Living Hope Church Green River
8/11/24 Living on Mission
Because of Calvary, we can, because of the Olderhood Cross, that you that you laid your life down on. And yet, you are the king that rose from the dead. You are the king that conquered sin. You are the king that has offered life and forgiveness. And Lord, as we follow you, as we worship you, we have found you on every moment of every day to be good. And so Lord, as we open your word today, as you speak, I pray that you would convict our hearts, that you would draw us close to you, that we would see through the words of your scripture today your love and your goodness. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you guys, please have a seat. - Today's reading is from the Book of Luke, chapter nine, verses one through 17. Then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said to them, take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor money, and do not have to tunics of peace. Whatever house you enter, stay there and from their depart and whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them. So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. Now Herod, the tetrarch heard of all that was being done by him and he was perplexed because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead and by some that Elijah had appeared and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. Herod said, John, I had beheaded, but who is this whom I hear such things? So he sought to see him and the apostles, when they had returned, told him all that they had done. Then he took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city of Besseddah. But when the multitudes knew it, they followed him and he received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who had need of healing. When the day began to wear away, the 12 came and said to him, send the multitude away that they may go into the surrounding towns and county and lodge and get provisions for we are in a deserted place here. But he said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said, we have no more than five loaves and two fish unless we go and buy food for all these people, for there were about 5,000 men. Then he said to his disciples, make them sit down in groups of 50 and they did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled. The 12 baskets of leftover fragments were taken up by them. - All righty, thank you, Steve. Well, it is time if you have children in third grade and under and they want to go downstairs to children's church, they can go be dismissed, make some colored crafts. I don't know, something, it'll be great. What are you doing today? What? Oh, yeah, Abram and Lot, that's a great story. Awesome, okay, so for those of you who don't know, my name is Pastor Ruben, thank you so much for being here. Living Hope Church exists to experience and to share a life of hope that is only found in following Jesus and so it is our desire to be able to do that with you. If you're a visitor here, if you want to mind filling out the card in front of you and dropping it in that box in the very back, that box is just for those of us that are a part of this church that want to support the work that God is doing here through. Living Hope Church, for us to financially give there. But if you're a visitor, there's a card, if you want to mind filling it out and dropping it in that box, it gives me a way to be able to reach out to you, to connect with you, and to see how we can better serve you. And so, thank you so much everyone for being here. And while I'm saying thank you, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who helped with Vacation Bible School. Vacation Bible School was Monday through Thursday this week. And I know a lot of you, looking around, a lot of you put in a lot of time and effort for that. And so, I want you to know that it's not unnoticed. It is very much appreciated. And yeah, it wouldn't have been possible without everyone's help, so thank you everyone who helped. Also, while I'm saying thank yous, is that three in a row? There's the third one, where's my paper? Oh yeah, the soccer fields. So, it was the help with snow cones and popcorn at the soccer fields. Thank you so much for helping out with that. This is my first year doing it, and I really do think it was a pretty unique thing. Just getting to argue with people that they don't pay for, it's free, it's for them. And so, it's really a joy. And then, it's always fun when the kids start coming and they're getting their 15th snow cone, and I'm just like, "I hope I don't see the parent." Like, they're free, so they come and get them. So, but no, it really is a blast, and it really is a joyful thing to do. So, if you helped out with that, thank you so much. I do think it's a great opportunity for us to be a part of our community. And so, yeah, thank you so much for that. I do want to mention a couple things in your, or one thing in your bulletin, and then a couple things that'll be coming up soon. On your bulletin, there's a statewide ladies retreat that's going to be in CASPER on September 6th and 7th. There are flyers on the back table. I know of two people specifically that have told me that they're interested in going, and so, we might be able to figure out rides. I'm not going to it, just FYI. But if you want to talk to me, and I'll try to put the people that are interested in going together, I think there is a fee that, I think the flyer said $35. But, yeah, if you're interested in going statewide, ladies retreat. I know some of the names on the flyer, and some of you probably know, at least one of the names on the flyer is Melody Taylor. She's going to be one of the speakers, or breakout leaders, or something. I didn't, I'm not saying I'm not interested, but like I wasn't reading it super