Broken Vessels

Great to be with all of you this morning.

If you have a Bible, let's open up to Mark chapter 6.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 6, and I'm gonna pray just one more time.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Pray with me in your hearts.

Father, just like Claude read earlier, for as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes for out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Father God, you are a promise keeper, and so we come to claim that promise this morning.

Father, we pray that you would speak your word from your mouth, through the scriptures, through me, to all of us, and that we may hear, we may be like fertile soil, we may hear, we may receive, and there may be sprouts of fruit in our heart.

Lord, life change that will bring honor and glory and pleasure to you and would conform us to the image of Christ.

We pray all these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

Mark chapter 6, ask yourself this Is there any place in life where you just feel tired, exhausted, worn out, out of gas?

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Maybe like you are trying your best, doing your best, giving it your all, and it's just not enough.

Maybe like you have this sense on your heart, a burden, like the Lord is asking you to do something, somewhere he's asking you to serve, maybe somebody he's asking you to minister to, and you just feel like I can't.

I don't have what it takes.

I don't care what all the psychologists say, I don't have it.

I'm not enough.

Do you ever just feel like normal demands of life, parenting, family, marriage, whatever it may be, employment?

It's just overwhelming.

It's just exhausting.

It just wears you out that you are at the end of your rope, the end of your tether.

And it seems to be no end in sight.

Passage we're gonna look at today, just to set the context.

The Lord Jesus had sent the 12 out to minister, and they had done well.

And he had said, listen, basically, travel light, don't take any provisions, trust me.

I got people out there that'll take care of you.

You're gonna be fine.

They had gone out, they had gone in faith.

The Lord had provided, from what we know, their mission was very successful.

They preached, they saw great response, they cast out demons, there were healings.

They come back, they're celebrating.

And sometime, maybe in the exact same time frame, the news had gotten to Jesus.

John the Baptist has been killed, who was his cousin, six months older, was in some sense his co-laborer, this other prophet that had been out there preaching the same message, and that Herod, the king who had executed John the Baptist, thinks that Jesus is John the Baptist reincarnate.

Okay, so that's what all is going on when we pick up in Mark chapter 6, verse 30.

Mark 6:30

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught, and he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile.

For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat, and they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.

Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.

And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late.

Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.

But he answered them, You give them something to eat.

And they said to him, Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?

And he said to them, How many loaves do you have?

Go and see.

And when they had found out, they said, Five and two fish.

Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.

So they went down in groups.

So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.

And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people, and he divided the two fish among them all, and they all ate and were satisfied.

And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish, and those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

So the twelve missionaries come back, and they're telling Jesus about how great it had gone.

But now they're attracting even greater crowds.

Because now it's not just Jesus is this famous preacher, teacher, healer, exorcist.

So are the twelve disciples.

So the crowds are so overwhelming, coming and going, looking for a miracle, looking to be fed spiritually.

They don't even have time to sit down and eat.

So Jesus says, hey guys, let's go away.

Let's go to a desolate place where we can rest.

He cares about their practical needs.

They get in the boat, they take off, but the people notice, and the people are so excited, they start sprinting around the lake to try to get where they're going.

And some of the people actually beat them there.

Jesus gets out, doesn't seem frustrated.

He has compassion.

Literally, it's like he's moved in his guts and his bowels.

He's touched in his heart with pity.

So he starts to minister to him.

He starts to teach.

But then it gets late in the day, sunset's probably coming.

The disciples make seemingly very reasonable requests.

Hey, Jesus, people have been with us all day.

They probably haven't eaten all day.

You need to go ahead and send them away now before it gets dark.

Maybe they can get somewhere, buy some bread.

And Jesus says, You give them something to eat.

And they respond kind of sarcastically.

I mean, they basically 200 and this would have been like eight months' wages for a working man.

They're like, man, we we don't have that kind of money.

And if we did, we're gonna go buy all that bread.

That's a crazy idea, Jesus, is essentially what they're saying.

And he says, okay, why don't you look around and say, do you have any bread?

And we know from other gospels.

They look around.

One little boy, probably his mom, had packed him a lunch, five little barley loaves, a couple of smoked or pickled fish, equivalent of like sardines for us, maybe.

That's all we got.

Jesus says, Tell everybody to sit down, prays over the fruit, starts handing it to the disciples.

