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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.
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John, chapter six and verse one. After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is also called the Sea of Tiberias. Jesus spent the first 30 years of his life preparing for only three and a half. Someone said if my life depended on cutting down a tree in five minutes, I would spend the first three minutes sharpening my axe. The higher a building rises into the sky, the deeper the foundation that's required. You know, even if starting right means starting over, do it because you'll keep going around in circles until you stop cutting corners. Then a great multitude followed the master. After 30 years of preparation and waiting and thousands of years of prophecy, you would think that Jesus would show up and just instantly take off. But surprisingly, scholars refer to Jesus first year in ministry as his year of obscurity, meaning a whole lot of folk didn't know about him yet. And it was his second year that became what was called, or is called, the year of popularity. But watch this. After that, the third year is called his year of opposition. And the opposition grew so great that it culminated in crucifixion, then finally resurrection. It's vital that we prioritize being effective, not popular. No one gets to the highest without first going to the lowest. Pay attention to what I'm saying here this morning. And this multitude followed him because they saw his signs which he had performed on those who were deceased. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If he healed, then he heals. Now I hear a lot of people preaching a different Jesus and a different Gospel, but the Jesus of this book is a redeemer. He's a healer. He will keep you if you let him. But here's the deal. Long life has its value. But as far as I'm concerned, once my purpose is finished, I'm not going to be asking for healing any longer. I'm going to be waiting for the angelic uber ride to. To come and carry me home. My pastor used to say the greatest tragedy in life is not death. It's living life without purpose. And Jesus went up on a mountain. And the other gospels give us a little bit more details about the background here. And they went into the hill country because the disciples were facing the recent beheading. John the Baptist and probably some of Christ's disciples were a little bit confused. How could God let such evil happen to such a great man? But Watch the next clause. And there he sat with his disciples. Jesus didn't abandon them just because they had some questions. I've learned to bring my struggles to Jesus, all my problems to Jesus, all my pains to Jesus. God can still handle honest questions and honest challenges. And in this moment, he took the disciples away to spend some time with them, and he sat with the disciples. It's amazing how a little bit of good company can give us courage to carry on. We need Jesus, but we also need one another. They were all sitting there and healing after the situation. Verse 4. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. John is writing primarily to Gentiles. And, you know, they didn't even call it what it was. It was Passover. And what he wanted to explain to us is the reason why the crowd would grow to 5,000 men and get so large was because people were on their annual pilgrimage to worship in Jerusalem. Verse 5, it says, Then Jesus lifted up his eyes. He was obviously having a very focused conversation with his disciples. And God loves to talk with his kids. Now, I've learned in my life to talk to him when I feel good, talk to them when I feel bad, talk to him when I feel happy, talk to him when I feel sad. And this is what was going on. And someone once said, he said if we prayed half as much as we worried, we wouldn't need to worry about half as much. And seeing a great multitude coming toward him. Mark 6:35 tells us that they had been listening to Jesus all day. And Jesus was about to demonstrate to them what happens when we put the kingdom first in our lives. They had neighbors they could have visited and places they could have gone on the way up to Jerusalem. But they decided to be with the Master. And it's amazing how when we put God first, everything else just kind of falls into place. So he said to Philip. Some say that Jesus asked Philip because he was from Bethesda, which happened to be in the neighborhood, and he knew the area. I'm not quite sure. But what I do know is God doesn't ask us questions because he don't know the answer. In the Bible, God asks people questions for three reasons. Number one, to help us realize our condition and the state of our heart. Genesis 3 and 9. God said, hey, Adam, where are you? Did he ask that? Because he didn't know. He said, adam, who told you you were naked? He said, adam, have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat of? The Bible begins with these three questions. Number two, God asks questions to give us revelation of himself. In Job, chapter 38 and verse 4, Job was trying to figure out why God was doing things the way he was doing. He was grappling with his circumstances. And God responded. He said, where were you, O when I laid the foundations of the earth? He says, only one of us is uncreated and eternal, and it's not you you need to remember. Job, who you talking to? I alone am God. Then in three, God asks questions often to call us into action. Isaiah 6:8, God said to the prophet, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And all three of these questions are involved in the question that Jesus asked Philip. He said, philip, where shall we buy bread that these may eat? But watch this. But he said this to test him, because Jesus already knew what he was gonna do. So the question was designed to help Philip locate the lid he put on God. His response was, you know, go down to bodega's, you know, over there and over there. But he put a