecosystem that our infinitely creative God spoke into being just to make a stage on which He displays His glory and His love for a creature that He created in His own image.

I could go on and on—but you get my point. We need to slow down and get our antenna up to see and hear and sense the wonder of Jesus in a way we never have before—and keep it up so that as we live out our lives we become increasingly awed by the wonder of Jesus.

Week one, we studied the story of Jesus the young man who was tormented by a demon. Jesus reminded the dad and us that to see His Wonder, we need to bring our faith.

Last week we studied the story of Jesus telling Peter to push out a little farther to catch fish and we were reminded that for us to see His wonder, we need to invite Jesus into the routines of our lives.

Now this morning, we’re going to study a story that is so very familiar I’m afraid we’re going to yawn and tune out because we’ve heard it so many times. But this is a wonder-filled story of the feeding of the multitude that reminds us that to see the wonder of Jesus, we need to release, not ‘relent’ ‘recoil’ ‘reverse’ but ‘release’ control to Him.

Read Luke 9:10-17(on screen) with comments

v.10 apostles: sent ones; a title Jesus gave to the disciples. Was more a descriptive term at 1st; later became a titled term referring to the 11 remaining disciples. If you glance at the 1st 6 verses of this chapter, you see that Jesus had sent them out preaching and healing and they came back telling of great stories of life-change. So His fame was being spread throughout Israel and people wanted to come here and see this Jesus that the disciples had told them about.

Bethsaida, a small village just off the northern shore of Sea of Galilee.

v.11 welcomed them I find it interesting that the Creator of the Universe took time to welcome people. I love how you welcome people on Sunday mornings. In the parking lot, at the doors, in the worship center, at the check in stations. It shows you value people, and it shows you are following the example of Jesus.

v. 12 deserted place Apparently most of the crowd were not locals; they had traveled considerable distances to hear Jesus teach and observe and experience His power in healing. No Pizza Hut or Chickfilet or Babes; no Holiday Inn Express or Motel 6; there might have been a few KOA camp grounds but that was it. The landscape was dotted with a number of small villages, but most of the crowd would need to travel as little as a mile to Capernaum or in some cases as much as 20 miles to Nazareth just to get food.