Manna from Heaven
Do You Believe That You Can To God With Your Needs?
Dan Franklin
Oct 29, 2023 39m
The miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000, found in Matthew chapter 14, teaches you that you can confidently come to God with your needs. We learn that when you come to Him with your neediness, He comes with His compassion. Video recorded at Upland, California.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Intro: [00:00:00] Hey there. Thanks so much for checking out one of our messages here at Life Bible Fellowship Church. And we know there are two great ways you can connect with us. You can visit our website at LBF.church to learn more about all of our ministries and what we believe. And also, you can subscribe to us on YouTube to make sure that you don't miss one of our future videos.
Brennan: [00:00:19] My name is Brennan, and I'm one of the Detour group leaders for the 10th-grade guys in EXIT83 Student Ministries, and on the leadership team for the College and Career Group. Today we're going to be reading from Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 to 21, and it says this, "When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 16Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. 18“Bring them here to me,” he said. 19And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children." This is God's word.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:08] Amen. You can have a seat. All right, so in starting off, I want to invite a little bit of participation. I'm going to do a quick poll right here. I want you to raise your hand if you enjoy it when you feel needy. All right, I feel like this is actually a very successful moment right now, I just got 100% participation from all of you, not a hand went up. None of us likes to feel needy, we like to feel like we're assets and not liabilities, we like to feel like we're strong and not weak. Neediness is not a quality that we talk about as something positive. You've never heard anybody describe it that way, like Jake, he's an awesome guy, you're going to love him, he's super needy. So, you know, it's always maybe you like him, but just be warned, super needy. We don't like to be needy.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:08] But I want us to take a minute at the beginning today, just to recognize there is not a person in this room who is not needy. All of us are bringing our neediness this morning, and it's different, in fact, for some of you, I didn't even have to get very far into this and you're like, I know my neediness, I see it right in front of me, what I'm bringing. But for some of you, it might take a minute, so just take a minute, now. The neediness right now that you're experiencing, maybe it's physical and medical, maybe it's something like that for yourself or for somebody that you care about, that that's the burden and the neediness that you bring into this room. Maybe it's financial, maybe it has to do with making ends meet, and you're just very nervous about that, and that's the burden that you carry. Maybe it's relational for a bunch of us, maybe it has to do with a husband and wife, we can't seem to get along, and we can't seem to fix this. A child's not talking to the parent, the parent is not talking to the child. Siblings are mad over inheritance issues. Friends are estranged. There's some relational issue, and you are just weighed down by the fact that it can't seem to get fixed. Or maybe for some of you, it really is more spiritual. And you're just like, I cannot seem to defeat this sin issue or this temptation that I'm facing, or I have this anxiety, or I have these burdens, and I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to be this way, but I can't seem to get away from it. What neediness are you bringing right now?
Dan Franklin: [00:04:44] And in the story that we're going to go through, the story that you heard Brennan read, here's the beautiful thing that we get to explore. We get to explore a story where Jesus interacted with very needy people, and we get to ask the question, how does God respond when we move toward him with our needs? And the reason I say it this way is because Jesus is the ultimate revelation, the ultimate message about who God is. If some of you are doing our Bible reading plan right now, you would have read yesterday in John 14 that Jesus says to his disciples, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." So what we see in Jesus in this story tells us how God responds when we move toward him with our needs. And so if you have a Bible or a Bible app that you want to follow along in this Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 21, is where we're going to be.
Dan Franklin: [00:05:48] Just as a quick intro, because some of you will know this because you were around previously, but with our series through the Gospel of Matthew, we went through the first seven chapters, every verse, you can go back on YouTube and look at the videos, we covered every single verse. Now that we're in the later chapters, chapter 8 and beyond, what we're doing is each week we're taking one story or one passage per chapter and just zeroing in on that, and then sort of summarizing what else happens. So this is going to be our one passage from chapter 14, next week we'll be in chapter 15. But we'll sort of sum up what happens otherwise.
Dan Franklin: [00:06:21] So let's jump into this, verse 13 is where our story begins. And we read, "When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." And so you can see, even by the way that this verse starts, we clearly need to go back because it says when he heard what had happened. Well, what happened? Verses 1 through 12 tell us, in fact, this is how chapter 14 begins. In verses 1 and 2 it says, "At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:07] Now, obviously, Herod is wrong, Jesus isn't John the Baptist risen from the dead. But Herod was probably haunted by guilt because he was the one who put John the Baptist to death. In fact what happens right after verse 2, is Matthew gives us a flashback of how John the Baptist was executed under the leadership of Herod. And so what's going on in this story is that Herod is haunted, he sees somebody else showing up doing miraculous things, and he's haunted by his guilt, and he thinks John the Baptist has come back. He hasn't come back, but what this means is that there's political unrest and upheaval. And so, seemingly in response to this, Jesus decides to get away to a solitary place. We see this happen a number of times in the Gospel, where Jesus decides to get away. As a note, a getaway in the first century was probably a lot less noisy than our getaways today, some of us are like, I like my me time, like I like my alone time. But what we mean by my me time is like, I'm going to watch 18 Netflix episodes in a row, so it's not necessarily quiet time. But for Jesus, this would have been a legitimate quiet time, solitary time praying with the Father.
Dan Franklin: [00:08:27] But look at the rest of verse 13 and what happens, it says, "Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns." They get wind of the fact that Jesus is getting in a boat and going to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they figure it out, and they start heading to his destination. In fact, verse 14 tells us they beat him there because verse 14 says, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd." Now just pause and take this in for a moment. You are in desperate need of some solitary time. You need to get away from the crowds. Jesus has been constantly teaching, healing, and being around people, he's constantly around people, and he's finally going to get some time away. He gets into the boat, he goes to the other side, he gets off the boat and what does he see? A whole bunch of people that he's got to deal with. And what does he do? "He had compassion on them and healed their sick."
