Call to Join the Work

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Hey, good morning everybody. My name is Daniel Oster and we're excited to have you this morning. Before we get into worship, I just want to encourage you guys this morning that, you know, some of us, it's you get here and you're tired. It's hard to get up this morning. You kind of fumble in and here you are in the middle of a worship service and it's about to start. And so my encouragement to you this morning is to just lean, lean into Jesus, lean into what he's done on our behalf and just, I just ask him to reorient our hearts this morning. It's not our efforts, but it's his. And so I'm going to pray for us and then we're going to worship today. Lord, we just thank you that, that our obedience and what you call us to do doesn't all rely on our effort. Lord, that you're willing to be there with us, you're to help us and you're to guide us. And God, just we need you this morning. We just pray for our hearts to just be awakened

and reminded of all that you've done for us, Lord, and just allow our worship and the way we handle the scripture, Lord, to be honoring to you this morning. And it's your name I pray. You can stand up with me as we sing. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Sing this out together. I believe in the blood of Jesus. Wash his white as snow. I believe in the power of the gospel. So based the broken. Oh, I believe that the curse of sin was broken and the road away like stone. I believe, I believe, I believe as I bow before you, Lord. I will see your goodness, Lord, in the land. I will see your goodness, Lord. Be that walls start falling. Fall down on our knees. I believe that we're going to see some little. I believe, I believe I will bow before the Lord. I will see your goodness, Lord, in the land I'm living. No matter I will see the daughter. Sing it to the daughter. Sing it to the

daughter. Sing it to the son. Every generation. The Lord has the light, His goodness, Lord. He starts to break. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Burst in the jubilant song with music. May music to the Lord with the harp and the sound of singing. The trumpets and the blasts of the ramsformed. Shout for joy before the Lord, the King. Let the seers sound and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap his hands. Let the mountains sing together for joy. Let them sing before the Lord for he comes to judge his earth. He will judge the earth with righteousness and the people with equity.

You have blessed this time as we open your word. Pray that you would help us to listen, to hear, to respond. It's your name that we pray. Amen. You guys can have a seat. And our grade school is going to be heading back. So I would invite you to do that. Kindergarten through fifth grade. You're invited to your own time. Okay. We have been looking at how Jesus calls out to us. Looking at how Jesus calls out to us, how he reveals to us his identity and his mission slowly. Not so that we will mistake it for something else, but so that we can handle it. Right. So we get a little bit, we talk about how it's kind of a curtain opening. Okay. So we get a little bit at the beginning. And you might have seen this in maybe some small areas in your own life where something's happening to you. It doesn't quite make sense. Right. And so you're kind of looking at it. But then over time or

through a different relationship or as you are looking at scripture or when somebody prays for you, something happens that curtain opens a little bit more and you go, Oh, I get it. I see a little bit more now. And what you find as you continue walking with Christ is that keeps happening. That curtain gets a little bit wider and you go, Oh, I didn't see that either. Okay. I see that. Okay. I'm starting to see how kind of this works together. This is how God reveals himself in scripture. If you if you read the Old Testament, that is the Old Testament. Right. So it's one kind of iteration at a time. One person went event at a time. God is revealing himself. And then to us, as we read the Old Testament, God is revealing himself to us. But it's also how Jesus teaches. So when you read a gospel, the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, you're going to see kind of

it's progressive in nature. Right. It starts out Jesus is is not Jesus doesn't kind of come on the scene and announce the whole plan, you know, like he's got the cross already and he's about to go like it's not that's not how we see that playing out in the New Testament. Whenever whenever Jesus is dealing with the disciples when he's calling out, it's it's it's iterative. It's small. It's it's it's a little bit at a time so that we can kind of absorb it so that we can handle it. And we talked about, you know, it would be like it'd be like putting a third grader behind the wheel of an 18 wheeler on the interstate. Okay. That's a really bad idea. Not because not because, you know, maybe maybe the third grader is really good at driving, who knows, but but it's too much pressure. It's too much weight. It's too much responsibility to put on that. That's how Jesus deals with us. He doesn't give us too much. Sometimes it feels

