What Do You Have?

Well, good morning, Harris Creek, how we doing? Yeah! Guys, if we haven't met yet, my name's Cooper. I'm the youth pastor here at Harris Creek. And yeah, thank you. Man, I love my job. I love what God's doing in the hearts and lives of students. And today specifically, man, again, I know you got some shout outs already, but if you are a kindergartner through fifth grade, or can I get a whoop, whoop? Let's go. Hey, guys, I'm so glad you're here. You're in this room. Man, I'm convinced God wants to speak to you today, okay? So lock in, pay attention. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We're gonna open God's word together. It's gonna be amazing. And now if you are not a kindergartner through fifth grader, can I get a whoop, whoop? Whoop, whoop! To you, I would say the same thing. Man, I'm convinced God is going to speak to you today. So let's get ready to hear what he has. First, I wanna start by telling you, two weeks ago, I ran my first marathon. Yep, thank you. Another way to say that sentence, two weeks ago, I found out I am a crazy person.

And if you haven't run a marathon, it's not too late. Don't. They'll get you, man. They'll get you. Marathon people love to make other people marathon people. I've learned this. But specifically from my experience that I wanna share with you is, the quick version is, it was really fun, then it was really hard, then I thought for certain I was going to die, and then I was proud. And that specific moment of miles 18 through 22, how I would refer to them as my darkest hour, that's what I wanna focus on for you today. 18 miles in, you realize there's still eight more, right? It's like, oh, I've done a lot, I'm over halfway, but I still have eight more to go. It's a real mental battle, okay? Mile 21, my lower back is like giving out, and I'm having to walk. I pull out my phone, I'm texting my wife. There's like thousands of people running this race. Feels like all of them passed me in that moment. And I'm texting her, I'm like, you gotta pray for me because I don't know if I can finish. My back is killing me. I'm just defeated. And I put my phone away and look, and I feel like an angelic glow.

Oh, maybe it was the sun, maybe it was the dehydration, I don't know, but there was a sign that said ibuprofen. And under that sign, big banner, there's like two six-foot tables next to each other with lunch trays stacked. There's a big sign that says 200 milligrams, and there's a lunch tray, and there's these, you know, the ketchup cups, the white cups you put ketchup in? There's a pill in each of them, and there's just lined up lunch tray. And then there's 400 milligrams, same thing, you put two pills in each cup, 600 milligrams. And then there's a big red sign that said 800 milligrams. The trays are now red, and there's four pills in that. So I grab one of those and take it. And text, breathe, man, praise God. But what struck me is one, the person giving those out was not wearing any race affiliation gear. Like I'm not sure if they were putting on the race or if they just knew someone would need some ibuprofen or maybe it was an angel. I don't know, but what I do know is that the joy on that lady's face passing out ibuprofen was, I mean, it was something. Like she's in the heat, the sunshine is baking her, and she's like, there's nothing in her life it felt like that she would rather do than give out, hopefully, ibuprofen to people running by.

And man, the reason I start there is because the joy that she had, I did finish, by the way. I feel like it's an important thing. I did finish the marathon. Thank you, yeah. I don't wanna leave any cliffhangers. But the reason I start there is because the joy that she had as she was giving out this ibuprofen, the smile on her face as she was watching people be rejuvenated. Man, God wants to invite us as followers of Jesus to feel that exact same feeling that she felt as she was giving out to me what I needed at the exact moment that I needed it. And what I've learned is God loves to provide through his people. And so today, specifically, you may have noticed with a new bumper, we're starting a new series. The series that we're starting to take us through the end of the summer is called Answering Jesus. If you've been tracking with us, you know that we started the summer with a series called Big Questions, where we took some of the big questions that you and I think about on a day-to-day, look at the scriptures. What does God say? What does God's word have to say about these questions? And then find the answers.

