Something From Nothing

Well, I appreciate that special. That really goes kind of well with the message this morning. If you want to start finding your place in John chapter 6.

! Earlier I kind of teased about being here. We could check off our list for pastor. And I got to thinking, I was like, Hey, man, there might be people here that thought I was serious.

You know, I'm kidding. And as great as a man as Pastor Smith is, that's all he is. And we don't have to give account to him in the end. You know, the Lord knows. And I know Pastor Smith would like us to be here in church.

But this message this morning, something from nothing. The inspiration, I guess, for this is we were coming up with names for our Sunday school class.

And I was trying to find something about young people in the Bible, something that would kind of go along with our class. And the little lad that gave his lunch or, you know, whatever, his food to Christ.

I was like, that really stuck out. You know, when you boil it all down, he gave all that he had to Jesus. And that's my goal for our young people. That's what I'd like for all of us.

And that was where the inspiration, so our class name is Loaves and Fishes, just kind of a reminder of what that young boy did and what, you know, the inspiration for our class.

John chapter 6. Go ahead and stand with me, if you will. Well, we'll be reading the first 14 verses. So starting verse 1, it says, After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles, which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, he saw a great company come unto him. He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?

And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes. But what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down.

Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down and number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given things, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down.

And likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, or he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above, unto them that had eaten. Then those men, which they had seen, when they had seen this miracle, that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth, that prophet, that should come into the world.

Let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this time that we're allowed to come to your house, and worship you. Lord, I pray that you would calm my nerves, and just give me the words that you'd have me to speak.

Lord, I pray that you would just let our hearts be open to what you have for us. Lord, I know that there's things that we're all going through, that maybe nobody else knows about, Lord.

Lord, I just ask that you would just let us set those worries aside at the moment, and just focus on what you have for us. I thank you, and I love you, in Jesus' name. Amen. You can go ahead and be seated.

You know, this is, as I was reading, some people kind of think that this is the greatest miracle that Christ performed, because all four gospel writers, they all have it in account.

All Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And it's interesting, their personal takes, you know, if there was an incident that happened here today, and we all had to give our version of what happened, they would all be different.

We all have different personalities. Some of us pay attention to details better than others. You know, there would be little things. It would all be the same story. It would just be a little different, and that's interesting about these four accounts.

You know, as I was thinking, you know, Jesus is at it again. He's teaching. He's doing miracles. You know, Mark 6, that's a parallel account of this passage.

It tells us that everyone was so busy, Jesus and the disciples, ministering to people. They didn't even have time to eat. That's how busy it was. They were, the Bible says that the people kind of pressed them.

They were so busy. And other accounts tell us that Jesus told his disciples, hey, we got to get out of here. We got to go rest. Let's leave. And the people saw that Jesus and the disciples were getting in a boat, and the Bible tells us that they ran out of the cities because they wanted to continue with Jesus.

You know, they're busy. He's an important guy. You know, he's, I was looking here, his performance, you know, the miracles that he's doing, his precepts. He's teaching parables.

He's teaching, you know, this miracle, feeding these 5,000 people, you know, as I was kind of studying for this, it really took me a while to come up with a title.

I know you don't need one, but I like to have one. And there was different titles kind of going through my mind, you know, something about, you know, blessed leftovers, right, because sometimes leftovers aren't so great.

And so that was a title kind of rolling around in my head, you know, peculiar, uh, uh, mathematics, you know, because he ends up multiplying by dividing.

So I was like, oh, you know, but we landed on something from nothing because that's, I think, what I want to focus on is first off, as I was reading through this text, the first thing that really stuck out to me was the problem of the people.

You know, people have problems. All of us in here, we have our own problems that we're dealing with, whether they're physical, mental, emotional, financial, you know, whatever, we have problems and this crowd was no different.

You know, they were seeking Jesus because they knew, they had seen that he's healing people. I mean, not one of us in here, if we had a child who was sick, an ailing family member, and we saw that someone could take care of him, you better believe we'd be running out there with that boat, you know, we'd be out there.

That's what these people were doing. Number one, they sought him. They ran to meet Jesus by foot while he traveled in the boat. Mark chapter 6 tells us that. They sought him because he healed the diseased.

You know, he continued healing as they followed. A lot of these people, they probably only came because of what Jesus could do for them physically. And there's a lot of people who come to church today even.

