When A Heart Breaks with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the Medicurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medicurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

So cool to see uh our families dedicating their kids that way, and uh just super proud of all of you guys.

Um I'm glad to be back, man.

I missed you guys.

I want to thank uh Pastor Lee Wong and Pastor Noel.

Would y'all show them some love for just getting this series started?

Katie and I celebrated 10 years of marriage.

We went on a little trip and had a great time.

It was it was very fun, very refreshing.

In this series, we are looking at a very unique Greek word that I started studying at the beginning of 2022.

It really gripped me.

Uh, it is not the like sexiest Greek word there is.

We've got some good ones like agape, which means love, you know, and metanoia, which means repentance, these beautiful words.

Uh, this is the word splog chinzomai, okay?

Like, not the easiest to say, and it's kind of got a role, and it gets worse if you define it literally.

The root word in splog chinzomai is like the entrails of an animal, right?

So we're going from good to worse.

And the picture of this kind of compassion, it's translated to be moved to compassion, what it shows us is this gut-wrenching, stomach-turning, heartbeat-breaking kind of compassion that compels us, literally forces us into action.

The way that we're saying it in this series, when a heart breaks, love breaks out.

And it's interesting, if you've been here, you learned this.

This kind of compassion is only ever spoken of about Jesus in Scripture.

The kind of compassion that when a heart breaks, love breaks out.

They have to do something about it.

It's like, I'm not going to eat, I'm not going to sleep until I make something happen.

It's a beautiful word, and I think one of the reasons it gripped me is because I really misunderstood what compassion meant.

And don't judge me for this, but when I thought of compassion, I thought of a sound, right?

Like to me, compassion was this, uh, right?

Like, uh, like when you bring me a problem I don't really know what to do with, or I don't connect with, like, you know, my my 12-year-old ferret is not doing too well.

I'm like, uh, you know, like, I don't really know what to do with that.

I do feel kind of bad for you, but that's about as far as it goes.

And and that's not Jesus' form of compassion.

Jesus' form of compassion always leads us to action.

And some of you have realized over the last two weeks that that's actually how Jesus feels about you.

And you've made the decision to put your faith in him.

And I just want to echo what Pastor Ryan said that your next step is baptism.

Believing in Jesus is a personal decision, but we are a community of people, we're a movement of people, and baptism is simply going public with the declaration of your personal decision.

So I really hope you guys will sign up and do that.

Today we're gonna look at another situation where Jesus was moved to compassion, and we're also gonna talk a lot about what our response to that is as his movement.

I'm gonna pull my title today straight out of Jesus' words.

We're in Mark chapter six, this is maybe the most famous story about Jesus.

It goes like this when he went ashore, he saw a large crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he began to teach them many things.

And when it grew late, his disciples approached him and said, This place is deserted, and it's already late.

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

You give them something to eat, Jesus responded.

And they said to him, Should we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?

And he asked them, here comes the title, How many loaves do you have?

Go and see.

Now, 115, this is our lightest service at this point.

And remember, that's a good thing because that means open chairs, which means opportunity to reach more people.

But I just want to tell you that the 945 and 11:30, I don't like to throw shade.

They did not do what I'm about to ask you to do very well, okay?

So I believe in you.

We've got a bunch of babies in the front row, okay.

Like things are good at the 115.

I want you to look at someone around you and say, go and see.

Oh my goodness.

Our first two services, I thought I was at the Lutheran church.

I'm so glad.

115 that you came through.

My message today is go and see.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you, and uh, I just thank you, God.

I thank you for MetaCurch, this local movement.

Uh, that I think it just matters that it exists, a place for all people and all different walks and their spiritual journey and their faith journey.

God, I pray you would calm, restless hearts and minds, that you'd help us to humble ourselves and to see exactly what you have for us today.

We love you.

We're looking forward to you moving in a powerful way, and we pray it all in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to go and see, say amen.

Amen.

This is a familiar story.

It's usually called the feeding of the five thousand.

And that's because at the end of the story, you find out that that day Jesus fed miraculously 5,000 men.

Now, at that place and that time, only adult males would have been counted.

And so, more accurately, this should really be called the feeding of the 20,000.

People came out in their families, and some of these families rolled deep, okay?