closely to find out what was going on, because I won't be there. No, it's a great thing. And so, there's a poster on the bulletin board, and there's flyers on the back table for that. And then I do also want to mention, the 21st is school is getting back into session, which is still August. So, seems like summertime to me, but we're getting ready for fall. And so, I don't have any info yet, but we're here by next Sunday, I'll have info out on some Bible studies that we'll be starting. Our goal is to start these the second week of September, just with summer finishing up and just getting things organized. We're going to have a big fall kickoff, and we'll have some new Bible studies that are starting at the end, or the second week of September, okay? So, next week we'll have some info out on that. So, be looking for that. All right, so today, we're in the book of Luke. Surprisingly, we've been in the book of Luke for a little while, and I'm not going to lie. We're coming to a point in the book of Luke here, within a month or so, where we might actually take a break from the book of Luke. Not because I'm tired of the book of Luke, but because there's a really good transition in the book of Luke where we go from what we've been talking about to a lot of Jesus' teachings. And I think it might be great to just take a break and do like a four week study in between there. And so, be looking for that coming up, but we're going to come back to Luke because Luke has been an absolute joy. And I want to say, I believe today's sermon, you know, I believe the timing is providential. Just why would we talk about this passage at this time? But with us having just done vacation to Bible school and just having finished up the snow cone and popcorn at the soccer games, there's just been, you know, there's been a season of busyness. There's been a season of us serving and going. And now maybe we're looking forward to this new season where, you know, maybe we get back into a routine of things. And this passage here, I think is going to be a really good reminder to us of just like who we're depending on, okay? And in all of these ministries and all of the things that we're doing, as we're trying to be good followers of Jesus, as we're trying to follow Jesus as parents, as we're trying to follow Jesus as employees or employers, like it's important that that we just recognize where the power and the authority comes from. And so that's really the basis of our passage today is Jesus has these disciples. Now, Jesus has had these disciples for some time. And the truth is, is I have no idea how long the time period is from the beginning of this passage to the end of this passage. Because Jesus at the very beginning of this passage, he sends his disciples on a mission. He sends them on a mission. He gives his disciples a new purpose, right? And here's what the purpose is, if you look with me, verse number two, he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Jesus is, he's been teaching these disciples. Now, as we think of a disciple, we think of it very much as a religious term. And we've talked about disciples following Jesus for the entire time we've been in the book of Luke. But a disciple isn't necessarily just a follower of Jesus, like a disciple is a learner from a teacher. And they want to learn things from their teacher, but then generally the teacher will send his disciples out on mission teaching the things that he has taught. And so when people like literally Paul at one point, he references who his rabbi was, because it gives him a claim of authority, it gives him a claim of legitimacy because of who his teacher was. And so for the disciples, they are now, they've been following Jesus for some time. We've looked at the main first sermon that Jesus preached, the sermon on the Mount. We've looked at the kingdom principles, because Jesus' message from the very beginning, his first sermon ever preached was repent for the kingdom of heaven is a hand. And so Jesus' whole message has been about this kingdom, this coming kingdom. And then he's explained it, he's shown some of the values of God's kingdom, and now he's going to send out his disciples to preach the same message in lots of different places. Now, it's interesting the passage that we have because this is not in any disagreement with any of the other gospels, right? There are four gospels that tell the story of what Jesus said and did while he was on earth. And this does not disagree with the passage in Matthew, but Matthew gives some more details on who and what he told his disciples. It's not just like two verses of his commissioning, it's like seven or eight verses, I didn't count, I'm not gonna lie. But it's in Matthew chapter number 10, I haven't written down. Matthew chapter number 10, oh, I wrote it down somewhere. Maybe I didn't, I put a book more. Matthew 10, five through 15, 10 verses of Jesus' commissioning. And so in Matthew chapter 10, we get some more details, but you know, different authors are going to talk about different details because of what they're focused on. And so for Matthew, one of the things like Matthew was writing to an audience of Jewish people. And when Jesus sends out his disciples at this time, he tells them to only go to the Jewish people. And this is something that's repeated in Jesus' ministry at different times where Jesus' ministry truly before he was crucified, his time on earth, he was preaching and calling to his own people first. He was calling his people back to him. And so his message primarily was to the Jewish people at the beginning. But then what we see at the end of Jesus' ministry, after he's died on the cross, he's been buried and then risen again. When he commissions his disciples again for a new mission, which is very similar to the old