Feeding of the 5,000 - Impossible to Possible - Matthew S5E3

Amen, and amen, and amen. The Bible says, he who finds a wife finds what is good, amen? Church of 1122, would you join me in honoring the First Lady of 1122, Ms. Gretchen Martin? Way to go. Hey, if you got your Bible, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 14 as we march through the book of Matthew all year long, I wanna welcome everybody that's watching at every campus, those of us that are sitting in rooms, those of us that are watching at outposts and all over the world. I met a brother at a new outpost in Australia this week. How about that, man? We got 1122 in Australia. What's up? The true southerners of our world. Hey, welcome to Compassion Weekend. If you're new at 1122, this is what we do at least one time every year, and I've got a couple of goals. I wanna make this very, very clear. My ultimate goal in our entire time together is that we bring glory to God. That's why we exist. That's why you come to church. It's not actually for you. It's not what you can get out of it. You're thinking about it wrong. The reason we exist, the reason that we gather is to bring glory to God, and so we wanna do this in two ways. One is in preaching and receiving the word. Remember the parable of the sower?

I hope you did your part. I hope you tilled up your heart so that it's good soil, because I'm gonna say some offensive things, and if you get offended, it's because you're a sinner. All right, so just receive that. Got it? But I do. I don't want you to get up during the middle of the sermon or whatever, okay? I want you to receive the word of God, and then my second goal is that we'll do what the word says, and that we're gonna sponsor several thousand compassion kids today. That we're gonna release them from poverty in Jesus' name. That's what we're gonna do, and both of these things, the receiving of the word of God and the sponsoring of these kids is going to have an eternal impact. If you don't believe me yet, you will in the next 50 minutes, and I would never ask you to do something that I don't do myself, okay? First Corinthians 11.1 is a haunting verse, especially if you're in ministry. The apostle Paul has the audacity carried along by the spirit of God to write down these words to a church in Corinth. He says this, follow me as I follow Christ. And so this whole sponsoring of compassion kids, I just want you to know that my family and I, as you just heard testimony, that we're all in on this thing, and we have been blessed so much.

You think you do it to be a blessing, but you're actually the blessed one, and so if you haven't sponsored a kid, then today's your day, and what I would really like you to do is however many people live at your house or how many people are on your insurance, that's a good starting spot to how many kids you should sponsor. So over our marriage, the last 26 years, we have sponsored 40 children. I didn't know that. 40 kids, that's a lot. And currently, right now, today, we sponsor nine children, okay? Here's Jelena, she's from Brazil. She's seven years old. We have sponsored her for the last three years. This is my man Mateus. He is from Brazil. He's 18 years old. Look how big he is. Isn't that great? We sponsored him for three years. This is my man from Uganda, Samuel. He's 15 years old. I plan to go see him next year. This is Sonia. She lives in Indonesia. She's 17 years old. We have sponsored her since she was three.

Three years old. Remember we did, for those of you OGs, we did the Compassion Mobile experience, and we took our kids through that thing 14 years ago, and that's where we sponsor her. This is my man from Brazil, Vitor. I picked him because there's a UFC fighter named Vitor Belfort, and I thought that was cool. And so whatever, I don't care. And now he's a pastor, by the way. I don't know if you know that. Vitor is. My man Vitor, this Vitor, not the UFC champion, is 11 years old. We've sponsored him for seven years. This is my man, I don't know how to say his name. He looks like a dinosaur. I don't think that's how he says it. Denison, he's from Sri Lanka. He is seven years old, and he turned seven yesterday. Praise God for him. This is my man, good look, A-B-A-T-E-R-D-O-U-R-O-U-Z-E. We call him A-B-Z, that's what his name is. All right, but when you write it, it just, he thinks you know how to say it. I don't know how to say it. He's 18 years old. He lives in West Africa. We've sponsored him for six years. This is my man, Carlos.

He's in Brazil. We've sponsored him for nine years. And then this is Brandy. Brandy is 17 years old, and we started sponsoring her when she was two. I was on a mission trip with my man Kevin from Compassion sitting right over here, and we were at a child survival program where they're taking care of like teenage moms that got pregnant and could not take care of their babies. And so one of the. Teenage moms, mom named Grace, comes walking into this thing as I was visiting, and when Brandy was a little tiny baby, man, months old, I'm not good at ages with babies, okay, about that long, however long, no, she's about maybe that long, okay? Just crawled up in my lap, and I was like, Kevin, you need to figure this thing out, put a low jack on her, and when she is able to be sponsored, she is ours, okay? I got a little bit of Calvinism in me, and so this has been predestined before the foundations of the earth, that she would be ours, and so this is Brandy, she is 17 years old, this is what my family does, this is what our church family does, and if you haven't sponsored a kid yet, or maybe you've only got seven, and you wanna get to nine, today's your day, this is what we're gonna talk about.