They start handing it out, feeds everybody, everybody's satisfied.

And then at the end, they had so much they had 12 baskets left over.

Now Mark makes the point at the very end.

Those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men.

That's often how they did their math back then.

So if you think, well, probably a lot, there were families.

There were moms, there were kids.

We're talking in the neighborhood of 20,000 people that have just been fed by a couple of fish sandwiches.

Now.

First point.

God is aware of and he cares about all the details of our lives.

Sometimes we can get super spiritual.

And when we pray, maybe we think that the only thing we can pray about is like, well, God, I'm praying for my lost family member to come to Christ.

I know that's important.

And we can't pray about the smaller details of our life, like, what if you're pet sick?

Can you pray for that?

Or do you feel like embarrassed, like I'm not telling anybody that I'm praying for this?

God is intimately acquainted with the tiniest, most minuscule details of our lives, and he cares.

He's aware and he cares.

Jesus realized, hey, these guys are exhausted and they're hungry.

It was Jesus' idea to say, let's get away.

Let's get away.

He cares about these kinds of things, okay?

Whatever your emotional sadness, your loneliness, your financial, your time constraints, all of that stuff is legitimate, certainly in your relationship with God, in the place of prayer.

I love Philippians 4, 6.

It says, in all things by prayer, nothing is off limits.

Second thing.

It is right to have plans to steward all of your resources wisely.

Another way to say the same thing is this God gave you a brain, He wants you to use it.

Don't be so super spiritual.

You know, if you're on a mission trip, say, and people are coming to the house, and y'all, or maybe you're doing mercy ministry, you're feeding them, or maybe it's more of a, you know, evangelistic tour.

At some point, it's okay to say, you have to come home.

I'm gonna shut the door, I'm gonna lock it, in fact, because I have to go to bed.

That's not sinful.

That's not weak.

In a sinful way.

Does that make sense?

It's okay to think about the limitations, the constraints you have in life, and then try to plan wisely.

I mean, I think most of us would agree, hey, don't live beyond your financial means.

That's wise.

In a very similar sense, don't live beyond your physical means.

Don't live beyond your emotional means.

Okay?

It's okay to set boundaries like that, to live in light of it.

But third point, and then this might be the most important for some of us, pity is more important than our plans.

You could say pity over plans.

And here's what I mean: God gave you a brain, he wants you to use it, steward your resources.

But guys, hold your plans loosely.

Because we are, just like Joshua's praying, we're even if you are the most strong, wise Christian in this room, you're still a sinner.

You still got idols in your heart.

And there are times, even on your best days with your best plans, you'll idolize things that you shouldn't.

So I have to go out into life, well, Lord, I've made the best plans I can, but the Lord might decide to override those plans.

Anyone ever had that experience?

You're like, well, how do I know when God is overriding my plans?

Here's the main thing I'd say from this text is it's the second greatest commandment.

It's love.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

When you have a plan and then you come in front of somebody and it's like, this person needs my service.

This person needs my love.

And you ask the question if I was in their shoes, how would I want me to act towards them?

That question gets real convicting real quick, doesn't it?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

What about love my neighbor a little bit?

I mean, I can live with that one.

But treat him the exact same way that I want to be treated?

That's overwhelming.

That's the way we're called to live.

Okay?

Guys, again, Jesus in his humanity was the one that said, I really think that we need to get away from the crowds to rest, to eat.

Let's go to a desolate place, meaning there ain't nobody there.

He gets out of the boat and there are the crowds, and what he's touched with pity in his heart.

He's moved and he starts teaching them.

He realizes they're sheep.

They don't have any good spiritual leaders.

The Pharisees are terrible leaders.

He starts teaching and starts feeding them.

One commentator said this: He knew then that his effort to find retreat had failed, yet no impatience revealed itself in his manner.

Can that be said of us?

I mean, have you ever said, I'm planning a time of retreat?

Maybe just for yourself, maybe for you and your spouse.

And then you get there and something happens, and you're like, ain't gonna be a retreat no more.

And can you say you just had a sweet disposition about it?

No impatience intruded.

I had a buddy of mine that used to work for campus outreach, and uh this has been years ago, uh, and he was a single guy, two single guys.

They lived, they shared a house on this one campus.

And this guy was a hard worker.

He was a hard worker.

In fact, he he would confess at times that he prided himself on he spent more late nights on campus than his staff partner did.

