Power in Dependence - Matthew 14:13-21

Good morning, everybody. Good to see you all this morning.

It's actually a pretty nice day out. I'm excited about that.

Boy, I have so many reasons to be excited this morning. I have at least 50,

slightly more than 50, 51 reasons to be excited this morning.

Because it's Bob and Judy's 51st anniversary. Is that right? Today, yes.

Congratulations, Bob and Judy, 51 years.

That and many 51 more,

I mean I don't know maybe that's not yeah you have to kiss the kiss cam there

you go beautiful wonderful thank you,

awesome well so glad that we have that kind of longevity in marriage it's very

rare I feel like we could learn a lot from Bob and Judy's approach to things

so thanks to them and thanks for,

congratulations it's awesome we are continuing on the book of Matthew so you

can get out your Bibles and open in Matthew chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

Last week, if you're on the live stream, I hope you're on the live stream.

The camera keeps dying. I'm sorry.

You know, if you fix something and then something else breaks and that's just life.

So anyways, we are continuing on in Matthew, Matthew chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

And last week we talked about, you know, just kind of jumped in in the beginning of Matthew 14.

Matthew takes some time and he ties up some loose ends.

And we talked about John the Baptist this unglamorous Seleucid and his death,

essentially, in prison.

And we know that John was a family and friend to Jesus.

And John was really important to Jesus' ministry. He was preparing the way for

Jesus' ministry, kind of announcing his coming and preparing the way so that

people could receive Jesus when he came.

And so when Jesus hears about John's death in prison, And he's just understandably upset.

It's bad news. And this is what happens upon his hearing. And it's where we're

picking up. And I think it's verse 13 we're picking up in.

So it says this, when Jesus heard about it, that's John the Baptist's death,

he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone.

And when the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns.

And when he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.

So Jesus hears about John's passing, right?

And I mean, he's like any of us would be. He is struck because his friend has died.

And his instinct is what any of our instinct would be. He wants to get alone. He wants to withdraw.

He wants to be on his own and just feel the weight and the pain of losing somebody, which is important.

I mean, honestly, we could learn a little bit about grief from John here.

Because so oftentimes, I think in our culture, we don't allow ourself a place to grieve.

We don't allow ourself space to just sit and just be sad because sadness is

so scary to us. But honestly, Jesus doesn't run from his sadness.

He's trying to be alone and to sit with his sadness and to go before his father

and to feel all of that. It's a great example of grieving.

But as Jesus goes to go alone, he says, okay, I want to be alone.

So he gets in a boat, right? He's on the lake.

He gets into a boat thinking, understandably, people can't walk on water.

Not all of us, right? So people can't walk on water. So if I get in this boat

and get away from this crowd, like they can't follow me. And so Jesus gets in his boat.

He's going to an isolated place. But what people can do is run.

And so people watch his boat, see which direction he's going.

They run along the shore. And when he gets to where he's going,

to this isolated place, he's met with a crowd there.

They find him even though

he's he's making a really great effort to be

alone and to and to be alone by

himself and feel his feelings and if it were me and i really wanted to be alone

and i just like had this bad news and i like was trying to run away from people

and they're running after me and just bothering me i would be bothered right

wouldn't you if you if you're in an emotional state,

people are chasing after you, you wouldn't be too happy.

But Jesus has a different reaction, a different reaction than my natural reaction would be.

He sees this crowd of people and he has compassion on them.

And he spends his day healing the sick people who have come out.

And man, what a guy. I mean, to say the least, what a guy.

And here's the thing. When we think about Jesus's life and we think about how

he was, we can do one of two things.

We can either say, well, Jesus was just like so exceptional.

He is the exception to the rule.

And he's certainly the exception to my rule.

We can say, oh, Jesus, he's just so good. His character is just so awesome.

Like he has just so much in himself.

That's just like he doesn't react to the way normal people like you or I would react.

He's never bothered. He's never tired. He's never irritated. And so So...

When we would be irritated, like Jesus is compassionate.

So like we begin to think about Jesus and we put so much distance between us and him, right?

Because whether or not it's true, thinking of Jesus that way excuses me from

having to do anything, right?