This series is kind of the opposite, right? Jesus, man, fully God came down, lived as a man for roughly 33 years and talked to people just like you and me every day. And we see through the scriptures one of his favorite. methods of communication is asking questions. The Bible has over roughly 300 questions that Jesus asked. And so throughout this series, what we're gonna do is take some of those that he asked in that context and say, hey, what can we learn as we seek to answer this question today? So today we're going to be looking at the question, what do you have? What do you have? Jesus is gonna ask us. And then the follow-up is, are we willing to trust him with it? What do you have? And are you willing to trust him with it? We're gonna be in Mark chapter six today. You can go ahead and flip there in your Bibles. I hope you brought one. I say this to our students every time. Man, you don't need to be surprised. That's the book we'll open every single time you come. So if you have a hard copy, man, I would encourage you, have a pen, take notes, open your physical Bible. If you're like me, I get distracted when I'm on my phone.

We'll be in Mark chapter six. This is the story of Jesus feeding a lot of people. Pop quiz to the kids in the room. How many people did Jesus feed? 5,000, that is what your Bible is gonna say. There's another account where he feeds 4,000. Both of them happened. But in this account, it's Jesus feeding the 5,000. However, what we know is that that is just referring to the men that were in the room. So there were also women and children there which scholars would say there's about up to 15 to 20,000 people in attendance, okay? So this room holds around 1,200. So you can think like 15 of these rooms is who was present being fed. Pop quiz question number two. What did God use to feed these people? Yep, five loaves and two fish. That's right, five loaves and two fish. And spoiler alert, if you're not a math guy, that's not enough to feed that many people. So we'll see how that happens, but that is what happens. And just for you to understand the context of what has happened just before this moment is Jesus has received word from his disciples that his friend and relative, John the Baptist, has just been executed. So, man, he's sad, understandably, and kind of rallies the disciples.

And so, hey, let's take a second. So they go to a desolate place. They hop on a boat, go to what's called, the scripture refers to as a desolate place to just like be by yourself, right? And we've all been there, whether it's been the news breaks, the diagnosis hits, it's just been a long day. You're a parent with young kids, right? But the spectrum of, man, there are times where all of us know what it's like to need a minute. That's where Jesus is. And before we read, I wanna teach you something that we share in my house whenever we read the Bible. I've got two kids, two and a half year old, and my daughter will be one in 11 days. It's exciting, I'm sleeping more than I used to. And this is what we say every time before we open the Bible. I'm gonna say it, I'll teach it to you, and then we'll all repeat it back. Does that make sense? Okay, good. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. Everything the Bible says is. Absolutely true. You guys got it. Okay, now let's all say it together. Absolutely true. Absolutely true.

Everything the Bible says is. Absolutely true. You guys got it. Now, whether you're in kindergarten or a grandparent, would we never forget that fact? It's not just a little kid phrase to remember, man, that is true. The Bible is true and it can be trusted. So we remind ourselves in my home before we read. And so now let's read together Mark chapter six, starting in verse 34. When Jesus had landed, remember, he's headed to the desolate place with a ship on a boat, and saw a large crowd. He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. So what happens is Jesus and the boys are headed to a quiet place, try to get some peace. People see him head out, recognize him. Hey, that's Jesus, dude, the miracle guy. Man, we gotta, he says some crazy stuff. I've never heard it before, but my friend was telling me about him. Let's go follow him. Hey, honey, grab the kids. We're going. So then it's just word spreads. Everyone's like, oh Jesus, he's headed there. They go, they meet to where they think he's gonna be.

He gets offshore and is met by a large crowd. Amen, what we see our King do, let's put aside his preferences. Amen, maybe I'll take a second later. And he notices the people. Scripture says he has compassion on them. He knows they're sheep without a shepherd. Man, they need spiritual guidance and wisdom and Jesus knows he's the one to bring it. So despite the heaviness that he's carrying into this moment, Lord, I trust you with this and I wanna share truth with these people and will we be like Jesus in this way. Verse 35, by this time, it was late in the day. So his disciples came to him. This is a remote location, they said, and it's already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. Now I wanna pause here because this is actually a really smart suggestion from these disciples. Think sometimes the disciples get a bad rap. What they're noticing is there is a ton of people here. It's not dark yet, but it will be soon. These people are hungry. They haven't eaten all day. They've been with you, Jesus. Hey, let's be considerate.