like too much, but he doesn't give us too much. Right. He gives it to us slowly and kind of as we as we are able. Okay. And so we talk about this. John 16:12 is a good illustration of this, where where Jesus is talking to the disciples and he said, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Which is an interesting thing because Jesus is actually going to die and send the Spirit, send the Holy Spirit to his disciples before he's going to show them more things. Right. So he's saying you can't handle it yet. After I go, I'm going to send the Spirit. The Spirit's going to help you. Spirit's going to teach you. Right. And that's actually the whole of John 16, John 15 and 16, where Jesus is talking about sending the Spirit. So this is how Jesus deals with us in kindness. He reveals a little bit at a time. It doesn't always feel like kindness. Right. Sometimes we go through something and we want

the whole explanation. Sometimes we're frustrated with something and we say, I wish I knew how this all made sense. And at that point, and that's like that I've been there. That's frustrating. I understand that's a normal human reaction. We are limited. We don't know, but we can trust. It's not to say we don't mourn. It's not to say that we just like put a smile on for telling everything's okay. That's not what I'm saying, but I am saying, even as we're going through some of the darkest things, even as we lose people we love, even as we get really terrible diagnoses, even whenever things happen that completely, in our opinion, derail our lives, that we ultimately have a hope that the Lord God in heaven is in control and that we can't see it. Not yet. The curtain's not all the way open yet. One day it will be. But until then, we've got to trust. Okay. So last week, we kind of talked about this.

So we're going to do this. We're going to look at Jesus's calling. Okay. He's going to call us out in different kind of stages. So last week we looked at Matthew 11, where Jesus calls out, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And we talk about how this is Jesus's call to trade our burden for his burden. And this is a foundational call. Okay. So I'm going to be talking about another call today, but you need to understand that this call that we're talking about today is built on what we talked about last week. So I would encourage you, if you do not hear last week's sermon, that is available on our Spotify and it's also on our website. You can go to sermons on our website and southburleson.church and you can listen to that. It's going to be helpful. So this is foundational. You cannot consciously hold on to something or hold back something from the Lord and then expect him to kind of bless that.

Right. The Lord is calling us to trade our burdens for his burden. Okay. That's hard. I'm not saying that's easy or that we have to do it perfectly, but there is a sense in which Jesus is calling us to, like it says in Philippians 3 13, to forget what is behind and depress on toward the prize, the upward call of Jesus. Right. That we're not, if we're not living in the past, we're not, we're not trying to rewrite something that happened to us. We're not trying to, we're not trying to do that. We're, we're looking forward to what Jesus has called us to do. Okay. So today we're going to look at this next call and we're going to pick it up in, in Matthew 14. So we're going to be in Matthew 14 starting in verse 14. So Matthew 14 14 is where we're going to be. And we, we left Jesus in Matthew 11 last week. So in 12 and 13, Jesus has done a lot of teaching.

He's done a lot of miracles. He's actually in Matthew 13. There's a famous chapter on parables. So all the parables that you know are probably in Matthew 13, a lot of them. And then in Matthew 14, he has just heard about his cousin, John the Baptist. He has died. Okay. And he's been actually executed by the government. And so not a great day for Jesus. So he gets on a boat and he sails away to be alone. And even though he sails away to be alone, the problem is kind of persisting. Look at Matthew 14 14. It says, when he, Jesus went ashore and saw a great crowd,

and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. So when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd. He had a compassion on them, healed their sick. This is this great crowd. We're going to find out it's over 10,000 people. Okay. So if you needed a number, it's over 10,000. And, and we, we know just from that, that it's not 10,000 people who are just hanging out, who are fine on their own. It's 10,000 people that are all pretty needy. These are people that are seeking out healing in particular. Okay. So they are there. There's a great need, a lot of compassion.

