Where God Guides He Provides - Luke 9:1-17

Today, we would behold amazing things, timely things, Lord.

Your word is alive and active.

Holy Spirit, we invite you in to speak.

Humble us before your throne.

Answer the questions that people have today.

God, convict us, comfort us.

We need you and we love you.

We don't take you for granted.

Jesus' name, amen.

Welcome to Skyline Church.

My name's Adam.

I'm one of the pastors.

So glad to meet you if I haven't met you before.

Like Justin said, he's the other pastor.

Would love to meet you if we haven't chatted yet.

So sometimes when you're following Jesus, he calls you to something.

Sometimes you're confident about that call.

Sometimes it's a little bit cloudy.

I think I should go and do this.

I'm not 100% sure.

You sense that God's drawing you into something, guiding you into something.

In 2022, when Joanie and I were preparing to plant this church back in Fort Collins, we uh we started sitting down with people on our gray couch.

Many of you have sat on that gray couch, it's the same one.

A lot of butts on that gray couch over the years, guys.

And we're talking with people, and we'd sit across and just talk about what it means to church plant, and we would ask them uh if that was something that they'd be interested in doing.

I bet we I bet we had 60 or 70 unique conversations about that.

And and for all the people that we talked to who are in their 20s, maybe not all, but a lot, a lot of them who were in their 20s, we'd we'd pitch this to them, and they'd kind of be like, hmm, maybe.

And then I'd be like, you don't understand, it's gonna be metal.

And then be like, okay, I'm in.

But then sometimes we'd sit down with people in their 30s, you know, Joni and I, um we met a lot of people our age, our stage there, a couple kids.

You know, we're sitting down across from them, and and the ask is a little different, right?

The ask is, hey, I have this idea.

What if you sold your house, pulled your kids out of school?

Maybe you could keep your job, but maybe you gotta quit, and move down to Denver.

But realistically, when you're talking to people who live in the suburbs, they typically don't like the city.

And so what they hear is, what if you move down to that ruinous, crime-ridden hellscape of Denver, Colorado?

And you know, a lot of people, a lot of those people said no.

And honestly, you know, I trust their judgment.

Probably a lot of them should, but it kind of illustrates this tension that we sometimes feel.

Sometimes we get opportunities, we feel senses, we hear God's voice drawing us towards something.

And it illustrates this tension of, ooh, is that something that I should go do?

Where God is guiding, will he provide?

Wherever God guides, does he always provide?

Maybe you need to move and mortgage is gonna be different, rent's gonna be different, maybe God's, you feel God drawing you to throw some kind of social thing, some kind of party to be hospitable, invite people that you like and it's easy to get along with, other people that it's not so easy to get along with, but you feel a pull in your heart to draw them in, the outsider.

Maybe you want kids, but you know, one of the biggest objections to kids these days is how will we make it work financially?

Maybe you're hesitant because of that.

Maybe there's a relationship that you need to reconcile.

How do you even open that conversation?

You feel God guiding you to it, but when God guides, does he always provide?

Does that guarantee a certain outcome, or does it just guarantee that he'll be working in whenever whatever outcome comes?

Often we hear and we see God guiding, but we aren't sure.

And it begs this question Does God always provide wherever he guides?

Large things and small things?

So if you're here today, you're not so sure what you believe about Jesus.

You've got a lot of questions still.

I think this question is actually really relevant to you too, because maybe you've thought to yourself, if there really is a God of the universe, it's a rational question to ask, well, does he care about me?

Does he want to take care of my needs?

Like, is that a thing that happens if I follow God?

Is that does he does he pay attention to my life?

And maybe I don't get everything that I ever wanted, but does he oversee like my basic needs?

This is question is related.

And it's a really important one to ask as you examine, at least, what the Bible says about God and about the Lord Jesus.

There's only three sermons left in Luke part two.

If you remember, Luke part one was Jesus getting ready for ministry.

It was his youth, it was his birth and his temptation before he went, and then Luke part two that we're in now is his ministry in Galilee.

There's only three sermons left in this segment before we move into the second half of the book.

And you're gonna feel today a transition.