You know, we've seen them. They come in and they ask, you know, I need some money. I have some hard times going through. There's nothing really wrong with that in and of itself. You know, it's a good start.

That's where we can, you know, get them into church, start ministering to them. That's our job. You know, Jesus, I don't believe he was letting himself being taken advantage of.

He was ministering to these people because they were needy. You know, not only was he healing, but he was still teaching. He was teaching them in love. You know, these people knew that Jesus was the answer and Jesus is still the answer today.

You know, they stirred him. The Bible tells us that Jesus, and they were leaving because they're hungry. They're tired. They were going to go and get some rest.

And the Bible tells us that Jesus, you know, he saw the great multitude. You know, I think he had pity on them. He saw that they needed something. The Bible says, you know, it likens him as a shepherd and he sees these sheep.

He didn't let this, you know, you read here later on, the disciples saw this crowd as an inconvenience. How many times are we like that?

You know, how many times is it not really a convenient time to serve the Lord? You know, we got to take time out of our day to go do this, go do that, and minister. And Jesus didn't look at these people as an inconvenience.

It was an opportunity. You know, I think we need to adopt that philosophy in our own lives. We see that his compassion for the people were contrasted by the disciples' attitude.

attitude. You know, it said here in Matthew 14, which is another account of this, the disciples say, send them away.

Like, hey, sorry that they're hungry, but so are we, and we've been working all day. You know, that wasn't Jesus's, that wasn't what he was going to do. Again, for some reason, it's never the right time or the right place for God to work.

But Jesus is never hurried. He's always on time. You know, he ministered to them because they'd been listening to him all day. He kind of felt a responsibility.

You know, here they are. They're sacrificing of their time. Who knows? They might have had fields to tend to, you know, jobs that they took time out to go. You know, he saw the importance of that. James 2.16.

I'm glad he didn't adopt this attitude because it's just, 2.16, it says, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?

He knew he couldn't just give them some food and send them on their way. They needed something more than that. You know, people are searching for the Lord even though they don't really know what they're looking for.

You know, people are looking for the supernatural. I've often asked myself, why is Halloween so popular and it's just gaining more and more momentum because people want to know about the supernatural. They're curious.

They have questions and they may not know it yet, but they're looking for Jesus. We need to be there to help them as disciples were to guide them to Jesus.

You know, the scope of this problem here is getting late. In Matthew 14, 15, it tells us when it was evening. Mark 6, 35 says, the day was far spent. Luke 9, 12 says, the day began to wear away.

It was getting late. They'd been at it all day. You know, these are parallel accounts of this passage. I would encourage you to just read them later on because it is interesting. They're different takes. But it's getting late.

The Bible tells us that they went off to a kind of secluded mountain place because, you know, McDonald's isn't right around the corner for them. You know, the first thing is it was getting late.

Secondly, they didn't have enough money. The Bible says that Jesus, he asked Philip. Now, whether Philip was standing right next to him, you know, I'm not sure. But we know earlier on, if you read earlier on in John, it tells us that Philip is from Bethsaida and that's the area that they're around.

Luke 9, 10 tells us that they're near Bethsaida. So he probably knew the right area to get bread. You know, they didn't have enough money. I think a lot about this.

This was an opportunity. You know, the Bible tells us in our text, John 6, 6, that Jesus, he asked this to prove him. Jesus already knew what he would do.

You know, I'm a parent now. There's things that we ask our kids, right? We're not really looking for, you know, when I ask, okay, what are we going to do now?

You know, because we have a system of how we do things. I'm not really asking because I forgot the answer. I'm trying to gauge where is my daughter at? Is she going to obey? Has she been listening to what I've been teaching?

Think about Jesus. He asks Philip. There's all these hungry people. What are we going to do, right? What answer Philip could have said is like, God, you know, Moses, he was out in the desert with the multitude, the children of Israel, and Moses fed them every day, and you're greater than Moses.

We can feed them. He could have said, you know, Elijah, he fed the sons of the prophets with just a little bit of food, and you're greater than him. You know, even Elijah had ravens bringing him food.

food. This is not a problem for you, right? You spoke the world in existence. This shouldn't be a problem. But what is, Philip, he immediately goes to money.

How many of us try to do that, right? We just throw money at a problem thinking it'll go away. It wasn't about money. God already handled it. God already knew what he was going to do. You know, it shouldn't have been crazy for Philip to see another miracle coming.