Matthew chapter 14 is gonna talk about what happens when we are faithful to God. Beginning of verse 13, starts this way, it says, now when Jesus heard this, and the this that he heard is that his cousin, John the Baptist, has just been killed. By the way, thank you, Pastor One last week for bringing the word, amen? Y'all like One? You're welcome, I hired him, so whatever. That's right, so Jesus hears that his cousin, John the Baptist, has lost his head, and so he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself, why? Because Jesus knows that it's time to mourn. This is crazy, man, Jesus is not surprised by any activity that's ever happened under the heavens. He knows all things before they're gonna happen, he knows the very thoughts that you're gonna have before you think him, and yet he is the great I am, which means he is eternally present in the right now, and so when sad things happen, Jesus took time to be sad. Don't you ever let anybody tell you that to be a strong man means that you gotta stuff down emotion. I don't know who said that, but they're dumb, and you can tell them I told them that. How do I know this? In John chapter 11, Jesus' friend dies, his name's Lazarus, and Jesus sits down with Lazarus' sister, Mary,

and you know what Jesus does? He weeps, Jesus wept, shortest verse in the whole Bible, and he's the strongest man that ever lived. And so you should not withhold your tears in order to be strong, you should be strong, and when it's time to cry, you should cry. And that's what he does. And so he knows that it's time for him to mourn, and Jesus often, when the crowd would kind of suck him dry, he would go and find a desolate place to be with the Father to kind of recharge his batteries, why? Because he knows if he's gonna spend a life of ministry being poured out, if he ain't got nothing to pour out, he will not be available to his people. This is important, man. By the way, you need a desolate place, too. I hope and pray you have the kind of rhythm where it's not just go, go, go, go, go, but it's go, go, go, rest. This is what the Sabbath principle is all about. That you would reconnect and you would refuel so that when it's your time to pour out, you actually got something to pour out. This is what Jesus is doing. But the crowds heard it, and they followed him on foot from the towns. Yeah, here's the thing about ministry, man. People don't really check with your calendar to see how you're doing. I don't know if you realize that.

It's why Jesus, he kind of wants a break. They follow him. And then look at verse 14. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd. And Jesus had, underline this in your Bible, compassion on them. So it doesn't take a biblical scholar to figure out why we picked this weekend as compassion weekend. So Jesus sees this crowd, and they want, and they want, and they want. And when Jesus sees them, he's not mad at them. He has compassion on them. The Greek word is splogitsomai. Say splogitsomai. You gotta spit on the neighbor in front of you a little bit. Splogitsomai. You know what it literally means? It means from the bowels, from the guts. A pretty good translation of this would be like, he was heartbroken over them. When he sees the crowd, even though he could legitimately say, hey man, I'm heartbroken, I got needs of my own, I don't have time for you, that's not what he does. He's heartbroken over these people. He has compassion on these people. Why? They have been burdened with these religious legalities by the Pharisees of all the things that they have to do in order to be made right by God.

They are like sheep without a shepherd. And when he sees these people, his heart breaks for him. Let me ask you some questions. When you see people in need, do you feel compassion or judgment? Like which one's the. When you see that guy on the street corner with nothing, do you look at him and say, well, you know, you're just at the end of the road of the decisions that you've made, and that's why you're here. Is that your first thought? Or do you feel compassion when you see people hurting? Do you first think about yourself and what you want? Or do you think about other people's needs? Which one goes first? I mean, Jesus just lost John the Baptist. By the way, he has high praises to say about John the Baptist. He says, of all the men born of women, there have been none born greater. You know what that means, bro? I know you think you're awesome, you're not as good as John the Baptist. Jesus dug John the Baptist, and his heart's breaking for him, and yet, when he sees people in need, he does that first thing about himself, he first thinks about what these folks need. He's filled with compassion.

Listen to me, church. And I don't mean just our church, I just mean the church in general. We need more compassion in this world. We need more compassion. And there ain't a lot of it out there, is there? And so let me step on your toes a little bit. Listen, when your political ideology is your identity, then you'll begin to see your opponents as object to be despised instead of people to be loved. And when you sit on the couch every night and you feed that political ideology by just filling your brain with whatever paid-for cable news that you like to listen to most, then when you see people, you will not see them as objects of the grace of God that he poured out his blood for, you'll see them as people that are enemies of yours that are to be despised. Regardless of how you vote or your political ideology, whenever we see people in need, may we be the people that lead with compassion. Because what begins to happen is you get all caught up in your political ideologies about who's right and who's wrong and what war is okay and what war is not okay. Listen, any time people on the planet are hurting, the believer's heart should break for those people. Regardless, man.