The disciples have been following Jesus, they've been listening to him, they've been learning from him, and then today there's gonna be a transition.

Today, he's gonna guide them into something new, and I think the text is gonna address this question that we're asking directly.

So, if you want to follow along, I'm gonna be in Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

I'll have it up here on the screen or in the ESV version.

It's gonna be Luke chapter 9, 1 through.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

I wrote 20 here, but I don't think it's 20.

I think it's Luke 9, 1 through 17.

So first, I'm just gonna read 1 through 6.

Luke 9, verses 1 through 6.

Luke 9:1–6

Jesus calls, if you got your sermon notes here, Jesus calls his followers to work in the kingdom.

This is what it says.

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

And he said to them, Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not have two tunics.

And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart.

And wherever they do not receive you, uh, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.

And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

So, the reason that this passage is crazy, because if you've been following along in our Gospel of Luke, as we've been preaching through this, we're nine chapters into the gospel now.

And this is the first time that Jesus is asking them to do something.

You know, you can kind of construct at least a general timeline when it comes to the ministry of Jesus.

Um, Luke, if you remember, at the beginning of his gospel says, I have I've written an orderly account for you, O Theophilus.

And I think part of what he means at some level with that is orderly, at least generally chronologically.

Maybe not every single story is perfectly chronological, but when he says it's an orderly account, we at least have a relative chronology.

And if you look at the Gospel of Luke and the other Gospels, the biographies of Jesus in the New Testament, and you kind of do what's called a harmonization, because they tell similar stories, sometimes the same story, different perspectives, and you kind of harmonize them together and you get a lot of information about what Jesus did when.

And then you can use like the feasts, you know, the Jews had feasts, and those feasts were always in certain seasons, times of the year.

So when you bring all that together, you can kind of get a reasonable picture of what Jesus did when.

Maybe not with a with perfect accuracy, but probably when we do that, what we see is that at this point in Luke chapter 9, most likely, in fact, I would probably say almost certainly, the disciples have been following Jesus for between a year and a half to two years.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

And now he's saying to them, Okay, time to hit the road, you guys.

And we find out in another gospel, he sends them out two by two.

And he's already appointed the twelve.

Remember, Jesus had a bunch of disciples, but several uh sermons ago, Eric preached on Jesus choosing from among them twelve apostles to go and get them to preach.

That's already happened, and now at this moment, he's sending them out.

Now it's not just watching, now it's doing.

One of my favorite authors who I've met in person, amazing guys, named Dan Spader, he summarizes this process, generally in four stages that we see Jesus.

The first thing that he does is come and see, stage one, where nobody really knows who Jesus is, so how can they believe he's the Messiah?

They just have to kind of meet him and find out about it.

But then stage two is follow me.

That's when he begins to ask people, hey, come and follow me.

I'm going to teach you about all kinds of stuff.

And then stage three is I will make you fishers of men.

That's a phrase that Jesus uses, where he basically tells them, I'm going to teach you to fish for people.

You know how you guys are fishers?

I'm going to teach you to do that for people in the kingdom of God.

Draw them in to God's will and sovereign plan for their life.

And then stage four is go therefore and bear much fruit.

So it's this progression.

Come and see, follow me.

I'll teach you to be fishers of men.

Now go, you're fully trained and bear much fruit.

Do your thing.

That's kind of how he summarizes these stages.

Another common aphorism that describes exactly what we're seeing from Jesus here is simply this.

I do, you watch.

I do, you help.

You do, I help.

You do, I just watch.

You do, someone else who has no idea about this watches.

That's like the general progression that we're talking about here.

What we're seeing is the master principle from the master himself.

Jesus did this and other things to create the faith in him that multiplied across the world.

And for those of you who don't know, this is a part of how we structure our church.

There's this thing we have in our church called D groups, which is literally us just trying generally to follow Jesus' pattern, follow Jesus' example with how he made disciples.

Now look, are there other ways that God uses to make disciples?

100%.

Are there people in a church, an amazing church family like this, who are really good at teaching specific things?

100%.

Does God give people in the body different gifts to kind of do and emphasize different things?

100%.

Do we disciple each other all different directions, cross-pollinating, helping each other, encouraging one another, convicting one another in all directions, regardless of the relationship?