And then we're going to kind of see this call come out when Jesus is talking with his disciples about these 10,000 people. Okay. So look at the next verse, Matthew 14 15. Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go to the villages and buy food for themselves. Now, there was a way to read that that makes the disciples look kind of like jerks. Okay. That's really, we shouldn't do that. The disciples were actually not shirking their responsibility or, or trying to just kind of be done with these people. They're actually considerate of these people. They're actually saying, listen, it's going to be dark. We don't have streetlights, Jesus. Although I don't think they said that. We need to let these people go so that they can actually feed themselves. And because that's how

you care for people. Okay. So the disciples are looking at the logistics of the situation and saying, let's head off this problem before it's a problem. Okay. Let's send these people home. Okay. But Jesus, this is a completely different animal for Jesus. And so look at verses 16 through 18. But Jesus said, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. And they said to him, we only have five loaves here and two fish. And he said, bring them here to me. And you can almost, I mean, almost see the sparkle in Jesus's eye. Right. As this, as this moment is happening,

and the disciples are saying like, okay, we got to listen to logistics demand. You know, we got to do things. And Jesus says, why don't you give him something to eat? 10,000 people, right? It definitely feels like he's being coy at this point. It definitely feels like he, Jesus understands this is a teaching moment and he is leading the disciples carefully through it. Right. And his so his response, simple response, you feed them. Go ahead. They're hungry, agreed. You feed them. Okay, this is a teaching moment. The teaching moment continues. Look at look at Matthew 14:19. It says, then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. This is Jesus. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. Okay, who's passing out food here? The disciples. Yep. Good job. Just some of you. I

need to make sure you're, you're alert. Here we go. So Jesus is, is making the disciples pass out food. Right. So he's saying you feed them and then he multiplied the food and then he makes the disciples feed them. Okay. So Jesus is continuing with this teaching moment. Look at the next verse, next two verses, 20 and 21. It says, then they all ate and were satisfied and they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children. So you can pretty much double the 5,000 and you're getting at least 10,000 people there. But look who's picking up the baskets that they, that's the disciples. Right. It's a teaching moment. Jesus says you feed them. And they're like, I mean, you can imagine, you can imagine. It doesn't tell us what the disciples reaction was, but the disciples were probably not like,

oh, okay, perfect. Um, that probably not, uh, they did not respond like in faith or, or something like that or, um, but, but Jesus says you feed them and here's the food. Now actually go feed them, pass it out. And just so it sticks in your mind, why don't you pick up the leftovers that you thought you didn't have? Right. I mean, this is just sticking it to them in the best way possible. This is a, this is a teaching moment. Right. Um, and right here, right here, this is actually Jesus's call. Uh, it's not as eloquent as, as we saw in Matthew 11, you know, uh, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. You know, my burden is easy. My yoke is light. He says, no, his call is just the disciples and he says, you feed them. And then his call again in verse 18, bring them to me. Okay. This is, uh, bring them here to me and you give them something to eat as these, the actual call that we're looking at.

Soon after we follow Jesus, right? Soon after we say yes to following the Lord, maybe soon after our baptism or soon after, uh, just soon after kind of getting after we come to him, uh, after we have obeyed Matthew 11, right? We've come to him. We are weary. We are heavy laden. We need rest. We are trading our burden for his burden. Um, this, this Jesus's burden that we then take on, it quickly turns into service. It quickly turns into work. Jesus puts us to work. In first Corinthians three, nine, we are called God's fellow workers. Okay. That we work with God, that God is working among us and that we're also working with him, fellow workers. Okay. Jesus is using this dilemma to teach the disciples something, but he's also teaching us something about how to minister with him. Jesus is calling us out in the midst of this dilemma. He's calling us out to minister with him and to kind of some learn some things about, about what, what that

entails. And if you, if you read it carefully, there's kind of some things that you can see. And there's even some things that maybe we're prone to do or ways that we're prone to react whenever the Lord is calling us to serve somebody, to minister to somebody. Okay. Because this is very inspiring to say, right? You, you, man, you want, you want applause, you get up there and you say, Hey, let's go serve people in Jesus name. Yeah. Okay. Let's go sacrifice. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. But very often as that turns into work, as that turns into calendar items and to do's many times we fumble the ball. And so I want to look at that. I want to look at why we kind of miss these spots, these ministry spots that are right in front of us, these things that kind of come up that are, that are right there in front of us. We have the opportunity to, to see the Lord work, to see the Lord minister to people,