But he got to a breaking point.

He said, one day I'd been on campus all day doing Bible studies, sharing the gospel, discipleship.

I'm exhausted and I'm driving home, just so excited to get home, be alone, quiet, get in my bed, go to sleep, and just rest.

And he says, as I pull into my driveway, I realize that my staff partner's at home and he's having like a party with students.

There's all these students there.

And he's, I mean, this he knew it was wrong.

He said, and I just started like cussing in my car.

I was so angry.

That's probably a little bit more.

We're like, identify with that guy.

Matthew Henry said this: teach us to be kind to those who are rude to us.

That's what we ought to pray.

God, even when somebody kind of invades my personal space, invades my time, they're annoying, they're needy, they seem manipulative, that I can still be kind and gentle.

Again, not saying there's never a place to set boundaries, but even in doing that, you can be kind and gentle.

Philippians chapter 2, verse 4.

Philippians 2:4

This is maybe the most practically helpful verse to me about what does it really mean to love somebody?

It says, don't merely consider your own interest, but also the interest of others.

I love it, it's just so practical.

Paul says, you can think for yourself, that's fine.

Just think for other people too.

Fourth.

God likes to achieve to use us to accomplish his plans.

And Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man.

He could have said, you know what?

I'm gonna do the whole manna in the desert miracle all over again.

Boom.

Bread just comes up out of the ground.

I'm gonna do the whole quail miracle that God did in the Old Testament.

You know, just all these birds just start crash landing.

He could have done that.

He didn't do that.

He said, Hey guys, go see what you got, and then I'm gonna use you.

I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna bless, and then you're gonna carry.

God likes to use us.

He delights He delights to use sinners and screw-ups just like me and you.

So let's go ahead and get in the game.

William Henderson said this: These men must not be so quick to shake off responsibility.

He wants them to claim God's promises for themselves.

They must be the means in God's hands to supply the spiritual needs of the people.

And guys, that's true of every single Christian.

There's somebody on planet Earth that God wants to use you, if you're in Christ, to minister to in some way, to encourage, to exhort, to rebuke, whatever it may be.

Again, I've quoted this before, but I love the quote because I think it's so helpful.

John MacArthur says, Every Christian is a teacher.

The only question is the size of his classroom.

You may say, but I'm the most immature, I'm the most introverted, I'm the most weird, I'm the most, you know, not intelligent Christian of all time.

And you want you may be right.

Somebody has to be, right?

But even if that's you, even if that's you, you know more than a non-Christian.

You can talk to them.

Hey man, I was once blind, now I see by the grace of Christ.

That's all I got.

You want to know more?

I gotta introduce you to my friend.

It's not just God can use you, God wants to use you.

That's the way he set up the whole thing.

Another commentator said it this way: God must delight in using ordinary people with ordinary gifts because he made so many of us.

That's what he likes to do.

Elizabeth Elliott, y'all remember her story?

I think she outlived three husbands.

And the first one when she was young, and they had one little kid, and they go down to the Alka Indians, and he got speared to death.

And then she decided with her little baby to go back and live with the Indians that had killed her husband and lead him to Christ.

Here's what she said.

If the only thing you have to offer is a broken heart, you offer a broken heart.

Nothing I have will be refused on the part of Christ.

I simply give it to him.

The use he makes of it is his blessing.

I mean, that's how powerful his blessing is.

He can use anything we offer to him.

Okay.

Fifth, God likes to bring us to the end of ourselves.

Haven't you noticed that?

If you've been in the Christian life very long, you certainly have if you're paying attention.

He likes to get us to a desolate place, not just physically but metaphorically.

He doesn't want us to live by sight but by faith.

I mean, even in this story, 20,000 people, the 12 would take a basket of fish and bread, give it out, and have to come back.

And just practically, guys, in our lives, you really want to walk with the Lord at least once a day on a daily basis, you have to, in a sense, come back and say, Lord, feed me.

I'm hungry.

Give me something today just to sustain me so I can minister to the people that I meet today.

William Hendrickson said this as well.

No animal is as dependent as a sheep.

Without someone to guide it, it wanders and is lost and becomes food for wolves.

Without someone to graze it, it starves.

And guys, this is us.

Why does God like to break and humble us like this?

Because God, maybe above all things, he hates pride.

And he loves humility.