Conservatively, there were 20,000 people there that day.

And what's interesting is of all the miracle stories, this is the one story about Jesus that's told in all four of the accounts of his life.

In the Christian scriptures, we have four accounts of Jesus' time on earth: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And the feeding of the 5,000, or more accurately, the 20,000, it's told in all of them, which means we hear it from four different people's perspectives, and we get all of the nuance and all of the color, and we really can kind of set ourselves in this incredible, incredible moment.

And this is this thing that you find when you start trying to live a compassionate life.

It's like the more you address one problem, the more another problem shows itself.

And this can lead to something called compassion fatigue, which I think we're basically in as a culture altogether.

We're like tired and overwhelmed with all of the needs around us.

When one person needs a meal, you know what to do about that, or at least what you could do about that.

Hypothetically, if 20 people needed a meal, you know what you could do about that.

Little Caesars, get about 10 hot and readdies.

You can feed 20 people.

When 20,000 people need a meal, you don't know what to do.

The problem has outgrown you.

And so we're looking at compassion, specifically Jesus' kind of compassion.

And we are Jesus' followers, which means we're trying to walk how he walked and live how he lived and love how he loved and be in relationship, how he was in relationship.

And he told us how to do this.

He said, if you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and then follow after me, right?

We are called to have the same kind of compassion in our lives.

And today I want to talk about what I think is one of the major obstacles to compassion in our modern world.

It's something that sociologists call the drop in the bucket effect.

This is what happens when you realize that a problem has grown so large that you could do your absolute best, you could come with all of your resources, you could try to address this problem to your maximum capacity, and at the end of the day, everything you have to offer would simply be like a drop in the bucket.

Compassion is when our heart breaks, or the things that break God's heart and love breaks out.

The drop in the bucket effect happens when our hearts are so overwhelmed by the enormity of the brokenness around us that it disconnects our minds from our hearts and we are paralyzed into inaction.

And the reason I think this is really pertinent today is because we're in the information age.

And so in our pockets, we have all of the information from all of the world all of the time.

We know all the problems.

For most of human history, there was no mass communication.

The only problems you were aware of were the problems in your village and really only in your family, but now we know it all.

We know about the billions of people who are living on a dollar a day.

We know about the problems in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America.

We know about everything going on, the millions and millions of kids who are orphaned.

We know about the millions who are being trafficked around the world.

We know about the diseases, we know about all of the issues, and all of it comes together.

There are too many problems to name, and every single one of those problems is too big for any of us to solve.

You start feeling like your life and anything you could contribute won't really even move the needle.

And research has shown again and again, when we are paralyzed by the enormity of the issues that we face, then we tend to do nothing.

And we see this reflected in the disciples when they realized there were 20,000 people who all needed a meal.

Look again in 35, it says, when it grew late, his disciples approached him and said, This place is deserted and it's already late.

Send them away.

It feels really calloused, feels really hard-hearted.

Send them away.

These people that we're supposed to be ministering to and shepherding and loving, send them away.

And here's what it's really easy to do, right?

This is easy church.

This is the churches maybe we grew up in.

It's really, really easy to come to church and to get on our high horse and to see ourselves as the hero of every story and to sit in judgment of everyone else.

It's really easy for me to look at these disciples and go, man, what a bunch of losers.

You know?

They have like one job, they're hanging out with Jesus himself, and they still can't get this stuff right.

The problem is, usually in the story, we're not Jesus.

Usually we are whoever Jesus is talking to.

And it might be helpful to have a little bit of context.

Before this story even starts, five verses back in verse 30, it says, the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught.

And he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest and rest for a while.

For many people were coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.

So now we have a little more context.

We can get off our high horse, we can stop judging the disciples so sternly.

These guys haven't eaten, they've not slept, they've been doing so much ministry to so many people for such a long time that they have not even taken care of themselves.

And furthermore, it wasn't the disciples' ideas to go across the shore and take a little siesta.

That was Jesus' idea.

He was like, let's get in the boat, we'll eat on the way, we'll get to the other side, we'll go to a remote spot, we'll just chill for a minute.

We can get refreshed, filled back up, and then we'll go to the next town, we'll get back to it, we'll do our thing.