but we, but we kind of miss it. There's a, there's a couple of things that, that happen. One example, let me just kind of, this is kind of more of a classic example. You got a friend come up to you and they're hurting and they're, they're frustrated and they really need somebody to talk to. Okay. And your first thought is not, Oh, thank you, Jesus. What a great ministry spot right here. I'm going to serve this person in your name. Lord bless this moment. This is going to be awesome. You're going to turn my, my five loves and two fish into something bountiful. It's going to be awesome. This person, no, that's not typically how we respond. We respond by saying, I'm not a counselor. I don't have the credentials. I don't know. I might screw this up. I might screw. I'm definitely going to screw this up. I don't know how, whatever version that kind of goes on in your mind. We don't know what to do in that moment. We don't pray. We don't want to

ask. We don't, we don't nothing. We kind of, we kind of miss it. We refer them to the experts. And so like the disciples sending the people home for food, we, we kind of give them a pat on the shoulder and we say like, sure. That's real tough. And then just pray that they don't ask us more questions so that we don't feel dumb. Right. We kind of respond in insecurity. Here's a couple of reasons why. And I think that they're in the verses actually that we've just read. I want to look at why we missed this calling. And I think it really does come down to underestimation.

So the first thing that, that we kind of underestimate is we underestimate the need. In fact, I would say that of all the things that we underestimate in, in a given situation like that, that this is probably the biggest issue. This is that if we didn't, if we didn't underestimate the need, then, then it might push us a little bit further. And so I want to spend a little bit of time here. Why, how do we underestimate the need? Because Jesus is there. Okay. In verses 14 and 15, he gets off the boat. He's tired. His cousin was just executed by the government. He probably hadn't slept much. He comes ashore and he sees the need. He sees 10,000 people who are in desperate need of compassion. Okay. And, and the disciples are just looking at logistics.

What I want to say, I want to say this morning, and I want you to hear this. We live, and I don't mean in the world, I mean Johnson County. We live in a place of deep need and great spiritual hunger. Allow me to demonstrate. There are statistics that were done countywide. And, and I've seen very similar statistics done within like a three and five and a 10 mile radius of our church. Okay. I didn't conduct this, but, but really smart people did. And I trust them.

The statistics all say, and I'll show you in just a minute, but they all say that people want to see Jesus, not religion. They want to see the Lord Jesus Christ, but they definitely don't want to see religion. They've definitely seen a lot of that. And that has not rang the bell that has not answered the need that hasn't come to the rescue at all. In fact, that's been lacking that that, that these people are looking for something and they are, and I know that sometimes people put on a good face, but let me just say people are not happy to find that there is no meaning in life. People are not happy about that. There is no relief when somebody finally decides to walk away from Jesus.

There's none. It's, it's a defeat. It's a disappointment. It is a, it is a heartbreak. And, and however they kind of construct it, maybe they say like, I'm leaving the church of my childhood, or I'm leaving the understanding of my, I'm leaving the religion or parents. However, they want to say it, right? It's I'm not, I'm not overly concerned about that, but I am telling you the tone of that is disappointment and heartbreak because they wanted something more. Here's the statistics. Johnson County. And just so that you know how they do that, they, they give people statements and they gave people like nine statements about Jesus. No, 14, they give them a lot of different statements about Jesus. And they say, what they measure basically is how do people in Johnson County respond more or less to these statements compared to the national average? Okay. Does that make sense? So, so the national average has maybe like a, you know,

there's a particular percent of people that respond to the statement in it, you know, strongly. But then in Johnson County, what is it compared to that? Like how, so what they, what they find is there, there's something called it's agreement levels. I won't bore you with this. I promise I'm going to, I'm going to move fast. If it's neutral agreement, that means that they care about it as much as everybody else in the country does. If there's strong agreement, that means that they care more. If there's very strong agreement, that means that it is statistically significant say that three times fast. It is statistically significant that they feel it.