Dan Franklin: [00:09:29] And I just want us to take in how his compassion should not seem like an automatic, reasonable response. If you were finally going to get some much-needed away time, and then you were immediately met by all of the responsibilities you were looking to get away from, do you think that your first response would be compassion or annoyance? And I think if we're going to be honest, for most of us, compassion would not, we would try to get there, we would try to drum it up, or we'd try to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit to get there, but it wouldn't be our automatic response.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:15] Let me just be a little bit vulnerable with you all right now. I prayerfully promise that if you come to me with problems, I will meet you with compassion, but I'm just going to admit it's not my instinctive response. And for those of you judging me right now, I know I'm not the only one. When people come with their neediness, some of us, we know that we should be compassionate, but our instinctive response is, so I've got to deal with your problems now? It's as if I don't have enough problems on my own, I've got to deal with your problems. Don't tell me that there's no time that somebody comes to you with your problems, that you're not like, can't you just fix this one on your own? Jesus, in responding to something that by all accounts for the vast majority of us, we would have said that this is a frustrating situation, he moves with compassion, and he heals their sick.
Dan Franklin: [00:11:19] Now, this is a trait of Jesus, this is not an isolated instance. In fact, we're in chapter 14, and in chapter 15, we get a similar story to the one we're engaged in here. So here we're reading about the feeding of the 5000, Matthew 15 gives us the feeding of the 4000, and it's a very similar story. And there's a mention of compassion in this story, let me show it to you. It's chapter 15, verse 32, it says, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” In chapter 14 Jesus has compassion and heals their sick, in chapter 15 Jesus has compassion and feeds them, and this is probably what drove him to feed the people in our chapter also. Jesus sees needs and he moves toward those needs with compassion.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:20] And just to spend a minute on this, the Greek word here that's translated as compassion is actually a really graphic word, it sort of refers to the internal organs and the inner part, the physical inner part. Which means he's really getting at the idea that this is a deeply felt response. Have you ever had anybody say, my heart goes out to you? That's kind of the idea here, that Jesus sees people and his heart goes out to them. So just a quick pause right now, and I want to make sure we take this in. You may be sick of your own neediness, and you might be tired of bringing the same requests to God over and over again, but God is not tired of it. God is not sick of you coming to him. God is not saying, go figure it out on your own. When you come with your neediness, he comes with his compassion, and we see that in Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:21] But the story goes on, and in verse 15, we see the next development in the story because it says, "As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Now, if you're familiar with the Bible, you might just be used to the idea that everything the disciples say is always wrong. So you might be thinking, clearly, this is a very sort of selfish and uncompassionate response, but just look at the response again, this is a very normal and even compassionate response from the disciples. They are problem-solving here, they're looking at Jesus and they're like, all right, it's getting late, here's the deal. If we keep going on with the healing and presumably with the teaching and it gets too late, then by the time these people get to the surrounding villages and want to buy some food, everything's going to be closed down and they will have to go all the way home without any food, that might put them in physical danger and at the very least, discomfort. So Jesus, here's our idea, here's what we think we should do. Let's just dismiss them all now, let's close down this time now, that way they'll be able to get food on the road on the way home. This is not a weird response; this is a very well thought through response. But it's not pointing to what Jesus is up to because he says in verse 16, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
Dan Franklin: [00:14:50] And I love this because just try to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples that they're just like, oh, so it's on us. Like, you've got to be kidding me, it's on us. But Jesus, even here, if you're reading that and you're like, this is kind of harsh by Jesus, Jesus is up to something here. And the feeding of the 5000, this great story that we have here, this is one of the few miracles that all four gospel writers tell this story. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each tell this story.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:19] John gives us a little insight into what's going on here in his version of the story, which is John chapter 6, this is verses 5 and 6, it says, "When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do." So seemingly, what's going on here is that Jesus says, you give them something to eat, and this is a little bit of a test of the disciples for how they're going to respond and with what they think Jesus is capable of. And one more thing, and this is kind of cool, when Jesus says you give them something to eat, he also is saying what is about to happen. Because even though Jesus is the one who's about to do the miracle, the disciples are going to be the ones to deliver the food. So he says, you give them something to eat. Verse 17, they reply, and they say, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” It's definitely not enough food for all of these people, and so Jesus says in verse 8, "Bring them here to me."
Dan Franklin: [00:16:33] And a quick aside, before showing what goes on here. A lot of us are familiar with this story, or at least with parts of this story. So you've heard of the five loaves and the two fish, that's kind of lodged into some of our heads. And sometimes the message has gone like this, bring your five loaves and your two fish to Jesus, and he'll do great things through those, like sort of bring you’re not enough to Jesus, and he'll do great things through you’re not enough. So last week we talked about our spiritual gifts, so bring your capabilities to Jesus, your sort of not enough capabilities, and he'll do great things through that. Bring your money, even if it's not very much to Jesus, and he'll do great things through it. Bring your time to Jesus, all of that. Now, there's nothing bad about that, that's a pretty good takeaway for us to have about how we approach Jesus. We approach him, but we don't have enough, he multiplies it, and he does great things. That's perfectly fine, but it is not the point of this story. The point of the story is not our not enough, the point of this story is the sheer power and capability of what Jesus is able to do. He says, bring those five loaves and that those two fish to me. And verse 19 tells us, "He directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves." He says a prayer over the meal, "Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people."
Dan Franklin: [00:18:07] Now we'll see this in a minute, but the mechanics of this miracle are not explained to us. It is not told to us exactly how did this work, that they took five loaves of bread and two fish and somehow fed all the people. I like to imagine, I don't know if it was this way, but I like to imagine it as like the never-ending basket that you just keep reaching into. They're like, they reached in and they pulled out bread and they were like, oh, good, I've got enough bread for this guy. I went to the next person, and they reached in, and they were like, huh, there's more bread in here, and they just kept going. I don't know if that's how it happened, but maybe it was something like that, because either way, here's what we get in verse 20, "They all ate and were satisfied." Which means in the Greek, what it means by satisfied, is they were full. They were turning down more bread because it says, "The disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.". One basket for each disciple, they're like, we got too much bread.
