My Piece Is My Purpose | Pastor Michael Young | One Church Columbus

Mark chapter number six.

Mark chapter number six.

And we're going to pick up reading family in verse number thirty.

This is a very familiar text, but I want to try to maybe preach it from a little different perspective this morning.

Mark chapter number six, verse number thirty.

And the Bible said the apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all that they had done and taught.

Then Jesus said, Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.

He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't have time to eat.

So they left by a boat for a quiet place where they could be alone.

But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them.

Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

So he began teaching them many things.

Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, This is a remote place and it's already getting late.

Send the crowds away so that they may go to nearby farms and villages to buy something to eat.

This is critical here, verse number 37.

But Jesus said, You feed them.

Somebody look at your neighbor and say, You feed them.

Come on now.

I know it's the early service, but look at your other neighbor and tell your other neighbor, you feed them.

Look what his disciples said.

They said, With what?

They asked.

We've done, we would have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people.

He asked them, How much bread do you have?

Go find out.

They came back and reported, we have five loaves of bread and two fish.

Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass.

So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

Jesus took the five loaves of bread and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them.

And then breaking the loaves into pieces, breaking the loaves into pieces, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so that they could distribute it to the people.

He also divided the fish for everyone to share.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers of bread and fish.

A total of 5,000 men and families were fed.

One church, just for a few moments this morning, I want to talk to you, minister to you, maybe even preach to you from a message titled Your Peace Is Your Purpose.

Your peace, P-I-E-C E, is your purpose.

Let us pray.

Our Father and our God in Jesus' name, as we come before your presence this morning, we give you thanks for who you are and what you do.

Father, we can testify this morning that you're good, kind, patient, loving, merciful, you're benevolent, you're generous, and Father, you happen to be all those things towards us.

Father, what we ask you for this morning is we ask you for an anointing that makes preaching easy and hearing your word of sweet delight.

I pray for clarity of thought and clarity of speech.

Help me to communicate your heart to these your people the way that you conveyed it unto me.

And Father, when it's all said and done, our prayer, our hope, and our desire is that you will be glorified, that these your people will be edified, and that the enemy will be terrified.

Father, we ask all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Your peace is your purpose.

Fellow me, as we look at this text here in Mark chapter number six, the Bible tells us that uh Jesus and his disciples are now coming off an intense season of ministry or an intense season of work.

And what the Bible says is the Bible says that Jesus tells his disciples it's time for us to go to a secluded place because we need to get just a little bit of rest.

One church family, this is really not my main point this morning, but as I was reading the text, uh the Holy Spirit began to illuminate this particular portion because I believe this is a word all by itself for somebody in the house of God this morning.

Uh there's there's somebody in the house of God this morning that needs to hear this clarion call from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords that is calling you to a season of rest.

Uh, can I let you know, family, that that rest is not a sin.

Uh many of us, like Pastor Michael Young, we we think that rest is a sin.

We think that rest equals laziness.

But can I tell you something?

Rest is a blessing that is designed by God Himself for you and I.

We can go back to Genesis chapter number two, and the Bible tells us that after God worked for six days, on the seventh day, even God rested.

The Bible tells us that as God was preparing the people of Israel to go into the promised land, the Bible said that God gave them this command.

You can work for six days, but on the seventh day, I need you to rest.

Even if we get into the New Testament, the King James Version, you know, I think the King James Version is the little more saved version of the Bible.

I feel like I'm a little more spiritual when I speak in these and thou's.

But but what Jesus told us in the New Testament is he says, Come unto me, all of you that are weary and heavy laden, and his promise to us is that he would give us rest.

Why is this important?

Why is it important for us to gain these seasons of rest?

Why is it important for us to make sure that we're taking time out to be rested and to be restored?

Well, the Bible tells us here in the text in verse number 31, it said, because Jesus and his apostles were so busy that they did not have time to eat.

In other words, catch this family.

They were doing ministry, but they were running on empty.

And I wonder how many of us in the house of God this morning we are doing ministry, but we're running on empty.

I wonder how many of us are showing up to work every single day and we're going into boardrooms and we're trying to hit metrics and markers, and we find ourselves performing uh for our jobs every single day, but we're running on empty.

Some of us are trying to be parents, we're trying to be Uber drivers, and we're trying to get them to this practice, and we're trying to make sure they got their lunch packed, and we're trying to make sure that we're being sufficient and we're not deadbeats as parents.

And the reality is as we're giving and we're giving and we're giving, many of us are sitting in the house of God this morning and we're running on empty.

And what God is calling us to is God is calling us to a time and a season of systematic rest in our lives.

