Luke 9:10-17

The Lord will sometimes ask us to do the impossible. Jesus uses these situations to bring our heads out of the clouds and back on earth where only He can help. And He will do it through us.

Says in verse 12, now when they are, when the day that is began to wear away, that’s the time between four and six o’clock in the evening in Israel from four o’clock to sunset, the 12 came to him.
Now watch the 12, the disciples, the apostles came and they said to him, it’s in quotes, send the multitude away that they may go into the surrounding towns and country and lodge and get provisions for.
We are in a deserted place here on the surface. That sounds so nice. Jesus send them away.
Guess what? Right in the midst of them is the Lord God church.
Has he not done tremendous miracles in their presence?
Did he not get them successfully crossed on a very stormy night in a boat ride?
Did they not see him heal and cleanse people of leprosy and all kinds of diseases and open in the eyes of the blind.
They watch this first hand, they come to him and I know it sounds nice on the surface, but be careful.
Send the people away. Well, this is not, this is not a suggestion they’re giving.
The Greek construction is a, is a military command.
They come to Jesus and they say, send them away. We’re telling you, send them away.
Thank you for doing that. Thanks. Get rid of them. Who are they talking to Jesus?
They issued to him a command in a military term? Do you see now, why?
It’s possible that Jesus when he saw them come and they were talking about what they did on their little ministry tour that Jesus now says, why don’t we take a break?
Don’t you think Jesus being God knew that those people would put on their Nikes and run along the shore and beat them to the other side.
Don’t you think Jesus knew that?
Don’t you think that Jesus knew that when they got out of the boat and the people were there that he greeted them and made them feel warm and welcomed and then spoke to them about the true issue about being born again and then backed up what he said by doing the miracles of healing people who was watching the whole time, the disciples?
Why did they need to do that?
Because they were getting on the microphone and they were saying, sit down, be quiet, they were burned out.
They were starting to minister in the flesh and listen, I’m going to tell you it always happens this way when, when a police officer, a minister, a doctor, a nurse, anybody, when they start uh uh what’s the word being snippy?
Is that the right word snippy. It’s not, I know it’s not English. It’s gotta be slang.
American snippy short. It’s time for a break when somebody says, excuse me. But what?
Oh, I think we need to take a break.
You guys, I gotta tell you, I work for God. I get like that sometimes.
You know who’s the first one to always?
Yeah, Lisa, father, son, holy Spirit and Lisa Jack.
Um and she’s so great. You need to get along with the Lord.
Isn’t that a great way of putting it? You need to get along with the Lord. Why?
It’s true? And so they issued this command.
Jesus, send them away man who’s working for who here? Wow.
You know the Bible says, it’s one of the most beloved Old Testament verses Isaiah 40 verse 31 Isiah 40 verse 31.
I hate the run now, I hate the run.
I used to like it when I was a kid just like you did.
But as you can see, I hate to run And I used to have that written on my running shoes.
Isaiah 40 31. It’s an awesome verse.
Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall run and not be weary, they will walk and they shall not faint.
Isn’t that a great verse? Listen, our strengths renewed when we wait upon the Lord.
How, how do, how do we do that?
Actually get alone, turn off everything and just be before him.
Find your rendezvous if you don’t have one. Make 1. Yeah, that’s why I use my car.
Cars are good for devotions and listening to radio and sermons and that’s great. But you know what?
You’re distracted when you’re in the car, get alone, bathrooms are great.
No one who’s gonna bother you in the bathroom, go to the bathroom, lock the door, get along with God.
Climb a tree. We have big trees in my backyard.
I’ll climb a tree who’s going to look at a tree for a middle aged man who was gonna, where is he?
Where is he? They never think I’m up the tree. Things are nice up there.
Think it, find it for you. What works for you? Is it down at the beach?
I don’t know, find it. Get a date with God, get along with him. Watch what happens.
You will actually begin to be strengthened and renewed.
I gotta tell you you guys all this may be too personal.
Those are good old Calvary songs from way back at Costa Mesa Days, man.