It says, okay, well, that's Jesus. And I can't be like Jesus in any way whatsoever.

He's totally different than I am. And so whatever. I don't need to have compassion on people.

Or so we can think of it that way. hey, Jesus is so exceptional and there's

no way I can touch him. I can't even learn from his example.

Or we can learn from Jesus.

We can think that maybe Jesus is demonstrating for us something in his character,

something that actually could be somewhat attainable.

We can say, yes, I understand my natural reactions are not always good and not

always loving and not always compassionate. In fact, very rarely are they naturally that way.

But there might be a way for me to develop and grow into some of this character,

some of this Christ-likeness that Jesus is demonstrating here.

And I actually, I think it's pretty clear the way I've set this up.

I think the second option is the better way to think about things.

And I want to propose to you that Jesus, yes, though he was without sin,

he is not in his nature as we are, like fallen and like stuck in all of our

badness and all of our depravity and all these theological words we throw at our state.

Like whereas we're lost, Jesus is not lost. He is not in sin as we Yes, all of that is true.

Jesus is still, I think, doing something here that is possible for us.

His compassion and putting on this kind of love is something that is possible for us.

Because I believe you have the capacity to become a person who,

when squeezed, who can drip out love and compassion.

I believe that you have that ability. That's why the Bible calls us to Christlikeness.

If not, everything that Paul writes would just be silly.

It would be a fool's errand. If we can't grow into Christlikeness,

if we can't grow into love, into maturity, then everything is just a fool's

errand. It wouldn't be possible for us to grow.

But it is possible because love and compassion and peace and joy and all these

fruits of the Spirit are gifts that come to us. They don't come from us.

That's the way that we understand and we can think about these characters of Christlikeness.

You can become like Christ, not because you are such a good person or you have

the capacity to become a better person,

but you can become like Christ because you can tap into the source of goodness

and to the giver of good things and to the real God who is love.

And you can be filled with his spirit, which is not your spirit, but his spirit.

And so all the energy and all the passion and

all the joy and all the good things that we see flowing out

of Jesus are coming from him and not from you and not in your

and of yourself you can become christ-like because

that's actually what i'm going to argue here

is what jesus is doing he is tapping into something here's the thing about jesus

fully god a hundred percent perfect sinless in his character we get all that

and that's i mean if you don't that is what the bible says about who jesus is

and yet i think what We learn about Jesus,

if we pay attention to his life, he isn't going around...

He's exercising his power and his character independently, independently.

In John 5, Jesus explains kind of like some gives us some insight into his way

of doing things. So John 5, 19 says this.

So he's he's tested, being obviously being questioned all the time.

So he's answering a question about about what he's up to. And he says this.

Truly, I tell you, the son, that is, he is not able to do anything on his own,

but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does,

the son does these things likewise.

So what Jesus is saying is all his acting, all of his doing,

all of his engagement in the world, he says, this isn't coming from me.

This is me just looking to the father, looking to my God, who is enabling me

and providing me all the power.

Like Jesus has the power. He's God himself.

He could exercise all his power if he wanted to.

But Jesus doesn't exercise power in that way. He depends on God.

But Jesus exercises power in dependence, and he models that and shows it to us.

I think I've got a slide that says that.

He exercises power in dependence.

And so like, what?

See, that's a different thing than it's coming from his character.

Paul explains Jesus' dependence this way in Philippians 2. He says this.

He calls us to adopt the same attitude that it was in Christ Jesus,

which again, there's already a calling and an ability, something that we can

do or else it would be a fool's errand.

Adopt the same attitude as it was in Jesus, who, existing in the form of God,

he did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant,

taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as man,

he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death,

even to death on a cross. So Jesus is fully God.

He's deserving of all the praise and all the glory. Like everything in his character

is just good and beautiful and wonderful.

And yet he does not just come into the world and just say, how awesome am I

and look at how great I am and my character is so perfect.

Though he is all those things. What he does is he says, instead of drawing from

my own resources and my own godliness and being powerful, I'm going to rely on the Father.

I'm just going to look to him and do what he's doing. And if he has compassion,

I'm going to have compassion. If he has love, I'm going to have love.