In verse 32, they went away in the boat by themselves to a remote place.

But many saw them leaving.

Those are called stalkers.

Many saw them leaving and recognized them.

And they ran on foot from all of the towns, and they arrived ahead of them.

They beat the boat.

And some of you know exactly what this is like because you know that there's no way Jesus could love you more than he loves you.

And some of you know this because you've raised kids, and if you've raised kids, then you've raised toddlers.

Some of you dedicated your babies, and you're not quite toddlers yet.

But Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we're praying for you because they're gonna be toddlers someday.

And you love that baby and you do anything for that baby, but at some point you're going to lock yourself in your bathroom, eat a sandwich on your toilet for five minutes away from them.

Jesus is like, I love y'all, but everybody in the boat, we need a second.

And he still can't get away.

Watch, your four-year-old will pick that lock, it will blow your mind.

They still can't get away.

And now you're starting to see the picture.

We're not so quick to judge them.

Jesus, send them away.

They're looking for calm and they get a crowd.

They're at their last nerve.

This is the last thing they need.

It's like, look, they need to eat, we need to eat, we're exhausted.

Let them go home.

It says they ran to Jesus.

This is wild.

Y'all remember in grade school learning about Paul Revere?

This is like the original, you know?

Just going through the towns.

Jesus is coming.

Jesus is coming.

People are just dropping their dishes, heading off to the hillside, desperate for some time with the rabbi that they've heard about.

Jesus, the one who opens the eyes of the blind, who speaks the words of power.

When he shows up, there's a crowd 20,000 deep.

It's pandemonium.

You know those TMZ videos where like a pop star gets cornered outside of their concert venue and like adults are busting through security and women are crying and teenage girls are fainting.

Like, this is the crowd.

Everyone is amped.

They're on 11, and the disciples are like, This is not the plan.

We were finally going to get some rest.

Finally, some alone time.

But Jesus, in verse 34, when he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he had compassion on them.

If anyone has the right to be frustrated, if anyone has the right to feel inconvenienced, it's Jesus.

He's the star of the show.

It was his idea to go to the other side.

It was obvious he was leaving to get some me time, and all these fools gathered 20,000 friends on the way and showed up anyway, and Jesus, his reaction, is to be moved with compassion.

And it's helpful for me to slow down in places like that in Scripture because it is very instructive of how far I still have to go to really fully be following Jesus.

And often what I find is that the gap between who God's called me to be and who I am today is it's not often in my actions as much as it is exposed in my reactions.

And maybe some of you are a little like me, like a tad bit type A, really like control, you know.

And for people like me, there's a miracle before the miracle.

Here's the spoiler alert: Jesus is gonna take like a happy meal and feed 20,000 people, okay?

That's what's coming, but there's a miracle before the miracle.

The first miracle is that Jesus didn't immediately just send all these fools home.

Jesus had compassion on them.

When I get inconvenienced, in my mind, I'm the victim.

You should have compassion on me.

You ruined my plans.

I had put it all together.

Jesus had compassion on them.

If I'm Jesus in that moment, I'm like, guys, I appreciate it.

We haven't eaten, me and my homies haven't slept.

Look, we're coming to a town near you.

You can get your tickets on JesusTour.com.

We're gonna come through.

You can see us when we're ready for you.

Jesus has moved to compassion.

You know, maybe if you're like me, it's like before God moves our mountains or multiplies our meals, maybe God is just trying to do a work inside of us.

Maybe he's trying to grow our patience a little bit.

Before he does these big miraculous signs on the outside, maybe today God is trying to change something on the inside of you.

There's a miracle before the miracle.

Jesus has moved to compassion.

So let me show you something.

I think I've conservatively read this story across the four gospels at least a thousand times in my life.

I've preached on it no less than six, and I never saw this.

When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he had compassion on them.

He was moved to compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Every time I've read this story, I've walked away and I thought Jesus had compassion on them because they were hungry.

Jesus' compassion preempted the problem.

He wasn't worried about them because they were hungry.

It says he was moved to compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

And we've got to camp out here for just a moment because not only do we get compassion fatigue, we get testimony fatigue in the church today.

And here's what I mean by that.

So often we have this idea of Jesus that we will be put on his radar in direct relevance to how serious the problems are in our life.