lid what he could imagine God might do. Number two, he wanted to reveal himself as Jehovah Jireh. He wanted the disciples to have a revelation of a God that provides. And number three, he would use this question to call his disciples into action. Now, not often does the Bible explain why Jesus said or says what he says. But the next clause says, but he said this what to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Your crisis has not taken God by surprise. God already has a plan, and he knows exactly what he's going to do. Let's pick up this narrative. In Mark, chapter six, he said, send them away. This is Philip's answer, that they may go to the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves some bread for watch this. All they could do was focus on the problem, for they had nothing to eat. Some of us want to get rid of the need by getting rid of the needy. But Jesus had a different plan. But Jesus answered and said to them, stop expecting current systems. Stop expecting the people around you to solve all your problems. Your future is not limited to what the people that surround you might have. I feel like the Lord is saying that he wants us to stop limiting him, stop telling him what he can't do, what it's too late for him to do, what it don't look like he's doing. Last I checked, God is God and there's no other beside him. He led you into the situation you're in because he wants to show you something. There's more to that, but let's get Back to the text. And he looked at Philip. And the disciples said, you're always dependent on Washington, Richmond, Annapolis. Always looking for humans to have answers. Always look at somebody else. But guess what? Apostle Paul ain't here no more. Peter's not here anymore. St. Augustine is not here. Martin Luther is not here. Martin Luther King is not here. Billy Graham is not. We are the only ones here. And it's up to us in our generation to reach our generation. He says, stop calling on everybody else. Stop passing the buck. I put something in you you don't realize you have yet. He looked them in the face. He said, you give them something to eat, and if you walk with God long enough, at some point, if you're really walking with him, he's gonna ask you to do something you can't do. Matter of fact, if God only asks us to do things we could already do, why would we need them? If your vision in life is so small, you can do it all by yourself. It's not God. Average is easy, but extraordinary takes extra. And they said to him, talking to Jesus, basically, shall we leave you, Jesus, and go somewhere else to get my answer? How many in this room leaving Jesus, going to Dr. So and so, reading so and so, instead of going to the Master for the end, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread, which was a year's wage, and give them something to eat? Now, here's the problem. Now, if that's a year's wage for one man, that would have meant all 12 disciples would have had to have left the ministry for a month and worked another job. But even with that, they still wouldn't have had enough money for their problem. If the Egyptians are never behind you, if the Red Sea is never in front of you, I'm not sure God is really leading you. The biggest risk you take in life is not taking any risk at all. But he said to them, watch Jesus. He's calm and cool, and he's dealing with the thinking of the apostles here. He said, how many loaves do you have? In other words, stop talking about what you don't have and give to Jesus what you do have. I have never been able to afford anything big God asked me to do. But sometimes in life you gotta decide whether or not you're gonna depend on your circumstances, depend on your checkbook, or you're gonna depend on the God that promised. But watch what Jesus is doing. Jesus is doing some coaching here. He's trying to change the mentality. He said, how many loaves do you have. And you know, the answer is probably, you know, they just answered there would be none. But he's like, no, I'm not selling. Go and see. What did he do? He told Philip to take inventory of what they had and not get stuck by what they didn't have. You say, I may not have shoes, but I still got feet. You may not have a husband or a wife, but thank God for family and friends. You may not have all the money you want, but I still have enough to give. How they used to say, I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I'm not where I. Yeah. And when they found out, we will seldom have everything. We want to do all the things that God asks, but that doesn't matter because all God requires is that we work with whatever we have. Matter of fact, just to make sure you're awake, tell your neighbor, you better work that thing. Tell that other neighbor, you better work that thing. And when they found out, they had to do some searching and we need to sometimes do some soul searching about what we got, about the resources we have, and be thankful. Then watch how God used it. Watch this. They said, master, we have five loaves and two fish. That's not a whole lot. But it only took William Wrigley $32 to create juicy Fruit and start the largest chewing gum company in history. Dell Computer was started by a 19 year old in a dorm room with only $1,000 and is worth $73 billion to day. The owners, the two brothers that own Pizza Hut, borrowed $600 from their mama. It's worth 33 billion today. Nike started with only $1200 invested. Subway, a $1,000 loan. Damon John started in his garage using his mother's sewing machine in Queens, New York, selling hats at $10 a pop. Fubu today is worth $6 billion. In 1998, Grace Church started in a high school with 12 people. I was so broke, I had to use my credit card to pray for the classrooms and the auditorium. And at the end of the year, I racked up over $30,000 in debt. But today, Grace Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the United States of America. Don't tell me what God can't do. Don't tell me what God. It's too late. Don't tell