And I’m remembering and there’s been a lot of stuff heavy in my heart.
I got this stuff cooking on my heart.
I’ve told you that Sunday nights are just really wearing on me with the Islam study and all that stuff.
Very depressing. And it’s been heavy and he said that he’s leading us in a song.
And what was it? Peace. Like a river. Peace. Oh my gosh. Jesus Lord.
And we’re all singing and I’m, I’m singing peace like a river. Yes, Lord, I’ve been losing peace.
I didn’t realize it till the song was saying in my head that I heard it. I remembered.
Oh my goodness. I’ve been so bogged down with all the stuff that I’m losing my peace and the Lord.
Wow, God, I need peace.
Now, this is all taking place during the song and you thought I was being very normal over there.
But what was going on was ministering? He was ministering to me. Lord, I need peace.
I need your peace. I’m getting all messed up. Next. Thought in my head.
Ask me, you have not cause you asked not. OK.
Here I come, God, I’m asking, I need peace and you know what?
He’s all sufficient. Jesus is enough. He comes in. He floods your heart.
He realigns everything begins to make sense of it again. He’s in the midst of us.
And then if that wasn’t enough, listen, when we can’t see the way out, listen for God to say something impossible to us.
That’s the next thing I want you to see in verse 13. He’ll say something impossible to us.
She said, what are you talking about? I thought the guys were already stressed. Our mind is like this.
Oh You guys stressed. Yes. Oh Here here’s two tickets to fill in the blank. Here’s two tickets to Maui.
Here’s two tickets to the game. I don’t know what your thing is. Did. You know that’s not gonna work.
I’ve tried that, man. I’m so stressed. I need to take a break.
You can take all the breaks you want. But unless it’s a God break, it’s not gonna happen.
I’ve been on vacations and it was the worst thing I could have done. My routine’s broken.
My schedule is all messed up, man.
I tell you what, make sure you take Jesus on your break and in a moment everything can be changed.
Everything can be changed. Well, what does he do to get us realigned?
Don’t be surprised if in the midst of our pressure, he winds up laying one more thing on us and it’s not for evil, it’s for good.
It’s to get us to realize that God deals in the impossible and he uses you and I to do it, that’s the freaky thing.
God might say. I tell you what, I’m gonna do something impossible. Jack. Come here.
I want to do it through you. But God, I’m tired. I’m gonna do it through you.
You, I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna do it through you. I don’t want to.
You don’t want to. Oh, well, then I’ll use somebody else. No. Use me.
Aren’t we? Weird? Sometimes?
As Christians, we got a cross around her neck but big, big diapers on.
No. Yes. Ok. No, he’ll say something impossible to us.
Right in the middle of everything like this.
When it says here in verse uh 12, send them away.
They said, Look what he says.
Verse 13, Jesus says to them, you give them something to eat, you need to circle the word you hear In the Greek.
He comes right back at them.
You think they threw a punch, you think they threw a left, he gave them a right jab right back.
I love this. Jesus didn’t say now boys guys. Come on, you’re gonna be the big 12.
They’re gonna talk about you guys forever. Now you need to really buck up. Ok?
You know what he says? This is beautiful. Us guys get this ladies. This is kind of like abrasive.
In fact, listen, what Charles Spurgeon said about this. Spurgeon said it’s a firm yet gracious aggressiveness coming from Christ.
Lord send them away. It’s late. They need to go get food and all that stuff.
Jesus says to them, you feed them, you feed them.
The word is stressed on the you, you feed them. Isn’t that beautiful?
Can you imagine at that moment they must have went. What? Like smelling salt.
What are you doing? Talking to us like that? We’re the big guys.
12 of us went out and did miracles. Come on, Jesus, don’t you don’t, you know who you are now?
I mean, we’re big time ministers. We want black donkeys in our own private parking spots.
Antennas on the tails. We’re the disciples. We are the disciples.
My friend Jesus says, you feed them.
Could you see the air coming out of their head?
He’s pulling them right out of the clouds. Their feet are dangling from clouds.
He pulls them down and puts them right back onto the ground. What are you guys doing?