They feel it in their bones. They have felt it for a while. It's not a, it's not a passing thing. Very strong agreement. So I'm going to give you the two statements for strong agreement first, and then I'm going to give you the two for very strong. So the two strong agreement statements are that, that Jesus was both divine and human and that Jesus was the expected Jewish Messiah. So, this is how they took the survey. They, they, these are two of the statements among the 14 and they look at these statements and they say, okay, I really agree with that. And in Johnson County, there is a vibe. We really agree with that. Okay. So in Johnson County, what you have is you have a, a theologically correct view of Jesus. Okay. So you go to other places in Texas, you go to other places in the country and there might not be very strong agreement here that Jesus was both divine and human and that he was the expected Jewish Messiah. It takes a

little bit of church in to figure that out. Okay. This is not, these are not ignorant people in Johnson County. They know, and they know what is theologically correct and they believe it. Okay. They're, they're answering privately, anonymously on a survey. They have no reason to lie. Okay. They know it's true. This is very strong agreement. And these are the only two statements that were, that were strong agreement. Here's the very strong agreement.

People in the church do not behave as Jesus would behave. Belief in Jesus does not require participation in a church. I'll give you three guesses as to why people say that in the first you don't, don't count. Okay. Belief in Jesus does not require participation in a church. It's a very thinly under thinly veiled pain point. I was hurting the church. I was hurt by organized religion. I don't like it. It's frustrating. They're hypocrites. Right. And this isn't, look, this isn't the culture. This isn't social media. This isn't, it's, this isn't like Fox new. This is not that this is Johnson County. These are your neighbors. These are people that you went to school with, go to school with, work with. These are, these are what they believe. And that's number one. People in the church do not behave as Jesus would behave. That is number one. And, and just so that you have an

understanding, like a, like strong agreement is like, it's like a 2%. It's 2% more, right? So it's, it's kind of hard to explain. That first statement is three times that. That first statement is, is over almost 8%. That first statement, people feel that. Okay. This is a view into the soul of people that live in Johnson County, of people that have grown up in Johnson County. They have seen religion. They have found it wanting, and they're just looking for something real.

They're just looking for something authentic. They want to see people that aren't paper thin. They want to go to a church where it's not, you know, some, some big production and, and, you know, everybody's fake and it's all smiley. And you know, it's like, we're just, yeah, we're just there. We're just cheering Jesus on. And then we leave and we're no different. But they've seen that. They've seen that for decades and their parents saw it and their parents saw it and they're done. Okay. The need. Sierra Carson. You might not know Sierra Carson. Sierra Carson is a,

is a singer songwriter from Arkansas, actually, from, from Arkansas. She's in Nashville now. And she has a song called Holy Holy. And I thought it was incredibly indicative. I want to read you the verse before we look at the chorus there. It says the verse, the first lines of the song are, I read, downloaded the Bible app and I read it like fiction. It's easier to digest when I'm not on the defensive. My grandpa is a preacher. He swears it's divinely written. And I believe in God, but I don't trust religious systems. Sierra Carson's like 19, man. She's not some, some grisly, cagey, you know, I've been to every church growing up and I'm kind of sick of it. This girl is young.

And she is wary of religious systems and she's writing about it and singing about it and people are downloading it. And so that dash right there after Holy Holy is a cuss word. So it's Holy Holy S that's her song. Holy Holy S I don't know how to feel about it. Do you think questionings a sin? I know some people think it is Holy Holy S. It'd be nice just to fit in. Like hear this. Not to think too hard on it. I hope Jesus is chill and heaven is real and I can still get in that girl is singing the spiritual anthem to Johnson County. I mean, I want you, I want you to just let that sink in. The need that we have in our county is not for people to, to somehow be, be bowled over by logical argument or how cool a church service was or some really catchy sermon series. They're looking for something real. They're looking for something authentic. And I don't know how many times I've had the

conversation and I know that I've had it too much because I'm almost like, it surprises me every time when people say something like, do you think questioning God is a sin? And there's people that won't, that believe it or that, or that think it's still true. And to me, that's like, that's like believing pigs fly. That is crazy talk, right? But this is how people in Johnson County feel. They feel like they can't even ask the question. They can't even voice the doubt that they actually have. And so I want you to just, I really want you to get in the skin of somebody who is in Johnson County and spiritually destitute. Let's just pretend they're like 22 and they just lost a grandparent and they kind of started going to church when they were in youth group and they kind of fell out and they kind of went to college, but they flunked out of college and now they're working a job and they're doing fine, right? They're making ends meet. Maybe they