Like when life is kind of good and our marriage is okay and we're happy in our job, Jesus isn't really paying attention to us.

But as soon as the disease comes or the spouse leaves, or the addictions come, then Jesus will be moved to compassion on our behalf.

And think about the last two weeks.

In week one, Jesus was the compassionate Samaritan.

And the person in the story was beat to within an inch of their life.

They were lying, dying in a ditch, stripped naked.

There's an obvious problem there, and Jesus was moved to compassion.

And last week there was a leper, an incurable disease where you'd be ostracized and marginalized.

There's an obvious problem, and Jesus was moved to compassion.

And here's what I love about today's story is Jesus' compassion preempted the problem.

Now, 20,000 people, they had problems, but they weren't obvious.

In that moment, everyone's good.

They just thought they were gonna have a normal day, and now they're seeing Jesus.

They're pumped, there's no obvious problem, and still Jesus has moved with that gut-wrenching, stomach-turning, heartbreaking kind of compassion that moves him to action.

He was moved because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

What does that mean?

Katie and I went to Ireland to celebrate 10 years, and it's a beautiful country.

There are sheep literally everywhere.

And you know, people say sheep are the dumbest animal.

They're really not.

They're actually kind of impressive.

There's all these mountains, and sheep will stand on the very edge of a cliff and just chill and eat, you know?

Like they're kind of courageous, they're really cool, they're definitely not the smartest animals, okay?

But they're also not the dumbest animals.

Here's what I did learn about a sheep, though.

It doesn't know where it's at.

And if it is not guided by someone or something, it will go anywhere.

And so you see sheep all the time, and you know they're supposed to be in pens, but instead, they're just in the road.

Or they're just by a lake.

And then pretty soon you will see their shepherd.

Now, the 2022 shepherds drive four-wheelers.

Okay, it's a little different than back in the day.

But they come around because sheep need shepherds.

Jesus was moved to compassion because the people were like sheep without a shepherd.

They weren't lepers, they weren't beaten within an inch of their life, no obvious problems to be seen.

No one had raised a hand and explained everything going wrong.

Jesus had that same level of compassion just because they were lacking purpose.

And you need to know that Jesus isn't waiting for you to be addicted to seven different kinds of narcotics.

He's not waiting for the incurable disease, he's not waiting for your spouse to walk out, he's not waiting for you to lose the job right where you are right now.

If you are not engaged with your heavenly father, if you are not in relationship with the God of the universe, if you aren't following after Jesus, if you're not living a life, fulfilling the purpose that he placed inside of you, that is enough to move Jesus to compassion on your behalf, to move Jesus from heaven to earth, to move Jesus from the earth to the cross, to move Jesus to do whatever it takes to come and rescue you.

That's all it took.

He didn't need a testimony that can make 60 minutes.

He didn't need dateline 2020.

All he needed was people who were disconnected from their heavenly father, sheep without a shepherd.

His compassion preempted the problem, and there's a reason for that.

And this is one of the obstacles to our compassion.

And it's part of our culture.

Our compassion is often for problems.

We focus on the issues.

Jesus' compassion is always waiting for people.

And Jesus didn't get out of the boat and wait for the problem.

Jesus got out of the boat and he was moved by the people.

And we know all the problems.

You have access to all the data on all the problems, and you have it in your pocket right now.

You can learn about the 11 million over here, the 20 million, the 1 billion.

You can learn about all of it.

You can turn on the news and flood yourself with it.

You can scroll your feeds and delude yourself with it.

You know all the problems.

We're focused on the problems.

The issue is the problems scale to epic proportions, and all of a sudden we feel like we have nothing to offer.

And so we begin to turn in.

And instead of living compassionate lives where our hearts break for the things around us, and in turn, love breaks out to the people in front of us, instead, we turn and we live an inward life.

We close off, maybe we become hard hearted.

Maybe we convince ourselves that we don't have anything to offer.

And we end up wondering why we don't have much passion in our life and we don't feel much purpose in our life, and we're a little bit unsatisfied, and there's something aching, longing at the core of who we are, almost like we were created to live for something great.

Jesus' compassion is always for people.

Even when he was shifting the world's systems and laws and customs, he was always laser focused on the individual level.

