Running on Empty

Philip Melton

Jesus Provides • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

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Introduction: (Have you even found yourself running on empty?)

Good Morning! This morning I want to talk about running on empty. As we begin I would like to ask you to turn with me in your Bibles to .

When you here someone make the statement that they are “running on empty” that can describe several different circumstances that they are facing in life. What comes to your mind when I use the phrase “running on empty?”

It could mean you are almost out of gas in your car...

So I have to ask a question this morning and I need for you to be honest with me. How many of you have the tendency to let the fuel gauge get just a little too close to the “E” in your vehicle? (thank you I appreciate your honest answers)

So, I realize that there are two very different reactions that people have when they realize the vehicle that they are driving is on or nearing empty.

The first reaction is E, “no worries” E stands for enough. “I’m sure that there are plenty of miles left before we actually run out of gas.”

The second reaction is “oh no I’m on E” - followed by a moment of panic and frustration, and thoughts of begin stranded on the side of the road.

so if some people panic when on empty and others have a desire to see how much further they can go, what is your reaction?

Story of me and Ellen and out opposite views of running on empty.

Maybe this morning when we here me use the phrase “running on empty” you think of being really hungry.

Hunger is a condition that we all understand. You know we don’t like to be hungry and, food is a huge part of our lives on this earth. We hunger for it…we work so that we can feed our families…we take pleasure in preparing it and we enjoy eating it. It nourishes our bodies so that we can live on this earth. Did you know that the average American eats 2,000 lbs. of food each year. As humans we are very hungry creatures.

You know, food is a huge part of our lives on this earth. We hunger for it…we work so that we can feed our families…we take pleasure in preparing it and we enjoy eating it. It nourishes our earthly bodies so that we can live on this earth. Let me share with you so interesting statistics about food. Did you know that the average family spends between $150 and $180 dollars on food each week? Each year fast food companies spend $117 Billion dollars in marketing their products so that we will go out and purchase them to meet our hunger needs. Now here’s one that shocks me when I read it: The average American eats 2,000 lbs. of food each year. As humans we are very hungry creatures.

Illustration:

Christian speaker Mike Benson tells how one night, as his family was finishing dinner, his eight-year-old daughter left six green beans on her plate. She normally ate her veggies, and Mike did not usually allow this sort of thing to bother him, but this night he was irked and said to her, "Eat your green beans."

She replied, "Dad, I'm full to the top."

"You won't pop," he responded.

"Yes, I will pop!" she said.

"Risk it!" he said. "It will be okay."

"Dad, I could not eat another bite."

Mike knew that night they were having her favorite dessert, pumpkin pie squares. So he asked, "How would you like a double helping of pumpkin pie squares with two dollops of whipped cream on top?"

"That sounds great!" she responded as she pushed her plate back, ready for dessert.

"How can you have room for a double helping of pumpkin pie squares with two dollops of whipped cream, and not have room for six measly green beans?"

She stood up tall out of her chair and pointing to her belly said, "This is my vegetable stomach. This is my meat stomach. They are both full. Here is my dessert stomach. It is empty. I am ready for dessert!"

What we eat reveals what we hunger for.

When I say the phrase “running on empty” could mean that you are really tired.

Life for most of you sitting her this morning is very busy. Many of you are burning the candle at both ends and life just seems to be getting busier. The world around us is unpredictable and seems our of control. Work is hard, finances are hard, family situations are hard, marriages and relationships are under stress and seem too difficult. Add to these normal stresses an unexpected event or circumstance and we are overwhelmed. We begin to feel as through we are running on empty.

Read Scripture:

People who starve to death each year: 11 million

Overweight U.S. adults: 34 million

Money Americans spent eating out, 1980: $52 billion; 1990: $236 billion. U.S. expenditures for overseas food aid, 1980: $1.4 billion; 1990: $1.6 billion.

Average calories consumed daily, North Americans: 3500; Africans: 2100

People who are continually hungry; Ethiopia: 20%, Sudan: 20%, Mozambique: 30-40%, American adults currently on diets: 19%

U.S. News and World Report, October 21, 1991.

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Tabgha. On the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee. This is the Arabic name of Heptapegon, “Seven Springs” in Greek, that bubbled here. Of the seven springs the best known are the hot mineral spring of Ein Nur, Ein Sheva and Ein Job. From the sky the Church of the Loaves and Fishes is seen as a cross covered with red tiles. The church was built to commemorate the miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, when Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, as told in the Gospels of Matthew (14:13–21), Mark (6:30–44) and John (6:1–14.)