one, now it's not just to the Jewish people, now it's to the Jerusalem and to Judea and to Samaria and to the whole earth. And so this mission that we're talking about, and we'll talk about this a little bit at the end, but this is like a very specific mission that was given to these 12 disciples. And really next chapter in Luke, he's gonna send out 70 people on a different mission. And they have kind of their own specific mission. And so it's important as we look at this mission, I wanna look at a way that God works, but I don't want us to take what Jesus tells the 12 on this mission as the rules and guidelines for what we do. I think we should be very careful when Jesus is telling someone, someone in specific, in particular, that's probably a better way to say that. When Jesus is given a command to someone in particular, like we need to understand like when that's for that person and when that's for all people, for all of his followers. And so Jesus, when he sends out his disciples, he gives them some guidelines for what this mission is going to be like. But that doesn't mean that that's like it, that's the same for our mission today. And so even though I want us to learn the ways that God works from this story, there's aspects of this that I think we're just for this time. And so we'll kind of talk about that just real quickly as we go. Trying to figure out if I went through all my caveats. Okay. Jesus, he gives his disciples a new mission, okay? And I want us to look at this very, very simply before we talk about anything else. Because the mission in its scope is going to change. The mission in direct details is going to change. But the core of the mission is still the same for us today. And their mission is to preach the kingdom of God. And this is what we need to do. As we consider the disciples, as we consider what they're being sent to do, like as disciples who've been following Jesus, their message is not to make up their own story. Their mission is not to just figure to teach whatever they want. They have a clear directive in what they're supposed to be teaching. And they teach the kingdom of God. Now, what's beautiful about this is they don't understand a lot of this yet. Like we see them even going up to when Jesus gets arrested, like Peter's like yelling at Jesus. No, you don't know what's going on. It's just like, he does, you don't know. And so there's something beautiful for us about that because we don't always know everything. And as we are sent out on a mission into our family, into our community, what we need to recognize is like our understanding about the kingdom of God is not complete, so that should bring a little bit of humility. But also, we still have the mission to preach the kingdom as it has been taught to us by Jesus Christ. To not make up our own ideas about what the kingdom is. To not create our own kingdom, but to preach the kingdom of our God. So this is the mission. Now, the other part of the mission is to heal the sick. Now, this is kind of an interesting one because I'm not a doctor, a big surprise. I don't talk like one, I don't look like one, I don't dress like one. I'm not a doctor, right? I'm also not a duck because I don't do those things. But you know, the disciples aren't doctors. Now, it's interesting because the day and age that they lived in, the priests, the religious leaders of the day, the priests, they were trained, the Levites were the priests in the temple and they were also the ones that people would go to for their sicknesses. Like if we went back to the Jewish law, like how many laws are about boils and like scabs on skin? And it's just like, why are we reading this? Because like God instituted the priests to be the ones that people would go to to get help, to be healed. And so here, the disciples, they're not priests. I want to be clear, they're not Levites. Maybe one or two of them are from the tribe of Levi. I can't prove that or disprove it. But it doesn't matter that they're not priests. They have been given a mission by God and it's reminiscent of the heart of God that hand in hand with preaching the kingdom of God is to care for the needs of those that we are preaching to. And so it's important for us as we consider what our mission is. God has sent us into the whole world to preach the gospel. Yeah, true religion and undefiled is to care for the fatherless and those in need. Like if we were to go read the book of James, like we would see that the church, even though yeah, maybe we're not doctors, but we are still to pray for those that are sick and we're supposed to care for each other. And so this is the heart of our God, not just our spiritual needs, but also our physical needs, that God cares for us and he sends good news. He sends rescue, okay? And so God sends his disciples on a mission to preach the gospel, to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. If you have your bulletins and you wanna take notes, the first point, all that was introduction FYI, but the first point I have for you is that Jesus equips his disciples to do the impossible. Jesus equips his disciples to do the impossible. Because as we consider what their mission was to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, like the beautiful thing is God doesn't just, he doesn't just give us this job and then leave us. Instead what he did in verse number one, it says he called the 12 disciples together and he gave them power and authority. He gave them power and authority over all demons. That's kind of crazy. What? Like here's the cool thing, like Jesus has been doing crazy stuff. Like we've already seen that Jesus can raise the dead back to life. Jesus can cast out demons. Jesus can, like it's not just that he's teaching, but it's that he's proving he has this power and the power