That should be our first step. And I know some of you, is it getting political? Yeah! We follow King Jesus first and he gave his son to die on a cross for human beings that were lost. I mean, I can tell you where it hit me this week. I'm not like a YouTube person. I know I'm on it, like my face is on it all the time, but my face ain't in it hardly ever, okay, unless I'm watching highlights of Georgia or hunting videos, all right? And this week, you know, it comes across my algorithm that that couple, I don't know where they are, that YouTube couple, decided to abort their child because they found out he was special needs. And my first instinct was rage, man. What are you doing? Because he doesn't make you comfortable? Are you kidding? He was diagnosed with a very rare disease that was so rare, that he was diagnosed with a very high probability of having Down syndrome. So they decide to end the life of the human being that for the previous 19 weeks, they had called baby. And yeah, I got mad, I got mad, you know? I thought, what are you doing, man? Maybe if you came to 1122 and you saw us roll out the red carpet with families of kids with special needs,

you would see these kids as a gift from God and not a problem, are you kidding me? I mean, are you kidding me? To quote the great modern day prophet, Shane Gillis, his cousin has Down syndrome, and the guy's like, how's he doing? Just the best ever, he's the happiest guy ever. I mean, you're all wrapped up in all your problems, this guy is living life, what are you talking about? Then it began to shift, man. I began to think, this is the downstream consequence of a culture of death, where this man and this woman, the air that they have breathed their entire life is that their wants and their comforts were primary. They are victims in the hands of the enemy, and I began to pray for them, I began to pray that their eyes would be opened and that God would redeem them and soften their hearts and break their hearts for what breaks his, and they would surrender their life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that God would do that for them. I hope and pray that God would do that for you, and I hope and pray that you would be with me in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray, listen, when I do this stuff, do you feel judgment or compassion? I usually feel judgment, just confession time. I'm preaching to me here, I hope somebody else will pick up on something too,

but I'm just telling you, I want to have the kind of heart Jesus has, and when I see somebody in need, my first thought is not about, did you do this? help, because that's what Jesus thought. You know why we should think that? No, no, no, I want my first thought Because guess what? When I was an enemy of God, not just lost, that's not even a strong enough word, I was an enemy of God, a child of wrath. I had rejected the Almighty God. Literally, the Bible says, I was an enemy, and instead of receiving the judgment of God, I received the grace of God. He had compassion for me, and he didn't just think a thing and feel a thing, he did a thing, and he sent his only begotten son to die on a cross that I would be rescued and redeemed into his family. And if that's what he thinks about me, a crooked, wretched, and depraved, black-hearted sinner, then may I have eyes to see people the way he sees people. Jesus had compassion on them, and he healed their sick. You know what Jesus did? Jesus did what he could do. He could heal, and so he healed. Guess what? Today, you have an opportunity, and when we get finished with the service, you can go over to the sides or wherever,

it's all different at every campus. You can go where all the compassion packets are, and you can see a need, and I pray that the Spirit of God moves in you, and that you have a heart of compassion, and then you can just do whatever you can do, and release one of these children from poverty in Jesus' name. Verse 15, now, when it was evening, the disciples came to Jesus, and they said, this is a desolate place, and the day is now over. Send the crowds away, and go into the villages, and buy some food for themselves. So the disciples look at the situation, and they're like, hey, boss, you've been teaching for like eight hours or something, so give me a break. I'm a 55 minutes, if you don't mind, okay? They're there all day, and he's teaching, and they realize we got a problem. These people are gonna be hungry. What are we gonna do? By the way, this miracle is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels except the resurrection. That makes them in awe. And if you go over to John chapter six, don't turn there, I'll just tell you what it says. In John chapter six, John records that Jesus and Philip have a conversation, and Jesus already knows what he's gonna do,

but he says to Philip, he asked him, how are we gonna feed all these people? And he asked him that to test Philip. Whoa, whoa, does God test us? Yeah, and guess what? We got a test today. Actually, we got a few thousand tests hanging up in our worship centers all over the place. We got a few thousand tests with the faces of these little kids, and you got an option, man. You can do what you have the ability to do, which is to sponsor a kid, to rescue a child from poverty in Jesus' name, or you can just think about you and do whatever you wanna do. Now, here's what Philip does in John chapter six. Philip immediately looks at all his circumstances. He begins to look around. He's like, boss, I don't think it's gonna work. I mean, we better send him, because we don't have enough food to feed all these people. And then, in John chapter six, guess who steps up and speaks first? Peter. Peter's like, hey, I've been eavesdropping in your conversation, and I would like to say a couple of things. And here's what Peter says. He said, hey, there's a little boy over here, and he's got a little bit of food.