This morning I want to ask the question: “What do we do when I am running on empty?” Join me as I read from our passage this morning .

Scripture:

Matthew 14:13–21 NASB95

Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, “This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!” They said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” And He said, “Bring them here to Me.” Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. There were about five thousand men who ate, besides women and children.

Matthew 14:13-21

Now, no one knows for sure if this is exactly where the feeding of the five thousand took place, but images like this can help us paint a mental picture of what this event looked like.

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Verse 13 begins by refers to previous events in the Gospel of Matthew so when we come a cross a verse like this you need to look backward and see what is taking place in order to have the proper context of the passage.

Now, no one knows for sure if this is exactly where the feeding of the five thousand took place, but images like this can help us paint a mental picture of what this event looked like.

Matthew begins this passage by giving us some personal details about what was happening in Jesus’ life and ministry at this point in time. John the Baptist, Jesus’s cousin and the forerunner of the Messiah had just been killed, (beheaded), and his followers had just buried him. John’s disciples had come to Jesus and told him what had happened and Jesus withdrew with his disciples to a remote place to rest. Jesus knows what it is like to be tired, to hunger for rest - Jesus knows what it is like to be running on empty.

Matthew begins this passage by giving us so personal details about what was happening in Jesus’ life ministry at this time. John the Baptist, Jesus’s cousin and forerunner had just been killed (beheaded) and his followers had just buried him. John’s disciples had come to Jesus and told him what had happened and Jesus withdrew with his disciples to a remote place to rest.

Have you ever yearned for time away from the riggers of what you were going through in life? Have you even felt as if you simply needed some time away? In this life we experience times of deep grief and sorrow when all we want to do is to withdraw from everyone. That’s where we find Jesus as this passage begins. Jesus needed to grieve. Jesus needed time with His Father. I love passages like this because they show us how Jesus knows and understands the things we go through in life. Jesus being (fully God and fully man at the same time), is running on empty and he desires rest. In these verses we see Jesus the Messiah grappling with the same human emotions of grief and hurt that we must deal with. Jesus, our Savior, our Redeemer, fully God and fully man, knows and understands our pain.

Have you even hungered for rest? Have you ever yearned for time away from the riggers of what you were going through in life and simply need some time away. There are times of deep grief and sorrow when all you want to do is to withdraw from everyone. Jesus needed to grieve. Jesus needed time with His Father. I love passages like this because they show us how Jesus, (fully God and fully man at the same time), and yet here in these verses we see Jesus the Messiah grappling with the same human emotions of grief and hurt that we must deal with. Jesus, our Savior knows and understands our pain.

Verse 13 tells us that the people, or a better translation -(the crowds)-lots of people- heard that Jesus had departed and they followed him on foot. They began to walk along the North shore of the Sea of Galilee and they meet up with Jesus as he steps off of the boat.

Think about his for a second - think about what Jesus is going through remember he was fully God, but he was a lost fully human at the same time. Put yourself in his shoes. You are running on empty, you are tired, exhausted, and grieving you are looking for a place of solitude, just a little time away. You drive up to you house maybe after a hard day at work and the house is full of people. What do you do?

If I am honest I might just keep driving. I might say no way, I’ve had enough and I just need some alone time. What would you do?

Jesus’s response is very different - and this leads me to what I want us to talk about this morning.

What do we do when we are running on empty? Today I want to give you three things that are important to remember when you feel like you are running on empty - when you feel like you have nothing more to give and I hope that in these three things you will see how Jesus provides in abundance and fills up back up so that we can serve Him.

The first thing to remember is: “When you are running on empty we need to...”

Be Compassionate

In verse 14 when Jesus steps off the boat and he is surrounded with people who needed him. This group of people is described as large crowd. Why had this group had followed Jesus? They followed him because they needed him. They were running on empty. The were in need of forgiveness. They needed the healing that only Jesus could provide. They needed hear the words of life. They needed Jesus, and verse 14 we see that even in his own time of grief and mourning Jesus had compassion on them.

This really stood out to me because if I am honest with myself one of the first things to give way when I am tired and burned out and running on empty is my since of compassion for others. Often times our natural reaction to running on empty is to become inward focused. We allow our own tiredness, needs, own emptiness to block out the needs of others around us. If we are not careful sometimes our own exhaustion causes us to harden our hearts to those around us. This is not how Jesus reacts though.