Dan Franklin: [00:19:14] One of the things in this story, it's not the only thing, but one of the things going on in this story is that it's a callback to something in the history of Israel, and some of you know. Who's heard of manna in the wilderness? Do you guys know this? God provided manna in the wilderness for the people of Israel, the story is back in Exodus chapter 16, and the whole idea of the story, the whole concept of the story, this is through Moses, is that God provided bread from heaven, and it was just enough. It was the perfect amount, it was just enough; not too much, not too little, just enough. Look at verse 20, did Jesus provide just enough? No, he didn't, he ratchets it up. He's not only the new Moses, he's the better Moses. I'm going to give you bread, and there's going to be leftovers afterwards.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:03] Verse 21 finishes the story by saying, "The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children." And so we call this story the feeding of the 5000, because that's the only number that we're given, but we're told it was way more than 5000. This is probably just how they counted sort of family units, so they said, all right, 5000 men, we don't know how many family units there were, so people speculate they're just like double it, 10,000. Maybe other people are like, well, if there were men, women, and children there, maybe it's more like 12,000, people have gone up to like 20,000. I don't know, it was a lot more than 5000 though. And either way, even if it was just 5000, there's no way 5000 could be fed with five loaves and two fish.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:51] Probably around 150 years ago, somebody came up with a theory about this miracle. And the theory goes like this, they said, here's what actually happened. The boy, John tells us that the five loaves and the two fish came from a boy, so the boy gives the five loaves and the two fish to the disciples. And when the people see that this boy was willing to share his meal, they all have generosity stirred in them, and they were hiding food also, they were pretending they didn't have it. So they all start bringing it out and everybody gets fed, not because Jesus multiplies food, but because the real miracle is that people decided to share with each other. It's a weird theory, and it's definitely not what the gospel writers teach about this story. This is not a great story about people sharing with each other, this is a miraculous story about Jesus providing food.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:46] To the point that in John 6, when he tells his version of this story, after Jesus does this miracle, they all come and try to force him to be their king. And not only that, they all come back and find him the next day, and do you know what they're looking for? They're looking for more bread. They're like, this is the bread guy, he fed us all yesterday, so we're coming back for another meal today. This is a miracle.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:09] And here's, it'll sound weird when I say this, but here's one of the things that's most striking to me about this miracle, it didn't seem hard for Jesus at all, this seemed easy. Like, you don't get to the end of the miracle and it's like, and they found Jesus in a pool of sweat. He was just like, man, that took a lot out of me. Like, I was in my head, I was kneading and molding and cutting and, you know. Man, he is not tired at all, he has not broken a sweat, he is not out of breath, it is not hard for Jesus to do this. Jesus meets them with his miraculous power, and sometimes when we come to Jesus with our needs, we're sort of like, I don't know, this medical thing that I have, the doctors don't know what to do about it, I don't know what God can do. You know that this problem that we have in our relationship, I don't think any counselor can fix this, I don't know what Jesus can do. We bring our deep problems to Jesus and we're like, hey, feeding 5, 10, 12, 20,000 people with five loaves and two fish and making it so that there were leftovers, Jesus can do that, but my problem, I'm not so sure. Jesus has all power, and it is put on display here.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:23] And so once again, I said it at the beginning, we get in this story, we get to see how does God respond when we move toward him with our neediness. And here's the answer, when we move toward God with our needs, God moves toward us with compassion and power. He meets us with all of the compassion that we see in Jesus, the interrupted Jesus moves towards us, and his heart goes out to us. God wants us to keep coming to him with our problems. God wants us, we've been talking about prayer a lot lately, God wants you to keep bringing your prayers to him. He is not annoyed, he is not frustrated, he's not wanting you to fix it on your own, he wants you to keep bringing those, and his heart goes out to us.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:21] There's a verse that the pastoral staff, we've been talking about a lot lately, it's in the book of Isaiah, I'm going to read it to you in a moment. And I'll be honest with you, when I first heard the verse, I didn't know it was from the Bible, I just thought it was a quote and I wasn't so sure I was on board with it. Then I found out it was from the Bible, and I was like, well, I'm definitely wrong, I need to get on board with it. But I say that as a warning, this might sound weird to you when I read it. This is Isaiah chapter 62, verses 6 and 7, it says, "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, 7and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth." It says, you who call on the Lord, don't give yourselves any rest, keep coming to him, and then he says, give God no rest. Am I the only one, or are there some of you that are like, I'm not so sure, that sounds maybe a little irreverent. Give God no rest, like I'm going to pester God. I'm going to keep coming to him. I'm going to keep bringing my problems to him. Yeah, give him no rest because he is meeting you with his compassion. And compassion is great, but it's not enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:25:47] I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but I've noticed this with customer service. I think they all went to the same training, especially the ones that you get on the phone with, but maybe the in-person people too. I usually am the one who calls customer service for our household to try to get something fixed, or if there is something wrong with the bill, or something wrong with something that needs to be fixed. And here's what I constantly hear, what I constantly hear is, oh, Mr. Franklin, I'm so sorry. I know that that must be very frustrating. Oh, Mr. Franklin, I understand why you would be upset about that happening, oh, that does sound like that would be very frustrating. It's like they went to Compassion U, and just, this is the script. The script is sort of commiserate. Now, some of you, as I just said, all that some of you are like, yeah, I love when they do that. Like maybe you do, maybe you're just like, that helps me to know that they commiserate with me. I'll just be real, I don't care, I don't care if they care. I'm like, we're talking on the phone, we don't know each other, we're not in the same state, maybe we're not even in the same country, we don't need to be friends. I don't need you to care, I want you to fix it. Now, I usually don't say those words exactly that way, but I am sort of like, that's nice, it's nice that your heart is going out. Like, sometimes we're talking to a friend about a problem, and all they can give us is that their heart can go out to us, and they sit with us, and maybe it's actually really beautiful. Maybe they hear us and they pray with us and they cry with us, and that's great, but don't you want somebody to fix it? Compassion only goes so far.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:27] Jesus moves towards us with compassion, and he moves towards us with power, with all power to turn five loaves of bread and two fish into a filling meal for 5, 10, 20,000 people. There is no problem you have ever had that is outside of the realm of the power of the living God. He is meeting us with his compassion and he's meeting us with his power. And how dare we look at our financial problem, and our bum knee, and our problems in our marriage, and look at the God of the universe and say, I don't know if he can fix this. He has all compassion, and he has all power.