over the physical and the spiritual world. And now he extends, he equips his disciples in the mission he's sending them on to do the impossible. They have power and authority over demons and the power and authority to cure diseases. Man, that sure would've been nice if I had that around COVID time, right? Let's just cure the world of this disease. I mean, there's people who tried that. I don't think it worked, but you know, they tried. See, as Jesus equips his disciples, what's important for us to recognize in the power and authority that he gave them is why? It's to fulfill the mission. It's not just to make us happy. It's not just to avoid all pain. You know, when we start to ask God for healing, like it's important for us to be seeking God's will in this purpose. Why is this here? What are we supposed to learn? What are we supposed to do? Is it, and there's many, many different reasons and I don't claim to know all the reasons and I don't claim to know the reason for your specific situation. But it is very, very important for us that we do not just read this passage and think, oh, I've got power to cure diseases and then if I'm not healed, to then start blaming God. No, we don't get to blame God when things don't work according to our plan. We realign our vision to his mission and then we trust that he has the power and the authority to accomplish it. Jesus sends out his disciples and he gives them the mission. Preach the kingdom and heal the sick. And then he equips them to do the impossible. Now as he commissions his disciple, there's some interesting things he says here. So if we read verse number three, he said to them, take nothing for the journey, neither staves nor bag nor bread nor money and do not have tunics a piece. Literally, whatever house you enter, stay there. Okay, so this, again, I think it's important that we recognize that when God sends us out on mission, he gives us specific commands. And to these 12, he gave them these 12. In this moment, he gave them the specific command, don't prepare for your journey, which is kind of crazy. Like in September, I'm gonna be climbing a mountain. And guess what I'm doing right now? I'm hiking every day. I'm trying to figure out what to pack and what to bring because it's not a good idea to be 10 miles up a mountain and realize, oh yeah, I probably should've brought some food. Maybe I should've brought a change of clothes. And so it seems counterintuitive that Jesus is saying in this mission, this specific mission, don't take extras. Don't take an extra clothing, set a clothing. Don't worry about where you're gonna say. Don't, you know, when we travel, like, you know, I don't know if I have time to tell this story, but that's a quick story. So when I got married, I got married on July 20th, years ago, a long time ago. And we booked a cabin on Pike's Peak for our honeymoon. But our wedding was on the 20th and we could get in to the cabin on the 21st. And so there's that wedding night, which my plan was to just grab a hotel on the way to Pike's Peak, right? It was gonna be wonderful and it was gonna be great. Well, me and my wife, we were both working over nights at Walmart at the time and I sleep a lot when I drive, apparently. And so my wife started driving. The next thing I know, like, I wake up and we're getting close to Cheyenne and I'm like, okay, this is a good spot for us to just stop and get a hotel, spend a nice, nice time together. Matt's laughing because I think he already connected the time and place. And yeah, it turns out Cheyenne Frontier Days was that weekend and there wasn't a hotel in Cheyenne available. And also we keep going and there's all, like it's July 20th, like there's things going on. We had to drive all the way to Colorado Springs to get a hotel. We had to pass Denver to get a hotel. And so yeah, turns out when we don't plan ahead, like, you know, your journey changes a lot and you kind of have to be flexible. But like, let's be honest, I think that's important for the disciples on this mission is that they were supposed to be flexible, that they weren't supposed to have predetermined ideas about where they're going and what they're doing, that they were supposed to follow where God led them and what God provided for them and they were supposed to accomplish some mission He sent them in that moment. And so that's what they do. The only preparation they had was the time they had spent following Jesus and learning from Jesus. What they needed to prepare for this mission was understanding what Jesus taught. That's what they taught. That's what they needed to prepare. And as we consider our mission, like as we consider what we're told to go and preach the gospel, the primary thing we should be concerned with is do we know the gospel? Do we know what Jesus has said and what He has done? Are we teaching about God's kingdom? And then there's a whole bunch of other details that we have to figure out for the record. We have a different command than they do. We have to take care of details, right? We don't always get to just forget the details, but for the disciples, their only preparation in this time was to don't worry about packing and taking care of all those details, just know what Jesus has taught you. Take that message with you. And then, you know, there's another, this verse is kind of interesting and I'll be honest, the passage and Matthew, it's kind of harsh when we first read it. He says, whatever house you interstay there and from there to part, and whoever will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them. And literally the passage and Matthew, it talks of like almost calling down condemnation on the people who wouldn't listen to them, who wouldn't let them stay in their house, who wouldn't accept them. And so what I want us to get