They'd been healing people all day, diseased people. You know, the Bible tells us if they recorded everything that Jesus would do, there would be so many books. You know, I think about all the things that they would have seen, and there's still a bunch of knuckleheads.

And you know, I look at us. What are we? Knuckleheads. We have God's word. We know what he can do. We're here every Sunday. We're hearing what God does. And what is the thing that happens when problems come?

We panic. We rely on our own strength. Here Jesus' unlimited power to feed the multitude, and they're worried about money. It's like, come on, Philip.

You know, so many times I get like that, and then I have to think to myself, come on, Ethan. What are you doing? You know these. You know what you need to do. You know, Jesus asked Philip to see if his teaching was taking hold, but Philip saw two problems.

First off, not enough money. They only had 200 penny worth. That was about one man, a six-month wage for one man. You know, and I got to thinking, not only did they not have enough money, even if they had enough money, where were they going to get that amount of food for 5,000 people?

You know, I've been a part of a couple weddings, and if you show up day of and be like, hey, just so you know, I got to feed 5,000 people, they're going to be like, get out of here. Like, you should have called months ago so we could have this prepared.

I mean, anymore you go to a fast food place and you order a bucket of chicken, they like freak out. Oh, we're not ready. You have to call that in. You know, you know, they wouldn't have even had enough bread to feed these people.

You know, so often we think, again, it's money, it's money. You know, and I like this passage here, Philippians 4, 19. It's very familiar.

It says, but my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. You know, so many times we forget to calculate Jesus into our equation.

You know, that's what these disciples were guilty of. You know, Philip, he was off on that. All those answers he could have given. You know, I'm going to turn here over to Psalm chapter 78.

I found this while I was studying. You know, the disciples would have been students of the word. Psalm 78 starting in verse 19.

It says, Yea, Yea, they spake against God. They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, he smote the rock and the waters gushed out and the streams overflowed.

Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people? Therefore, the Lord heard this and was wroth. So a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against Israel because they believed not in God and trusted not in his salvation.

You know, this wasn't the first time people needed fed and God provided. You know, we can turn back to 2 Kings chapter 4. I'll start reading in verse 42.

And there came a man from Baal Shalisha and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and full ears of corn and the husk thereof.

And he said, Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor said, What shall I set this before, an hundred men? He said again, Give the people that they may eat.

For thus saith the Lord, They shall eat and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them and they did eat and left thereof according to the word of the Lord. You know, these are other answers that Philip could have given.

It's like, Hey, this isn't the first time people have needed fed and this isn't the first time that God intervened in a miraculous way. You know, they didn't have enough money. They didn't have enough food.

You know, here we see in verse 8, it says one of his disciples, Andrew. You know what I thought was interesting about Andrew here? When are we first introduced to Andrew?

What is he doing? He's bringing his brother to Jesus. What is Andrew doing here? He's bringing this young lad to Jesus. I was like, Man, we need some more Andrews, people who will go bring people to Christ.

In chapter 12, in John, you know, again, he's bringing someone to Jesus. Here we have a lad with a, you know, a small lunch. You know, this lad, that word there means boy.

You know, he's not like a man. You know, this is a boy. My guess is he's anywhere from 8 to 12 years old. This is just speculation, so I want to preface this right now.

This isn't gospel or anything. I just like to think, you know, what was going on in this time? I personally, I like to believe that this kid had seen Jesus working, and he wanted to see more.

Maybe his mom packed him a little bit of a lunch. I started kind of reading about this barley. Do you know what? That was poor people food. Barley is something you would give to the animals.

So we have an idea that he's a poor kid. These fish, you know, we like to talk about, oh, I caught a fish, it was this big, and we tell our friend, I'm telling you, it was this big. You know, these fish were probably little salted garnish type fish.

They weren't very big. Think of like a little sardine or something. You know, it wasn't much. He's probably just a poor little kid, and I think maybe his mom was like, hey, we don't have much.

This is what we got. You know, you want to see Jesus? Have at it. You know, there's worse things you could be doing. And, you know, whether he heard the issue or whether Andrew came and found him, found that someone had a little bit of food, you know, they bring him to Jesus.

You know, humanly speaking, Andrew asks a pretty, you know, good question. What are they among so many? It's like, yeah, we got some food, but we got 5,000 people.