Dan Franklin: [00:28:22] But I got to warn you about something, as we think about this, I got to warn you about something about God that is hard news but is good news about him, and that's that God is most interested in addressing our deepest needs. And what that means is that sometimes the needs that we think are our deepest needs are the ones that we're bringing to him, and he doesn't fix it right away, and sometimes he might even not fix it at all in the way that we're asking him to, sometimes this is annoying, sometimes this is really, really hard. Some of you are looking at prayers that you've been praying and that you've been burdened by, and you can't imagine, how could God, if he really does care, and if he really has all power, why hasn't he fixed this yet? He can. Why doesn't he? And I'm not going to pretend to have the inside scoop into every reason why that happens, but what I want to make sure we know is the thing God is most interested in bringing his compassion and power to are our deepest needs, and those aren't always the ones that we're praying for. In fact, sometimes the neediness that we have is so that God can direct our attention to what truly needs to be fixed in us.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:47] I mentioned in John 6, when he tells the story of the feeding of the 5000, the next day, people come again and they want another meal and Jesus doesn't give it to him, he's not interested. He is basically like you came for food; I'm not interested in giving you bread again. And here's the reason, he basically tells them, the whole reason for me doing that miracle was to point you toward the fact that you need spiritual sustenance, and you're just back here again for more food, you're missing the point of the miracle. And I'll say this to all of you, anybody in here who is crying out to God to fix a medical need or a financial need or anything like that, I hope he does it, I hope he fixes it. But if he fixes it, the reason why he's fixing it is to direct your attention to a bigger way that he needs to fix you, and so sometimes the trials linger. Sometimes we get an occasion, like the thorn in the flesh, where the Apostle Paul has this physical ailment and he's crying out to God to fix it, and God says, no, because that is making you humble, and I'd rather have you humble and sick than well and proud.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:03] One of my favorite stories of Jesus is in Luke chapter 12, and the story involves a guy coming to Jesus and he says, Jesus, tell my brother to fix my family inheritance, tell my brother to give me half of the family inheritance, and we don't get any details. Maybe this guy, let's give the benefit of the doubt, let's say this guy really got a raw deal and he has a just case, and he's asking Jesus to fix it. I've been robbed, "Jesus, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." 14Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” In other words, he basically says, I'm not interested in fixing that problem at all. And then he turns to his disciples, and he says, "Be on your guard against all forms of greed." He wasn't interested in fixing the inheritance problem, what problem was he interested in fixing? He was interested in fixing the problem of greed, and covetousness, and envy, and lack of contentment.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:08] Again, I don't have any special knowledge into this, but maybe for some of us, maybe the reason why our financial things that we want to get fixed are not instantly fixed is because God has some things to deal with us about. And if he fixes it too quickly, we'll miss that he is looking to break us of our greed and our lack of contentment. God never says no to a request out of lack of compassion or lack of power, and what we have to come back to is just the sheer faith of saying, all right, this God who would send his Son for all of us, I'm going to trust that he is not holding out on me. And so when we come to him with prayer, we come to him boldly with our needs, and we also come to him with the conviction that there's some way that he's at work in us, there's some deeper thing that he wants to address or that he wants to solve within us. So we come to him boldly in prayer, we come to him boldly in prayer with our neediness, saying, please fix my problem, please fix this, please sort this out. We want this fixed, this isn't good, bring your compassion, bring your power to this. But we also come to him with eyes open, saying, Father, maybe there's some spiritual need that you're looking to address in me. Maybe I think my problem is an inheritance, but you think my problem is greed. Maybe. I think my problem is the thorn in the flesh, but you think my problem is pride. Maybe I think my problem is that my wife or my husband just won't come around, but maybe it's me who needs to come around. And maybe I think my problem is that you should just take this temptation away and I'll never feel it again, but maybe what you want to do is make sure that I don't think that I don't need you and that I don't miss the opportunity to abide in you. Brothers and sisters, God is trustworthy in this, he is not holding out on us. And so once again, let's bring it, let's give God no rest, let's confidently bring our requests, our neediness, all of those things to him. But let's also come to him and say, open my eyes and open my heart to what you're looking to deal with in me, so I don't get the miracle and miss the lesson.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:35] So here's what I want to do to close our time today. I want to invite, first of all, the prayer ministry team; you can go ahead and head to the front as I'm speaking, because we do this in every service or after every service that we want to provide space and time for us to seek the Lord together. We want to give him no rest as we bring our neediness to him. And so for some of you, after we close the service, some of you are going to come up because there is there's some medical issue, there's some financial issue, there's a relational issue, there's something and you are going to come and you're going to let a brother or sister join with you in giving God no rest about that, in coming to the God who's full of compassion and power and saying, please fix this. And some of you are also going to come in in this spirit, maybe you're going to come and say, I've been praying for this a lot but actually, today, here's what I think I need to do, I think I need to take a pause before continuing to pray for God to fix this problem, and I need to pray that he exposes and fixes whatever's broken in me. I need to pray that I don't miss the lesson that he's giving me through this challenge so that I don't get a miraculous meal and then only come back for more food instead of for spiritual sustenance.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:57] And so I'm going to ask you, you can just bow your heads right now, and in a moment, I'll close us in prayer. But I'm going to allow a quiet minute now. And, man, quiet is something we so need in our culture, and we don't often get, so soak in this quietness. Bring your neediness to the Lord now, and also bring a heart ready and open for whatever brokenness is more important to him to fix within you.
Dan Franklin: [00:36:57] Father, thank you for how you speak in the quiet, and please help us to be wise enough to seek out the quiet in our loud world. Father, thank you that we have confidence that you have all compassion and all power. And Father, that the heartfelt needs of this church family that we are crying out for right now, Father, I pray that you meet every need, I pray that you work miracles, I pray that you bring healings, I pray that you bring restoration and reconciliation, I pray that you do things that will make us in awe of you. And Father, as you do that, I pray that you expose to each of us the deeper healings and freedom that you are looking to bring, help us not to seek only the miracle and miss the growth that you have for us. Move in this church family. Move in our lives. And Father, I pray that you move in the time of aftermath right now. We know that you're not done with us, and we know that for many, the next step is to continue in the spirit of prayer and to do it with one of the members of this prayer ministry team. We pray this in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Dan Franklin: [00:38:13] And let me invite you to stand, I'm going to read a word of benediction, and then we'll be done with our service. And as our benediction, I'm just going to read again those verses from Isaiah that I read previously, as our charter, as our marching orders. We get this in Isaiah 62, verses 6 and 7, "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, 7and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth." Amen. Amen. God bless you this Sunday.