from this is, first of all, caveat that I've said a couple times, is this was for this specific moment. I think it's very foolish of us, the moment we face any kind of rejection, we just start calling down condemnation. We ask God to bring down hell fire and they're going to hell anyway and suddenly a whole lot of cuss words make a lot of sense we wanna use against them, right? Whoa, that is not what we see modeled throughout the entire New Testament. This is a command that's given for this very specific moment in this very specific time to a very specific people. Remember, this was just to the Jewish people before Jesus is crucifixion because the entire Old Testament was God chose a people to be on mission for him, to be sharing the news of who God is to the whole world. And when they rejected God, he called them back and he called them back and he called them back and here's their final chance to come back before Jesus says, no, I'm starting with the new people. And Jesus is not done with the Jewish people. The Bible is clear about that. The book of Romans tells us that God has all the plans and promises he gave to the Jewish people are still true. But today, God is going to accomplish his purpose of preaching the kingdom to those who will go. And we take it to those who will listen. And these disciples, they went preaching the kingdom of God and where they went and who they spent their time with were the people who listened. And I think it's very important for us to be seeking out people who are willing to listen, who maybe are willing to let us into their home, who maybe we're willing to let them in our home. We need to listen, we also still have to be patient and long-suffering. We don't get to start calling down condemnation on them because they didn't accept. No, we're like Jesus and we give them the message and we forgive and we turn the other cheek and we are relentless in our pursuit of their return to their God. So the disciples were sent, they were equipped to do the impossible. And there's a couple verses here that I'm going to be honest, we're going to use next week too. But I just want to mention one impact of what this mission had. This mission that the disciples were sent on, verse number seven, it says, "Now Herod the Tetrarch." He's like the governor, he's like the king of the area. He's the Roman head of the area. Now Herod the Tetrarch, he heard of all that was done by him. This is the impact of the mission that the disciples were sent on. No longer is what Jesus doing, just localized to the area where Jesus is. Now Jesus has sent his disciples to surrounding regions and now the whole region has heard and seen of Jesus Christ and the things that he's done in the kingdom he's talking about. And so now this king is hearing about this. It would be an absolutely beautiful and a wonderful thing if Green River had any idea that we existed because we were living on mission. Because we were talking about serving a king that's not of this world. Because we actually lived as dual citizens, super proud of America, proud of being American, but my allegiance lies with the kingdom of God. I serve King Jesus first and foremost. And when we live on mission for Jesus, it has an impact. Even the government hears of it. And then as we see the crowds begin to flock to Jesus as even more than we've already seen in the book of Luke. Very quickly, there's a handful of things I wanna mention. This is a side note, but this is why I said, I think this passage is so important for us after vacation Bible school. Because the next thing that we see is, Herod's like worried about who Jesus is, and we'll talk about that more next week. I'm not trying to skip over verses, but I want us to look back, there's this gap. The beginning of the passage, Jesus sends out his disciples, he gives them a mission to preach the kingdom, he enables and he quips them to do the impossible, and then they go. And I don't know how long they went. This could have been 10 days, this could have been months. I don't know, but they went on this mission, and then they come back. And that's where we pick up in verse number 11, or verse number 10, it says in the apostles. This is, it's really cool. Verse one, they're called disciples, and verse 10, they're called apostles. And apostles, just like that word, the meaning of that word boils down to a sent one, someone that was sent. And so we start out with disciples, the 12 disciples, the ones that are learning from their teacher, and then we see as they're returning that they were sent ones. Jesus sent out his disciples. So anyway, cool little word play right there. And the apostles, when they had returned, they told him all that they had done, and then he took them, and went aside privately into a deserted place, belonging to the city called Boseida. And what I think is important about this, is I believe Jesus recognizes that after this, this intense mission, this intense period of ministry, that the disciples were sent on, Jesus' response when they return is to spend time alone with him, to take time away, and try to have some private time. And I think it's important, coming at the end of a summer, where maybe we've been busy, where we've been working a lot, where we've been working for God a lot, and we've been struggling, and we've been serving, and maybe it's important for us to just take some time aside to rest. This is something that Jesus did throughout his ministry, at busy times in his ministry, when there's crowds fucking, he would go find time alone and pray. And so I think it's important for us, at the end of something like vacation to Bible school, to take some time aside, and to try to spend private time with God, to get some rest with him. Now here's the hard part about this, that people are still needy. It