100%.

And do we also believe that we as a church should generally structure something like the way that Jesus did, where we have a leader and a couple people that commit to following that person's leadership for a period of time?

A hundred percent.

And in our church, that's D-groups.

You have to be a member to be a D-group, basically saying, hey, this is my church.

And, you know, they last for a year, two, or three, where they they grow together in faith.

They grow together in the things of God, maturing as believers.

With the end goal, remember, of you do.

I just watch.

That is the end goal here.

In America, this is worth saying because this is just a temptation that we all face.

And I think the American church in particular faces because of the unique comfort that it can experience.

America, Christians in the United States, love to camp out in those first two stages.

You do, I'm just gonna watch the rest of my life.

You do, maybe I'll help, put my toe in, but you do, not me.

This is a constant temptation for us in the United States.

And I want to point out to you that we do not believe in permanent infancy here in Skyline Church.

We look, babies, they get breastfed for a while.

But eventually, if they keep breastfeeding, it gets real weird real quick.

Be lucky I cut the other eight jokes I had right there, okay?

We believe that we progress, that we grow at different speeds and in different ways into, as Jesus would say, a fully trained disciple.

That doesn't mean you're without sin.

It just means you understand the things of God and have begun to apply it to the different places of your life, and you know what it means to make disciples as he commanded.

This is what we're seeing here.

Jesus spent limited time with a limited number of people to raise them up to do the things that they saw him doing.

We're not trying to go beyond meat here, guys.

The original steak and potatoes of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Shout out to my vegan friends out there.

You know, I was vegan for a while, right?

Not saying anything about that.

Relax.

So as we see this, as we see this really just poignant, important, pivotal moment that Jesus is taking his disciples into.

We're moving now from, we're moving now to you do, I help.

You do, I watch.

That's what we're moving into now.

It's worth asking the question.

Every so often, we as believers, it's just really helpful to just do some self-examination.

Like, am I growing?

Am I stuck?

Why am I stuck?

Have I paid attention with God as He's taught me things?

Does He now want me to begin to labor in the kingdom in new and significant ways as I grow into maturity, as I grow into faith?

Some of the other critical things here that I want you to see that Jesus does, a couple things.

I just got three that I just have to point out.

Number one, Jesus is the one who gives them power and authority.

Authority over demons, power to heal, right?

But I want you to notice this comes from him.

So this is not this kind of situation where you're like, hey, I want to be a plumber.

I'm gonna learn to be a plumber.

I learned how to be a plumber.

I can be a plumber on my own by my own power.

This is not what's happening here.

They do learn to cast out demons, they do learn to heal the sick, but at no point is that some kind of power and authority that flows from them.

It's attachment to Jesus, his authority, his power through them the rest of their lives.

Because he's God.

They don't fully know this yet, although we will find this out next week.

The full identity of Jesus will finally be revealed.

So that's thing number one.

It always, Jesus is always the one who gives power and authority, and for us as disciples, it's just helpful to know that when we're laboring in the kingdom.

And so this is which brings me to thing number two.

Jesus sends them to, as I'm going to summarize it, declare the kingdom, preach the kingdom, and demonstrate the kingdom, heal the sick.

The way that I'm summarizing this is declare the kingdom, demonstrate the kingdom.

Declare the kingdom, demonstrate the kingdom.

This is what Jesus goes and has his disciples do.

Again, he's been doing both for many chapters now, and they've been watching it.

And so we've talked about this concept of the kingdom before, but it's worth addressing again because it comes up a lot in the Gospels.

It's a phraseology that Jesus uses all the time.

It's a central concept to his ministry, and by the way, it overlaps a lot with the idea of the gospel, which is why, maybe you saw this, in verse 6, he literally just swaps the word kingdom for gospel.

They're that interchangeable on some level.

Verse 6, and they departed and went through the villages preaching the gospel, because he told them to preach the kingdom, remember, and healing everywhere.

They just interchange it.

And remember, the gospel is a word that means good news.

The good news, as we find out, it becomes fully revealed, that Jesus has come to earth, fully man, fully God, to die for sinners in their place that they could come home.