What they probably wanna head home now so it's not too dark and get some food. It's like a really thoughtful suggestion. In fact, like if you've been tracking with Harris Creek for a while, you know we do something called family reunion every year, kind of at the end of summer. And that's like a fifth, if not smaller, than what this gathering is. And we've already started thinking about the food trucks. Do we need to bring in extra bathrooms? Where should we put the stage? How can we make sure everyone can? Like we're thinking through all these things because there's just logistic things that come with a lot of people. So the disciples are thinking, these are some logistic solutions. Jesus, he answers them. Verse 37, you give them something to eat. They said to him, that would take more than half a year's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? Translation, that's crazy talk, Jesus. That doesn't make any sense. We have nothing. We ate our lunch. There's more people here than we would ever be able to feed. What are we supposed to do?

It would be like if you and your family or you and your friend group are headed on a road trip to Disney World, you break down halfway there. And as you're there in the car, it's like, oh man, what should we do? Well, we can walk. Like, let's just grab the luggage, backpack, and let's start walking. That'd be crazy. No one would think that that was eat. Like, sure, technically, yeah, like it's possible to walk that far, but no one's suggesting that. That's what this feels like to the disciples. That's what they're telling him. So let's see. Jesus, verse 38, asks them, how many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they found out, they said five and two fish. The question Jesus asks here is very specific. Like, there's a lot of different details that he could have gone into. Hey, how hungry do you think they are? Like, what's the portion size per person? How far is the closest spot to get food? What do you guys think we should do? Right, all the, he doesn't ask any of those questions. Focuses on one thing.

How many loaves do you have? Right, so disciples answer him. That's what he asked them. Man, how I would interpret that question for us today as we sit here is, what do you have? That's the question I want us to wrestle with. It's actually point number one for today is what do you have? What do you have? Because throughout this whole series, right, Jesus has asked questions. We have them recorded in scripture. And so, man, we wanna take those and apply them to our lives today. And so that's how we're gonna do it. In this series today specifically, the question how many loaves do you have is what do you have? And this is a really important place to start because if you're anything like me, you can get so quick to think about all the things you don't have. Like, potentially, even when I ask that, what do you have, the first thought is like, well, if the house was bigger, then, or man, do we just need more seats in the car? Or I need, just all these things you wish you had. Silly example is my wife said, hey, can you grab me something to drink? What's in the fridge?

Open the fridge. Well, we're out of sparkling water. So I just, I start with what we don't have. That's not even what she asked. What do we have? And I'm like, this is what we don't have. So if you're anything like me, man, it's first we gotta make sure we're asking the right question. It's not what do you not have? What do you need? What do you wish you had? What do you want? It's what do you have? And because it's easy to talk about when we're thinking about all the things we don't have. It's easy to dream big of like, well, if I had this, then I would do this. If I had a bigger house, then I would have people over more. I'd be able to host, maybe have someone live with us. If we had more money, then we could be more. So if I had two of this toy, then I would share it with my brother, right? So easy to think about what we don't have and why we're limited from sharing and giving and walking in generosity. But that's not the mindset that we see modeled here in the scripture. You see in this account, in Mark's gospel,

verse 38 just says they had five loaves and two fish. So this story is actually one of two miracles that occurs in all four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. So two miracles. There's the feeding of the 5,000 and the second miracle is the resurrection of Jesus, okay? Obviously that is the most important one. So this is, if there ever was a normal miracle, this would be the one normal miracle in all four gospel accounts. And so when we're reading this, man, we wanna take details that we see from the other writers of this story. So as we look to John's account, John chapter six, you'll find the same story. And there's two new details that are introduced from John's account that are actually really helpful as we think about where did this five loaves and two fish come from? Because John tells us that it was actually a little boy, roughly ages seven to 14, is what scholars would say, who offered up five loaves and two fish. And we get another detail that the loaves were not just regular loaves of bread, they were actually barley loaves of bread, which if you're anything like me, you have no idea what that means. But I looked into it and what that tells us is that this boy actually comes from a poorer family