The Greek word used in this passage for compassion describes a “deep inward churning of the bowels.” Jesus uses this same work in the parable of the Good Samaritan when the Samaritan comes across a man beaten and dying on the side of the road and has compassion on him. The same Greek verb used when Jesus finds out that a widow has lost her only son in - (He tells her not to cry) - He has compassion on her (). So in the midst of his own needs, his own feelings of running on empty Jesus saw the needs of the people surrounding him, and Jesus had compassion of them and he healed them.

Think about this: in his time of need Jesus shows compassion to others. Sometimes the best remedy for our emptiness, is to love on others. When I have compassion for the needs of others around me it changes my focus. It is in this Christlike compassion expressed to others that we best feel and understand God’s love for us. Many times when we show compassion to others we find that they are going through some of the same experiences in life that we are enduring and we connect with them in ways we never imagined. Our compassion leads us to share what we have with others. Compassion in the name of Jesus allows us to express God’s words of peace, comfort, and hope. Many times those very words speak right back into our own lives and our own emptiness emptiness.

When you feel like you are running on empty remember to be compassionate and allow God to work through your emptiness for his glory.

The second thing to remember when we are empty is this: “Remember to...”

Let Jesus work with what you have

Often when we feel empty, our minds begin to dwell on the things we do not have. We cease to see the potential of our lives and situation. We fail to see how God is at work, and we begin to hunger for what we feel we lack in our emptiness.

I read a story recently about an Olympic swimmer names Katie Ledecky who competed in the 2016 games in Rio. She was 19 years old and won a silver and four gold medals. Here is the interesting thing about her story, according to her coach and athletic trainers she does not look very much like a swimmer. She is simply not physically built like a swimmer. Her coach noted that if you compared her physique to that of other swimmers she is “remarkably unremarkable.” Even though she does not look like other swimmer she still outperformed them at the games. If you think about it our world is filled with those who have been labeled nothing remarkable but yet they seem to achieve more than anyone could ever imagine that they would.

Do you ever feel “remarkably unremarkable?” I’ve got good news…we serve a God who loves to use remarkably unremarkable people to do miraculous things if they will only trust him and be obedient to him.

Matthew 14:15–18 NASB95

When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, “This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!” They said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” And He said, “Bring them here to Me.”

So after a busy day of healing Jesus’s disciples come to him and tell him that they need to send the crowds away because they are in a remote place and the people are getting hungry. They people were physically hungry and running on empty. They met Jesus on the shore with the emptiness of their needs and now in verse 15 they are physically empty and hungry. As you read this passage you can almost picture the disciples whispering to each other saying things like: “We’ve been here all day Jesus needs to wrap this up, doesn't he realize what time it is.” They approach Jesus with a well prepared argument:

Jesus, this place is a wilderness and we do not have any of the resources that we need.

Jesus, it is getting late and we have been at this all day besides everyone is hungry.

Jesus, the crowd needs to be sent to the surrounded villages so they can buy food for themselves.

Jesus, lack of resources + hunger = the end of this ministry opportunity.

Sounds very logical from a human perspective, but Jesus has other plans. He tells them in verse 16: “They do not need to go away, you give them something to eat.” I can imagine their jaws drop. They had just presented Jesus with a flawlessly logical argument as to why this group of people needed to be sent home, but Jesus had other plans. “You feed them,” He says.

The disciples quickly scan the crowd, take inventory and quickly realize that the only person who packed any food was a young boy who had only five loaves of bread and two fish. In case you have any doubts five loaves and two fish is a remarkably unremarkable dinner for so many people.

Consider for a moment the seemingly impossible situation that the disciples were faced with. The text tells us that 5,000 men were present but it does not document the number of women and children who would have also been there. Some scholars believe that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 thousand hungry people may have been with Jesus on that day.

The disciples tell Jesus: “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” I imagine that they disciples were a little like me when I look at an almost empty gas tank. You can almost here the panic in their report to Jesus about what they had. Jesus says to them: “Bring them here to Me.”

18 And He said, “Bring them here to Me.”

The disciples had the huge task of feeding this large crowd of people and despite their best efforts in from their perspective they had come up empty.

The disciples reaction is many times very much like ours. We are more willing to trust Jesus with handling the spiritual stuff (you know the church stuff), but not with the day-to-day hurts, needs, and desires. We even like to use similar excuses today.

