When You Are Spent

Scripture Introduction:

You ever heard that phrase, “God will not give you any more than what you can handle.” We’re going to see in our text this morning how that is most assuredly not true. He doesn’t give us more than HE can handle but we’re always in over our heads.

In our text this morning we will see the disciples coming back from their mission trip—they’ve seen God do amazing things apparently…in Mark’s retelling it seems as if they are jazzed up. For Luke it’s a bit more muted. But here they are and it seems like they might be wanting some alone time with Jesus…but as soon as they get back there is even more ministry to be had.

So you need to picture them here at the end of their rope…and totally out of resources. Let’s listen in.

Read Luke 9:10-17

What I want to do this morning is kind of retell this story a bit and pick up on a few key phrases and then I think God has placed this in our laps for this very season. It’s an incredibly timely message. Retell story:

v10 They are telling Jesus everything they’ve done…he withdrew to Bethsaida....

v11. but the crowds followed him....What you’re supposed to feel in this text is exhaustion. Drained. You can’t get away. You can’t get rest. Give, give, give, give…but you’re trying to be obedient to Jesus. Hopefully he’s getting the clue that you’re tapped out.

“and he welcomed them.” What? But he’s actually extending hospitality. This is part of the mission (connect this with verse 3). He’s a host. And he’s overturning works of darkness. Notice what he does too…spoke of the kingdom and cured those who needed healing. That’s continuing our theme that we saw last week. “Talk about Jesus, love people—work to make them whole”.

v12…Now the day began to wear away. That’s an interesting word there for “wear away”. It’s the same word that Jesus would use when he said the son of Man has nowhere to “lay his head”…go to bed. So what it’s saying is the day is going to bed....and so the disciples are getting antsy. Okay, that’s enough Jesus. It’s bed time. Amazing how unspiritual you can be in these moments isn’t it?

“Send the crowd away...” Tell them to go home, Jesus. This is kind of amazing. They are dictating to Jesus what he ought to be doing. They are saying, “listen, Lord, we’ve got a plan here. We’re using our wisdom.” We are in a desolate place....these cats are hungry…we’re tired and hungry…let them fend for themselves.

Let’s think about this for a second. Isn’t this a really logical thing to do. There are 5000 men…doesn’t mention women or children. So perhaps more than 5000 people…some scholars have actually put a few pieces together and thought that maybe these were military people who were wanting to make Jesus king. I’m not sure about that. But what you’re supposed to see here is that they absolutely 100% do not have the resources to give to these people. Jesus’ compassion is—in the disciples eyes—much bigger than their resources.

We’re in a wilderness. LET THIS SINK IN

v13 “You give them something to eat.” I don’t know what those words do to you—but they are exhausting. Tapped out. Give more. That’s what it sounds like. That’s what it feels like…but Jesus is teaching them and us a really valuable lesson.

So they go and take inventory. 5 loaves and 2 fish. This isn’t going to cut it. We don’t have what it takes to meet what the mission demands. We don’t have the resources to measure up to the compassion of Jesus.

Then they say, “unless we go buy food for all these people.” That’s tongue in cheek. They don’t have money. We know this. Even if they did we’re talking a ton of money. 4 for $4 bags at Wendy’s....5000 people. That’s a lot of nuggets. 20K.

You ever feel this? Consider what we are being asked to do in the Great Commission?

How do you obey the Great Commandment (love God, love people) in our polarized world? How are we going to have 2021 gospel conversations when it’s almost September and we’re probably not even a sixth of the way filled with ping pong balls?

What about this Wed. night stuff? How in the world are we going to pull that off? You might be thinking how am I equipped to do this. I’m so spent. I’m so exhausted. I’ve got nothing in these days. I have to focus on me.

And I get it…there is something to be said for that. There ARE times when Jesus does get alone and pray. There ARE moments in ministry when you truly are spent and running on empty and your relationship with God is struggling. And you really need to get fed. You can’t feed others if you’re starving yourself....

But I have to be honest and say that though that is most certainly true and we need to weigh those things…we really need to let this text speak...