I'm going to be drawing that from him. I'm going to be taking my cues from the

Father, from God himself, right?

So he's showing us this kind of attitude of dependence.

And that's why Paul calls us to imitate that, have that attitude, adopt that attitude.

Jesus is special. He is good. He is perfect. But he's not working from that

place, from his own specialness.

He actually takes on the likeness of humanity so he doesn't draw from his resources.

He doesn't cease to be God.

He doesn't cease to be powerful. He doesn't cease to be all-knowing.

But what he does, he sets those things aside.

He says, I'm just going to be like a weak person, just like all of you.

I'm going to be like somebody who doesn't know how to do all the things and

isn't perfect. I'm just going to take my cues from my father.

I'm just going to rest in him.

So when he works, his work is the father's work. He's not drawing his own resources.

He's just coming alongside what he sees the father doing.

So back to our text. Jesus wants to be alone.

But seeing the crowd, he doesn't say, well, I'm just such a good and loving

person that even though I'm sad, I'm just gonna lean in and just power through.

He says, he looks at the crowd. He knows where he's at.

He knows the pain he's in. He feels that very much. I mean, it's just like we

have an insight into the emotional life of Jesus.

But instead of living from that place of his feelings, like his flesh is the

weight of his own sadness, he lets compassion fill him. even as he's tired and grieving.

He knows that the father looks at these people and he looks at them and he knows their desperation.

And God is so willing to do anything. And so Jesus says, all right, so I'll be willing to.

I'll put my will in the hands of the father. And though I don't feel like I

have the resources, I'm going to draw those resources and that love and that

compassion from my father.

So here's what I've learned about myself.

I will never have the power in myself to love people who bother me because they bother me.

And they won't stop. Like, that's the thing. Sometimes you think,

I'll just not be bothered. No, you won't.

You'll always be bothered.

You don't have to get over yourself. You have to get past yourself.

You have to stop looking for yourself to have the things.

You have to just look to the Father who has the love and then draw it from him.

I won't have compassion when I'm overdrawn and tired.

A nap isn't going to help. I'll still be overdrawn and I'll still be tired and I have children,

and I don't think you ever stop getting tired you

know like but I know this I've learned

this God can give me the power and the energy and the love and the compassion

to love when I depend on him and when I just say no I don't have this in me

but I think he has it for me and so he can give me this stuff he can give me this love,

Colossians 3 12-13 says, Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved,

put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,

bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another.

Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.

Just two quick observations about the call here that Paul makes in Colossians.

He tells us to put on all this character, all this stuff that is just like the

Lord's love, his forgiveness, his compassion.

So first observation is this, just two observations.

Something that you put on is not naturally a part of you. This shirt, I wasn't born with it.

I came into this world naked. and by God's grace, I don't stay naked day to day.

I put things on that are not myself.

Like this is alien to me, but I put it on and it becomes a part of me.

Like that's my shirt now because I'm wearing it, right? But you know, I didn't grow this.

It didn't come from any part of my body or my flesh.

It didn't come naturally from me. I don't have natural compassion, kindness, humility.

Those are alien things to me. That's why I put them on.

They're not of me. They don't come from me. It's not, oh, just be a better person.

You're a good person. I'm not.

I can't be. I need to put on anything good comes from Christ.

So that's number one. It's not of myself.

And number two is you can't put something on unless it's been offered to you.

We are not in the Bible told to just like go into TJ Maxx and steal everything,

right? We're given like a garment, something to wear, the character of Christ.

It's been given to us. It doesn't sit behind the glass window to be like,

oh, Jesus, he's so beautiful. He's got all this character.

What the Bible tells us is he's come into the world.

He is sending his spirit, the very spirit which was filling him up.

Letting him understand what the Father's will is, is now coming into people

who trust in the gospel, like who are filled with the Spirit.

And now they can have this same

kind of compassion. They can have this dependence and reliance on God.

It's God's garment given to, as it says here, to God's chosen ones.

So if you've heard the gospel and you said, that's for me.

I want this love and forgiveness that comes from Jesus Christ dying on the cross.