He's got five loaves and two fishes. Now, I know it's not much, but he's got something, and here's what I love about this. Peter comes to Jesus and says, hey, it's not much, but it's something, and I think Jesus is going, you know, I can work with that. I can work with that. Even if you got a tiny little bit of faith, it is the object of your faith that matters, not the amount of your faith. If you'll remember, a couple of weeks ago, when he went back to his own town, because of their lack of faith, Jesus didn't do miracles in his hometown. And now, Peter's got a little bit. I don't know what we can do with this little bit, but here's what we got, and Jesus is going, that's plenty, because I can take your natural and put some super on top of it, and you're about to see a miracle. And he does more than anybody could ever imagine. Verse 16, and Jesus said, they need not go away. Pay very close attention to this. You give them something to eat. Well, that seems impossible, right? But I got good news. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. He says, how about you give them something to eat? So let me tell you, I mentioned this a few weeks ago. I'm gonna say it again, because nobody paid attention.

Be really careful when you've got some kind of idea for the Lord. Be very careful when you begin to say things like, well, you know what the church ought to do is who do you think the church is? It's all of us here together, and if God has given you this burden on your heart, you could be the very one that he's calling to do something about it. I mean, the moment you begin to say things like, God, why don't you do something about the And God, why don't you do something about the needy? And God, why don't you do something about those that can't protect themselves? And God's going, you know what's funny? I was gonna ask you the same exact question. Because here's the thing, man. Does Jesus need the fishes and loaves to feed anybody? No, he could have rained down manna from heaven. He did it in the Old Testament. He can do it in the New Testament. And yet, he would love us so much that he would desire that we get to be partners with him in the miraculous. And so he looks at him and he says, why don't you feed them? Let me tell you some of my favorite stories around here. It's when people have a burden placed by God on them and then they just do whatever it is the Good Shepherd tells them to do.

I've shared this one a million times and I'm gonna do it a million more. My man, Mike Dragich with Project Savior Outdoors. Anybody involved in Project Savior Outdoors? You know what happened? Mike gets home from fighting in the Middle East and all his Marine buddies start killing themselves and he says, somebody's gotta do something about that. And the Lord said, I agree. I think you're the somebody. And so he starts Project Savior Outdoors. And we support it like crazy, but we didn't start it. He started it. One of my brothers named Chad Starkey usually sits right over in that area. I've known him forever, okay? He goes on a mission trip with me one time to Jamaica and then he comes back and says, I'm gonna start my own missions organization called Surf Fish Serve because all of my friends wouldn't qualify to be missionaries because I make people memorize scripture and share their testimony. And he goes, all my people, they're not even Christians yet and I wanna use the trip to lead them to Christ. And so we're gonna surf and they'll sign up for that and we're gonna fish and then we're gonna serve. We're gonna do Bible study at night. And he just had a burden on his heart and he began to do it.

Let me give you another one. There's a guy named Ron Armstrong. Maybe you know that name. Ron Armstrong. You look at his mustache and it just says Armstrong. I took him on a mission trip. It was actually a compassion trip to Brazil. He's married to Caitlin Armstrong. I'm pretty much sure that's where the whole courting and all the thing, they knew each other before and I think that he proposed when we got home. So you never know. Maybe you need to go on a mission trip, ladies. All right, so anyway. So he sees the need in Brazil. His heart is wrecked. By the way, Ron was like a drug dealer in some small town in Florida back in the day. Comes to 1122, gets saved. Shortly after, he's going on a mission trip with us. Then he begins to see the similar kinds of needs right here in Jacksonville and he thought, somebody's gotta do something about that. And the Lord went, you know what, Ron, you're somebody. Why don't you do something about it? And then he started Sponsored by Grace. He didn't come to me and say the church ought to. He said, I'm gonna do this and so we partner with them. And now the brother's running for mayor. Yeah, praise God, dude.

Praise God, he's just doing what the Lord has told him to do. By the way, if you have not signed the petition to get him on the ballot, you should. Because you know what we need in Jacksonville? Regardless of who you're gonna vote for, I'm not endorsing candidates. That's not what I do. But boy, you know what would be great? Is to have a gospel-saturated, godly person in all the conversations about the future of our city. Yeah, man. So he says, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. You see this little girl right here, Brandy? Her mom was a teenager when Brandy was born. And the Lord looked at me in Uganda, sitting at this little church. Everything Compassion Done is through the local church, man. And the Lord said, you give her something to eat. Now she's 17 years old, doing great in school. Isn't that great? And here's the thing I think of all the time, man. What if this was your kid? What would you do? And what if you lived in a system, and what if, I mean, she grew up with a single mom, and her mom, Grace, is doing the best that she could do, working as hard as she can, but she just couldn't put it all together, man.