To do the work of justice and the work of love, both of those things meet beautifully in the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

But the kingdom, the nuance of the kingdom is it's the power of the gospel expressed.

When you think about what a kingdom is, it's authority in power over a space.

It's God's rule and reign in a time and a place.

If power and authority can't be expressed by whoever's kingdom is supposedly this area, then it's kind of not their kingdom, is it?

For example, I'm going to Canada in a few weeks for a conference.

If I was to just roll into Toronto and pick out a chunk of land and be like, this is mine.

And no one did anything about it?

Well, yo, am I really in the kingdom of Canada here?

Or is this just kind of a free-for-all?

Because if I was in someone else's kingdom, then they could exert power, they could exert influence, they could exert authority over me.

That's what the kingdom is.

And the kingdom of God is no different, even if there are some differences compared to earthly kingdoms, as we'll see.

This is what a kingdom is it's the rule of God and the reign of God in a time and a place.

And Luke is saying that because the king is here, something new has happened.

Because the king has come, the kingdom has come.

And now, demons are fleeing in demonstration of the power of the kingdom.

People are being healed in demonstration of the power of the kingdom, alongside its declaration.

The kingdom has come.

And as we saw earlier, repent from your sins.

It means all these things.

It means all these things.

We saw Jesus talk about what life in the kingdom looks like in the Sermon on the Plain.

We talked about repentance.

And now the disciples are going out and declaring the kingdom, aka the gospel, and demonstrating it in Jesus' name.

And, you know, it's kind of funny to read this, to see Jesus moving his disciples to do this, because at least in my experience, I experienced a big misbalance in the church growing up.

I saw a lot of declaration of the kingdom.

Hey, Jesus is here.

This is who he is, this is what it means for life.

He has a purpose for you.

There is a God and He knows your name, declaration of the kingdom.

But I really didn't see a whole lot of demonstration of the kingdom.

Maybe I saw it in some ways, but you know, the specific ways that Jesus is teaching them to demonstrate the kingdom right now, praying for the sick, sending away evil spirits in Jesus' name.

I really, it was almost like that wasn't a part of the life that I lived growing up.

We've talked about this in some of the previous sermons where Jesus encounters those facing the demonic, where Jesus heals the sick.

And am I saying that we as Christians should do those things?

Well, the short answer is yes.

We're actually going to see him do this again with a bigger group of people later.

We'll talk more about that then.

But should we as Christians pray for the sick?

A hundred percent.

Do we also believe, as we saw in the spiritual gifts series, that sometimes God gives people gifts of healing to bless people in a unique way?

Yeah, we also believe that.

Do we believe that all Christians who follow Jesus walk in his authority over the demonic?

A hundred percent.

Do we believe necessarily that that means it's just gonna go super easy for you every single time it happens?

Well, if you remember any of my stories, not necessarily.

Even if ultimately the authority of Jesus is expressed over the demonic in all people.

If you're here today and you're not sure what you believe about faith, welcome to church, okay?

Um so part of what I think that we need, that we need to strive for as a church, is a balance between these things.

A balance between the declaration of the kingdom Jesus has come into the world, and I have good news for you.

Alongside the demonstration of the kingdom.

We pray for the sick.

We don't recoil in fear when we sense the spiritual enemy, when we sense spiritual warfare.

This is part of why we started to pray for healing for people at the end of our services.

This is us trying to walk into the balance that we see in scripture here.

And it's really clearly demonstrated here at the beginning of chapter 9.

And so the third thing, the first thing, Jesus gives them power and authority.

Two, they're sent out to declare the kingdom and demonstrate the kingdom.

Thing number three is he gives them some instructions, some surprising instructions on how to go about it.

The instructions are basically take nothing.

Stay where you're accepted, leave where you're rejected.

That's his instructions.

And you might rightfully ask, why?

Why does Jesus tell them to do this?

Well, I actually think that the answer, he actually gives kind of an answer later in chapter 22.

In chapter 22, verse 35, this is what he says.

Remembering this moment, he says, and he said to them, When I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?

They said, Nothing.

So, what's Jesus saying?

When he does this remembrance with them, remember when I sent you out and asked you to take nothing?

