I Am - Enough | Crossroads Students

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, hey guys, my name is Shanna. We probably haven't met yet, so maybe I should introduce myself a little bit and give us something to bond over. Um, I figure most of you probably have a phone. Maybe not all of you. I got a cell phone. I never had a phone before. Cordless. Uh, but you might get a phone pretty soon. I have a phone. I spend a lot of time on my phone. I wish I didn't spend as much time as I do. Uh, but I think something that's true for both me and you is that sometimes when we end a busy day and we come home, all we want to do is just scroll with what starts with 15 minutes. And it's like, I'm just gonna like check out a couple things. I just want to unwind. I just want to chill. And then your phone reminds you, hey, you've been on this app for 15 minutes. Maybe you could take a break. And it's like, no, it's only been 15 minutes. Let me just, uh, let me just keep going for a little bit. And 15 minutes quickly turns into an hour and a half, which turns into two and a half hours. I'm embarrassed that that happens a lot of the time.

And I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone. We are in this age where we're constantly consuming content because there's so much content out there. There's so many videos that we can watch. There's so many, uh, people who are streaming their games of Fortnite that we can watch. There's so many people who are sharing their lives with us that we can just consume. And we're hungry for it. We're hungry for more. But here's what I know to be true for me, and maybe it's true for you, is that it doesn't usually satisfy this hunger that I have, this desire to feel fulfilled, to feel satisfied. And it makes me ask the question, why do I keep going back for more? Why do I keep going back to this thing that doesn't actually satisfy me? And I wonder if the same is true for you. If you've ever finished two and a half hours of scrolling and been like, why did I just watch 47 videos that weren't actually that funny? And I kind of feel worse for doing it, but I'm still going to do it tomorrow. Why do we do that? Why do we keep going back for things that don't satisfy us? Well, I was reading John 6, and this whole situation kind of reminds me of what happened in this story. Uh, John is talking all about Jesus' life. And in this particular moment in time,

Jesus has been doing miracles. He's been healing people, and more and more people are starting to hear about who he is. And they're so intrigued. They want to go witness one of his miracles. And so Jesus is on the side of a mountain. He's with his disciples. He's hanging out with them, and he looks up, and there is a crowd of people approaching him. And he looks at his disciples, and he says, how are we going to feed all of these people? Now, here's the thing. Jesus knows exactly how he's going to feed them, but he wants to test them. So he looks at Philip specifically, and he says, how are we going to feed all of these people that are approaching us? 5,000 people. 55 burgers, 55 fries, 55 tacos, 55 pies, 55 cokes. And Philip's like, we're not. Like, there's 5,000 people. How the heck are we supposed to feed all of them? He even goes so far to say, even if every single one of us, the 12 disciples and Jesus, were to work for six months and take all of that money, it wouldn't be enough to feed that many people. And he goes even further to say, Jesus, even if we had the money, there's nowhere in town that we can buy the amount of food that we need to feed all of these people.

Respectfully, we can't. And so Jesus is like, okay, okay, I hear you. And another disciple actually looks around, and he's trying to take stock of how they're going to problem solve this situation. And he goes, well, there is this boy. He's got five loaves of bread and two fish. Maybe we can do something with that. And the disciples are like, what? What are we going to do with that? That's basically a lunchable. That's not going to feed 5,000 people. There's no way. And so Jesus takes this little boy's lunch, probably because the little boy offered it. I don't think Jesus would just steal a kid's lunch. That doesn't seem in his character. But he takes this lunch, and he blesses it. bread and he blesses it, he takes the fish and he blesses it and he starts to distribute it across the side of this mountain. Up and down and across the mountain loaves of bread and fish are being passed around, but remember there's five loaves of bread, there's two fish, that doesn't make any sense, but each person takes their fill and then passes it to the next person and they never run out. It even says in John 6 that there were 12 baskets of leftovers after the miracle had been performed. Of all the miracles that Jesus did, this was one of the largest in scale, but the whole point of the story isn't actually the miracle. The miracle's really cool, it's really impressive, the people were amazed by what Jesus did, but it's not actually the point of the story because as the scripture continues, Jesus removes himself because he knows this crowd of people are going to just continue to want things from him. They even go looking for him after Jesus disappears because they're like, where did this guy go who just fed us in abundance, we want him to do it again and by the time they find him, he addresses them and says, you don't actually want