He loves dependence.

So he likes to get us there so he can use us.

Sixth.

God wants us to constantly live by faith and dependence on him.

Look at verse 37 again with me.

But he answered them, You give them something to eat.

And they said to him, Shall we go and buy 200 denarial worth of bread and give it to them to eat?

I mean, it's a little bit sarcastic.

And this is what when you think about that was a prayer.

Right?

I mean, they were talking to God.

That's not what our prayers look like.

But here's the point: God would rather you be honest with him in prayer.

Even if it's a little raw, angry, frustrated, despondent, whatever it is, put your heart on the table with the Lord.

He wants the real you.

If you've ever been married or in a dating relationship and you get the sense that your significant other, in a sense, is holding out emotionally on you.

Hey, what's going on?

Nothing.

Fine.

How do you like that?

I don't think most of us enjoy that very much.

Not if you really love the person.

And why?

Because it's a strike against intimacy.

It's like, I don't really want you to know me.

I don't really want you to be all up in my business.

And if we don't like these human beings, I guarantee you, God the Father doesn't like it.

And here's the difference.

Sometimes, if my spouse were to say to me, How you doing?

And I'm like, fine, and I lie, I can fake her out sometimes.

She's pretty smart, but I'm a good liar.

You can never fake out the Lord.

You might fake yourself out, but God knows what's going on in the cauldron of your heart, and the best thing you can do is express it to Him.

Okay?

Even when it's raw, even when it's honest.

Guys, if you if you've never read the book of Job, let me give you a high-level summary.

Job is going through terrible things.

Job prays a lot to God.

And at some points he comes really close to even cursing God.

He never does it outright, but he does things like, God, I cursed the day I was born on.

It's like a glancing blow.

And at the end of the story, God does rebuke Job, but he also vindicates Job.

And he basically says to all Job's friends, hey, you guys are wrong, and Job was right.

And the main thing Job got right is he just never quit talking to God.

Even when he was angry, even when he wanted to die, even when he wanted to give up, even when he was mad at God, he kept talking to God.

So whatever's going on in your life, keep grappling with God.

God's power, this is seven, is perfected in our weakness.

That's one of the reasons he does it this way, guys.

His power is perfected in our weakness.

And again, like was prayed earlier, that's the whole point of the universe is God getting glory.

That is the whole reason he set this whole thing up called Life on Planet Earth, was to honor himself.

And one of the main ways he does it is when we are weak, then he's strong.

So what's the point of even saying that?

Is guys, don't be surprised when God puts us into circumstances that highlight our weaknesses.

What is he trying to do?

Drive you closer to him so that he can get all the glory and you can't have any of it.

I heard an old minister say one time, God will only use you as much as he can trust you with his glory.

You understand the point?

It's like if God thinks I can work through this person and this person won't jealousy, won't the glory for himself, God likes to work with people like that.

But if somebody that's lusting after the glory For themselves, that's not where God likes to work the most.

Okay.

Eighth point.

God, this can maybe sound like a little bit of a hard message up until now.

Here's where it kind of turns for the good.

God loves to satisfy his people's desires.

Did you see that in text?

I mean, so some of the more liberal commentators on this passage, you know, that are trying to like tear down the miracle, they basically say, well, maybe this was like the first communion service, and like, you know, Jesus was just taking off like little tiny pieces of bread, and everybody got like a communion wafer.

That's how you fed 20,000.

Which is dumb for all sorts of reasons.

But here's the main reason it's dumb.

It says everybody was satisfied.

They went home full.

Listen, guys, our God is not a bare minimum God.

Our God's not a stingy God.

Our God's not the kind of parent that always starts with a no, and you have to talk him into a yes.

He is a lavish and generous father who loves to give good gifts to his children.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalm chapter 35, verse 27.

Psalms 35:27

Go look at it later, and it talks about God delighting in the welfare of his servant.

God delighting in the prosperity of his servant.

He likes to bless his people.

John Calvin said this it is certain that God will never permit his own people to want the necessities of life.

Now, might we suffer greatly in the short run?

Yes.

But in the long run, it always works out for our good.

The ninth point: God loves to give us stones of remembrance.

You know what I mean by that?

He likes to do things in our life that remind us of his goodness and his character.

And one of the most important things we can do is preach our own history to ourselves.