Now, notice what I did not say.

I didn't I didn't say he's calling us to a time of sleep, but but he's calling us to a time of rest.

Because how many realize that sleep and rest are two totally different things?

Right?

You you can be sleep and still not rest.

You can be sleep and your mind still be racing, you still feel the pressures and the burdens of life, but what God is calling his disciples to and what God is calling you and I to is he's calling us to a season of rest.

I'm gonna be an interactive preacher this morning.

Look at your neighbor and say, You need to get some rest.

Amen.

Amen.

Look, y'all felt that somebody felt that that minister to somebody right there.

Now I want you to notice what takes place.

I want you to notice what takes place.

Jesus and his disciples, because Jesus gives this command for rest, Jesus and his disciples, they get on a boat and they're headed to what they think is going to be a secluded place.

Well, the Bible said that there were a multitude of people who caught wind of where Jesus was going.

And as they saw Jesus and his disciples on the boat headed to a secluded place, the Bible said that they began to run along the seashore, and they were running so fast to the place that Jesus and his disciples were headed that they actually beat them there.

Right, right.

I want you to see this now.

Now, Jesus is headed there, and there's a multitude of people that go seeking and searching after Jesus.

Right, right.

In other words, in other words, they they wanted to be where Jesus was.

They went seeking and searching after Jesus.

Notice what it did not say.

It did not say they went seeking after church, it did not say they went seeking after religion.

It did not say they went seeking after the doctrines and the dogmas and the denominations of men, but they went seeking after Jesus.

They didn't go searching for who the best preacher was, they didn't go searching for who the best praise team leader was.

They didn't go searching uh uh who had the best wardrobe.

No, no.

The Bible said that they went seeking and searching after the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And I wonder how many people in the house of God this morning you woke up on this Sunday morning and you didn't come looking for Pastor Greg Ford, you didn't come looking for Pastor Michael Young, you didn't come looking for this praise team, but you came seeking out an authentic encounter with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

How many people came seeking Jesus this morning?

Family, I believe that we are living in a generation that is seeking after Jesus like never before.

I believe that we're living in a generation that that is hungry for an authentic encounter with the creator of the heavens and earth like like never before.

And what my fear is sometimes, what my fear is sometimes is is as people are seeking after Jesus, all too often they show up to churches and they show up, my God, uh encountering Christians and they're fed, not Jesus, but they're fed rituals and routines and the emptiness of religion.

All too often people find themselves seeking after uh the true and the living God, and what we give them is we give them the emptiness of religion.

This is why I'm grateful for a church like one church.

I'm grateful for a church that that that you know what says we are gonna be built upon truth and not necessarily just tradition.

Right, right, right, right, because we don't want to give people religion when they're seeking after Jesus.

Now, now there may be some naysayers and they be maybe some people who would say, you know what, Pastor Mike, I I disagree with that assessment.

Because we could look at this generation and you can see the problems and the plights that are always magnified.

You could look at some of the statistics.

It's not a one-church problem, but it is a body of Christ problem that would tell you that people are attending church less and less.

And you could say to yourself, when I look at the problems and I look at the issues and I look at the behaviors that are now not just tolerated, but they're even promoted in this generation, this does not appear to be a generation that is seeking after Jesus.

Uh but what I would suggest to you is I would suggest to you that many of the behaviors that we see, many of the actions that we see from this generation, what they are, is they're an indication that this generation is hungry.

Right, right.

The Bible tells us in verse number 36, when we look at the multitude, the Bible tells us that these people did not have anything to eat.

In other words, it was telling us they were hungry.

And how many realize that when you're hungry, sometimes you will find yourself trying to meet a legitimate need in illegitimate ways.

I wish I had a church that ain't always been saved.

I wish I had just a few people that are not ashamed to testify that before you came into an authentic encounter with Jesus, there were some things that you were doing, trying to fill some voids, trying to meet some needs, trying to satisfy some hunger pains that it did not line up with the scriptures.

Come on, somebody.

Right, listen, listen.

Right.

When I was eight years old, I started smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol at eight years old.

Why?

Because I was hungry for something that was greater than me, and I was trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

Some of us practice sexual promiscuity.

Why?

Because we were hungry and we didn't know how to satisfy the need that we had for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

As we look at the text here, this was a multitude that was hungry.

And what I believe is, I believe that I'm looking at a multitude this morning that is hungry for Jesus.

These people were hungry for Jesus, and because they were hungry for Jesus, they came seeking, chasing, and pursuing after the Lord.

Now, the Bible says that as Jesus and his disciples got to this secluded place, and Jesus steps off the boat and he sees this multitude that probably was chaotic, and they probably weren't all that sophisticated, and they probably didn't know all the church lingo showing up.