It's alien righteousness. not my righteousness, not my love,

not my greatness, but greatness that comes from him, not because of anything

I've done, but because he's kind and he's forgiving, he's compassionate.

He says, all of that I have, I want to give to you.

It comes from that chosenness that I can even consider putting on love,

compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

It always comes from him and it's given so that I might put it on and so that you might put it on.

It comes from that forgiveness and that love secured by Jesus on the cross.

So it's something given to us.

All right, so let's keep going. Back into our narrative in John here.

So this is like a really big theme, I think, in this little section.

All right, so when evening came, I think this is verse 15. When evening came,

the disciples approached him and said, This place is deserted, and it's already late.

Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.

They don't need to go away, Jesus told them. So Jesus, he doesn't get his time to grieve.

He doesn't get his time alone. He spends his whole day, sunup to sundown,

just healing this crowd.

In the midst of all his emotional context and all his difficulty,

he spends time healing the crowd.

And as evening comes, the disciples, they come up and say, I,

We had better send all of these people home so that they can get some food because

we are in the middle of nowhere, this isolated place that Jesus was trying to

get away from everybody.

We're in the middle of nowhere. But Jesus says, nah, I don't think so.

I don't think, they don't need to go.

See, Jesus knows something because he's experienced it over and over again.

He lives it out in his day-to-day life.

He just experienced it as he came off the boat, looking forward to a moment

alone, and instead he spent his day in this kind of dependent compassion, this dependent power.

He recognizes now as these people are hungry and are in need,

he recognizes that God gives his people what they need.

And so they don't need to go away because God always gives his people what they need.

God gave Jesus love and compassion when he needed it.

God is a giver of those good things. And God gives food to the hungry,

love to the broken, forgiveness to the guilty.

He's a God who meets our needs. Jesus just knows this through and through and through.

It just like has gotten so deep into his psyche.

I heard someone kind of quote Carl Jung quote. It says, people don't have ideas.

Ideas have people, which I liked. I'm sure that's not quite accurate. I don't know.

Psychologist? No, it's probably not. No, it's inaccurate. He probably didn't even say it.

Probably some guy on the internet said, oh yeah, Carl Jung said that.

No, I didn't need it. It's fine. But I like the idea, right?

Jesus had lots of ideas, but he was more than anything possessed by this idea

that God cares for people.

I mean, Jesus understood this well. It totally reoriented his whole life.

He had this idea, a true thing, a thing that he knew well that God cares about

people and that changed who he was.

And we see this in this text. I think this is a really interesting text.

It's a well-known text, Feeding the 5,000th.

We see this developed on multiple levels, like in the middle of nowhere,

after a long day, in the midst of great need and seemingly little resources,

God is the God of abundant generosity who can provide in the middle of nowhere,

in the midst of nothing, to people who have very little.

And he does so, I think, especially when there's little hope of making it on our own.

I think we see that over and over again in the Bible. This is just a demonstration

of God's love. One of my favorite verses, it's just like this little throwaway

line from Romans 4, 17. Paul is talking about Abraham.

Abraham, he's always making these references to the Old Testament stories.

And Abraham in Genesis is just a guy who's received a promise from God that

he's going to have a lot of children and many, many children.

But he's very old and he still hasn't had any children with his wife, Sarah.

And he's discouraged, but in the end it works out.

I mean, so referencing that story, Paul in Romans 4 says this, as it is written.

Recounting this promise to Abraham, I've made you the father of many nations

and the presence of the God whom he believed, the one who gives the life to

the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations

according to what has been spoken, so your descendants will be. So like,

He's calling back. He's reminding God's people of the faith of Abraham.

And the thing about Abraham, he wasn't a guy who was like, he just cobbled it

together and he made it work.

Abraham was a guy who's like, it's not going to work. It's not going to work.

It's not going to work. It's not going to work. I'm going to hang on to hope.

I'm going to hold on to hope. I'm going to still wait for God to work.

I don't see how it could work because I'm super old and my wife's super old

and I know about babies and that doesn't happen and all this stuff.

But God is the God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence

that do not exist. I love this phrase.

It so well captures the way that God works. God's provision for us is so much

greater than we can imagine. It defies imagination on purpose.

He's the God who brings things out of nothing.

