What’s the most powerful thing you can think of in your life? The sun, a black hole, or maybe the jet of a rocket ship. But I want you to think of something that holds real power. Simply put, this thing, within 2 days solved something teachers have tried to solve for the last 200 years...That is the Instagram “sleep pages ” you have all seen them for your schools. Everyone was wide awake at school, if you were tired, you’d rather just miss the whole day of school than possibly get caught slackin on one of those pages with your mouth catching flies and drool pouring out your mouth. Those Instagram pages have some power. They were getting thousands of the most tired people in the world, teenagers, to actually stay awake in school.
We often try to define power in the huge moments of history like traveling to the moon and back, but real power is found in the most unexpected moments. On December 1, 1955 a moment of power happened when Rosa Parks was fed up after a long day’s work. She got onto a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Segregation laws required black passengers to give up their seats for a white passenger. Rosa Parks refused to do it and she paid a price. She was arrested and lost her job. But that one act of courage had a domino effect. It inspired a citywide boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, and it sparked a court battle. Within two years, bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional. Rosa Parks, from that small, powerful decision, was a major part of shaping the civil rights movement. All she did, was make a small choice, to not move from her seat, but something small had the power to change the world. In our lives, we can recognize God’s power in large and small ways. Every week in Remix we discuss stories of God displaying His power. God caused the sun to stand still, created floods, stopped storms, raised the dead, and did small things like speak in a still small voice. But the real question is how do we respond to God’s power? Let’s take a moment to look today at a couple guys who missed what God was doing, compared to someone who trusted God’s power. Let’s do this by walking a mile in their shoes. Let’s put on our 1st Pair of shoes, that is the sandals of the disciples who followed Jesus. Now, alot of us have heard stories of the disciples. We often imagine them as superheroes in our minds, but they were just average joes following Jesus. There wasn’t anything special about them. Lets slip into their shoes and think about their point of view today. The disciples were chillin with Jesus one day, when this large crowd had gradually gathered. Now Jesus was starting to do miracles, and the crowd kept getting bigger and bigger and before long 5,000 men, not counting women and children, had shown up. Most scholars believe there were over 15,000 people there that day. Well it’s starting to get late, and the disciples begin to worry about these people’s schedules and what they would eat for dinner. They probably didn’t want to deal with a 15,000 person hangry mob. According to John’s Gospel, they tell Jesus to send the crowd away, but Jesus looks at His disciples and says, “no, give them something to eat.” He says in John 6:5-7,“5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” Phillip pulls out his ancient calculator and starts crunching numbers. He does what alot of you do the last week of May before the math final. He starts solving for x, finding the common denominator, divides by 6, and as you can imagine the amount of money it would cost to give each person a single bite is a huge sum. Well then, all the disciples start getting worried. They are stressed and probably a little mad that Jesus has asked them to do something impossible. When out of nowhere, Andrew runs up with this boy next to him, and the boy has some food, five rolls and two fish sticks, but look at what Andrew says, 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” John 6:9 In other words, “Jesus, this is all we’ve got.” Here’s what is interesting, the disciples lived without God’s power on their mind. It’s hard to have faith in God’s power, when you don’t even remember God’s power exists. When things were falling apart for this group, their first response wasn’t to trust Jesus. They were worried about how they could solve things. They were stressed, frustrated, and mad about the situation. God’s power wasn’t even on their radar. How many of us do the exact same thing? How many of us totally forget about God when things are falling apart and we’re frustrated, when we:
Is God even on our radar when we need His power? Do we think to give our situations to God, or out of pain are we trying to fix everything on our own? Now the disciples learned a valuable lesson that day: pain is the consequence of not trusting God’s power . We can learn that lesson from them or we can learn that lesson the hard way. Due to them not trusting Jesus’ power, they become overwhelmed with worry, fear, and stress. This happens for us when we aren’t willing to trust God with our mess.
These disciplesl, they didn’t get it. They totally missed God’s power, but there is another person in this story who did recognize what God could do through them. It was the boy who offered Jesus his lunch. Let’s step in his shoes for a minute. This boy gave up his lunchable, five rolls and two fish sticks, but a lot happened in that small choice. He learned: 1. God has more for us than we have for ourselves.Put yourself in this kid’s shoes. The Bible said he has five pieces of bread, and that immediately makes me think of those flakey, warm, savory yeast rolls they give at Red Lobster, and we all know God must be real from the taste of those things. Slap some of that sweet butter on them and your life can be changed forever right there in that restaurant. Well, this kid has some of those rolls and was hungry! He’s probably getting ready to dive into those two fish sandwiches, when he sees the disciples asking if anyone has any food. Now what would you do? Would you keep your lunch for yourself, would you give half your lunch to Jesus, or would you give all of your lunch to Him? That’s what people do with Jesus. They either offer Him nothing or they give half of their life to Him. “Jesus, you can have this part of my life, but I’ll keep the rest for myself.” Or today you can give Jesus all that you’ve got, and listen, until you give Jesus all that you’ve got, you’ll never fully understand the power of God in your life. This little boy gave Jesus all that He had. Look at what happens next: John 6:10-13 says,10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. 12 After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. Never forget:2. A little in our hands equals a lot in God'sThat little boy gave Jesus all that he had, and Jesus used the little he had to impact over 15,000 lives. God wants to do the same with your life. He wants to use your time and talents to make a difference in the lives of so many people. But you have to give Him all that you’ve got, you have to trust Him, and I promise you, if you’ll give Him all that you have, He will take what you’ve given and multiply it in ways you never dreamed would be possible. Little is much in the hands of God, because there is nothing our God can’t do. He wants to do big things in and through you, but you have to hand over your lunch. So how will we respond to God’s power, which shoes do you want to keep walking in? 1. The disciples – Who don’t even think about God’s power when they find themselves in a jam, and end up full of worry as a result. Or2. The young boy – Who had nothing but faith in God’s power. He was willing to give whatever he had to God, no matter how insignificant it seemed. Today I want to challenge you. Take a moment and think about it. What has God blessed you with? What can you give to Him? He’s powerful, what we have in our hand has limits, but if we give it to God there is no ceiling.
For a moment I want you to think about a lunch box like this boy would’ve had and just like he gave something out of it, I want you to think what do you need to take out and trust God with? Maybe it’s your words, your attitude, maybe it’s some area of your life that is out of control, maybe it’s the way you spend your time. What do you need to give over to God?
©2024 Sagebrush Church