In verse 34, when he went ashore, he saw a large crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

And then he began to teach them many things.

And Jesus taught for hours.

Yo, I get to 30 minutes and I see you check your watch, okay?

For hours.

So long that in verse 35, when it grew late, his disciples approached him and said, This place is deserted and it's already late.

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

And when we've been closed off by that drop-in-the-bucket effect where we're convinced that we can't make a difference in the lives of the people around us, often we will veil our desire for convenience and something that sounds a lot like compassion.

Jesus, I'm really, I'm worried about these people.

I'm hearing stomachs ground stuff, and it's probably time.

A plus sermon, by the way, but I think they got it, you know.

Let's let them go.

They're hungry.

Side note, we're also kind of hungry, but it's not about us, Jesus.

It's really about them.

And at first glance, and at first glance, I love Jesus' response.

In verse 37, Jesus says, You give them something to eat.

Can I tell you, when I hear this, I hear it like a text message with clappy hands between every word.

You give them something to eat.

That's how I hear it.

And I'm like, yes, get them, Jesus.

These stuck up disciples don't even know what they have, following you around day by day, seeing all these miracles and don't even want to feed anybody.

Get them, Jesus! And you know why I do that?

Because I'm always the hero of the story.

When I read about Jesus, guess who I am in the story?

When I watch Iron Man, guess who I am?

I am Iron Man.

I like it at first glance.

But the truth is, Jesus isn't just saying this to these disciples.

Jesus is saying this to this disciple.

To these disciples.

You feed them.

When heart breaks, love breaks out.

That's how we're defining Jesus' kind of compassion.

It's very interesting what happens in this story because Jesus' heart breaks and the love begins to break out indirectly through the disciples.

And that's kind of how Jesus works.

You know, at the end of Jesus' time on earth, he died, he was buried, he rose again 40 days later, right before he ascended back to heaven.

In essence, he looked at his followers, jacked up regular people like you and me, and said, You feed them.

I'm going, you push it forward, you go into all the world and preach the gospel, you baptize them in my name.

That's how Jesus does it.

And so we're trying to follow Jesus.

And so we've got to figure out what it means to have this splag chinzomai kind of compassion in our lives, this uncomfortable, stomach-turning, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking kind of compassion that compels us to do something about what's going on in the world around us.

And how can we do something about the problems in the world when the problems in the world are all so enormous?

You give them something to eat, he responded.

And they said to him, What should we do?

Should we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?

We have this story in all four Gospels.

We know this is Philip.

Philip does some mental math and throws out an option.

Let's take a year's salary, let's go buy as much food as we can.

Here's what we'll do: we'll get all the PVJs we can, we'll cut them in half, we'll cut the halves into eights, and then we'll give everyone one tiny rectangle.

Is that what you want us to do, Jesus?

There's no options, man.

With who we are and what we have, we are just a drop in the bucket.

And what Jesus does here is beautiful.

In verse 38, he asked, How many loaves do you have?

Go and see.

And so, if you're not visual, I'm not super visual.

Try to picture this with me.

Jesus and the disciples are standing where they can see the whole crowd.

When you're in the crowd, you can see a few people in front of you, and hopefully you can see the speaker.

But in today's setup in service, the disciples kind of have my view where they can see everyone, okay?

Jesus would pull the boat in, and we don't know if he did this for sure at this time, but often what he would do is he would let the boat out a little bit and he would preach from the stern of the boat so the water would amplify his voice through the crowd.

So the disciples are maybe on the boat with him or right on the edge of the shore.

They're observing the crowd, which means they have the best point to see the enormity of the problem.

And Jesus says, Let's find out what food we have.

Go and see.

And we know this because we have this same story four times that the disciples went in to the crowd.

And maybe they thought that this was just strategic, but this was a spiritual reorientation.

The essence of what Jesus did is he took the disciples from a vantage point where they could only see the problem, and he made them go and see the people.

Not 20,000 at a time, but one at a time.

And so the disciples navigated through hey bro, did you bring your lunch today?

No, did you bring a lunch?

Jesus, I don't know what this fool's gonna do with one lunch, but Jesus said to ask for lunch.

Did you get a lunch?

Did you bring a lunch?

Anything?