got a girlfriend or a boyfriend that they're hanging out with. It's fine. And then when grandma dies and grandma was a Christian and they, it brings all of this back to them and they have all these questions like, where is she now when she died? Did what she believed was all that real, was all that for nothing? And he looks around and he finds Sierra Carson song or he hears somebody else say it that questioning is a sin or that I can't even ask the question. I can't even say like, hey, I'm not really sure if God's real. Man, I would probably give my right pinky for somebody to ask me that question on a consistent basis and say like, Hey, Drew, listen, I'm just going to be honest with you. I don't, I don't know if God's real. I don't know if Jesus is real. Can we talk about it? Oh, yes. Sign me up. I'm there. I'll meet you wherever you work the night shift. I'll meet you at two in the morning. That is, that's great.

But how tragic, how tragic it is that the enemy has convinced people that they can't even ask that question. I guarantee you if I put up a table in downtown Burleson that said, Hey, if you have any questions about God, come and ask me. It would not be that many people because there is a public shame over not knowing about spiritual things. People don't know about spiritual things and believe they should and feel shame.

People want people in Johnson County, your neighbors want followers of Jesus to act like Jesus because they know in their core that something's not right and they know in their core that whatever political system that they ascribe to won't fix it and they know in their core that whatever, whatever drug or thing that they're escaping to won't fix it. They know that good grades won't fix it. They know people's approval won't fix it. They know, they know that's not, that's not news. It's just that some people have given up. I want you to feel the need

and I want you to pray. I want you to ask for spiritual eyes to see the poverty in people. You know, we're going to have the suitors there. They're going to be leaving us to go, to go be missionaries. I'm not saying where because we're recording. They're going to go be missionaries and and you just look, talk to them. I'm setting them up now so they can hit me later but

just talk to them for five minutes about the people that they're going to go minister to and after five minutes if suitor doesn't have like kind of like tears welling up in his eyes I'd be surprised. It's the great need, man. Daniel suitor and Caroline suitor are convinced of the need and they're willing to just go and that's great and we're going to support them and it's going to be so we're just going to tear it up. It's going to be great. I'm super excited about it but what I just want you to see it's they're not they're not going because they're like oh I'm a third level Christian now I get to be a missionary. They're going because they're going because they see the need and they're answering it. There's need here too. There's need at your work. There's need among the people that you are around. There's need. Ask for spiritual eyes to see and just let it burn

a hole in your heart. Let it just sear your conscience. Not to feel bad, right? Like not because like oh I need you know I'm not praying enough. It's not I'm not I'm not saying like bolster your insecurity. I'm saying look at actual people and love them in their moment. Here's the so we underestimate the need. The other two quickly we underestimate our provision. Look at verses 16 through 18 again. Jesus says they need not go away. You give them something to eat. They said we only have loaves, five loaves here and two fish and he said bring them here to me. So we we think in terms of assets, right? And Jesus is looking for willingness. See the difference? So we're we're thinking in terms of what we have whatever slice of whatever pie that we think we are in charge of whatever whatever small resource percentage that we think we're privy to and Jesus

is just saying hey that's really cute that you think you have so little. I'm looking for willingness. Go and even when Jesus pushes a little bit we often we just focus on what we don't have. We focus on the fact that we aren't counselors. We don't have the credentials. We don't have the answers. We're not qualified at some capacity. Let me let me just ask you let me ask you what it took for you to follow Jesus. What did it take for you to believe? Think about it. Go back to the moment.

If you've had one. If you haven't that's fine. You can just kind of wait. What did it take? Was it mountains of evidence? Did you like go down a YouTube rabbit hole and watch like 10 videos about how there really was a god and you're like I believe now. No? Was it logical reasoning? Like did you like did somebody just put together this airtight argument and you're like I have no I have no defense. I'm gonna follow my knees and follow the Lord now. That's not really that's not really how it happened. Those things are helpful in in their own place. That's fine but but what did it take for you to believe? I guarantee you whatever it took it was at least one person showing you genuine interest spending time listening to you being patient with you and just displaying the gospel to you. You had to see that it was real in a person's life.