We look at our life and circumstances and realize we have come up empty so we declare our life a barren wilderness. We say things like: “There’s just no hope for me in my situation, my job, my family. I’m just not begin fed at my church. My marriage is failing and has been dead for years.”

We declare our live barren and a wilderness and we impose our own timeline over God’s. “God, I’m too old to serve you or make a impact. God’s ill never get through, he’s too set in his ways to make any kind of changes. God’s i’d serve you if you had only called me twenty years ago.”

We decide that we just can’t help others with their needs. “God, I can’t help them until they are ready to help themselves.”

Life is hard sometimes and you find yourself running on empty. We come up against difficulties and hardships in life and we very quickly realize that we simply do not have enough. We declare that we are living in a hopeless situation and barren land and wilderness and Jesus speaks into our lives just like he does into his disciples in this passage and says: “Bring them here to me.”

Jesus is calling to us today saying: “Bring them here to me.” “Bring me your wayward kids of all ages. Bring me your worries and your doubts. Bring me your need for healing and restoration. Bring me the stress in your life. Bring me you worries about your finances and checkbook. Bring me the problems in your marriage and family. Bring me your lack of patience and your pain. Jesus is calling out to us and saying: “Bring it all to me.”

For Jesus this impossible situation was only an opportunity to provide for and love these people. Why do we so easily doubt the power of God at work in our lives?

Rav Zacharias said this: “Capturing the beauty of the conversion of the water into wine, the poet Alexander Pope said, ‘The conscious water saw its Master and blushed.’ That sublime description could be reworked to explain each one of these miracles. Was it any different in principle for a broken body to mend at the command of its Maker? Was it far-fetched for the Creator of the universe, who fashioned matter out of nothing, to multiply bread for the crowd? As it not within the power of the One who called all the molecules into existence to interlock them that they might bear His footsteps?”

tells us: “Everything is possible for the one who believes...” Jesus alone can do the impossible with what you have. But you have to bring it to him. All of it. What do you need to bring to Jesus this morning?

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

This brings us to the third things we need to remember when we are running on empty...” We will do well to understand that...”

Jesus Provides through His followers

Look at verse 19 . Jesus tells the crowd to sit down in the grass ad He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed he food, and broke it and distributed it to his disciples who then gave it to the people. All along Jesus had a different plan. All along Jesus’ intention had been to meet the needs of the crowd through his disciples. “Jesus knew that the masses were physically hungry for a meal, but their spiritual hunger was even deeper. Sending the crowd away wold have only met their physical needs, but by using his followers to meet the physical needs of the crowd Jesus also met their spiritual needs.”

(A Hard Truth): Sometimes “running on empty” is exactly where God needs us to be in order to work through us. For God our emptiness is an opportunity to work through us.

In Paul writes: “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

The power of this miracle came from Jesus but it was carried out by the hands and feet of his disciples. Notice they were running on empty and all they had was five loaves and two fish and thousands of people to feed, but everybody was fed. Verse 20 tells us that: “they all ate and were satisfied.” It does not say that they had a morsel, or a taste, but they were filled they were satisfied.

Filled and satisfied: That’s like where you get done with a big meal and you say whew and push yourself away from the table. As a matter of fact each disciple was left with a full basket of leftovers as if to remind them of the power of the God whom they served! Jesus met their needs in abundance!

Jesus can fill your emptiness too, and if you are sitting here this morning and you are a child of God Jesus desires to work through you to fill the needs of others around you.

In Jesus tells us: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

So are you running on empty this morning? Are you feasting on the Bread of Life?

Please pray with me...

Call Musicians forward...

So where does his passage find you this morning?

One of the Crowd: Partaking of the Bread but not quite grasping what He is talking about - Jesus the Bread of Life offered Himself for you…Accept Him and Lord and Savior today

Maybe you are like one of the disciples and you have already experienced firsthand the joy of knowing the bread of life personally. Maybe this passage is calling you to share that bead with the rest of the world? That takes a moment of truth step of faith in obedience to Jesus Christ. What is Jesus calling you to do?

Maybe this morning you are just running on empty and you need to spend a moment at the alter with the only One who can fill that emptiness.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Running on Empty

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Be Compassionate

Let Jesus work with what you have

Jesus Provides through His followers

Jesus Provides through His followers

Jesus Provides through His followers