tells us, verse number 11, when the multitudes knew that they were hiding, they're out in the woods alone, and when the multitudes knew it, they followed him. Jesus tries to get alone and get some rest with his disciples, and someone tweeted out their location, and now the crowd's coming. And that's okay. Not only is it okay, it's good. See, it's important, I think, for us, to recognize that we are vulnerable to attack when we're tired, and when we're worn out, when we're, it's easy to be short with people, it's easy to not react in a godly way when we are still spent, right? And it's good to seek rest and private time with Jesus, but people still need Jesus. We should not turn them away. Jesus received them, right? That's what verse 11 says, they followed him, and he received them, and he spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing. There's so much work to do. We need to understand how we can do this for the long term. We need to find periods of rest. We need to find healthy rhythms so that we can continue to live on mission, but we must never, ever replace the purpose of our mission. Rest is not our purpose. Rest enables us to live on mission, and when God brings the mission to us, let's get to work, let's get busy, get your breather, pray, spend time with God, and then get to work. Preach the kingdom, heal those that need healing. I want to also notice though, the second point I have on our bulletin is that Jesus does the impossible through his disciples. Now this might sound very similar to the first point, but I want us to recognize who's doing the impossible. We must never, ever forget the fact that it is Jesus who has the power and the authority to heal, that it is Jesus who has the power and the authority over demons, and though he equips us and he sends us, and this next part of the story is this beautiful, wonderful thing that he does, it's still him. They go to preach the kingdom, and it makes people come to Jesus. We are not preaching so that people come to follow us. We are preaching so that people come to follow Jesus. This is the impact of living on mission. Governments may hear, but people come to Jesus. That's the goal, and that's what happened. The disciples go into the region, they go into Israel, and they preach the kingdom, and the people come, the crowds flock to Jesus. Now there's this cool thing that happens, and this right here, Jesus does the impossible through his disciples. Let's read this. "When the day began to wear away, "the 12 came and said to him, "send them altitude away, "that they may go into the surrounding towns "and country and lodge and get provisions, "for we are in a deserted place here." But he said to them, "You give them something to eat." Now here's the cool thing. Jesus equipped his disciples to do the impossible, but God can always do more. And we might have expectations of what God can do, and what God is doing, but God can do more. And these disciples just went on this big mission, serving God, casting out demons, healing sick, curing diseases, preaching the kingdom, and when they come back, "Oh, you gotta send them out to go get food. "We don't have food here." And God's like, "Well, feed them." That is beyond their expectations that this is something we can do. So here's what Jesus does. Or, no, what they say, sorry. Still, verse 13, "You give them something to eat." And they said, "We have no more than five loaves "and two fish, unless we go and buy food "for all these people." For there were about 5,000 men. That's not counting women and children. 5,000 men. And he said to the disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of 50." And they did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish. Looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to sit before the multitude. And so they all ate and were filled. And there were 12 baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. Here's what I want us to kind of recognize a little bit. It's first of all that Jesus used what was given to him. You know, whichever disciple it was, I think one of the passages might say it was Philip who's like, "Hey, we've got five loaves and two fish." But what is that in all of this? Jesus uses what we give to him. He used those five loaves and those two fish. He used the 12 disciples on this mission. And then he multiplies it. Jesus uses what we give and then he multiplies it. But he does it through the hands of his disciples. It was not just that Jesus spoke and now everyone had food in front of them. Instead, Jesus, he faked God for his food, which is a kind of neat little thing there. And then he broke it and he gave it to a disciple. And he broke it and he gave it to a disciple. And he broke it and he gave it to a disciple. And the disciples did the same. And they gave and there's like this nice orderly way that they did it and Jesus is like this God of order. And like people knew when it was their turn and they were sitting down, they weren't rushing for it, it's kind of cool. But the disciples were going to these groups and the disciples. I don't know what five loaves and two fish can do. But man, this loaf's still going. And this loaf's still going. And I still have part of a fish to give away and wait a second, I got a basket full of leftovers. All of them each disciple had their own basket of leftovers. Do we see the provision that God can give the miracles that God can do through our own hands when we are just obedient to do what he tells us to do? Jesus takes what we give him and he uses it. And he multiplies it. And I don't know if you're helping kids at Vacation Bible School eat a snack or do a craft or go to the bathroom and wash their hands. God takes what we give him and he multiplies it. We beg God who alone has power and authority to