because at that time, those who were eating barley bread were those who could not afford to eat wheat bread. So we get two really important details. One is this is a young kid and he comes from a poorer family. That's extra details we get from looking at John chapter six. And then even with those being true, it makes no sense that he would be the one to offer up his lunch, but he knew Philippians 4.19 is true. Philippians 4.19 says, and my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. I think we're so quick to live in this scarcity mindset. Like, what if I need it? Like, ah, I could give it away. I have maybe an extra, but what if I need that though? But I want you to imagine, put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. You just had this crazy conversation with Jesus where he's telling you to feed people, ask you how many loaves you have. And you're like, I don't know. So I just see this hungry crowd, right? Implying that they need food, the Bible says. So you kind of just start going to them. Hey guys, Jesus, he's teaching. And he's asking if, well, I know you probably don't, but he's making me ask, do you guys have any food?

Yeah, no, okay, totally understand. Sorry, yeah, I'm hungry too. Thank you, ma'am, yep. Okay, hey, next group, hey, God. It's just like, what an uncomfortably awkward moment that would be as those disciples trying to figure out, man, where are we gonna get this food from? And then sure enough, Andrew, we find out in John's gospel, meets this kid who's like, yeah, actually, hey, I've got five loaves, because that's what Jesus asked. How many loaves do you have? I've got five loaves and I've got these two fish. And you know what? I bet Jesus could use these two. So here, you have this, and yeah, and he's probably like, all right, yeah, come with me. Let's bring him to Jesus. Just this like joy of, man, I can't wait to see what Jesus is gonna do. There's no evidence that this boy is being told, hey, Jesus wants to multiply your food to feed this whole crowd. They're just literally trying to get data of, hey, who has food? How much food do we have? And this boy is in his joy like, hey, this is what I have. And what I've learned is just like, God loves to use the people that don't make sense to solve the problem.

If you've been following Jesus, you might have learned that as well. Man, a couple examples come to mind for me just here at Harris Creek. One is, if you've been tracking with us, you know, man, by God's grace, we were able to raise the funds to complete the building campaign, to save a seat. And I think if you were to like logically think, hey, how is that money gonna be raised? Man, hopefully there's a couple people that can write a check to kind of primarily foot the bill. That's just not what we saw here, you know? Man, we saw like everyone throwing in, but not just everyone, specifically, there was one group that we noticed that really are leading the charge in figuring out, hey, how can I play a part in this? And that was below 18 year olds, like kids were the ones doing it. Got a picture here, this is a seventh grade life group, seventh grade girls life group. They were having life group night and they were like, hey, save a seat, what if for life group night, we have a lemonade stand and we give all the money to save a seat. So as they're there, the seventh grade girls raised hundreds of dollars to then put towards the building campaign. But that's not all, there's tons of stories like that. But another story that I love is, her name's Elsie.

She is now business owner, or at least was. And she was like, man, how could I get involved? Like, what do I have that God might wanna use? And so what you'll learn there is, she's got a confetti business where she took colored paper and a hole punch and apparently a very strong forearm and started making these little bags of confetti. She made, I think, around $50 selling confetti to people in her life group and other people that, I guess, needed to celebrate. Because she was like, hey, I wanna be a part of what my church is doing. What do I have that God could use? Man, I've got a hole punch and some colored paper. I hear she eventually started coloring on the paper to do a more customizable look. So she's got a lot of package options if you wanna find her after. But man, even another example, this has nothing to do with Save a Seat, but near and dear to my heart, we've got youth camp coming up in just a couple of days. We'll head out. Yeah, and I was talking to one of the guys in my life group. He's like, dude, how are you feeling? I'm like, man, I'm feeling great. We've got almost 50 leaders coming with us. He's like, dude, that's amazing, man. Like parents are willing to give up their week.