And what if, what if you had some brothers and sisters somewhere on the other side of the world? And for $43 a month, they got three and a half coffees a month. You know what I mean? I'm not against coffee, but if you're spending that much on it, good gosh, man, what are you doing? And you knew that the people of God could do something about it. Like during our Connect moment, it was mentioned that we got a book that just came out, right, The Big Brave Choice. You know why we do that? Because when we were raising children, we had a hard time finding gospel kids' curriculum to tell gospel stuff to our kids. It was all morality-based. And so I did that to try to do something for our children. Here at 1122, Lori Newell and I did. These folks are just trying to get some food on the table. They're just trying to get them into school. School, they're just trying to get some medical help. Imagine Jesus right now says to you, why don't you do something about it? Verse 17, and they said to him, we only have five loaves here and two fish. And by the way, when you think fish, don't think like a slot red. That's not the kind of fish they rolled around with.

Bread was the primary meal, and the fish that they would have in the first century were like these little sardine things, and they would wipe it on the bread to give it a little flavor, a little sardine-flavored bread. Doesn't that sound delicious? That's the kind of fish they're working with. And he said, we ain't got much. Now I'm gonna, I know this is what the Bible says, we have only five loaves here and two fish. And I'm going, are you serious? The Bible's gonna say there are 5,000 men, that does not count the women and children. I grew up in the low country of South Carolina. Anybody know what purse bread is? You know what purse bread is? We ain't got no old country people in here? All of Palatka just like, oh, I got something in here. See, my grandmama, wherever we went, at the end of the meal, she would ask for some more bread, and when the bread came, she would take that big fat yeast roll and put a napkin around it and stick it down in her purse. Why? Because you don't know, you might run out of gas on the way home, and we ain't gonna starve, because Mert had some purse bread. She'd pull it out and divide it up and give it, you know, it tastes like a mothball and a mint

and a butterscotch. You mean to tell me nobody had a little bit of purse bread? Or my dad used to work for Lance Crackers, you know what that is? When we were growing up, we called him the Cracker Stacker, that's what he did for a living. And he'd have a little pack of toast cheese somewhere in some boot or pocket, and if you got starving, he'd pull that thing out. Or if we were in our truck, I'm telling you, if you took a hard left, two cans of Viena sausages would come rolling out from under the bench seat. And we carried Vienas around, because that lasts forever. They're not good to begin with, so how does it go bad? It can't go bad. So you mean to tell me nobody's got a Viena, a cracker, or some purse bread out of 15 to 20,000 people? I don't think that's true. I think what's actually going on is people looked around and saw the need, and they got real stingy with what they had, and they think, I gotta hold on to this. And there's one little boy that's got enough faith to go, I ain't got much, but I think if I got the little bit, if I take the little bit I have in my hands, and I put it in Jesus' hands, I think it's gonna be more than if I kept it to myself. That's what's happening in this moment. Which makes me wonder, I wonder how many miracles are still floating around in some purses

because they didn't get released to God to say, holy God, I think you can do more with this than I can do with myself. So let me ask you, so what you got in your hand? You think you got $43 a month? You ever seen a miracle? You want to? Sponsor a kid. Did you ever think in a million years that you could be a part of the Great Commission on the other side of the world and release a child from poverty in Jesus' name? You can, you just gotta take what's in your hand and say, all right, Jesus, I'm gonna give this to you and see what you wanna do. And so he says, we only have five loaves and two fish. And Jesus said, bring them here to me. And I'm telling every single one of us to look at what God has put in our bank accounts, in our pockets, in our stored resources. I said, God, what could you do with this? And you say, well, even if it's not much, hey, first and foremost, what you have to understand is everything we have is a blood-bought grace gift from him. First and foremost, you have to understand, it's all his. You really think it's yours? Well, then take it with you when you go. It's gonna stay right here and it's gonna be somebody else's because the reality is we don't own anything.

We are but stewards for a few decades of what God has given us. And there's three attitudes when it comes to money, when it comes to stuff, and when it comes to possessions. Most Americans think this, what's mine is mine. Now, when your kids do that, you call that selfish. When you think what's mine is mine, that is selfish. And by the way, as long as your fists are clenched around the stuff you have, your hands will never be open to the blessing of God to give you anything else. The second attitude, which is getting a lot more popular these days, there's a lot of people that think this, what's yours is mine. That's called stealing. When a bunch of people do it, it's called socialism. Let me just be as clear as I can. Jesus was not and is not a communist. or a socialist, period. And some people are like, what about Acts 2? They sold their property, sold their houses, and gave all that they had to the church. Yeah, they owned houses, that was called personal property. And they did not sell it by threat of violence from the government, they sold it out of the generosity of their own heart because God had stirred them to, and they cheerfully brought it to Jesus through the local church.

And then, by the way, not every single person did that because after that, guess where they met? They met in houses, which people own. Listen, man, giving away other people's money is not generosity, it's thievery. So some people think what's mine is mine, that's selfish. Some people think what's yours is mine, that's stealing or socialism. But the Bible teaches what's mine is yours. That's called stewardship. That's why around here we bring our first and best to him because we know it all belongs to him. And Jesus says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And every single time we bring our first and best to him, we're saying, Jesus, I want you to have my heart. And I don't wanna grab onto something and then realize that it has a hold of me. And so Jesus says, bring him here to me. And then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and he said a blessing. And then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. Man, I wish I had time to preach a whole sermon on that's the picture of sanctification right there. God will not give you away until he breaks you. But I don't have time to get into that. But here's what he does. He breaks the loaves and he gave them to the disciples.