bring life and forgiveness to the kids that came to Vacation Bible School to take what we gave and multiply it and work in the lives of these children and show them his love and continue to preach his kingdom to provide for and care for each of those children. And whatever our ministry is, whether it's to our own children or it's to our spouse or it's to Vacation Bible School kids or to it's our boss, may everything we do be for God to preach the kingdom and may God take that and multiply it. And may we see God working through our hands. May we be the hands and feet that are preaching the kingdom of God today. Very quickly, I wanna mention just a couple of things. What we need to live on mission to bring people to Jesus. Three things that we today need to live on mission to bring people to Jesus. First of all, it's the message of Jesus. Just as the disciples were not told to go prepare and make all of their plans and figure out, their primary concern was that they preached, they taught what Jesus was teaching. We must preach the message of Jesus. On this note, I wanna turn very, very, very quickly in Luke chapter number 22 verse number 35. And Jesus, this is literally right before Jesus gets arrested. This is before he goes to the garden. They're at the Last Supper and Jesus says to his disciples, he says, "When I sent you without money bag, "napsack and sandals, did you lack anything?" And they said, "Nothing." Sorry, if you're not looking at it. The word they said was nothing. They didn't lack anything, okay? It's not that they didn't say anything. It's that they said, "We lacked nothing." And so Jesus says this, "But now he who has a money bag, "let him take it, and likewise a napsack, "and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment "and buy one for I say to you that this which is written "must still be accomplished in me." And he was numbered with the transgressors for the things concerning me have no end. And so look, this is what I want us to recognize is that Jesus, in this mission that he sent them on, in Luke chapter number nine, they were told not to take any belongings, to not take provisions for the road, but then before he is crucified and he's preparing them for the next stage of their ministry, he tells them to take provisions for the road. There is work that we have to do. There is provisions that we need to survive that we don't get to neglect. But as we move forward on mission, we must remember that the message is Jesus. It is nothing else. We do not preach the kingdom of men. We preach the kingdom of God. The second thing we need to live on mission to bring people to Jesus is the power of Jesus. We need Jesus to be handing us another piece of bread so that we can hand it out. We need Jesus to be healing. We need to be praying for Jesus to heal. We must never ever think that we will replace Jesus because he gave us power and authority. We must always rely on the power of Jesus in our ministries, in our family. Let us not think that we can raise our children because I'll be honest, we don't know what we're doing. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm not speaking just for myself. I am speaking for myself. I'm making it up as I go. But like, I've watched enough other parents. We're all making it up as we go. So let's stop pretending that we can be what our children need. Our children need Jesus. And we need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Working as he equips us and doing what he tells us to do because it is his power through us. And then the last thing I wanna mention is what we need to live on mission to bring people to Jesus is complete dependence on Jesus. When Jesus asked his disciples, he said, "When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, "and sandals, did you lack anything?" Jesus taught his disciples on this first mission that they went on, that if they trusted him, if they followed him, he would provide. And he can feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. And we can be sitting here today because 12 men follow Jesus. And we can change the world today. Not because of what we can do, but because Jesus can do the impossible through us. And it's time we live on mission. God, our words, one of our words is to share. And this is one of our greatest commands. This is the commission that God gave all those who follow him to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So we need to live on mission. We need to preach the kingdom of God, trusting that it is the message of God, the power of God, and it is Jesus alone working in us. Let me pray. Lord, we come to you today and we are so thankful that you do the impossible. And even though our expectations are limited and we do not understand how you can do these things, you take what we give you, you take what is given to you, and you multiply it. And so Lord, I pray that you would multiply what we sacrifice to you, what we surrender to you. May you take these acts of worship, the acts of service that we do, the way that we love others, the way that you've loved us. And Lord, may you do a miracle. May you work in the hearts of people. May you show yourself to be good and loving and kind. And Lord, we just pray that you would be honored and glorified because of what we do in our lives. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you guys so much for being here today. I do wanna mention if you guys have never asked Jesus to be your king, if you're not following him, we would love to talk to you about what that means. And for those of us that do follow him, let's go. Let's get to work, it's been a busy summer. There's more work to do. So notice the people around you. So thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week. (muffled speaking) (muffled speaking) [BLANK_AUDIO]