You feed them, you big shot ministers. Take care of it. Wow.
I would love to have seen this as long as it’s happening to them. It’s great.
Give them something to eat.
And then verses 13-14 learn for God is about to do work.
And they said like they’re gonna inform him of something.
We have no more than five loaves and two fish unless we go and buy food for all these people for there are about 5000 men.
Then he said to the disciples make them to sit down in groups of 50.
Now they start to realize, oh my goodness.
He’s calling on us to do this and we can’t do it. And now they start giving excuses. That’s impossible.
That’s right. It is impossible. It is impossible.
John Chapter six tells us that what they were talking about was almost a year’s wages.
We don’t even have enough money to do that. We have to spend a year’s wages to feed these people.
Imagine there’s a little kid there and we don’t know exactly how this happened, but it was found out that a little kid has lunch with him.
You many little guys going out of the house. Where, where you gonna go?
I’m gonna go see what Jesus is gonna do today, mom. All right then. Well, here’s your lunch.
Here’s five loaves and two fish, the breads for coming and going and the fish is for lunch and You know, stay out of the way.
The little kids sitting there and all the stuff is going on.
Can you imagine these 12 disciples are looking, man? Hey, there’s a bag right over here.
This kid’s got a bag. Jesus said you feed them.
That’s not much, is it? Huh? Do you get the picture?
It’s never much what you and I have to give them church.
Listen, I, I hate to upset you but it’s just too bad.
God has never once ever accepted any of our excuses as to why we can’t do something for him.
I’m here to tell you. And it applies to me too.
He has never not once ever listened to our excuse as to why we can’t obey him. The disciples.
They were super blessed in their ministry outreach because they simply obeyed the command of the Lord.
Do you think they did anything? Do you think they had any?
Do you think they had like a little thing in their pocket?
Little electronic thing that beep and it opened the eyes of the blind.
Watch this and the deaf could hear they could do nothing.
Jesus said, I want you to go preach and I want you to do these things and they went and did it.
They had great success and they came back with their heads bumped up. Absolutely amazing.
Everything that He does in our lives.
I don’t care if you are unemployed or you’re at the top of the corporate ladder.
God is absolutely faithful and gloriously awesome to take always two fish and a couple of buns and turn it into something fantastic.
He always takes what you and I can’t do and he does it you.
And I know he’s the one doing it. He gets all the glory and we get to be involved.
Anything other than that you’re messing up.
Well, you know, I got a phd and I got my doctorate in Devin and I got my masters in, oh, what did we ever do before?
You think about it? Those things become hindrances most often.
We do better when we get along with him with his book, open his Bible and learn from him.
We need to be so very careful church. Whatever God does, he’s the one doing it.
And when he listen, he’s gracious. If we start to grab onto it and hold it, what does he do?
He doesn’t wrestle with us. He just backs away just like a train going out down the desert on a track.
You’ll never, you can never tell when that engineer pulls the power off because it will go for 20 more miles with no power.
God will just back up and let the thing crash or run out of steam.
We need to be very careful about that. God is going to do a work. Third and final point.
Verses 15 to 17, the Lord provides what others cannot.
Verses 15 to 17, look at verses 15 here it says, and they did so they did so and they made them all to sit down.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and he looked up into heaven.
And what do we learn from that? That Jesus is our great heavenly mediator.
Don’t we said, Jack, I don’t have much. Listen, whatever you have. Give it to the Lord.
You have health. Well, I’m not as healthy as I used to be. Hey, you listen.
Are you able to move? Give it to God? Are you breathing? Give it to the Lord?
Do you have a nickel? Give it to God? Do you have any energy? Do it for the Lord?
What is it? Do you have a company? Use it for God’s influence? Listen, there’s no excuse.
I’ll accept. It’s all about Him. It’s all for him.
And Jesus Christ is our heavenly mediator about these things. You see, I, I can’t do anything.
Of course, you and I cannot do anything. That’s the point.
Those of us in this room who know what we really are. We are weak, frail, terrified.
Things the Lord says, right? Just like a glove laying on the table.