The Bible said that Jesus looked at these people and he had compassion on them.

Right?

Jesus looked at these people that were hungry, Jesus looked at these people that were probably uh a little disorderly.

Jesus looked at these people that were probably running and pushing each other down and they didn't have all the sophistication together.

He looked at them and he did not judge them, he did not condemn them, but the Bible said that he had compassion on them.

Now, this word compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another person who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate their suffering.

In other words, when Jesus saw these hungry people, when Jesus saw these people who were struggling with this particular plight, the Bible said that he had compassion on them, or it was his heart's desire to alleviate their suffering.

And family, I I have a question for you this morning.

I have a question for you this morning.

Uh, what is your heart posture towards a dying world?

What is your heart posture towards hungry people?

What is your heart posture towards the individual whose behaviors, right, may speak something that is different than the scriptures, but but really the really uh the reality of their behavior is is they're really just seeking to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

How do you view the prostitute?

How do you view the drug addict?

How do you view uh the person who may have a criminal record, right?

How do you view hungry people?

Because the Bible said the way that Jesus viewed them is he had compassion on them, he saw their issue, he saw their plight, and what Jesus wanted to do is he wanted to alleviate their suffering.

Now, the text tells us here, King James Version says they came out of all cities.

The uh New Living Translation said they came from many towns.

I think it's important, I think it's important that the Bible references not just where these people were, but where these people were coming from.

It doesn't just tell us, my brother, where they were, but it tells us also what they were coming out of or what they were coming from.

And see, it'll cause you to have greater compassion when you appreciate where a person is coming from.

I know sometimes we look at where people are and we can be quick to judge where they are, but but if you understand where they have come from, you'll be less, come on now, you'll be less quick to judge where they are.

When you look at somebody who is dysfunctional in their relationship habits, but they were raised in a home that never had healthy relationships, and they have found themselves in repeated abusive relationships, and now you see them trying to get it right here, right?

We can have compassion on them when we understand where they've come out of.

When you see somebody with uh a record of selling drugs, right?

Don't don't just look at them with the felony attached to their name.

Don't just look at them based upon their criminal record.

But if you could appreciate that they that they came from a place called the hood, and they came from a place of poverty, and they came from a place where all they ever saw was people moving like that.

You you now can have greater compassion because of where they have come from.

But but but but the disciples they they didn't have this mindset, the disciples did not have this heart posture.

The the Bible said that when when this crowd came, verse number 36 said that that the disciples they they just wanted to have church.

The disciples weren't necessarily interested in meeting the people's needs, Brother Carol Burton, but these disciples just wanted to have church.

How do we know it?

Because in verse number 36, when this multitude of hungry people showed up, they looked at Jesus and said, Jesus, please send this crowd away.

Please send these crazy hungry people away.

They were only interested in having church.

They were only interested in showing up at nine o'clock and showing up at 10 45 and showing up at 12 30 and then just sending the people away.

But but but can I tell you something, family?

There is a question that we need to wrestle with as the disciples of Christ.

We need to ask ourselves, what do we do when church is over?

How do we minister and how do we meet the needs of people, right?

When we close the doors on Sunday morning, right?

Because these disciples here, they were only interested in listening to Jesus teach and listening to Jesus preach, and when he got done preaching, he got done teaching, send these people away.

And the reason is is because ministry is not convenient.

Ministry will impose upon your plans and impose upon your real dainty schedule, right?

Right, but but but I want you to see what Jesus said.

This this is Jesus's response to them when they when they said, no, no, no, we we we got to send these hungry people away.

These folks are hungry and we don't know what to do with them.

Jesus, send them away.

Verse number 37.

This is Jesus' response.

This is Jesus' command, and this is what Pastor Michael Young came to declare to one church today, right?

Verse number 37, Jesus' response to his disciples as it related to a hungry crowd is is he says, No, no, no, no, no.

We're not gonna send them away, but you feed them.

Right, right?

No, no, no.

We're not gonna send them home with the same problems that they showed up with.

We're not gonna send them back to the environments that have been tearing them down.

He said, No, my expectation of you as my disciples, as my apostles, as those that are ambassadors for my kingdom.

My expectation is that you feed them.

What Jesus is trying to do is Jesus is trying to shift the mindset and the paradigm of his disciples in this particular moment to let them know we didn't draw all these people here just to have church, but we drew these people here to begin to feel their hunger and begin to feel their void and begin to shift and alter or come on, somebody, the actual course of their life.

He he said, He said, No, no, no, no, no, no.