You had to. You had to see that it was real in a person's life and it probably just wasn't one person. It was probably a network of people or at least a few people. Your provision is there. So you might say like yeah look I want to serve people for the Lord but I don't have how are you finishing that sentence? I don't have time. I don't have ability. Huh? Money. What do you not have? Skill. Intelligence. Boldness. Words. Confidence. Opportunity. Faith. I want it Lord I really want to serve you and look let that be your prayer right now. Lord I really want to serve you but I just I don't have and just and just bring that to them because really all you're saying is all you're saying is like the amount of faith I have is five loaves and two fish worth. That's all I got. I got peanuts. We say I don't have confidence. I don't have time. Look and Jesus just says like bring me your confidence just a little

bit you have. Bring me the time the little bit that you have. Bring that to me. Watch what I'll do with it. Watch what I'll do. Jesus is calling us to serve but we miss the need. We get stuck in our own inadequacies. We underestimate the provision and we also lastly quickly we underestimate our part in it. So Jesus is very you know I brought this out I want to say it again verse 16 you feed him verse 18 bring him here to me 19 here pass out the food 20 collect the leftovers right. We're on the field. We're not in the stands. You get me? We're not look

I know I'm talking and you're listening right now but please don't let that fool you. You're in you're you're on the field. We're running to play right. You're on the team. You're not in the stands. If you think you're in the stands you're going to be really awful in the field. You're gonna get blindsided. Someone's gonna tackle you like de-cleat you. You're on the field and I know look the work is messy. Serving people is messy. It's risky because it's people right. It makes us weary. It gets repetitive. Serving people is not like you know it's not what I do to like rest and relax right. Like it's not it's not that doesn't like recharge my battery. It requires faith. It requires decision making. It requires creativity but this is this life of service is what the the abundant life that Jesus calls us to right. The the abundant life that he calls us into

this this service this life of service this life of discipling people this life of sacrifice. This is what he calls us into and so my encouragement man listen to Jesus calling you into the messy ministry spots with him. Listen as he calls you to do that. Get in the game. Be willing to jump in and risk and watch the Lord work and just a just a quick application point. We have home groups and we have ministry teams. Those two things are primed pumps right ready for you to put your hands around being sacrificial for other people. Hearing needs and meeting needs right. Both of those are and you could jump into a home group it's not too late. This is one big ditch. This is the ditch of missing it because we underestimate things. There is another ditch and I want to look at it a little bit later in in Matthew 14. I want you to see it because it's it's a bit poignant. After witnessing the miracle right so the disciples have

seen the miracle. You're going to look in in verse 28 and 29 they've seen the miracle and now they're witnessing a second miracle. Jesus is actually walking on water before them and then and then Jesus is just talking to them and then Peter answers so verse 28 and 29 and Peter answered him the Lord Jesus. Lord if it is you command me to come to you on the water and Jesus said come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. Look Peter is so relatable. Amen. Gosh yes if I said if I saw Jesus walking on water I'd be like I need to get out there. Like I'm you know I'm I'm going. I'm surprised he had the the wherewithal to ask permission okay but he's he's excited right. Peter is is excited because Jesus is like full display. I am the Messiah. I am the Son of God. It's right here in front of you. If feeding 5,000 people and multiplying five loaves and two fish wasn't enough I'm actually walking on water right now.

Look at the next two verses 30 and 31 but when he saw the wind Peter he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out Lord save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying to him to Peter oh you of little faith why did you doubt. A couple of observations that are very simple. Number one Peter Peter is is getting overwhelmed by something that Jesus already had under control obviously. If Jesus is walking on water he's not worried about the wind. Get me right. He's already in control of that. So Peter sees something that he thinks Jesus doesn't have control of freaks out starts to sink okay and and the other thing I want to say is the wind actually never posed the threat to Peter at all. It wasn't like the wind came and like knocked him and his foot sank a little bit. Nothing like that happened. It was all in Peter's head right. This is this is Peter getting in his own mind and and really