And the disciples gave them to the crowds. So technically, Jesus didn't feed the 5,000. The disciples fed the 5,000. Now all the power came from Jesus. All the miracle came from Jesus. But it was in the hands of the disciples that the miracles happened. I mean, think about this for a second. And Matt, some of us run by this stuff too quick because you're so familiar. As soon as I started reading the text, you're like, I know this, okay. I want you to think about this. I mean, you're a disciple. And you're like, hey boss, we have 15,000 people here. And he's like, I got it. And he takes five loaves and he prays. And he breaks it. And then he hands you 1 12th of five loaves and two fishes. You got that? So you got 1 6th of a sardine and a little bit of bread. And he's like, all right, feed everybody. And you're looking at Jesus and you're looking at the people. You're looking at Jesus, how's this gonna work out, man? I'm about to look like a fool. I'm sitting down all orderly and you walk up to the first person and you're like, can I get you some fish and bread? And you're looking at the second person.

I mean, this little kid, this was his dinner, man. This little kid was gonna eat five loaves and two fishes by himself. And now you're sitting there to a grown person and be like, and two people over you're like, I don't think you're gonna get any. I don't know how this is gonna go. And I don't know how it happens, man. Matthew doesn't give us all the details, but somehow in the hands of the disciples as they just take one step of obedience, even when they think they might look like a fool, the miracle begins to happen. And they start handing out a little bit of fish and bread and a little bit of fish and bread. They look down and they're like, I still got something to give out. And I still got something to give out. And they give it out and they give it out and they give it out. Let me ask you this. When's the last time God called you to do something that you knew if he didn't come through, you might look like a fool to this world? And if you can't think of a thing, you might not be listening to the commands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Why? Because with man, these things are impossible, but there is no impossible thing when it comes to God.

What has he called you to do? This happens in the hands of the disciples. And they hand out the food and they hand out the food, they hand out the food, and then at some point, they begin to enjoy being a part of the miracle. I mean, think about that. When you got that first row done, you're like, I think this is gonna work, you know? You're on that second row. You're still handing out, you're still handing out. You're looking down, you're like, yo, Pete, what you got? And he's like, I don't know how this is happening. And he's handing out, you know, Bartholomew, what? You know, is it worth, yeah. And then, guy on the third row is like, hey man, can I get some more fish? You can have all the fish you want. And the more they give out, the more is multiplied in their hands. Listen to me, church. I want you to experience what radical obedience feels like. There's nothing like it. See because when when you are always in control of everything that you do then all you can do is what you can do Trust me on this one When you let God call you to do something It doesn't make any sense in the natural and then you step out by faith and you just do whatever he tells you to do That's where freedom is And you're like, what are you talking about pastor? Just trust. I know it doesn't seem like a big risk right now But in 2012 when we felt like the Lord said I want you to plant a church. I'm like, well And we went all in man

I'm signing documents And I was like Petey Lars Peterson. He's on our elder board. I said what happens if nobody shows up? He's like two things you're gonna go to prison And you're gonna be out dozens of dollars because that's all they can take from you because that's all you have You know how free it is to just trust God do whatever he says and just trust him with the results You may give you another example of God doing immeasurably more than what anybody ever hoped or dreamed or imagined all of this Started with the obedience of one fateful 23 year old girl Who was my wife Yeah, man, she brought that packet over At that youth specialties conference. We just got married. We've been married a couple months few months, man She said we need to do this And I was like we can't do this. We ain't no money She's like the video says she's like, well, I mean we got we got cable And I'm telling you my first thought was not compassion. My first thought was how am I gonna watch the Bulldogs? Yeah, they had streaming and stuff yeah, this was And that one step of obedience that one step of obedience Not by a pastor and elder a professional but a 23 year old faithful disciple of Jesus that felt the nudge of the Spirit of God that heard the Voice of the Good Shepherd and simply did whatever it is that he told her to do that one step of obedience has led Not only to 30,000 kids being sponsored here But we've planted seven churches with compassion international and not only that we use our retreat center To kind of bait and switch a bunch of pastors we invite hey you want to come down on a Relaxing week at the retreat center and fish and hunt pigs with Pastor Joby and that we sure do and Then we do it like a timeshare thing. We're like, haha while you're here and we make them sponsor kids That's what I do every time I don't care Thousand more children have been sponsored through us taking pastors to the retreat center all of that All of that can be traced back to It's like one little boy ain't got much