You feed them.

He was giving them a mandate for ministry.

And what God is doing for all of us is He's giving us a mandate for ministry.

Uh I hope we know this.

I hope we know that God doesn't bless us just for us.

Right, right.

God, God doesn't open doors for us just for us, God doesn't prosper us just for us.

But when God begins to bless us, he blesses us to be a blessing to other people.

He said, I want you to feed them.

Now, now the the disciples have some legitimate questions.

They have some legitimate questions here because the disciples are looking at their natural capabilities and they're saying, Well, we would have to work for months to be able to meet this need.

See, they're they're they're literally dealing with a supernatural God, but they're still viewing everything through a very natural paradigm.

And what you have to understand is you have to understand that Jesus' miracle is your ministry.

You you have to understand that Jesus performs miracles and he turns those miracles into your ministry.

You can't look at things just through a natural paradigm, but you got to begin to look at them through the lens of the fact that we serve the creator of the heavens and the earth.

The one who said heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool.

The one who said the earth is his, the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.

Jesus, Jesus like this.

No, no, no, you got to you got to shift your paradigm.

He said, The first thing I want you to do with these people is I want you to sit them down in groups of 50 or 100.

Right?

Just view this with me.

Just walk.

With me, Jesus and his disciples are going on a boat to a secluded place.

There's a whole multitude of people who the Bible said is running along the seashore to meet them at the place where they were.

It had to be chaotic, it had to be confusion, and there had to be a bunch of disorder.

And Jesus says, before I can work a miracle in their life, I need to bring some order to the disorder.

And can I tell you, one of the things that many times hinders us from receiving all that God has for us is it ain't the devil in our life, it's the disorder in our life.

If we could just get some order to our life, right, you you literally begin to make yourself eligible for the miraculous from God.

Right?

We got to stop blaming the devil for everything.

Sometimes you just need to get a calendar, get your Google calendar out.

Come on, somebody.

Right?

Get your Google calendar out and get some order to the disorder so now God can begin to bless you.

They get order to the disorder.

And I want you to see this because this is the crux of the message.

The Bible said in verse number 41, it says at this particular moment, Jesus begins to break the loaves into pieces, and he gives the bread to his disciples, and his disciples give it to the multitude.

Some of y'all missed it already.

We teach this as if Jesus fed the multitude.

That's not what happened.

That's not what the text said.

The text did not tell us that Jesus gave bread to the multitude.

The Bible said, watch this now, that Jesus took a loaf of bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and then he gave bread to his disciples.

Jesus didn't take the bread and give it to the multitude himself, but Jesus took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave a piece to Peter, he gave a piece to John, he gave a piece to James, gave a piece to Bartholomew and Matthew.

He blessed the bread, he broke it, and watch this now.

He gave the bread to the disciples, and then he expected the disciples to take their peace and give it to the multitudes.

What you have to understand is, family, is your peace is your purpose.

Right?

The peace that God gave you is the peace that he expects you to use to feed a hungry and dying world.

Now I want you to see something here, family.

The Bible did not say, the Bible did not say that Jesus took the bread and he cut the bread.

It said that Jesus took the bread, he blessed it, and he broke the bread.

Now, now I want you to see something here when you when you break bread, sometimes one piece can be bigger than the other piece.

Right?

So so sometimes, right, somebody may appear to have a bigger piece.

Sometimes they can appear to be more gifted, sometimes they can appear to be more spiritual or be more anointed, right?

Right.

But what we cannot do as believers is I I can't get to looking at my peace and say, well, my peace is not as big as my sister's piece, or my peace is not as big as my brother's piece, right?

Right?

What we do all too often, which is which is the thief of joy, is we we compare our pieces all too often.

And what I need to know is I need to know that God is sovereign and God knows exactly what he's doing when he does it.

So when God gave me my peace, he gave me the exact peace that he destined and designed.

Come on, somebody, for me to have.

You got to stop despising your peace.

Now, something else you'll notice when you break bread and you don't cut bread is the edges of the bread aren't smooth.

Right?

Can I can I tell you something?

He doesn't expect perfection before you start feeding people your purpose.

All too often what we look for is we look for perfection.

But how many realize I've been doing this thing for 27 years?

Perfection is not a thing, right?

Progress is a thing, but perfection is not a thing because we live here in earth in this human form, and you know what we got to wrestle with?

We got to wrestle with something called flesh.

This is why you can see David, a man after God's own heart.

David, with all the incredible things that he did for the glory of God, he still had flesh.

You can look at Peter.

Peter was Jesus' right-hand man.

Peter walked on water, went up the Mount of Transfiguration.