he only lost his ability to walk on water when his faith shrank. Not when the wind picked up right and this is the other ditch. One ditch is thinking that we aren't qualified enough that we can't do it that will never be smart enough that we won't have what we need. Lord I can serve you but I just don't have right whatever you want to fill in the blank there but the other ditch is thinking that you've got it under control after Jesus lets you in on a little bit of service to people right. That's the other side right thinking that we've got it under control

and look you can you can find this in ministry moments like with with home groups and in ministry teams. As you disciple people as you serve people you're going to go through moments where something just works okay. You're going to be we got some we got some people serving in grade school right now and I imagine let's just pretend okay that one of them is is is starting to did they teach that lesson and they see a light bulb go off in a kid's eyes and they're like yes I did it right and they're genuinely excited like I'm not trying to pick on them or anything I'm saying they're genuinely excited when you are in a home group and you're like I'm in charge of putting together the meal list okay and and and you're like I don't know if this is going to work and the next time you meet you all come together and the meal is perfect and you're like oh

I got it this is good this is gonna be good it's gonna be a good home group we're we are we're gonna win I gotta figure it out I know how to do it now but look from everything from from leading a bible study putting together a meal train or a meal for a for a home group meeting teaching little kids about the Lord right what anytime anytime we do it man it's some countless times in my own ministry personally countless thousands probably I had a time when I had a small victory a small victory maybe a medium victory even maybe somebody maybe somebody came to faith maybe I led a great bible study maybe I responded well to a question that somebody had maybe I killed it in the sermon okay all that's maybe it is it is the other ditch it is just as egregious to think that somehow now that is a tool in my belt as opposed to something I continually go to the Lord for right so Peter is like I see Jesus walking on water I can walk on

water I'm jumping out the Lord can I do it yes you okay but there was so much that he didn't comprehend there were so many avenues he had not explored there was so many things that that he kind of he tries to come out on water and then he begins to sink in ministry the other ditch is thinking that you know how something works and you see a victory hit and you forget that the work is always reliant upon Jesus always always always it's always relying on him so how do we do that how do we how do we both serve and stay humble and I just want to wrap I just want to wrap up with this if you're going to serve and say humble then you're going to have to continually find ways to serve people that are that are somewhat unfamiliar either the people are unfamiliar the situation's unfamiliar something right that that when you serve people and and there is no expectation for

them to serve you back okay that is a good thing to do find those people and and like I said before and I'll be to keep beating the drum hungers ministry teams are the perfect spots for that okay because you're going to be you're going to be doing things you're going to be volunteered to help each other you know like somebody you know breaks a leg and we're doing meal trains if you're meeting and and you guys you contribute to the meal and you can open up your home you can lead a study you can serve in a way that is new and in a way that that requires you to remember hey I don't know how this works I don't know how this works that's a good thing for you to do if you're not serving on a ministry team here's my encouragement look uh our church needs people to serve on a ministry team that's fine but don't please don't hear me beg I'm not never will because ministry is is its own reward right ministry in Jesus name has joy that comes with it

has has growth that comes with it and it is a great opportunity for you to say Lord I don't know how to do what I'm doing okay but but here I go in fact uh I don't want to embarrass him but we got somebody serving in grade school this morning and he's like teaching for the first time is that right Kristy he's teaching for the very first time um Clint his name is Clint bless him I'm just calling him out right here he's real private so now he's gonna be mad at me but he is serving in grade school this morning for the very first time okay and I know he's he's worked with kids before and all that but he's doing something he's jumping out there for something that he he doesn't know how to figure out he doesn't know what it's gonna be like with these kids but there he is he's jumping out and I guarantee you I guarantee you Clint sport had an opportunity to see the Lord work in his life in a fresh way today more than any

other person who didn't who didn't jump out on a limb find people who cannot serve you back serve them in Jesus's name and wherever you are right whether you got whether you got loaves and fish wherever you are whatever you feel like you don't have my encouragement is look for an opportunity to serve and pray for that moment pray for the Lord to to multiply whatever you got let's pray Lord we thank you for Lord we thank you for your great grace toward us the ways that you listen to us care for us

the way that you listen to us in our insecurity even and you say you're going to provide you're going to do something it's so many times we we just struggle to trust you I pray that you would help us trust you that you help us to listen to what you're saying to us that's your name that we pray amen would you stand as we sing