He doesn't cobble together what he needs from the things that we offer.

And it's like, we don't give him enough. He doesn't have enough.

He's like, well, I can't do anything for you.

He just takes what is not enough and he makes it enough.

He takes what can't be and he makes it so. He takes the raw materials that we have sometimes or not.

And he just makes a solution. When God's people trust in him,

when they depend on him, he calls into existence things that don't exist.

God sees no obstacles in anything.

He is the obstacle breaker and maker. So when we look around and we take stock

of our need and our tiredness and our attitude and our feelings and all this

stuff, our discouragement,

all of our hopelessness, and we say, there's no way, and I can't,

and I just don't have enough energy anymore.

God knows there's a way. He absolutely can work with that. It's just the way of the impossible.

And we don't think in those terms. But God doesn't need anything but himself

in order to bring things about.

He brings into existence things that don't exist.

And we see how that plays out in the crowd as they're hungry.

And Jesus says, picking up in verse 16, they don't need to go away.

Jesus told them, you bring them something to eat.

But we only have five loaves and two fish here, they said to him.

Well, bring them here to me, he said. And then he commanded the crowd to sit down on the grass.

And he took the five loaves and the two fish. And looking up to heaven, he blessed them.

And he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. And the disciples gave them to the crowds.

And everyone ate and was satisfied. And they picked up 12 baskets full of leftover pieces.

Now, those who ate were about 5,000 men beside women and children.

Let's think about the disciples' perspective for a moment here.

I mean, the disciples, like...

They sometimes say dumb things in the Gospels, and you're like, oh, you guys are dumb.

But they, I mean, they're admirable. There are people who devoted their lives

to following Jesus around and serving Jesus. I mean, they, like, gave up everything.

They left their jobs. They left their families. And they're just like,

we're just going to go where this guy goes and depend upon him.

And they're sitting here amazed. They must have just always been amazed at the

things that Jesus was doing.

But, you know, he's healing people. That's great. Healing them all day.

Wow. wow, so good. But let's be honest, we're all getting hungry.

They know how things work. It's like, yeah, you can heal Jesus, but I want a pizza.

And so as the day goes on, someone just comes up to Jesus, no doubt.

Have you seen people, like movies and stuff where there's politicians and they

have the assistant, and the assistant just comes up and they're like,

sir, we should probably send everybody home. They're just trying to be helpful.

Just like, let me just help you out, Jesus. You've probably forgotten what time it was.

You're so busy healing and being awesome. And so they just come up and say,

let me just help you out, Jesus. Let me just remind you. Let me assist you.

And Jesus says, I don't think so.

No eating. We don't need to worry about this. I'm not worried about this.

And then he says, I love this, and said, and since you're feeling so helpful,

since you're feeling so helpful to the disciples, why don't you just feed them?

And the disciples, they really want to do everything to help Jesus.

I mean, they gave up their whole lives. They're super willing,

but they're just like, there's just this one problem. There's just this one problem.

They don't know how to feed people because they only have five loaves and two fish.

And there's like, you know, 10,000 people, maybe more here. Right.

Because, you know, only 5,000 men, not counting all the women. Sorry, women.

So there's thousands of people. We don't have enough to go around.

But you know what? Like this text, layer upon layer upon layer in it,

is all about what happens when people depend on God for the impossible.

Jesus just wants to be alone, but the Father is compassionate.

So Jesus leaned in and depends upon him and miracles happen.

The people are getting hungry. They need to eat. But instead of sending them

away, God's just going to supply the food, right? And the disciples,

they want to be of service, but they feel like they don't know how to do what we're called to do.

You're asking us to do something. We don't have the ability to do it.

But God is capable when they are not.

And I think for us all, that is just a good thing to consider.

Just in our general lives, I'm sure that you can think of so many areas in your

life where you just don't feel like you have enough.

Or maybe you have great self-esteem. But for the rest of us,

you know, like, like, like layer upon layer from, from your work to your family,

to your social relationships, your finances, you're just like, I, I feel like a doofus.

Like, I feel like I'm not capable or competent. And I look around and feel like

everybody else has everything figured out. And I don't know what I'm doing. Like.