This is the lesson the disciples are going to have to learn here in their own desolate place. They’ve got 5 loaves and 2 fish and Jesus is saying, “You feed them”. Just like the Israelites they are looking at the barren wasteland around them—they are looking at their paltry supplies and they are asking—Is God able to set a table in the wilderness?

Disciples have to learn this lesson. It was the same lesson that the Israelites had to learn in the wilderness. In fact it was really the test in the Garden of Eden. And it is the same test that Jesus faced in the wilderness. Will we trust in God to be our provider?

Notice as we finish this text…who feeds the 5 thousand. I’m going to read through this and tell me what does Jesus do…what do the disciples do.

“have them sit down in groups of about 50 each.” Okay, Jesus is organizing them. Telling the disciples how to do it…but they go and have them sit.

v15 disciples obey Jesus’ directive. They don’t send them away they tell them to sit. They set a table for them…they are hospitable....this has to seem ridiculous. Think about this for just a moment.

This would be like having a community event....let’s go back to our trunk or treat last year. (We had to go back 3-4 times to get more candy and I thought we had well enough…but as we had so many people come through…not even a 1/5 of what we have here in our text)....Can you imagine if we had done this huge community outreach....we had 5000 people here....we had promised a free meal for them....we get them all set up in tables. We put them in groups....and we’ve got 5 loaves and 2 fish.

This isn’t going to work? This is crazy. You are going to embarrass yourself. You don’t have the resources to match the compassion of God. Yep. We don’t. They didn’t either....but notice this....

v16 Jesus took what they had…took their meager resources…blessed them…gave them to the father. Then passes them out to the disciples to set before the crowd.

v17...“And they all ate and were satisfied. And collected twelve baskets of broken pieces....they had leftovers.

Who fed the 5000? Jesus. Yes, 100%. Without Jesus they’d have had 5 loaves, 2 fish and sent everyone packing. BUT who served the fish? Who served the bread? It was the disciples who “set it before the crowd”.

And I think that’s significant what Jesus is doing here. Those disciples are the ones getting their hands dirty. They are the ones doing the ministry. They are the ones in the muck and mire and passing out the bread and the slimy fish…they are the ones who are dipping their hand into the fish and bread everytime....maybe expecting it to be empty…bottom of the barrel but somehow…unexplained…5000 people get fed on meager rations.

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As we launch into a new Wednesday evening program I know that we have questions. I feel a little like those disciples with 5 loaves, 2 fishes, and so much need. Do you realize that in Newton county there are 58,000 people and over half of them have no religious affiliation. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that in Newton county we have some 40,000 people who don’t know Jesus.

We have tons of poverty. Much addiction in our area. So much brokenness. I think about some of the areas around our community that we are looking to go to in order to “talk about Jesus and love people”. One apartment complex has so many kids there—and I don’t think anyone is going there with the gospel. What will it mean for us to reach them? What sacrifices will it take? I think of all the parents and grandparents…I think of all the lostness we have in our community. What is it going to take? And I think of our own need for healing and wholeness? Mental health is such an issue here and it’s only going to increase---did you realize there are so few places to go for good solid biblical counseling? Did you know that there are few places to go for trauma care? What would it take to make a dent in that?

5 loaves. 2 fishes.

5 loaves and 2 fishes in our hands…that’s not going to cut it. But 5 loaves and 2 fishes surrendered to Jesus, bowing to His compassion, given to His mission…oh, imagine what He could do.

Notice a few more things here in this text. Notice that it’s a common thing done in an extraordinary way. Feeding people. Anybody can do that. Feeding 5000 people. You can do that with enough supplies. But here we have feeding 5000 people with meager rations. Jesus probably isn’t asking us to do some crazy and extraordinary thing.

“Talk about Jesus and love people.” You’ll never run in front of the Spirit if that’s your intention. Simple. I don’t feel like I’m brave enough. I don’t feel as if I have enough to give. Yep. But he does. Will we trust him with our meager rations? With our weak faith? Will we give what we have to him.