I was like, oh no, like you're misunderstanding me. Like there's actually one parent coming. It's because he's a doctor. We're gonna have a camp doc come with us. But other than that, there's literally no parents coming with us. And he's like, what? Who's leading this youth camp with you? 50 people? I'm like, well, we got a bunch of young adults that are taking four days of PTO to come and serve. We've got college students who are giving up their summer. And man, they just believe, hey, what does God give me? I've got time. And so I wanna use that to his glory to minister to sixth through 12th graders. So man, yeah, you can clap for that. It's amazing. But there's tons of examples like this where then you guys as Harris Creek, we as Harris Creek are saying, hey, what do we have? And then entrusting it, knowing that God wants to use it. And that's what I'd say to you, man. What's the application? What do we do with this? It's ask ourselves that very question. Hey, what do you have? And so parents, as you're driving home, and that's a great question to ask your kids. Hey, what's something that we have or that you have

that we could better utilize to advance the kingdom of God? Kids, you're probably gonna think of something that your parents haven't thought of that's a really good idea. So just be thinking. And then if you're like, if you don't have kids or empty nester or wherever you're at, this question applies to all of us. Like rally your life group. Hey, what do you guys see as things in my life that I could better utilize for the advancement of the kingdom of God? Help me see what am I missing in my life. And as you're doing that, as you're having that conversation, I would encourage you, hey, invite God into that. God, what is it that I have that I'm not using yet? Like that I'm not even, I haven't been quick to give you, to see what you would do with it. Because I guarantee he's got some thoughts. There's no shortage of things that I could do. Of things that we can use, of things that he can use. Because everyone has something, right? Some of us in this room have a long list of things that come to mind. Others of this have a long list of needs that come to mind. And then I would say whichever camp you're in, like God wants to use you. As you think about this little boy, this wasn't the local rich boy

that had bags of bread to give out to people. That's not what we see here. So I just encourage you, man, wrestle with, hey, what do we have? And how can we better trust God with it? So let's look back, God's word and see, hey, what does Jesus do? We have this generous donation of five loaves and two fish, a small crowd of 20,000 people to feed with it. Man, what is Jesus gonna do? But before we do, we're gonna say it all together. Joy in our hearts, smile on our face. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. Everything the Bible says is absolutely true. Amen. Sorry, in verse 39. Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. Pop quiz, okay? The Lord is my. I lack nothing, yep. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Interesting, right? Now what was, do you remember what we started with? Verse 34, what did Jesus notice? He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a. Man, so interesting. Jesus is the good shepherd.

Go back there to Psalm 23, verse two. Let's keep reading. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties, taking the five loaves and two fish, looking up to heaven. He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Now, some translations there say he blessed the loaves. I think we can get confused with that sometimes where our prayers sometimes look like, dear God, please bless this double cheeseburger with bacon and onion rings and use it to nourish my body, right? Guilty, I've been there. I don't think that's what Jesus is doing here, right, man? What we see Jesus doing here is, God, thank you so much for the provision of this food. And then just this reminder of God, just as I need food to survive, I need your spirit to do anything of any eternal value. And so I would just encourage you, man, as you guys are praying before meals, as a family or by yourself, and that language shift, I think, could be helpful for you just to more closely align with the heart of Jesus as he's praying for this meal. Let's keep reading. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. I wish we had an extra verse there. Like what, like what did that look like?