Those other parallel passages tell us 5,000, that's only the men. There was women and children besides that. So there's easily, there could easily be at least 10,000 people that are being fed.

You know, that's a pretty good question. Even if these were huge fish and really big loaves of food, that's still not enough to feed 10,000 people. You know, we often think that what we have is insufficient.

It's insignificant. You know, 2 Corinthians 12, 10 tells us when we are weak, then we are strong. You know, there wasn't much to work with here, but God doesn't need much.

You know, he spoke the world into existence with just words. He formed Adam out of the dust. He doesn't need a lot. He just needs someone who's willing to come and give to him.

You know, the second thing I saw in our text, you know, we covered the problem of the people, but now the provision for the people. You know, the lad he gave willingly.

You know, God uses what we surrender to him. The first thing I see here is he borrowed it. You know, he didn't grab it. Like, hey kid, give that here. You know, I gotta feed all these people.

The kid gave it to him. It was no longer the kid's possession. It was now Jesus's. It was Jesus who owned this bread and fish. 2 Corinthians chapter 8, starting in verse 1, it says, Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.

For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering of the saints.

And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God. You know, a lot of times we read this passage when we're talking about, you know, faith promise giving or stuff like that.

And the first thing they give of themselves, that's what this little boy was doing. He said, hey, I don't got much. Here it is. You're welcome to it. You know, it was nothing in the boy's ownership, but in God's possession it became a miracle.

You know, secondly, he blessed it. The Bible tells us that Jesus, you know, he looked up. He blessed it. You know, the Bible tells us in Matthew 6, 11, you know, looking up, we see the source of our daily bread.

You have that prayer. You know, it's a good reminder of our vertical perspective. So oftentimes we get so burdened down with the horizontal, all the things that we're dealing with, when we should just take a moment and look up and just thank God for what we got.

You know, Jesus gives thanks. You know, God can take what we have and make it go further. Not only that, God sees the completed work. Now, God wasn't just focused on these five loaves and two fishes.

God knew what it would be in all of its glory. After everyone had eaten, after everyone was filled, there were still twelve baskets full. Jesus was thanking the Lord for those things. You know, this is a good lesson for us.

You know, God is, he's giving thanks for what we are becoming. You know, I like to read about David.

Beside Jesus Christ, David, he's my favorite Bible character. I look at him and I'm just like, you got this scrawny little guy and he ends up being the king.

I love reading about David's mighty men. To me, it's very similar to Robin Hood. You know, you have these guys, they're on the run. They're the outlaws living in Sherwood Forest, right?

I mean, they're base. And here, David comes along and he takes these guys who are outlaws and by the end, you start reading about his mighty men.

You had one guy, he was like, I'm not gonna stand for this anymore and he just stands in a field of lentils. He kills like 600 Philistines. You have another guy, it's the time of snow.

He's in a pit. He kills a lion. I'm like, that's awesome. This other guy, he takes down two guys that says they were lion-like men of Moab. So I don't know if they were really hairy and really fierce.

He wipes them out. I'm like, you hear these stories, these guys. David says one time in a passing comment almost, he's like, I'm so thirsty. And his three guys are like, David's thirsty.

Let's go. They break into this Philistine fort. You know, I can just see, it's like an action movie. People are shooting arrows at them. They're dodging, weaving. You know, they're going over to the well. Can you imagine?

You got to drop the bucket, bring it back up. Maybe two guys are using their shields to fight off everything. They get the water. I like to imagine that they don't miss a drop, right?

They run out of there. They get it to David. And David is so heartbroken because of their love. He pours it out and gives it as a blessing to the Lord. You know, David is a really good example of Christ.

God takes people like us who are nothing. He makes us into something. He blessed it. That brings us to our next point. He broke it. In parallel passages, it tells that he broke the bread.

God can only use broken things. God didn't use what was already whole. You know, in our own power, the Bible tells us we're weak. God has no use of a Christian who's full of themself.

A Christian full of themself, I've heard it said, they're an ugly package. God wants someone who's broken. A lot of times, we like to look at being broken as a bad thing, but it's not unless we fight that breaking.

When I was younger, I used to deal with horses. And especially when you'd have these horses that had just been born, what you gotta do is you gotta break them.