Recorded in Upland, California.
Brennan: [00:00:19] My name is Brennan, and I'm one of the Detour group leaders for the 10th-grade guys in EXIT83 Student Ministries, and on the leadership team for the College and Career Group. Today we're going to be reading from Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 to 21, and it says this, "When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 16Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. 18“Bring them here to me,” he said. 19And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children." This is God's word.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:08] Amen. You can have a seat. All right, so in starting off, I want to invite a little bit of participation. I'm going to do a quick poll right here. I want you to raise your hand if you enjoy it when you feel needy. All right, I feel like this is actually a very successful moment right now, I just got 100% participation from all of you, not a hand went up. None of us likes to feel needy, we like to feel like we're assets and not liabilities, we like to feel like we're strong and not weak. Neediness is not a quality that we talk about as something positive. You've never heard anybody describe it that way, like Jake, he's an awesome guy, you're going to love him, he's super needy. So, you know, it's always maybe you like him, but just be warned, super needy. We don't like to be needy.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:08] But I want us to take a minute at the beginning today, just to recognize there is not a person in this room who is not needy. All of us are bringing our neediness this morning, and it's different, in fact, for some of you, I didn't even have to get very far into this and you're like, I know my neediness, I see it right in front of me, what I'm bringing. But for some of you, it might take a minute, so just take a minute, now. The neediness right now that you're experiencing, maybe it's physical and medical, maybe it's something like that for yourself or for somebody that you care about, that that's the burden and the neediness that you bring into this room. Maybe it's financial, maybe it has to do with making ends meet, and you're just very nervous about that, and that's the burden that you carry. Maybe it's relational for a bunch of us, maybe it has to do with a husband and wife, we can't seem to get along, and we can't seem to fix this. A child's not talking to the parent, the parent is not talking to the child. Siblings are mad over inheritance issues. Friends are estranged. There's some relational issue, and you are just weighed down by the fact that it can't seem to get fixed. Or maybe for some of you, it really is more spiritual. And you're just like, I cannot seem to defeat this sin issue or this temptation that I'm facing, or I have this anxiety, or I have these burdens, and I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to be this way, but I can't seem to get away from it. What neediness are you bringing right now?
Dan Franklin: [00:04:44] And in the story that we're going to go through, the story that you heard Brennan read, here's the beautiful thing that we get to explore. We get to explore a story where Jesus interacted with very needy people, and we get to ask the question, how does God respond when we move toward him with our needs? And the reason I say it this way is because Jesus is the ultimate revelation, the ultimate message about who God is. If some of you are doing our Bible reading plan right now, you would have read yesterday in John 14 that Jesus says to his disciples, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." So what we see in Jesus in this story tells us how God responds when we move toward him with our needs. And so if you have a Bible or a Bible app that you want to follow along in this Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 21, is where we're going to be.
Dan Franklin: [00:05:48] Just as a quick intro, because some of you will know this because you were around previously, but with our series through the Gospel of Matthew, we went through the first seven chapters, every verse, you can go back on YouTube and look at the videos, we covered every single verse. Now that we're in the later chapters, chapter 8 and beyond, what we're doing is each week we're taking one story or one passage per chapter and just zeroing in on that, and then sort of summarizing what else happens. So this is going to be our one passage from chapter 14, next week we'll be in chapter 15. But we'll sort of sum up what happens otherwise.
Dan Franklin: [00:06:21] So let's jump into this, verse 13 is where our story begins. And we read, "When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." And so you can see, even by the way that this verse starts, we clearly need to go back because it says when he heard what had happened. Well, what happened? Verses 1 through 12 tell us, in fact, this is how chapter 14 begins. In verses 1 and 2 it says, "At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:07] Now, obviously, Herod is wrong, Jesus isn't John the Baptist risen from the dead. But Herod was probably haunted by guilt because he was the one who put John the Baptist to death. In fact what happens right after verse 2, is Matthew gives us a flashback of how John the Baptist was executed under the leadership of Herod. And so what's going on in this story is that Herod is haunted, he sees somebody else showing up doing miraculous things, and he's haunted by his guilt, and he thinks John the Baptist has come back. He hasn't come back, but what this means is that there's political unrest and upheaval. And so, seemingly in response to this, Jesus decides to get away to a solitary place. We see this happen a number of times in the Gospel, where Jesus decides to get away. As a note, a getaway in the first century was probably a lot less noisy than our getaways today, some of us are like, I like my me time, like I like my alone time. But what we mean by my me time is like, I'm going to watch 18 Netflix episodes in a row, so it's not necessarily quiet time. But for Jesus, this would have been a legitimate quiet time, solitary time praying with the Father.
Dan Franklin: [00:08:27] But look at the rest of verse 13 and what happens, it says, "Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns." They get wind of the fact that Jesus is getting in a boat and going to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they figure it out, and they start heading to his destination. In fact, verse 14 tells us they beat him there because verse 14 says, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd." Now just pause and take this in for a moment. You are in desperate need of some solitary time. You need to get away from the crowds. Jesus has been constantly teaching, healing, and being around people, he's constantly around people, and he's finally going to get some time away. He gets into the boat, he goes to the other side, he gets off the boat and what does he see? A whole bunch of people that he's got to deal with. And what does he do? "He had compassion on them and healed their sick."
Dan Franklin: [00:09:29] And I just want us to take in how his compassion should not seem like an automatic, reasonable response. If you were finally going to get some much-needed away time, and then you were immediately met by all of the responsibilities you were looking to get away from, do you think that your first response would be compassion or annoyance? And I think if we're going to be honest, for most of us, compassion would not, we would try to get there, we would try to drum it up, or we'd try to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit to get there, but it wouldn't be our automatic response.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:15] Let me just be a little bit vulnerable with you all right now. I prayerfully promise that if you come to me with problems, I will meet you with compassion, but I'm just going to admit it's not my instinctive response. And for those of you judging me right now, I know I'm not the only one. When people come with their neediness, some of us, we know that we should be compassionate, but our instinctive response is, so I've got to deal with your problems now? It's as if I don't have enough problems on my own, I've got to deal with your problems. Don't tell me that there's no time that somebody comes to you with your problems, that you're not like, can't you just fix this one on your own? Jesus, in responding to something that by all accounts for the vast majority of us, we would have said that this is a frustrating situation, he moves with compassion, and he heals their sick.