All right, guys, pass it out. It's like, they're looking, it's like their little bread, and then they have one sixth of a fish as they face this crowd of 15 to 20,000 people. I mean, I just am like, if I'm Peter, I'm like, all right, all right, here you go, the tiniest little rip, here you go, ma'am. Yeah, if there's seconds, we'll come back to you. You know, it's like, I don't know what, I wish we had more of like what that looked like from going to five loaves and two fish to 15,000 people fed. Just like, oh, so cool. Verse 42, they all ate, all 15 to 20,000 of them ate and were satisfied. And the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish, and the number of men who had eaten was 5,000. Another way to read that is all of them were full and every disciple got a to-go box, right? It's like 12 basketfuls. There's more leftover than there even was to start with. Man, what a God we serve. Every disciple's going around picking up that food. What a reminder of like, how could I not trust him? Just moving forward, it's like, man, how could I not trust him? He's able to turn what seems like nothing into more than enough. Man, I've seen him do that time and time again in my life. And I think we can get stuck here sometimes

because it's like, yeah, we tell that, it can feel like a children's story from the Bible, but it's not. Like, this is not Spider-Man, it's not Superman. This is, like we said, absolutely true. Like, there was a real moment in historical time when on the same planet that you are on right now, there was people just like you, far more of them, who were hungry and ate food and were filled and satisfied from this tiny little boy, this little boy's lunch. Like, it actually happened. That's the God we serve. It's not like, oh yeah, that Bible story I learned when I was a kid, man, it is just as true today as when you learned it as a kid. And what we can learn from this is point number two, God uses what you give him. God uses what you give him. We can be encouraged by this because, man, no matter what, like God is going to do what he wants. If this little boy would not have given his lunch, then I guarantee these people would have been fed another way. How do I know? Because God wanted to feed them. So we can, the pressure's off, right? It's not like if you don't, God won't be able to. It's just a matter of, hey, what level of involvement do you wanna play in God bringing heaven to earth? How involved do you wanna be in that?

You can choose, hey, if you'd like to sit on the bench and watch, there's a spot for you. Or we can, hey, I got five loaves and two fish. What are you gonna do with it, right? It's this question for us. What do we want? What level of involvement do we wanna have? Because if you were to go back and if you were to somehow be able to interview all 15,000 people, there's one person that that miracle meant more to than anyone else. Who do you think that was? The boy. Imagine sitting back there, watching Jesus, bless it, thank you, Lord, for the food. The disciples have it, and you're just sitting back there and it's like, what's gonna happen, right? And it's like, you watch the disciples pass it out. Oh my, a hundred people have eaten so far. What, 200, three, 1,000. and people have eaten my lunch. Just think about what was going on in that boy's mind of, oh my goodness, I had no idea this is what God was gonna do with this small lunch that I could give him. And we noticed that the miracle did not happen until the boy was willing to give his lunch. And once that offering was given, once in faith he was willing to trust God with his lunch, then we see this miracle take place.

Man, I've actually got a story like that in my own life where we got to be, my wife and I, got to be on the receiving end of something just like this. And so when my son was born, he'll turn three in November, he's like two and a half. When he was born, man, it felt like for us, God was saying, hey, faithfulness looks like, Bree, my wife, rolling away from her job and going full-time discipleship coordinator, if you will, mom, at the home. And so I was like, hey, this is what we feel like God's calling our family to do. But it just felt like, man, how are we gonna make this work financially? Like specifically diapers, like how are we going to make sure we have everything we need? How are we gonna make sure we have the diapers we need? We explored the thought of a cloth diaper quickly. You're like, that's not us, okay? And so some of you, I know that's your thing. And to God be the glory, there's diversity in the body of Christ. Our family, we're not the cloth diaper people. But without cloth diapers, how are we gonna provide diapers for our kids, our first kid, we wanna be great parents, we need diapers. And man, I got a call from a mentor and friend. And he was like, hey, God told me I'm supposed to give you a check for $1,000.