What he's teaching them is dependence.

And ironically, in that same chapter, he's actually gonna send them out again and tell them to take a bunch of stuff.

So it's not necessarily that we never take anything, but it is necessarily true that sometimes God wants us to go out, not loaded down with every possible contingency for every possible outcome, but just to walk by faith and trust that he's gonna provide.

Sometimes he does ask us to do this, other times he asks us to prepare.

And in this specific time, he's teaching them something that they need to know as they begin to labor in the kingdom, which is that God is a provider.

I love the way that Proverbs 38 says this.

Lord, give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

I remember a pastor saying once, we always want tomorrow's bread today.

We want actually a hundred years worth of bread laid up in a storage locker somewhere.

But when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, what does he teach him to say?

Give me today my daily bread.

Because he's teaching them dependence.

Remember, the Christian life is a balance of dependence.

God, I can't do this, I need you to do it.

And diligence.

Hard work, planning, and preparation that brings glory and honor to him in a way that shows that you care.

The Christian life is the balance of both of those things, but here they're Learn independence.

Here they're learning Proverbs 38.

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

And Jesus is like, Rely on these people that you're going to go out and serve.

I will serve you through them.

And so what might now right now might God be drawing you into calling you, into guiding you into, and you're worried that you're not going to have what you need.

You're worried that you're not going to know what to say.

You're worried that your financial situation is not going to be what it needs to be.

And granted, again, there isn't such a thing as planning.

There is such a thing as budging.

There is such a thing as preparation.

But sometimes, like Luke, are we in eight or nine?

Nine, shows, you need to learn that he will provide.

This is a part of the implication of the kingdom.

If you're in the king's kingdom, then he can provide.

So then verses 7 through 17 is, there's a little interlude, and then it demonstrates, it describes the only miracle that is recorded in all four Gospels, besides Jesus' resurrection, which is also a miracle.

The only sort of miracle during his ministry that is in all four Gospels.

This is what it says.

This is the last half.

Verse 7.

Now Herod the Tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen.

Herod said, John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?

And he sought to see him.

On their return, the apostles told him all that they had done, and he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida.

When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them, and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those who had need of healing.

Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.

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

They said, We have no more than five loaves and two fishes, unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.

For there were about five thousand men.

And he said to his disciples, Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.

And they did so, and had them all sit down, and taking five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and set a blessing over them.

Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

And they all ate and were satisfied.

And what was left over was picked up twelve baskets of broken pieces.

If verses one through six we see Jesus calling his followers to work in the kingdom, in seven through seventeen we see Jesus calling his followers to trust in his provision.

There's two pieces here.

The first, seven through nine, is like this interlude.

Herod, who by the way, was the king of Judea under the Roman Empire, he was an authorized king by them.

And this kind of is like a, this section is like a foreshadowing, because Jesus actually meets Herod again in very different circumstances.

Well, not again, but for the first time in very different circumstances.

He meets him at the end of the gospel, and this is foreshadowing this, but the main thing that I think 7 through 9 is doing for us is this repeated question that people keep asking.

Remember?

Who then is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?

Who then is this that even forgives sins?

Now the king of the whole region is saying, Who is this?

All of the gospels, fundamentally, are about the identity of Jesus.

And what we're seeing is people come to know slowly, ask the question, Who is this?

And then Luke's gospel was answering for us.

And really, verses 10 through the end is another set, another illumination of who Jesus is.

Really, the bread and butter of this last uh passage is him feeding people, him providing for people.

So what happens is the disciples, the apostles, come back, and did you notice this?

That Jesus actually wants them to rest.

It says he withdraws with them.

He knows that they're tired.

Kingdom work is tiring, and he understands that they have limits, which is just an amazing thing, by the way.

Like here in the United States, where so often, you know, we're communicated our value based on how much, how well we perform, and we we run ourselves ragged for the sake of pleasing different institutions and organizations out there.

Here's a moment where we just see Jesus recognizing people's limitations.

Here's something that you can grasp onto if you ever wondered.

Does God want me to burn out, working my butt off until I die and hate life and see everything in black and white?

Nah.

That's why he withdrew with them to rest.