Dan Franklin: [00:11:19] Now, this is a trait of Jesus, this is not an isolated instance. In fact, we're in chapter 14, and in chapter 15, we get a similar story to the one we're engaged in here. So here we're reading about the feeding of the 5000, Matthew 15 gives us the feeding of the 4000, and it's a very similar story. And there's a mention of compassion in this story, let me show it to you. It's chapter 15, verse 32, it says, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” In chapter 14 Jesus has compassion and heals their sick, in chapter 15 Jesus has compassion and feeds them, and this is probably what drove him to feed the people in our chapter also. Jesus sees needs and he moves toward those needs with compassion.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:20] And just to spend a minute on this, the Greek word here that's translated as compassion is actually a really graphic word, it sort of refers to the internal organs and the inner part, the physical inner part. Which means he's really getting at the idea that this is a deeply felt response. Have you ever had anybody say, my heart goes out to you? That's kind of the idea here, that Jesus sees people and his heart goes out to them. So just a quick pause right now, and I want to make sure we take this in. You may be sick of your own neediness, and you might be tired of bringing the same requests to God over and over again, but God is not tired of it. God is not sick of you coming to him. God is not saying, go figure it out on your own. When you come with your neediness, he comes with his compassion, and we see that in Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:21] But the story goes on, and in verse 15, we see the next development in the story because it says, "As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Now, if you're familiar with the Bible, you might just be used to the idea that everything the disciples say is always wrong. So you might be thinking, clearly, this is a very sort of selfish and uncompassionate response, but just look at the response again, this is a very normal and even compassionate response from the disciples. They are problem-solving here, they're looking at Jesus and they're like, all right, it's getting late, here's the deal. If we keep going on with the healing and presumably with the teaching and it gets too late, then by the time these people get to the surrounding villages and want to buy some food, everything's going to be closed down and they will have to go all the way home without any food, that might put them in physical danger and at the very least, discomfort. So Jesus, here's our idea, here's what we think we should do. Let's just dismiss them all now, let's close down this time now, that way they'll be able to get food on the road on the way home. This is not a weird response; this is a very well thought through response. But it's not pointing to what Jesus is up to because he says in verse 16, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
Dan Franklin: [00:14:50] And I love this because just try to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples that they're just like, oh, so it's on us. Like, you've got to be kidding me, it's on us. But Jesus, even here, if you're reading that and you're like, this is kind of harsh by Jesus, Jesus is up to something here. And the feeding of the 5000, this great story that we have here, this is one of the few miracles that all four gospel writers tell this story. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each tell this story.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:19] John gives us a little insight into what's going on here in his version of the story, which is John chapter 6, this is verses 5 and 6, it says, "When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do." So seemingly, what's going on here is that Jesus says, you give them something to eat, and this is a little bit of a test of the disciples for how they're going to respond and with what they think Jesus is capable of. And one more thing, and this is kind of cool, when Jesus says you give them something to eat, he also is saying what is about to happen. Because even though Jesus is the one who's about to do the miracle, the disciples are going to be the ones to deliver the food. So he says, you give them something to eat. Verse 17, they reply, and they say, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” It's definitely not enough food for all of these people, and so Jesus says in verse 8, "Bring them here to me."
Dan Franklin: [00:16:33] And a quick aside, before showing what goes on here. A lot of us are familiar with this story, or at least with parts of this story. So you've heard of the five loaves and the two fish, that's kind of lodged into some of our heads. And sometimes the message has gone like this, bring your five loaves and your two fish to Jesus, and he'll do great things through those, like sort of bring you’re not enough to Jesus, and he'll do great things through you’re not enough. So last week we talked about our spiritual gifts, so bring your capabilities to Jesus, your sort of not enough capabilities, and he'll do great things through that. Bring your money, even if it's not very much to Jesus, and he'll do great things through it. Bring your time to Jesus, all of that. Now, there's nothing bad about that, that's a pretty good takeaway for us to have about how we approach Jesus. We approach him, but we don't have enough, he multiplies it, and he does great things. That's perfectly fine, but it is not the point of this story. The point of the story is not our not enough, the point of this story is the sheer power and capability of what Jesus is able to do. He says, bring those five loaves and that those two fish to me. And verse 19 tells us, "He directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves." He says a prayer over the meal, "Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people."
Dan Franklin: [00:18:07] Now we'll see this in a minute, but the mechanics of this miracle are not explained to us. It is not told to us exactly how did this work, that they took five loaves of bread and two fish and somehow fed all the people. I like to imagine, I don't know if it was this way, but I like to imagine it as like the never-ending basket that you just keep reaching into. They're like, they reached in and they pulled out bread and they were like, oh, good, I've got enough bread for this guy. I went to the next person, and they reached in, and they were like, huh, there's more bread in here, and they just kept going. I don't know if that's how it happened, but maybe it was something like that, because either way, here's what we get in verse 20, "They all ate and were satisfied." Which means in the Greek, what it means by satisfied, is they were full. They were turning down more bread because it says, "The disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.". One basket for each disciple, they're like, we got too much bread.