me, you just want what I can give you. You want to receive more and more bread day after day. You don't want something greater, you just want what's going to meet your needs right now, but I have something better for you. So I would love to read the very ending of this story, which is in John 6 verse 35. Then Jesus declares, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never grow hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty, but as I told you, you have seen me and you still do not believe. And so what he's saying to the people is he's saying, hey, you're coming to me asking for something that'll satisfy you for a moment. You want more bread, you want more sustenance, but this isn't something that's going to fulfill you for your whole life. I am the bread of life. I will give you everything that you need and if you wanted it and you didn't get it, it just means you didn't actually need it, but I am the thing that you need, but the way that you come to me is for something that you don't actually need. And I think I'm a lot like these people. I think that I'm often coming to Jesus asking for things that I don't actually need. It's just things that I want. It makes me feel good and I treat him like someone who's just going to give me specific wants and desires, but not things that are actually going to fulfill me. If I actually came to Jesus with this in mind, if I came to him as the bread of life, I would just say, Jesus, I need you. I want more of you. Lord, would you just help me? I'm a lot like these people and I wonder if you are too. I wonder if the way that you view Jesus is as someone who can just give you what you want and when he doesn't give you what you want, then you go to other stuff and maybe you don't even go to him first. Maybe you go to your phone and you keep scrolling and you keep looking for content to consume because there's so much of it. And then when that doesn't work, maybe you want a new thing or if that's not enough, you want attention and you want to be the funniest person in the room. You want to be the prettiest girl in school. You want to be the smartest person. And when those things aren't enough, you just feel empty. And what Jesus is saying here is he's saying what I will give you, who I am, is enough to make you feel fulfilled. It's enough to satisfy you that you won't feel empty inside, but your life will actually feel the fullest and the most vibrant that it can be. And so it makes me wonder, why do I keep going back to something that is so much less than what Jesus offers, this vibrant life? I don't know if it's because I'm just comfortable in those things because it's a quick fix and sometimes it's a lot harder to wait for fulfillment from Jesus. I don't know. But I wonder if you feel the same way too. And so I wonder if we could do something together. What I want you to do is to put out your hand. I know it's a little weird,

but put out your hand and I want it to be empty. Look at your palm, make sure there's nothing in it. So if your phone's there, put it down. If you've got a soda, put it down. If the person next to you doesn't have their palm up, make them do it with you because we're going to do this together. And what I want you to do is I want you to imagine in your empty palm that thing that you always go back to, whether it's scrolling on your phone for hours on end, looking for some sort of dopamine hit, whether it's the comment section and hoping that a bunch of people like your comment, whether it's kind or tearing somebody else down, or if it's that popularity, that acceptance, someone noticing you, that thing that you keep going back to that at the end of the day doesn't actually make you feel fulfilled. Like you're enough. And I want you to imagine it there and then I want you to close your hand around it. And what you notice is your fist feels empty. And when you open your hand back up, there's nothing there. And that's because these things that we go back to don't have weight. They don't make our lives as vibrant as they could be. But when Jesus says, I am the bread of life, he is saying, I'm here to fulfill your life. I'm here to be the best thing that you could ever receive. And so what I want you to do next is to put your other hand out. So you've got both hands like this. And what we call this is this is a posture of receiving. If someone were to give you a really big gift, you would need two hands open like this to receive it. Or a huge cake, something that's really, really good. You would need two hands open to receive it. And what I want us to do now that we've let go of that distraction that we always go to

is to come before Jesus with open hands like this, ready to receive him in his fullness as the bread of life, the best thing that we could ever receive. And here's what I know to be true. For some of you in here, this is uncomfortable. And you're like, I don't really wanna do it, so I'm not gonna put my hands up. What I'll just offer as a suggestion is that what's the worst that can happen? Nothing, nothing could happen and that would be the worst thing. But the best thing that could happen is that what if Jesus actually brings vibrancy to your life? What if Jesus actually gives you everything that he promises, that he's the best thing for you? That would change everything in the best way possible. And so if you will, I'm gonna pray for us. And then you guys are going to head off to see groups and your student pastors will come up and it'll be a really, really great conversation that you get to have. So Jesus, I thank you that you are the bread of life, that you are the son of God, that you are able to be everything that we need, that as long as we have you, we don't actually need anything else. And so Lord, I pray that you would help us to trust that that's true and that we would see you active in our lives. And Lord, I pray that you would help us

to not run to distractions, to not run to scrolling on our phones, to not run to other people to give us attention, but that we would run to you first and that we would believe that you are the best thing, that you are the bread of life that sustains us. And I pray this in your name, amen.