Some beef jerky?

Does anybody have anything?

One at a time.

They saw person after person after person.

And we're so quick to pin our compassion on problems, and problems outgrow our capacity, so we disengage and don't participate.

And Jesus says, Leave the problem up to me.

Your job, MetaCurch, understand this.

Your job is to go and see the people.

We get compassion fatigue because we're so focused on the problems, and it doesn't just have to be the 20 million kids starving over here or the 10 million people trafficked over here.

It can be in your own life.

You can have so many different problems in your marriage that it's like we could solve one of these and it would just be a drop in the bucket.

It's like we don't agree on parenting, we don't agree on where we should live, we don't like each other's careers, we don't like each other's in-laws.

Our first year of marriage, I asked him, Do you like my tamales?

And he said, It's not as good as my mom's.

It's like we got so many problems.

Maybe you have so many problems in your health.

Like you actually have a vision for yourself of like healthy and sober, off medicine.

But at this point, you have so many different problems that you can't imagine how your effort would have any, any impact.

When you're parenting with your kids, there may be so many issues for so many years.

And when the problems grow to massive proportions, we disengage, we convince ourselves all we have to offer is just a drop in the bucket.

We all do this, we all get compassion fatigue, and you're not alone.

It's happened to some of our great saints.

Mother Teresa said, if I look at the mass, I will never act.

But if I look at the one, at the one, I will.

If I just stand back and look at the problems, I will be paralyzed into inaction.

But if I look at the people, I will move.

In 2004, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University decided to test this go-and-see approach in an actual sociological experiment.

What they did is they took a large group of people through a test and they paid them for going through the test, and they thought they were done, but the real test came after.

As soon as they were exiting the building, they stopped them and they gave them a pitch for a nonprofit called Save the Children.

Out of the entire group that participated, half of them got a pitch based on problems, and half of them got a pitch based on a person.

And so for half of the people, they went in, they took their tests, they got paid, and on their way out, one by one, they got stopped and said, Hey, we are with Save the Children.

And any money that you donate to us today will go to food shortages affecting three million children in Malawi.

It'll go to four million Angolans forced to flee their homes.

More than 11 million people in Ethiopia needing immediate food assistance.

The second group came out of the same test with the same amount of money.

They were met and told, where with Save the Children.

And any money you donate will go to someone like Rokia, a seven-year-old girl from Malawi.

Rokia is desperately poor.

She faces the threat of severe hunger or even starvation.

With your support, save the children, will work with their family to feed her, educate her, and provide basic medical and social needs.

On paper, pitch number one shows more impact they're having, more things that it's going to, but you should know by now that pitch number one makes you feel like your money is just a drop in the bucket.

And when they focused on the person, the donations more than doubled.

And so often we find ourselves, kind of like the disciples, we're looking at the problems in the world.

It's like 20,000 hungry people, and we know we don't have enough.

And here's what's so dynamic about following Jesus His call to you is go and see anyway.

What Jesus knows is that the key to compassion, his kind of compassion, is proximity to the people.

You have to go and see.

And you have no idea the difference you could actually make if you continue to stand at arm's length from all of the hurt and heartache that surrounds us in our world.

Let's look how the story goes.

He asked them, How many loaves do you have?

Go and see.

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

And he instructed them to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass.

They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.

He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke the loaves, and he kept giving them to his disciples to set before the people.

And he also divided the two fish among all of them.

And everyone ate, and everyone was satisfied.

And they picked up twelve baskets full of pieces of bread and fish.

And those who had eaten the loaves were five thousand men, twenty thousand people.

Here's the deal.

All these massive problems in the world, world hunger, cancer, injustice, you do not have what it takes to solve these problems.

That's the kind of encouragement you come to Metachurch for right there.

You can't do it.

They went and they looked through 20,000 people and they had five loaves and two fish.

That's it.

It's just not enough.

And here is a promise in Scripture that if you will leave here today and you will set your sights on testing God's promise, this promise in your life, you will begin living a life like you've never experienced before.

This is the promise.

You do not have enough.

But if you will go and see, if you will allow your heart to break for the things that break God's heart, if you will go on the adventure of a lifetime, walking among the broken and despondent and hopeless, the sheep without any shepherds, those who do not know their way and are walking in utter darkness.