But it didn't seem to last very long.

Tons of people show up, and Jesus welcomes them.

And he again does the thing that he just told the apostles to do.

He preaches the kingdom and he heals the sick.

Then the rational disciples get all rational on everyone.

They like, hey Jesus, there's 5,000 men here.

By the way, Matthew's gospel says 5,000 men, not including women and children.

And, you know, while it was normal for men to listen to a rabbi in this time, we're talking about Jesus, who at this point has been healing the sick for years, is the nation's most famous superstar, and everyone knows who he is, and the chances of there only being men at this stage is like slim to none.

He's healing all kinds of people.

And so if we're talking about 5,000 men, if you include women and children, most of the scholars put the likely amount in the 20,000 number.

For those of you who don't know what that's like, that's literally ballerina.

Ballerina is 21,000.

So imagine, like a Nuggets game, an Avs game, a concert in Ballerina, that number of people around Jesus.

It is gigantic.

And now you can imagine the disciples are being like, yo, Jesus, we gotta send, I mean, look at all these people, 20,000?

It's like a basket, it's like a basketball game.

We gotta send these people out to the surrounding villages to get food and get shelter.

And then Jesus goes, You give them something to eat.

They're like, what?

It's this really it's kind of a funny moment.

And what we see is uh is really a bunch of parallels here.

Um, you know, he preaches the kingdom, he heals, just like we saw in the first text.

Um, they can't feed the people, but Jesus can.

They need Jesus, they're dependent on Jesus again, and then also he gets them to do stuff.

Remember, this has not happened yet.

He just sent them out uh as twelve, going two by two across, preaching the kingdom and healing the sick, and now he's having them do stuff.

Hey, get people to sit down.

Imagine being at Ballerina, there's 12 of you, and you literally just have to break up and seat all those people in 50s.

So, you know, maybe it takes an hour or something.

But now he's having them do stuff.

You do, I watch.

Why are we doing this, Jesus?

I'm gonna do, you're gonna watch.

A new thing.

Because what we see is a new kind of miracle.

And this miracle is saying something about the kingdom.

Again, it's parallel with that first part where he's like, don't take anything.

Don't take anything when you go.

What's it saying?

What's the second part saying about the kingdom?

Well, I think literally, verse 17 is what it's saying.

And they all ate and were satisfied.

Jesus does a new kind of miracle here.

He feeds a bunch of people, he provides for a bunch of people.

He's saying, I can provide in situations that you can't see how, just like before.

And again, like I want you to notice, it's not surf and turf.

Okay?

They don't get surf and turf.

They get bread and they get fish.

Did they even have any salt?

Can I get some oil and vinegar up in this macaroni grill?

Probably not.

Okay?

But they get what they need.

They do get what they need.

And in doing this miracle, Jesus even helps them see the difference between needs and wants.

Because so often we're trying to move the wants column into the needs column.

Jesus is even helping us, us brats, learn the difference between needs and wants.

He's giving them what they need and showing them in this moment that this is what the kingdom is like.

He provides for their needs.

I provide in situations that you don't understand how.

It humbles the disciples.

They understand that they're dependent on him.

And, you know, of course, other times Jesus does give undeserved feasts.

This is another part of the good news of the gospel, is that we get all these amazing things that we don't deserve.

You know, when I think back to when I think back to that time when Joni and I were asking people to help us plant the church, there was only one family that said yes.

The Kellums.

My co-pastor Justin, who did announcements, him and his wife, Lydia.

And, you know, what they had to do was they left their apartment and they bought their first house, stretching them a little bit financially.

Justin eventually did have to transition jobs.

And they homeschool their kids, but you know, when you homeschool your kids and you move from one home to another, it's a new school.

But further obstacles, in fact, way harder obstacles, uh came for them because of this kingdom work.

Within the first, I want to say, year, they found out they had a black mold infestation in their house and they had to spend tens of thousands of dollars that they didn't have, but the Lord provided.

In that job transition, the Lord provided.

Their car died, the Lord provided.

I will never forget.

Standing next to Justin and hearing a thump and him turning and seeing that his son had collapsed because of a seizure.

First one in his whole life.