me what God can't do. You're too, too late. Then he commanded them. Jesus gets bossy, don't he? I like that about Jesus. I need someone with some confidence telling me what to do because I'm not always so confident, he said. Had them sit down in groups on the green grass. Ever have somebody, you know what, tell you, you know what? Before I show you this, I need you to sit down. Jesus was about to blow their minds. So they sat down in ranks. In hundreds and fifties, none of the apostles were arguing over who had the largest group. Each leader served their group with the gift that Jesus gave them. Some were given enough for larger groups. Some were given enough just for the smaller groups. The issue is not whose group was the biggest, but that everyone ate. The minute you spend wishing you had someone else's life is a minute you spent wasting your own. A flower doesn't sit there thinking, you know what, I'm gonna compete with the flower next. No, it just blossoms and it just blooms. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fish, when we put our little into Jesus hands, he takes the little and turns it into much. But the way that works is we first got to learn to let it go. We got to get it out of our hand into his hand. And that's when the blessing happens. And John says, and he looked up to heaven, and what did he do? He what? Blessed it. You see, if God's blessing is on it, no matter how little you think it is, God will make it enough. And we're constantly comparing ourselves and saying, we don't have this, or I don't have that. I can't do. That's a waste of time. Take what you do have, get it into, submit it at the altar, give it to Jesus and watch what he'll make of it. He looked up to heaven. What did he do? He blessed it. You know, in my older age, I'm not so sure that God is so much preparing a blessing for our lives as he is preparing us for the blessing. And these leaders had to change their mind, take the limits off before they could be released into the world after his resurrection. And watch what Jesus did. And he broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them. And the two fish he divided among them what all Jesus saying yesterday, today, and forever. He uses broken things beautifully. Let's go back to John 12 and wrap up with two verses. So when they were filled, remember, Philip wanted to send everybody away. But what Jesus did is he turned that field into JC's. All you can eat catfish buffet. Don't send me emails. I know that catfish is not kosher, but I need to say it in a way that everybody understands. What I need you to see about Jesus who Said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He did not stop until everyone was full. See many of us, a little dab will do. I'll take a little bit of God, A little bit of this, A little bit. But God intends to feed us until we're full. So when they were filled, he said to the disciples, pay attention. Gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost. God don't want to waste a thing. God wants to turn your leftover pieces into his masterpieces. If you let them. God wastes nothing. When you put your life into God's hands, you're no longer defined by the broken pieces. Instead, your future is prepared by them. Because my Bible said he works all things together for the good. You hear what I'm saying? He'll take those. He'll work it for the. Those moments of brokenness. God can use for your future if you just put it in the hands of the Master. Therefore, they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. What I want you to notice is God made sure the disciples had more left over than what they started with. We serve a God of the overflow. We serve a big God. Some of our prayer requests are literally insulting. God is like, dude, you can do that by yourself. Why ask me something worthy of my greatness. Ask me something worthy of my power. When God was through, they had more left over again than they started with. And I guess what's in my heart today is don't buy the lie. Don't settle for where you are. Take the lid off your expectations of what God can do. This miracle was a miracle that yes, resolved practical needs, but was also designed to change the thinking of the disciples. I feel in my heart that God wants to release abundance. My Bible says He wants to do abundantly above all that. You could ask or think according to his power, working abundantly above, but you can even ask. The disciples couldn't even ask for this miracle. It was beyond their mind's ability to comprehend what God might do. But God is saying to us in this, if we would lean in, do what he says with what we have, God will bless us in ways. We gonna have to sit down and collect ourselves to take a good look at what God has done. When it was over, he gave each disciple a basket. And that basket was mocking them. Jesus probably had a little bit of a smile on his face saying, you talking about send them over there? But look what God could do with a little and they carried away baskets and that baskets preach to them for weeks. God wants to give you basketfuls that will begin to preach to you, speak to you and talk to you about what God can do. God's word to us is if you trust me, Peter did not walk on water. He walked on God's word. And if Christ says come, come, if he says go, go do what he says. And when the disciples did what what Jesus said with what they had, one of the greatest miracles in the New Testament came to pass. But we got to do better than just go to church. We got to do what he says with what we have in order to step into the miracle that he desires for each of us.
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Thank you for joining us. Until next time, remember, you have what it takes in Christ to live big. We also invite you to partner with Derek Greer Ministries in bringing the life changing and impactful teachings of God's Word to the world. Get started by visiting Derekreer.com by clicking the link in the description.