Which is the second thing I want you to notice. Jesus isn’t calling them to give what they don’t have, to be who they aren’t, to do something with what they don’t have. He says feed them---he doesn’t say, go forage for berries, go find a way to multiply this food---he says, “feed them with what you have.” Well, that’s not enough. Trust him with what you do have. Can you use this?

But I don’t want to misstep here. This is the last thing I’ll have us notice from this passage. Jesus is teaching them about himself and not so much “here is how to get stuff done.” He is the bread of life. He is sufficient to meet their needs. This passage isn’t him teaching them, “rely on me and we’ll accomplish all those great things that you dream” as much as it is him saying, “rely on me. I will provide. I will be your portion. I will satisfy you and sustain you.”

You find yourself in a desolate place. Ah, if I go to Jesus he’ll be the means to help me get it done. Production, consumerist stuff must die. Your value is in what you produce. Nah, that’s not the lesson of the loaves. The lesson of the loaves and fishes is that Jesus is and always will be our portion.

Friends, Jesus is worth every ounce of sacrifice. But cultural Christianity isn’t. The system we’ve produced and made up isn’t worth a hill of beans. Getting power, transferring power. Winning. Selling stuff. Packaging it. Blah. “Talk about Jesus. Love people—work to make them whole”. That’s worth our sacrifice. Our Jesus trinkets aren’t.

That’s one of my concerns with preaching a text like this. I think it’s fundamentally about rest. Yes, it’s about doing. It’s about accomplishing things. It’s about mission. But what Jesus is teaching the disciples is that all of their activity MUST flow out of their relationship with Him. It must flow out of His sufficiency.

This is why we so often cannot rest. We go on vacation and then need one to recover from our vacation. It’s because we aren’t whole inside. We’re looking for all sorts of things to fill us. But it’ll never provide. Only Jesus can make us whole.

And so I know there are those here this morning who are just wore plum out. Or as my granny used to say, “They are just plain tuckered out.” And you hear a message like this and you think, “yeah, I’ve got to keep going. I have to pull myself up—trust in Jesus more, do better, believe more, etc.” Maybe.

Or maybe it’s “come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” I think that’s where we often err. We are exhausted and so we think…what I really need is to go get filled back up. I need to send the crowd away until I can get better. I need to rest. But what we find is that apart from Jesus our rest isn’t restful.

If you’re exhausted, come to Jesus. If you’re full of excitement and energy, come to Jesus. I’m going to surrender both my dreams and my brokenness to Jesus. I want to surrender my sweat and my smiles. My labor and my longing. No matter where I find myself this morning—burned out our bubbling over, I want to give it to Jesus. That’s the lesson of the loaves. Here’s my fish. Here is my bread.

This is the question that lingers over the Garden. It’s the question that lingered over the wilderness. It’s the question that lingers over the disciples? And I’m convinced it’s over us even today. Am I going to trust God to accomplish His purposes with His resources or am I going to trust what I’ve got to bring to the table? Will I trust in my resources or His?

And at this point we need to stop and make a couple of comments. First, the compassion of Jesus is always greater than our strength. And the need of the people is always greater than our resources. You combine these two things and it’ll flat wear you out. If you don’t learn the lesson of the loaves I think you’ll be miserable in life and ministry.

Because look at what the disciples are doing here. It’s the same thing really that the Israelites did. They are looking inside themselves for an answer and they are coming up empty. They’ve got nothing. Now in our culture we hear stuff like this all the time, “just look inside yourself. That’s where you’ll find the answer. Follow my heart, that’s what I always do.”

They look at what they have and its woefully inadequate. 5 loaves and 2 fishes. They do the math. That can’t feed 5000 hungry dudes fired up about military conquest. You wouldn’t even try this. You don’t want one of these guys angry with you b/c he didn’t get his cut. So their only solution—we got nothing—turn them away and let them fend for themselves.

The disciples didn’t get it. And if we are being honest neither do we many times. But that kind of is the lesson of the loaves. Jesus passed the test where everyone else has failed, the first couple, the Israelites, his disciples, you and I. But in the wilderness Jesus didn’t fail. Will we rely upon His strength, His record, etc.

Are you trusting in Jesus?

What ministry is God calling you to? How can we help you thrive in it?