And he runs over and picks up his son and sits on his couch.

It's a hard thing to watch, and waits it out.

And I'm thinking, as I'm watching this, sitting next to him, I'm thinking, I asked you guys to come, Dollar.

I asked you to come on this, and here we are.

Here we are.

But the Lord even provided for that.

Eventually, Jackson was healed.

When you step into kingdom work, you will experience want, but you will also experience provision.

Can you see how he wants you to see this?

This is why he's like, go out, take nothing.

This is why he says, have them sit in fifties.

What are we gonna do?

Have them sit in fifties.

They're learning that God provides for his people in his kingdom.

Do you have any idea the peace that it begins to put into a heart when you learn this?

Such that you face all kinds of circumstances and you're like, I have no idea how this could possibly work out.

But you don't panic because you've seen God do it before the kind of peace that you experience, the kind of resiliency that you experience such that when wild stuff happens, you don't panic.

You know, what's interesting is in verse 16, this part where it says he takes the food, he blesses it, he looks up to heaven, he gives it to the disciples.

Almost all those verbs that it uses in that verse, verse 16, are used in one other spot in Luke's gospel, the Last Supper, where Jesus does the same thing the night that he's betrayed, the next day when he's crucified and died.

It says all these same things, broke the bread, blessed it, gave it to his disciples, except he doesn't look up, the only thing it doesn't say is he didn't look up to heaven, probably, presumably, because at that point he's looking forward to the cross.

He's looking forward to what he's about to do in the next 24 hours, which is this moment where we see that Jesus' provision of bread, physical needs for people that need it, that have come to listen to him teach, we see this as a pointer to the moment where he and you begin to understand why he says, I am the bread of life.

Me myself, I not only take care of your physical needs, I take care of your spiritual needs.

Which, by the way, physical needs are significant, which is why we seek to meet him, which is why God is good and blesses and takes care of us.

But spiritual needs are vastly more consequential.

When you're talking about sin, your rebellion, your mistakes that you're either willing to admit or you're not willing to admit, the separation that that's caused between you and God, between you and other people, the brokenness that it's created, and Jesus saying, I'm the bread of life, which fixes and satisfies that.

You begin to see that he truly is the provider in every possible dimension.

He heals people, he provides for people in every possible way.

This is why he takes them through this.

Hey, go out, preach the kingdom, take nothing.

Hey, sit down in the 50s.

He wants them to see that he will care for them.

Which means he wants us to see.

And the only way that you're gonna see is if at some time you're willing to go out without every contingency covered, laden down with every piece of supply and knowledge that you think that you need.

I ain't got nothing against preparation, but you probably already know that in your life you simply cannot prepare for everything.

And Jesus wants you to know that when it comes, because it will, those who have put their faith in him, he will provide for.

He will.

I've seen it with my own eyes.

So, what kingdom work is at hand for you?

A relationship that needs reconciling, an understanding of your own sin that you're scared to look into.

Someone who needs to hear the good news of the kingdom.

The king has come.

Let me tell you about him.

A sick person that needs to be prayed for.

And maybe you ask God to heal them, regardless of what he actually decides to do.

Maybe a schedule that needs to shift its priorities more in line with the kingdom.

What kingdom work is Jesus calling you into?

What do you sense?

What do you hear?

I mean, we have Alpha, we're meeting in this building in a week.

Only then do we learn that wherever he guides, he always provides.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you take care of us in every possible way.

God, you want us, you raise us up to labor in the kingdom alongside of you.

Not to sit on the bench the rest of our lives.

God, show us where we need to step into the work of the kingdom alongside you.

Show us where you want to provide where we don't see how.

Humble us before our dependence on you.

Show us the place that you've called us to in this life.

Show us where you want to provide.

And give us faith to trust you.

God, I pray for all those today considering faith.

And I pray, Lord, that they would get a sense of your character in this text.

That they would get a sense.

You could have done a lot of miracles, Lord, but you could have.

You could have crushed the mountains, you could have dried up the sea, you could have moved the moon.

But what we see you doing is healing the sick and providing for the hungry.

It says volumes about the kind of God that you are.

We love you.

We bless you.

In Jesus' name, amen.