It was Peter who got the revelation of who Christ was, and Peter was the same one who could be seen denying Christ three times, cussing by the fire.

Why?

Because when he breaks us off our peace, he does not make us perfect.

We still may have some rough edges, but how many realize that you, with your rough edge self, with your mistake-prone self, with your inconsistent self, God can still use you to feed, come on, somebody, hungry people, you got to know that your peace is your purpose.

Now the next thing that is important for us to realize is that if you have a peace, and you have a peace, and you have a peace, it means nobody unto themselves has the whole loaf.

Which means if we're gonna feed a multitude, I need you, and I need you, and I need you, it means none of us are spiritual superstars unto ourselves, but we are many members of one body.

We are many members of a codependent body.

I I need you, I can't be me without you, and you know what?

You can't be you without me.

The Bible said that the eye can't say to the hand, I have no need of thee.

We we all need each other.

I need you to use your peace, and I need to celebrate you using your peace, and I need you to use your peace, and I need to celebrate you using your peace, and you need me to use my peace, and you need to celebrate me, come on now, using my peace, because there is a hungry world that is waiting on the church to be the church.

There is a hungry world that is waiting on Jesus' disciples to be just that representatives of his kingdom.

And I wonder, is there anybody in the house of God this morning that recognizes that when God created you, God gave you a peace?

And you know what?

The peace that you have is the exact size it's supposed to be, it's the exact, come on now, it's the exact framework it's supposed to be, and what I cannot do is I can't despise my peace, I can't look down on my peace, I can't minimize my peace, but I got to recognize that my peace is my purpose, and God is calling me to use my peace to feed a hungry generation.

Come on, one church, if you're in agreement with me, I need to put your hands together and I need to begin to cry out to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and say, God help me to use my peace.

Everybody's not gonna be a preacher, everybody can get up here, and I gotta be honest, I'm a little jealous that he can do it like that, but everybody can't get up here and sing like Brother Blaze.

I gotta be honest, I looked at my peace, I said, Lord, why didn't you give me that peace?

Sometimes you'll be a school teacher that has an opportunity every single day to impact and change the course of a young person's life.

That's your peace.

As it relates to the church, I had a woman who joined our ministry and she was a member for years.

And you know what?

I was always under the assumption she she was a member because she liked Pastor Mike's preaching.

Was it my preaching that that made you join the church?

Is that what it was?

She said, Oh nah, Pastor, I mean your preaching is okay and everything, but she said, What made me join the church is the first time I came, it was a woman in the parking lot that greeted me with a smile.

And what I had been going through in that season of my life, that smile began to break chains off my life.

Now, the parking lot team they don't get to be on the platform and they don't have the spotlight on them, and you know what, they don't get to be on the big screen, but you know what?

The parking lot team is using their peace, family.

Your peace is your purpose.

Work with your peace, perfect your peace.

Let let God get glory from your peace.

Family, let us prepare our hearts this morning to go before the throne of grace that God can begin to give fresh revelation and fresh perspective to us about our peace.

I don't want to be caught up with my brother's peace.

I don't want to be caught up with my sister's peace.

I don't want to be focused on everyone else's peace.

God, help me this morning to appreciate my peace.

Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, in the mighty name of Jesus, we come before your presence now.

And Father, we thank you, God, for this opportunity to come together with our brothers and our sisters in Christ.

Father, we thank you, Lord God, that all too often in the world we find ourselves being robbed of the joy of it because of comparison and competition.

Or Father, maybe we find ourselves succumbing to the lies of the enemy and we minimize ourselves and we struggle with insecurities or we struggle with our imperfections.

But Father, we thank you this morning, God, that you're giving us revelation about our peace.

Yes, God, our imperfect peace.

Yes, our peace that sometimes may be rough around the edges.

Yes, God, our peace that sometimes, if we get caught up, Lord God, in comparing it to who gets the most likes on social media or who gets the most claps on stage.

I may find myself not appreciating my peace.

But Father, we declare today that we are being set free from that mindset and that paradigm.

And today, God, I'm asking you to help me to appreciate the gifts and the ability and the call and the purpose that you placed upon my life.

Father, help me to do the best that I could do with what it is that you gave to me.

For Father, you said in your word, to whom much is given, much is gonna be required.

Father, you are calling us, oh God, even as you did, Jeremiah, to understand that even before we were in our mother's womb, you knew us, you sanctified us, and you ordained us to do a work for you.

Father, I pray, Lord God, that you'll continue to take this audience, God, and continue to turn them into an army for the glory of the kingdom of God.

Father, we ask all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, family, put your hands together and give God praise.