Let me put my hand in you and I’ll do the rest.
All is required of us is for us to say here I am.
Lord fill me, use me, send me work with me, whatever you’re going to do in the world God will you do with me?
Could you imagine there’s enough people in this room to pray that prayer to the Lord and put a gigantic smile on his face.
Man. He’s our heavenly mediator. Jesus is he looks up to heaven.
You take whatever you have in your life and you just hold it up to heaven too.
You, you might wanna write this down. This is Alexander mclaren. This is a great quote from him.
Alexander mclaren on this point says this the best preparation for any true servant of the Lord is knowing that what he has for the task at hand is wholly inadequate.
Can you imagine sending a football team out on the field?
They’ve got no helmets, no pads, no cleats.
Well, the servants of God, we bring nothing to the table.
When those disciples went out and preached in his name, they didn’t invent the message.
The Holy Spirit was that work.
All that stuff that took place was by the power of God. I love that quote.
The best preparation for any true servant of the Lord is knowing that what he has for the task at hand is wholly inadequate.
We also learned this, that the Lord provides what others can’t and that he resides or presides over his church.
Look at he blessed, looking up in heaven, he blessed, he broke and he gave to the disciples and they set before the people that there is the success outlined for ministry.
Jesus looks up, blesses.
It takes our lives and breaks it up, gives it to other people to give to other people.
That’s Christianity. That’s what we should be all about.
That’s what I want to be about. What a beautiful thing that is.
He presides over his church and he’s very good to do that.
And then look at verse 17 and we’re done.
The Lord provides what others can’t and that He brings satisfaction.
It says in verse 17 that, that they all ate and they were filled.
These are fun words they all ate. You know what all means? Every single person ate. Nobody was without.
And then how full were they?
You ever seen Win Winnie the pooh cartoons when he’s eating all those jars of honey and his stitching is about ready to break and all the fuzzes of fluff is coming out of him.
That’s the word. Everyone’s about ready to pop. Oh Can you Peter? You want some more bread?
No, I’m so far a moment ago. There was nothing.
Now, there’s everything I love this. Everyone is sitting around toothpicks laying on the beach.
Oh, man. And then there’s 12 baskets full. Who, who’s that for?
There’s 12 of them? Oh, I guess it’s for us. You think that was like God saying?
Hey, here’s some ministry perks. Go get them guys. Oh, I don’t think so.
I think the Lord in a very loving way. Oh, please don’t be upset with this.
I think the Lord in a very loving way was kind of rubbing their nose into how wrong they were.
We don’t have anything. Oh man, I can’t believe that.
Well, we just have two fish and five loaves of bread.
We’d have to take a whole year of money to feed these people.
Why don’t you feed them anyway, Jesus feed them away.
He not only feeds everybody. There’s 12 baskets and I’m pushing it here.
I know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if each basket had the disciple’s name on it with a little bag and a little name on there.
Peter Andrew. Go home. Now, did you get the lesson guys?
Did you get the point? I’m able to do all that is needed enough.
I’m sufficient to take nothing and at the end have an abundance.
He’s well able to do that. You guys, absolute satisfaction of time.
And so he brought bread to the people we’ll end here.
Um You can close your Bibles and, and relax.
It’s a wonderful thing to realize that the next day we don’t get this from Luke’s text right here.
But this miracle you guys has done in all four gospels. It’s recorded in all four of them.
Matthew Mark Luke and John, you have to read all four to get the full scope of what’s going on.
The next day. The next day, Jesus preaches to the same crowd.
A message that ties the miracle and everything together. He will tell them tomorrow.
I am the bread of life. Moses didn’t bring you bread from heaven.
He didn’t feed you bread from heaven. My father fed you bread from heaven. Moses gave you nothing.
It was my father. I have come down from heaven. I am the bread of life.
Wow, Jesus, all sufficient.
He is, you know, is that true in your life? He’s got everything.
Let him in that he may feed you well.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on real life radio with his message called Jesus is more than enough.
Thanks for being here today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called the Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this world.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey, everybody.
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