Dan Franklin: [00:19:14] One of the things in this story, it's not the only thing, but one of the things going on in this story is that it's a callback to something in the history of Israel, and some of you know. Who's heard of manna in the wilderness? Do you guys know this? God provided manna in the wilderness for the people of Israel, the story is back in Exodus chapter 16, and the whole idea of the story, the whole concept of the story, this is through Moses, is that God provided bread from heaven, and it was just enough. It was the perfect amount, it was just enough; not too much, not too little, just enough. Look at verse 20, did Jesus provide just enough? No, he didn't, he ratchets it up. He's not only the new Moses, he's the better Moses. I'm going to give you bread, and there's going to be leftovers afterwards.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:03] Verse 21 finishes the story by saying, "The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children." And so we call this story the feeding of the 5000, because that's the only number that we're given, but we're told it was way more than 5000. This is probably just how they counted sort of family units, so they said, all right, 5000 men, we don't know how many family units there were, so people speculate they're just like double it, 10,000. Maybe other people are like, well, if there were men, women, and children there, maybe it's more like 12,000, people have gone up to like 20,000. I don't know, it was a lot more than 5000 though. And either way, even if it was just 5000, there's no way 5000 could be fed with five loaves and two fish.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:51] Probably around 150 years ago, somebody came up with a theory about this miracle. And the theory goes like this, they said, here's what actually happened. The boy, John tells us that the five loaves and the two fish came from a boy, so the boy gives the five loaves and the two fish to the disciples. And when the people see that this boy was willing to share his meal, they all have generosity stirred in them, and they were hiding food also, they were pretending they didn't have it. So they all start bringing it out and everybody gets fed, not because Jesus multiplies food, but because the real miracle is that people decided to share with each other. It's a weird theory, and it's definitely not what the gospel writers teach about this story. This is not a great story about people sharing with each other, this is a miraculous story about Jesus providing food.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:46] To the point that in John 6, when he tells his version of this story, after Jesus does this miracle, they all come and try to force him to be their king. And not only that, they all come back and find him the next day, and do you know what they're looking for? They're looking for more bread. They're like, this is the bread guy, he fed us all yesterday, so we're coming back for another meal today. This is a miracle.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:09] And here's, it'll sound weird when I say this, but here's one of the things that's most striking to me about this miracle, it didn't seem hard for Jesus at all, this seemed easy. Like, you don't get to the end of the miracle and it's like, and they found Jesus in a pool of sweat. He was just like, man, that took a lot out of me. Like, I was in my head, I was kneading and molding and cutting and, you know. Man, he is not tired at all, he has not broken a sweat, he is not out of breath, it is not hard for Jesus to do this. Jesus meets them with his miraculous power, and sometimes when we come to Jesus with our needs, we're sort of like, I don't know, this medical thing that I have, the doctors don't know what to do about it, I don't know what God can do. You know that this problem that we have in our relationship, I don't think any counselor can fix this, I don't know what Jesus can do. We bring our deep problems to Jesus and we're like, hey, feeding 5, 10, 12, 20,000 people with five loaves and two fish and making it so that there were leftovers, Jesus can do that, but my problem, I'm not so sure. Jesus has all power, and it is put on display here.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:23] And so once again, I said it at the beginning, we get in this story, we get to see how does God respond when we move toward him with our neediness. And here's the answer, when we move toward God with our needs, God moves toward us with compassion and power. He meets us with all of the compassion that we see in Jesus, the interrupted Jesus moves towards us, and his heart goes out to us. God wants us to keep coming to him with our problems. God wants us, we've been talking about prayer a lot lately, God wants you to keep bringing your prayers to him. He is not annoyed, he is not frustrated, he's not wanting you to fix it on your own, he wants you to keep bringing those, and his heart goes out to us.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:21] There's a verse that the pastoral staff, we've been talking about a lot lately, it's in the book of Isaiah, I'm going to read it to you in a moment. And I'll be honest with you, when I first heard the verse, I didn't know it was from the Bible, I just thought it was a quote and I wasn't so sure I was on board with it. Then I found out it was from the Bible, and I was like, well, I'm definitely wrong, I need to get on board with it. But I say that as a warning, this might sound weird to you when I read it. This is Isaiah chapter 62, verses 6 and 7, it says, "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, 7and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth." It says, you who call on the Lord, don't give yourselves any rest, keep coming to him, and then he says, give God no rest. Am I the only one, or are there some of you that are like, I'm not so sure, that sounds maybe a little irreverent. Give God no rest, like I'm going to pester God. I'm going to keep coming to him. I'm going to keep bringing my problems to him. Yeah, give him no rest because he is meeting you with his compassion. And compassion is great, but it's not enough.
Dan Franklin: [00:25:47] I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but I've noticed this with customer service. I think they all went to the same training, especially the ones that you get on the phone with, but maybe the in-person people too. I usually am the one who calls customer service for our household to try to get something fixed, or if there is something wrong with the bill, or something wrong with something that needs to be fixed. And here's what I constantly hear, what I constantly hear is, oh, Mr. Franklin, I'm so sorry. I know that that must be very frustrating. Oh, Mr. Franklin, I understand why you would be upset about that happening, oh, that does sound like that would be very frustrating. It's like they went to Compassion U, and just, this is the script. The script is sort of commiserate. Now, some of you, as I just said, all that some of you are like, yeah, I love when they do that. Like maybe you do, maybe you're just like, that helps me to know that they commiserate with me. I'll just be real, I don't care, I don't care if they care. I'm like, we're talking on the phone, we don't know each other, we're not in the same state, maybe we're not even in the same country, we don't need to be friends. I don't need you to care, I want you to fix it. Now, I usually don't say those words exactly that way, but I am sort of like, that's nice, it's nice that your heart is going out. Like, sometimes we're talking to a friend about a problem, and all they can give us is that their heart can go out to us, and they sit with us, and maybe it's actually really beautiful. Maybe they hear us and they pray with us and they cry with us, and that's great, but don't you want somebody to fix it? Compassion only goes so far.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:27] Jesus moves towards us with compassion, and he moves towards us with power, with all power to turn five loaves of bread and two fish into a filling meal for 5, 10, 20,000 people. There is no problem you have ever had that is outside of the realm of the power of the living God. He is meeting us with his compassion and he's meeting us with his power. And how dare we look at our financial problem, and our bum knee, and our problems in our marriage, and look at the God of the universe and say, I don't know if he can fix this. He has all compassion, and he has all power.