I think we can feel this and we can touch this. We can feel like how good it

is to know that God is capable in our incapacity.

But beyond that, I think just speaking to us as a church in this moment,

downtown church, I-90 church, whatever you want, I-90 downtown church.

We've moved, like we're getting ready to kind of like pick up steam here a little

bit, hopefully make some noise and reach some people and let people know we're

actually here because we haven't really done that much yet.

And I think we're probably excited about that. But I think a lot of us,

myself included, right?

Because there's been a lot of work to move, feel tired, right?

Maybe you feel overwhelmed. You feel like, oh, there's just so much to do and

things to do and people to reach and things to just take care of.

Maybe you feel overwhelmed. Maybe you feel worried. Like maybe you're feeling

wondering if we have enough people or resources or time or attention or whatever

the thing is that you don't have.

We feel the weight of the absence of things. We don't have the things to reach

this community. And how do you get people who don't want anything to do with

God to be interested in God? Like, I don't know how to make that happen.

I don't know how to make so many things happen. And we don't know how to make

so many things happen. How do we serve when we're tired?

How do we make a splash when we're small? How can we do what Jesus is asking

to do? And I would say all those questions and feelings are fine.

They're par for the course. It's normal life. It happens in your life.

If you're not feeling that way, you're deluding yourself, to be honest.

I mean, just God bless you if you can if you can do it. You're probably in your 20s.

But at some point you realize, oh, what? How did I how did I get to be 40?

And I have I have no money and I've got like no energy left.

And they keep telling me life gets better and I feel more tired and like and

like things are going to be fine. It doesn't feel like things are going to be fine.

Sorry, if you're in your 20s, just keep it up. You're doing great.

It changes, right? It changes.

These are good questions to have. They're realistic questions that have realistic.

They're live check questions to have. They're great questions to have.

They're the same questions and doubts and issues that the disciples are constantly

faced with. Like, do we have enough? We just got this.

Is that enough? I don't know what you're talking about. I've cut up dish before.

It's never fed this many people.

And it's quite a conundrum. Here's how N.T. Wright comments through the disciples'

predicament. And he kind of puts us into their perspective and their thinking.

I really like what he says as Jesus asks them to feed these people. This is what he says.

He says, think through how it happened.

Being close to Jesus, the disciples are close to Jesus, has turned into the thought of service.

They just want to serve. They just want to be there. They just want to do what God wants them to do.

And Jesus takes that thought and turns it inside out, making it more costly, of course.

So they just want to help. I just want to help you out, Jesus.

You do it. And Jesus says, no, you do it.

Puts more weight on them, puts more challenge on them. It gives it back to you as a challenge.

In puzzled response to the challenge, you offer what you've got,

five lobes, two fishes, knowing that it's quite inadequate. But again,

costly, it's all we've got.

And the same thing happens. He takes it, he blesses it, he breaks it.

There's a cost yet again. And he gives it to you.

And your job now is to give it to somebody else.

This is how it works whenever someone comes close enough to Jesus to catch a

glimpse of what he's doing and how they could help.

We blunder with our ideas. We offer uncomprehending what little we have.

Jesus takes the ideas, loaves and fishes, money, sense of humor,

time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, skills with words,

quickness of eye or fingers,

whatever we have to offer, and he holds them before his Father with prayer and

blessing, and then he breaks them so they are ready for use.

And he gives them back to us and to give to those who need them.

And now they are both ours and not ours.

They are both what we had in mind and not what we had in mind.

Something greater and different, more powerful and mysterious, yet also our own.

It is part of the genuine Christian service at whatever level that we look on

in amazement to see what God has done with the bits and pieces we dug out from

our meager resources to offer him.

I love this as a way to represent all, like Matt N.T.

Wright is saying, all Christian service, anything that we can partner with God in doing.

He's not saying, he's saying that this is archetypal.

That's saying you always come to God and you want to help him out and you never have enough.

And so you bring the little that you have. And all that God does is he takes

those things and he blesses them so that there is enough.

And so all is that to say is if you feel like there's not enough,

you're right. There's not enough. Isn't it wonderful?