What if we just sponsor this one little kid blue boots You have no idea and honestly sometimes when I'm talking to pastors, they'll say this to me. They'll say pastor. Aren't you afraid? That if you keep doing the compassion thing with your people that will hurt the 1122 budget Like bro, I'm never even what are you talking about? I've heard you preach sermons all the time. You can't out give God, but you don't believe it for your church What are you talking about? Look my job is not to make budget. My job is to make disciples and Jesus will build his church and here's the thing man generosity begets generosity Like our most generous people also sponsor our most kids it happens all the time and I don't care which one goes first I'm just telling you the job of the believer is to make disciples and Jesus said upon this rock. I will build my church And here's the deal man, you have no idea what hangs on the balance We've been doing this long enough. We've gotten a lot of letters from 40 different kids And you sponsor a kid and Then you begin to see that you get to make disciples to the very ends of the age a very ends of the earth You think how in the world? I didn't know God could use me To make a disciple in Sri Lanka Let's be honest. Most of you don't know where Sri Lanka is And then you get that letter and that kid grows up and graduates high school Gets a job Gets married Has a kid That kid grows up and as a leader in their community that kid gets called into the ministry and as a pastor that kid gets called into the mission field and God used your Little step of obedience to do something that you can never ever dream up all on your own and then look what happens Look at the crowd and they all Eight, how many eight? All. They all ate and were satisfied for a minute because the temporary things of this world can only temporarily satisfy you.

But you wanna talk about satisfaction? You get a letter from your kid and you read about what the Lord is doing in your life. Listen, man, think about how many times you've wasted $43 on things that don't, I mean, you go to Chili's and you walk out of there with regret. I've never regretted sponsoring a kid. Not one time ever. How about the satisfaction of hearing that the kid that you sponsored got saved or graduated, they got married, man. Huh. And they all ate and they were satisfied and then look at this, God is not a God of waste. And they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces leftover. 12, they had leftovers, man. You think God's in heaven right now backing his fingernails going, I really hope they can come up with $43. Nah, man, he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. It's all his anyway. He's actually just inviting us into the miraculous and we get some satisfaction out of it. By the way, don't miss this. Remember, Matthew's writing to a Jewish audience. You notice how many baskets are leftover? There's 12. John's gonna say right after this that Jesus says, oh, you want some bread?

I am the bread of life. We're not gonna repeat this event, but in a few weeks we're gonna get to the feeding of the 4,000. Just for whatever reason, this one doesn't get a lot of press. At the end of the feeding of the 4,000, there's seven baskets left over. What does seven have to do with anything? When Joshua moved in to take over the promised land, the land of Canaan, there were seven different pagan tribes there, seven. And so what Jesus is gonna do with the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 is that there's room for the 12 tribes of Israel to come to Christ, and there's room for all the Gentile tribes to come to Christ. You know what Jesus is saying through these two miracles is that this thing that he is starting is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. And those who ate were about 5,000 men beside the women and children. So if everybody had a date and a kid, man, that's 15, somewhere between 15,000 to 20,000 people show up. And so here's the question. So in this miracle,

I don't like to call it a story because the same veggie tales, this ain't flannel graph. This is an actual event. So in this event, who's the blessed one? The people that ate? Sure, they were blessed. The people that ate? Sure, they were blessed. They were in a desolate place. They were hungry. Jesus had compassion on them, and their stomachs were full. Of course they were blessed. But you know who else was blessed? The disciples were blessed. The disciples got to participate in a miracle, man. It happened in their hands. You want to talk about a blessing? That's a blessing. Have you ever been used by God to do something that you thought you could never do? There's a blessing in that. You know who else is blessed? The little boy. Can you imagine this cat when he gets home? He's gonna be like, mom, you're not gonna believe what happened. She'll be like, what's that big old basket you got? He's totin' it in like this. He's like, I know I came with a Lunchable,

but look at what I got here. Where'd you get that? Jesus. Then I took the little bit in my hand and I gave it to him, and I gave it to him. We're 20,000 people satisfied and 12 disciples participate in a miracle, but look at all that we have. He was blessed. But here's one we forget about all the time. You know who else was blessed? Jesus. You're like, really? Yeah. So many times when we use the word blessing God, what we say is, God, please bless me. Did you know that we can bless him? My friend Ruslan Cady runs this event out on the left coast, I'm gonna go to it next year, called Bless God, the Bless God Summit. I love it so much. And he talks about how we can leverage our time, talent, and treasure not to just always be on the receiving end of God's blessing, but that we could bless God. Listen, Jesus was blessed in this. That Jesus was blessed in the obedience of his disciples. Like, where do you get that? If you go to Matthew chapter 25,

we'll be there in the fall. Jesus is talking about the end of the world, how the whole thing's gonna go down at the end. Chapter 24 can be very confusing. He's talking about the end of the world. The disciples are like, hey, boss, tell us about the end of the world. He's like, all right. There's gonna be the abomination of desolation and wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes. And they're all like, what? And he's like, all right, let me tell you some stories. He tells three stories. He tells the parable of the virgins. Doesn't mean what you think it means. It means don't miss the party, get saved. Then he tells the parable of the talents. That means don't waste your life. You leverage everything you have for the glory of God. And then the third one he tells is called the parable of the sheep and the goats. He says he's gonna gather everybody in front of him and he's gonna separate them. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. And to the goats, he's like, y'all going to hell. Sorry, you sat over there. I'm not saying you are. Put your faith in Jesus if you are, and you won't have to. And he's like, y'all going to heaven.