Remind ourselves of God's specific faithfulness in our lives.

I mean, this is the only miracle that's recorded in all four Gospels.

And you know why?

Because at the end, all 12 of them are standing there holding a basket.

I mean, a few moments ago, they'd be like, there's not enough bread to feed these people.

And Jesus is like, oh, you want to doubt me?

Let me show you a trick.

And a few minutes later, everybody's sitting there having to loosen their belt because they're so full, and the disciples are standing there with baskets of extras.

And so when it came time to write four gospels, this is the only miracle that got in all four.

Nobody forgot this one.

It's like, it really happened.

I was there.

Bread and fish for everybody, as much as you wanted.

Quick story.

A few years ago in the Stubbs family history, we had three different summers and three different hardships.

And I forget the order, but this is this is real history.

You can ask my wife, check it out, okay?

I'm gonna do my best to remember the right order.

And what would happen is about May, about the time kids were getting out of school, something hard would happen in our life.

And then it would take, it would kind of dominate our summer.

It didn't get over till August.

Not the way you want to spend the summer.

I think the first one was our basement started flooding.

Like anytime there was a little rain, flood, ripped the carpet up, you know, and it happened multiple times.

But by August, we'd gotten it fixed.

Very frustrating summer.

By August, it was over.

Next summer, we were trying to minister to this couple that was going to church with us at the time, and they turned into like not made up, literal crazy stalker people.

Weird, you know, follow us to the beach, all that kind of stuff.

Not the way you want to spend your summer.

But by August, it was over.

God fixed it.

And so, third summer in the row, about May, about the time kids get out of school, we get the phone call from mother-in-law, hey, I'm gonna be moving into y'all's basement.

And neither one of us were very excited about that.

And I can remember leaving work one day, driving down to the red light, and just the oppressive feel of, are you kidding me?

A third summer in a row with an unwelcome base, you know, basement guest.

Last time it was a flood and no mother-in-law.

And as I'm sitting at the red light, I saw a double rainbow.

I don't know if you ever saw, I've only seen one of those like a couple times in my life.

And as I was just sitting there, there was this sense of like the Lord almost whispering into my mind, I got this.

What happened the past two summers?

It seemed terrible in May, by August, it was gone.

And really, there was just this overwhelming sense of peace and joy flooded my soul.

Does that make sense?

Because it's good to have stones of remembrance that you remind yourself of.

Now, some of you here might say, that's great for you, Olin.

But I'm so new in Christ, I don't have any cool stories about double rainbows like that in my life.

But here's the thing if you're in Christ, part of what the Bible tells us is you've been joined to Christ, and so now his history is your history.

That's part of your story.

The gospel is part of your story.

God became a man in Christ.

He shared in all the weaknesses, all the infirmities of our flesh.

He got tired, he got hungry, he needed a nap.

He was tempted in every single way as we are, yet without sin.

He had emotions.

And you know the emotion that gets attributed to Jesus hands down by far more than any other emotion in the Bible?

Compassion.

He felt compassion for people.

And the Garden of Gethsemane, when he was praying, think about how raw and honest and desperate his prayer was.

I don't want to do this, Father.

But what did he do?

He put our needs ahead of his own.

He set his plans aside and said, Not my will but thone.

And guys, this is really interesting.

When you read the gospel story, look back in verse 41, almost done.

The verbs that it uses.

Jesus took the bread, Jesus blessed the bread, Jesus broke the bread, Jesus gave the bread.

Exact same four verse uh verbs that are used in the Lord's Supper.

He was taking his body, he took a body to himself, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gives it to us.

And that's how we have life.

Because he paid for all our sins of selfishness with his body.

If God has freely given us his own son, how will he not graciously with us, with him, give us all things?

Let's pray.

Father God, I do pray that you would conform us to the image of Christ.

That we would be more loving, we would be more compassionate, we would be more willing to sacrifice and serve others.

That we would be more raw and intimate and honest in the place of prayer.

We want to grow.

We want to serve, we want to be useful to you, Father.

We want to be pleasing, and yet, even on our best days, we know how shot through we are, Lord, with sin and selfishness and idolatry.

And so we beg mercy.

We beg forgiveness, Lord.

We pray that we would have a fresh experience of your grace, that out of an overflow of your compassion to us, we can go and practice compassion to others.

We pray all this only in the name of Christ.

Amen.