Okay? You wanna keep their spirit, but you gotta break their will. And so usually what you do, because the first thing you gotta do when you're breaking a horse is get its attention. So you usually, you have to get it into like a corral.

And the goal is to touch the horse. Because they don't wanna have anything to do with you. So what do they normally do? They start running around. So they're running in circles. Usually a lot of times you'll have a whip.

You don't hurt the horse, but you're cracking this whip to get the horse's attention. You know? Maybe you whistle at it. I can't whistle, like, sharp like that. But you go, hey!

Hey! Hey! You know, and you're trying to get the horse's attention. This process can take hours. Okay? I've seen it. Running around, running around. And all of a sudden this horse stops, looks over at the man holding the whip, and then it starts running again.

It's like, oh, that's progress. It looked. And eventually, hey! Hey! Hey! And you're cracking that whip. Eventually the horse, it gets tired. It's sweating.

It's like, I can't do this all day. And you get a little closer, and now you start touching it. You're letting it know, hey, I'm the one in charge. You know? You walk over to it. You put the bit and bridle on it.

You throw the saddle over. You start getting it comfortable. You can start riding it. You start getting it into areas where it's uncomfortable. Right? You might shoot guns off of it. You don't like that at first.

But it's okay. You know, I'm here. You start teaching how to jump over obstacles, and you know, you don't need to be afraid of everything. That's all Jesus is trying to do with us. He's there.

So trust me. Right? I'm here. There's nothing to worry about. You know, I tell my daughter that. It's like, I'm here. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You know, but I need her to trust me.

You know, it was the broken pieces that were multiplied, not the whole. You know, sometimes God has to break our hearts just to make them tender towards others. You know, so many times we think, oh, God's punishing me.

No. He's trying to make you better. He wants to make you usable. You know, sometimes he breaks our health just so we're dependent on him. We don't have anywhere else to turn.

We just say, God, help me. That's where he wants us. You know, our holdings, our things. You know, Job 121, it reminds us, God is the one that gives it to us.

God can take it away. You know, blessed be the name of the Lord. You know, if you want barley, what do you have to do? Plant barley.

Can you plant loaves? You're not going to get anything. You know, my mother-in-law, April, she makes loaves of bread. If I saw her out there in her garden putting a loaf of bread, I'd be like, Ray, we were trying to hold this conversation off a little longer, but I think it's time.

We got to start talking about some things here. You know, it'd be like, that's crazy. Why? Because that stuff is dead. It's already been cooked. You can't get anything out of it.

You know, God has a habit of taking people, us, things that are dead, and he can give them new life. The Bible says, you hath he quickened, made alive.

You know, God can take the dead things and make them living. We see that in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. Not only did he break it, but he bestowed it. You know, Christ isn't a glory hog.

He allowed the disciples to participate. You think Jesus could have gone to over 5,000 people alone to give out this food? No. No. No. The Bible tells us, because we know God is a God of order, in the parallel accounts, it tells them, break them up, you know, hundreds and fifties, sit them down, and we'll distribute all this food.

You know, he prepared the meal orderly, like a shepherd, feeding his sheep. You know, Psalm 23, 2 tells us, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Where are they here?

The Bible tells us, let's see, in verse 10, and Jesus said, make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place.

Here he is, again, the great shepherd taking care of his sheep. The disciples were instruments. You know, God was the one that did the miracle. This is where that strange arithmetic, I was kind of thinking on, you know, multiplied by division, he increased by subtraction.

I was thinking about, you know, Jesus took the time to make this food for people, but in Matthew chapter 4, which would have taken place before all this, Matthew chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, it says, and when the tempter came, that's Satan, to him, Jesus Christ, he said, if thou be the son of God, command these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. You know, Jesus didn't even make bread for himself, but he cared so much for these people that he was able to make bread for them.

You know, to me, that was humbling. You know, God puts his, God puts our needs before his own, just like a good father does. You know, we're going right now, we're potty training our oldest.

That's a chore. There's things I would much rather do than spend my time every 10 minutes taking her to the potty. But you know what? I'm trying to teach her so that she can be usable one day.

Many of us probably wouldn't want to hang around an adult that can't go to the bathroom by herself, right? You know, she needs to be usable in that way. The third thing, you know, we saw the provision of the people, but I just thought about the practice for us.