And he says, because when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. And I was in prison and you visited me and I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. And the people are kind of surprised. They're like, when did we see you in need? And then Jesus says these words in Matthew 25, 10. And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me. You wanna bless God? Sing to him. He's into it. He told us to. We bless God when we join our voices together and sing true things to him and about him and pour out our hearts to him. No doubt, man. You wanna bless God? Receive the word of God diligently. You wanna bless God? Then whatever you do for one of the least of these, it's a one to one blessing to Jesus himself. And so here's, if your neighbor's asleep, wake him up. Here's what you missed. What is possible when we take the little bit in our hands and trust it to Jesus is immeasurably more than we could ever hope, dream, or imagine.

Don't you wanna get in on that? So here's how we're gonna close. We're gonna sing, we're gonna bring, we're gonna pray. And we still bring. We're gonna bring our first and best to Jesus, our tithes. And so all of our nine kids that we sponsor right now, that is in addition to our first and best here at the church. And we're gonna do that, this is what we do. And then we're just gonna do what Gretchen did 26 years ago when she felt the nudge. We're just gonna do what the little boy did 2,000 years ago when he's like, I ain't got much, but here, I'll put it in your hands. And all I want you to do is do whatever he tells you to do. And in just a minute, as we sing and we bring and we pray, we're gonna leave the lights up and you're gonna go to the packets. You're gonna sponsor a kid. We need you to fill out that packet right here, right now. Because these are not random packets. Every single one of these packets represent, that is that kid's packet. There is one picture for one kid for one packet. And if you take it and put it on your dashboard and leave it, this kid gets out of the rotation for a long time. And that would be a travesty, okay? So I want you to fill that out right now. We got people all over the place to try to help you. If you can't see good, if you need help.

Also, if you're watching online, then you can sponsor too. And we're gonna put it on the screen. You text the word sponsor to 83393. And listen, this is where you just gotta trust the sovereignty of God. If you text that number, God himself is gonna pick a kid for you and that's your kid, congratulations. If you don't like that one, get another one. Get a third one, get a fourth one. Keep going until you get the birthday you're looking for. I don't know what to tell you, all right? But don't put your own wants in front of the needs of these kids. Listen, 1122. We might be the most blessed church in all of America. You realize this? I mean, we just baptized all those people and the national news is covering it and all of that. The grace of God will not terminate on us, but may we be a conduit of the love of God and it flow through us to Jesus by releasing these children from poverty in Jesus' name. Would you please stand to your feet? Let me pray for you, our good and gracious heavenly Father. Lord, I pray right now that the real preacher here, the spirit of God would just take over. Lord, I pray that you would just call your people to be obedient to what you have called us to. Lord, for the folks that think they don't have enough, Lord, I just pray that they would trust you.

Lord, for the folks that know they have plenty, Lord, I pray that they would trust you and that God, this would be for your. Glory, your name, your renown. And God, I pray for every single one of these kids that are about to get sponsored. Lord, I pray we sponsor every single one of them that compassion trusted us with when they gave us these packets. And Lord, we do this for you and you alone. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Look, we're gonna sing, we're gonna bring, and we're gonna pray. And let me tell you what's gonna happen. You're gonna walk over there, you're gonna get a packet, you're gonna fill it out. And then it takes a couple of weeks or so for all the processing to happen. It goes through Colorado Springs, and then it goes out. Let's say you pick a kid from Uganda. Here's what's gonna happen. They're gonna have their little compassion program, and one of the teachers, one of the compassion workers, one of the local church folks, are gonna go up to your little kid that you picked, gonna tap him on the shoulder, gonna say, can I see you outside for a second? And that little kid's no different than your kids. And they're gonna think, oh no, I'm in trouble.

And they're gonna hold that kid by the hand, and they're gonna walk him outside, and they're going to explain to them a picture of the gospel. They're gonna say a person that you can't see, and a person that you've never met in person. This person loves you so much that they chose you. And they're gonna leverage that conversation to say, and there's a God that you can't see, and maybe you haven't met him yet, but he loves you so much that he chose you and was willing to pay the price for you. So let's sing, let's bring, let's pray, let's sponsor kids, let's respond. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.