And then what I want you to do with that check is I want you to put it on a Visa gift card. And then just use that Visa gift card to buy diapers and wipes, that's it. And I was like, wow, thank you so much. That's amazingly generous, I agreed. Sure enough, Lewis is born a week before, checks in the mail, $1,000. We get the Visa gift card sorted. And man, for the first like year, you kind of like go, swipe the card. Oh man, thank you, Lord, what a reminder. Like, thank you, thank you. But then it's like year and a half and you're kind of like, like swipe, you know, like, is it gonna work? Man, sure enough, boom. And guys, Lewis was not potty trained until two years and three months. And we did not pay for a single diaper that my son wore in those years. Yeah, you can clap for that. Man, like the last one, as he was potty, as he was being potty trained, we were buying pull-ups because we didn't need diapers anymore. And it was like, oh, you still owe a little bit more on it. I mean, it was like, it was, and every time we're there, like my wife and I'd take turns getting diapers.

And every time you're like, all right, Lord, please, one more, like one more swipe. And it was just, it was so fun to watch the Lord continue to supply everything we needed with those diapers. And as fun as it is for me to tell you that story, think about how fun it is for my friend and mentor to hear me share it, right? You know what he's not thinking? Bitcoin, man, I should have invested in Bitcoin, right? That's not a thought in his mind as he's hearing what God has done with, God asked him to give $1,000 and then he used it to do more than what I would have even thought possible. And that story is not about me. I'm in it, but it's not about me. It's not about what you can give me. Man, the story is, hey, what does God want to use that you have? We need to shift our thinking from, all right, God, like what do I have to do with this thing that you gave me? What do I have to do with it? Okay, I'll do it. That's not what I think we're being invited into here. What God's inviting us into is, all right, God, you and me, like, what do we get to do with this thing you've given me? Like, where do you want me to use it? Where do you want me to deploy these resources? How do you, who do you want me to open that extra bedroom in my home to?

Who do you want me to give my toys that I don't play with anymore to? It's the shift, but no matter what, like God is going to meet needs all across the world. He's gonna perform miracles. He's gonna bring lost people home and to be saved. It's not a question of if that's happening. It's a question of how much would you like to partner with him in that? Because his kingdom will come, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. There's nothing you could ever do to stop that from happening, praise God. But God is inviting us to be a part of that. And so do you want to partner with him? That's the question. Do you want to partner with him? So in summary, and God is going to accomplish all that he wants to, but he's inviting us to be a part of it. So we need to answer Jesus's question. What do you have? And then we need to decide if we're willing to trust him with our answer, because he will use what you give him. And so as I think back on that story, right, 15,000 people, like I'm a parent, there had to be someone else with food there. If I'm going somewhere with my kids, not bringing snacks, that's a horrible, that's a planning to fail, right? And so you think, man, as there were families

and kids present there, can't say for certain, but it seems extremely likely that there was someone else with a granola bar in the purse, you know what I mean? Like there was someone there that had something and they missed out on getting to be a part of a miracle because they were stuck in this mindset of, ah, but what if I need it? What if I need it? You might even be thinking that now, as you ask, hey, what do you have? Ah, we have a lot in our savings, but like, what if we need it? Got that extra bedroom. What if we need it for something? We got that extra car. We've got those extra toys. For me, it's, I've got, I ran out of hangers in my closet. And my first thought is like, ah, I guess I gotta buy more hangers. No, you know, I wear one shirt a day. I can give away the clothes that I'm not wearing as often to someone who might need them, right? And for you, man, what is it that God would want you to use? Money, toys, car, spare bedroom, time, it's a big one. What would God have you use? And then as you answer that question, God is inviting you to have so much fun, to just sit back and watch. I cannot believe he multiplied it like that. I cannot believe he used it like that.

And so let me pray that we would have stories like that, that we would be quick to trust. God, we love you. And we thank you that we can even sit here in a building with air conditioning, clothes on our backs, and we have things, God. You've blessed us deeply. And I pray that you'd be quick to bring to mind in our lives things that we should entrust to you, things that you wanna use. Give us the courage and the boldness to not get stuck in, hey, what if I need it? But instead trust you and say, God, how could you use this? Would that be our heart posture? God, how could you use this? We pray that you would. We love you, Jesus. It's your name we pray, amen.