Dan Franklin: [00:28:22] But I got to warn you about something, as we think about this, I got to warn you about something about God that is hard news but is good news about him, and that's that God is most interested in addressing our deepest needs. And what that means is that sometimes the needs that we think are our deepest needs are the ones that we're bringing to him, and he doesn't fix it right away, and sometimes he might even not fix it at all in the way that we're asking him to, sometimes this is annoying, sometimes this is really, really hard. Some of you are looking at prayers that you've been praying and that you've been burdened by, and you can't imagine, how could God, if he really does care, and if he really has all power, why hasn't he fixed this yet? He can. Why doesn't he? And I'm not going to pretend to have the inside scoop into every reason why that happens, but what I want to make sure we know is the thing God is most interested in bringing his compassion and power to are our deepest needs, and those aren't always the ones that we're praying for. In fact, sometimes the neediness that we have is so that God can direct our attention to what truly needs to be fixed in us.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:47] I mentioned in John 6, when he tells the story of the feeding of the 5000, the next day, people come again and they want another meal and Jesus doesn't give it to him, he's not interested. He is basically like you came for food; I'm not interested in giving you bread again. And here's the reason, he basically tells them, the whole reason for me doing that miracle was to point you toward the fact that you need spiritual sustenance, and you're just back here again for more food, you're missing the point of the miracle. And I'll say this to all of you, anybody in here who is crying out to God to fix a medical need or a financial need or anything like that, I hope he does it, I hope he fixes it. But if he fixes it, the reason why he's fixing it is to direct your attention to a bigger way that he needs to fix you, and so sometimes the trials linger. Sometimes we get an occasion, like the thorn in the flesh, where the Apostle Paul has this physical ailment and he's crying out to God to fix it, and God says, no, because that is making you humble, and I'd rather have you humble and sick than well and proud.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:03] One of my favorite stories of Jesus is in Luke chapter 12, and the story involves a guy coming to Jesus and he says, Jesus, tell my brother to fix my family inheritance, tell my brother to give me half of the family inheritance, and we don't get any details. Maybe this guy, let's give the benefit of the doubt, let's say this guy really got a raw deal and he has a just case, and he's asking Jesus to fix it. I've been robbed, "Jesus, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." 14Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” In other words, he basically says, I'm not interested in fixing that problem at all. And then he turns to his disciples, and he says, "Be on your guard against all forms of greed." He wasn't interested in fixing the inheritance problem, what problem was he interested in fixing? He was interested in fixing the problem of greed, and covetousness, and envy, and lack of contentment.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:08] Again, I don't have any special knowledge into this, but maybe for some of us, maybe the reason why our financial things that we want to get fixed are not instantly fixed is because God has some things to deal with us about. And if he fixes it too quickly, we'll miss that he is looking to break us of our greed and our lack of contentment. God never says no to a request out of lack of compassion or lack of power, and what we have to come back to is just the sheer faith of saying, all right, this God who would send his Son for all of us, I'm going to trust that he is not holding out on me. And so when we come to him with prayer, we come to him boldly with our needs, and we also come to him with the conviction that there's some way that he's at work in us, there's some deeper thing that he wants to address or that he wants to solve within us. So we come to him boldly in prayer, we come to him boldly in prayer with our neediness, saying, please fix my problem, please fix this, please sort this out. We want this fixed, this isn't good, bring your compassion, bring your power to this. But we also come to him with eyes open, saying, Father, maybe there's some spiritual need that you're looking to address in me. Maybe I think my problem is an inheritance, but you think my problem is greed. Maybe. I think my problem is the thorn in the flesh, but you think my problem is pride. Maybe I think my problem is that my wife or my husband just won't come around, but maybe it's me who needs to come around. And maybe I think my problem is that you should just take this temptation away and I'll never feel it again, but maybe what you want to do is make sure that I don't think that I don't need you and that I don't miss the opportunity to abide in you. Brothers and sisters, God is trustworthy in this, he is not holding out on us. And so once again, let's bring it, let's give God no rest, let's confidently bring our requests, our neediness, all of those things to him. But let's also come to him and say, open my eyes and open my heart to what you're looking to deal with in me, so I don't get the miracle and miss the lesson.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:35] So here's what I want to do to close our time today. I want to invite, first of all, the prayer ministry team; you can go ahead and head to the front as I'm speaking, because we do this in every service or after every service that we want to provide space and time for us to seek the Lord together. We want to give him no rest as we bring our neediness to him. And so for some of you, after we close the service, some of you are going to come up because there is there's some medical issue, there's some financial issue, there's a relational issue, there's something and you are going to come and you're going to let a brother or sister join with you in giving God no rest about that, in coming to the God who's full of compassion and power and saying, please fix this. And some of you are also going to come in in this spirit, maybe you're going to come and say, I've been praying for this a lot but actually, today, here's what I think I need to do, I think I need to take a pause before continuing to pray for God to fix this problem, and I need to pray that he exposes and fixes whatever's broken in me. I need to pray that I don't miss the lesson that he's giving me through this challenge so that I don't get a miraculous meal and then only come back for more food instead of for spiritual sustenance.
Dan Franklin: [00:35:57] And so I'm going to ask you, you can just bow your heads right now, and in a moment, I'll close us in prayer. But I'm going to allow a quiet minute now. And, man, quiet is something we so need in our culture, and we don't often get, so soak in this quietness. Bring your neediness to the Lord now, and also bring a heart ready and open for whatever brokenness is more important to him to fix within you.
Dan Franklin: [00:36:57] Father, thank you for how you speak in the quiet, and please help us to be wise enough to seek out the quiet in our loud world. Father, thank you that we have confidence that you have all compassion and all power. And Father, that the heartfelt needs of this church family that we are crying out for right now, Father, I pray that you meet every need, I pray that you work miracles, I pray that you bring healings, I pray that you bring restoration and reconciliation, I pray that you do things that will make us in awe of you. And Father, as you do that, I pray that you expose to each of us the deeper healings and freedom that you are looking to bring, help us not to seek only the miracle and miss the growth that you have for us. Move in this church family. Move in our lives. And Father, I pray that you move in the time of aftermath right now. We know that you're not done with us, and we know that for many, the next step is to continue in the spirit of prayer and to do it with one of the members of this prayer ministry team. We pray this in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Dan Franklin: [00:38:13] And let me invite you to stand, I'm going to read a word of benediction, and then we'll be done with our service. And as our benediction, I'm just going to read again those verses from Isaiah that I read previously, as our charter, as our marching orders. We get this in Isaiah 62, verses 6 and 7, "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, 7and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth." Amen. Amen. God bless you this Sunday.
Recorded in Upland, California.
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