In verse 4 of our text, it says, in the Passover, the feast of the Jews was nigh. It's one of those verses if you just kind of read over it, you know, you might miss it.

But it was important, the Passover. The Passover was associated with the Exodus and how God sustained Israel. He would sustain the multitude in the wilderness.

Later on in our text, John chapter 6, Christ, he tells the people, he's the bread of life. You know, he's always sufficient. If you look in verse 35, it says, and Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life.

He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Drop down to verse 35, verse 48, I am that bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. You know, a lot of these people were so focused on the physical, they didn't really understand what Jesus is saying.

You know, he's saying, you know, if you have what I offer, you know, you'll never thirst you'll never hunger again. He's talking of a spiritual nature.

You know, I think about everyone ate until they were full. I mean, there's probably only a couple times a year, right, that we really get like that. Usually Thanksgiving, right? We eat until we're full.

You know, I like to say we gobble till we wobble. You know, we're just like, oh, you know. Here they have an all-you-can-eat feast from just scraps. You know, God can do that.

I was thinking about this. Christ is generous, but he's not wasteful. Because what does he say? Gather up what's left, right?

They gathered up the leftovers. We see there was 12 baskets. I like to think, what happened to those 12 baskets? Who got them? You know, we know the kids surrendered over to Jesus.

So maybe Jesus and his disciples used it. Maybe they saw the needy. I would really like to think that that boy come home with 12 baskets. He's just like, mom, mom, like, Jesus saved us.

You know, maybe they didn't have a lot of food and they're like, we got 12 baskets full. You know, they gathered up the leftovers. Regardless of who ended up with them, they were a reminder of God's provision.

I don't think you could eat that bread and not think. I don't know how he did it. He prayed, he broke the bread, and it just kept coming. Those who ate were reminded of God and how he fed Israel in the wilderness.

You know, let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 18. The scholars and the crowd would have started putting this stuff together. We know that they did because we're not going to get into this, but later on, the people, they wanted to make Jesus king, right?

Then and there, they're like, this guy feeds us, he heals us, he's king. And we know that's when Jesus, they retreat away. Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken.

You know, again, they know that the Messiah is coming. you know, we must be careful not to love Jesus only for what he does, but for who he is.

You know, there's no doubt in my mind that there was a lot of people that left healed, and that was it. They missed everything else. But there are people there that got healed, and then they turned to Christ and recognized he is the Messiah.

He is the one that we've been looking for. You know, Proverbs, let's look at Proverbs chapter 11 real quickly. Proverbs 11, 24, There is he that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is he that withholdeth more than his meat, but it tendeth to poverty.

The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. You know, teaching about that generosity. God blesses those that give of their self and substance.

I want to turn to Malachi chapter 3, verse 10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now. Herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall be room enough to receive it.

Then Luke chapter 6, verse 38. Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men give into their bosom.

For with the same measure that ye meet, with all it shall be measured to you again. You know, what we give God, you know, this kid might not have had a lot, but he gave all.

So God gives all back. You know, so many times we might sing, I surrender all, I surrender all, you know, I will give to Jesus.

What is it? All to Jesus, I surrender, right? But really, what we're saying is, you know, I surrender some, I surrender some, I will give to Jesus little, right?

Hold back for myself. You know, God uses what we give him. So real quickly, I'm out of time. I want to just focus on these four steps to God's blessings.

things. First off, just start with what you have. This little boy, he didn't have much, but he gave it all. Secondly, give what you have to Jesus. You know, we're not the ones that are responsible for what happens, right?

The Bible says that some plant seeds, some water, but it's God that gives to increase. So let him worry about that. You know, thirdly, obey what he commands. Just do what you're, you know, do what you know that you're supposed to do.

And lastly, conserve the results. You know, save up those blessings. You know, I was thinking, this miracle teaches compassion, surrender, faith, stewardship.

It teaches us to see problems as opportunities for God to work. It teaches us that God can make something from nothing. So, I'm out of time.

We'll go ahead and have a word of prayer. As, whoever's playing the piano would come up. We'll just take a moment. The Lord spoke to your heart.

Give you an opportunity to respond. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day you've given us. Lord, I just ask that you would just use this message despite who preached it, Lord.

I just pray that it would be a good reminder of how good you are to us, Lord, but also the responsibility that we have. Lord, I pray that you would just let us continue to have a good time in your house and be with the Sunday school hour.

I ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.