Isn't it wonderful that in our not enoughness, in our tiredness,

and our just questions and our doubts or whatever, that God can show up?

Like, I mean, would we want it otherwise?

Because let me ask you, if downtown church can get it together enough,

we have enough money, enough energy, enough outreach, enough skill to get this church up and going.

We use our own energy and our resources and our own polish and our own hype

and all this whatever, all these things that we have.

And when we do it in our own capacity, you know what?

That means next year, we have to do it in our own capacity again.

And the year after, and the year after, and the year after.

So you get yourself set up into this mode where you're only drawing on yourself

and your power comes from your own self-dependence.

That means that what you've sown, you have to keep reaping.

I love that we're here in a small place, in a place that feels like maybe like

we're starting again or like resetting or whatever, because we get to reset

to the point where we say, well,

we just really need Jesus to show up because we can't do it on our own.

So good, so good. I don't want to do this on my own. I don't think you do either. Stop trying.

I mean, that's it. Worship team's going to come up here.

That's the one thing we can do in our strength. We can just say,

all right, I know I am so habitually into,

solving problems on my own, just drawing from myself my own energy and my own resources.

It's not that we need to just never participate in things. I mean,

this very clearly here, the disciples bring something to Jesus.

They bring everything they've got to Jesus, and yet they are so aware that it's not enough.

They're so aware that it's not enough.

But whenever God does anything wild, like any revival, anything in the church

world, anything even personally, maybe you've gone through moments of personal

revival. Can you remember what that was like?

You didn't get into a place of revival and excitement about Jesus because you

were so excited about all the stuff you could do for him.

That never excited anyone, which you were excited about when you first came

to Jesus or at some point in your life, when God just like got ahold of you

and woke you up, you were excited that you have found.

The love and grace and mercy of God just pouring out.

An old-timey preacher who used to say, I just stand under the spout where the

glory comes out, which I'm never going to say in normal conversation.

I have to warn you about how silly that sounds, right? I want to say it with an accent.

But it's like that's what the Christian life is. You aren't positioning yourself

and polishing yourself up and offering yourself to God.

You're saying, I'm just pretty empty, but I'm going to position myself.

I'm going to get to this place of dependence because that's where the power is.

That's where the joy is. That's where the peace is. That's where the love is.

That's where the transformation is.

That's where the reaching people is. That's where the mission is.

It lives in this dependence of Jesus. There is power in dependence.

And the primary skill of Christian maturity, I think the primary skill of Christian

maturity is learning to depend on God and not on ourselves.

Because I am, by muscle memory, by training in the ways of the world,

like my body just goes, I want to solve my own problems and not bother God and

not bother anyone. I want to be self-sustaining.

But Christian maturity is saying, I'm not going to be super great and mature.

I'm actually just going to lean super hard on Jesus.

I'm going to lean to the point where I'm just like saying, I'm not even working.

I'm just looking to the father.

He's doing things. So I'm just getting right behind him.

You ever see bikers doing races or like when a biker's getting to race?

The people who win spend most of the race at the back of the pack because they're drafting, right?

The pack is creating this vacuum. The vacuum is pulling people along.

Or if you've ever biked, this is dangerous, by the way, you bike behind a truck.

Don't do it, but it's fun. You don't even have to pedal. You just pulled along

in the wake of something else.

The primary skill is strafting onto what the Lord is doing.

And so we have many questions. What do we do, Lord? How do we do it?

Where do we go? What's the strategy? What's the plan?

We got to come up with those, but the plan has to be going where the Father

is going, going where the Spirit is going.

Just saying, we really just need to be attentive and listening,

prayerful and careful to depend on him and just go, we're going to get as tight

to that truck as we can get.

Because then we don't, I mean, I'm trying not to think about the brakes,

but God doesn't put on the brakes.

He keeps a steady speed. Because when we're tight to that truck,

the Lord just does the work. He pulls us along.

So we need to learn that as a church. We need to learn that as people.

So that's a double challenge. It's a challenge to us as a church.

Challenge to us as people, we need to get Get out of our own way.

Get right up into where the Lord is calling us and depend upon him.

Yeah, let's worship and then we'll pray in a minute. We'll come back and pray.