If you will go and see the people around you, if you will give all that you have, it will not be enough.

Here's the promise: you're not enough in the hands of Jesus is always enough.

That's the promise that your five loaves and two fish, and your five loaves and two fish, and you're not enough, and you're not enough, your incomplete and my incomplete, all together in the hands of the God who formed this world and spoke us into existence.

It will be enough.

And if the people of God will cling to that promise and live audacious, courageous lives, going and seeing what difference they could actually make, not just meeting together, but going and moving together in our world, we will see things in our lifetime that we simply cannot imagine.

That is the promise of a God who takes people who are not enough and makes it enough.

The key to compassion is proximity.

And there's a reason when you hear statistics about 10 million deaths from cancer a year, it doesn't really move the needle in your heart.

But when someone in your family is diagnosed, it moves you to action because compassion requires proximity, and there's a reason that although we grieve senseless tragedies like school shootings, when it's in another state, it's quickly out of mind.

And yet, when it is in Uvalda, when it's somewhere where we can go and see, it moves us to action.

And we didn't know what to do the Sunday directly after that happened, but we knew we had to do something, and it was pretty amazing.

We committed to giving the full offering, and it was a fifth Sunday.

We gave$17,000 as a movement, which is a good offering for us.

We didn't even know where we were gonna give it or who we were gonna give it to.

And it's so interesting, you know, you can feel two things at the same time.

Number one, I felt unbelievably honored to be a part of a movement that generous.

And if I'm very honest, at the same time, when looking at the scope of the tragedy with 17,000 in hand, it also felt a little bit like five loaves and two fish.

We didn't even know where to send the money.

Five loaves and two fish in the hands of Jesus can do more than any of us could ever do on our own.

And on my way home from services that day, you might remember, I got a call from a good friend.

She said a colleague of hers is not only a licensed therapist, but also a licensed funeral director, a very interesting combination.

And she felt compelled to go and see the difference she could make in U Baldi.

We took that$17,000 to help fund her efforts.

And just a couple of weeks ago, before I left on vacation, I got an email from her that I want to read so you can see just what God can do when we move with compassion.

She said, Hi, Pastor, I thought I'd reach out and provide an update from Uvaldi and express my continued gratitude for the generosity of your gift.

Here's what's been purchased: several hundred warmies, these are therapeutic stuffed animals, gas for travel, sunscreen, beverages, art supplies, fidget spinners, sensory soothing materials, glitter, two virtual reality headsets used for trauma-based therapy, EMDR training, one whole completed course to be utilized ongoing.

Creation and printing of a mental wellness pocket guide for all of the kids affected to carry with them all of the time.

Partnership with Hearts Need Art to provide session-based support for hospital and mental health staff for one full year.

Electronic health record and more.

Acts of service, what we're doing.

Uvaldi Day at Morgan's Wonderland in partnership with the Children's Bereavement Center.

Uvalde camp, trauma and grief-based overnight camp for all the fourth and fifth graders and families directly impacted.

Sacred Heart Catholic School in Uvalde, daytime retreat and weekly counseling staff service and support on site.

Ongoing counseling provided weekly for numerous teachers, children, and parents.

Partnership with day one bags to combine comfort bags with the mental wellness pocket guide and efforts towards suicide prevention.

Art contest.

Children continue to submit speech-defying works of art through their creative healing process.

Teacher and parent support groups.

And then she wrote in her own words: Our work continues in more complex ways than ever.

Each child seen for therapy and care has come with layers of complex trauma that are in many ways unfathomable for a child to experience.

One child experienced cardiac arrest after they were evacuated, and physicians are still trying to determine the best treatment.

One high schooler who lost a family member invited me to their first home game so that someone could see their marching band performance, since their parents are still unable to leave their house.

Another child just beginning to open up to me shared that he comforted one of the children who passed before their death by telling them jokes in broken whispers.

And yet, just as before, love and joy and laughter still make their way to the surface of these little hearts.

The band member smiled ear to ear and asked for a selfie.

The joking comforter smiled when I closed his session with, you can tune a piano, but you can't tune a fish.

And two others have been able to finally go back to classes, forever changed, but returned nonetheless.

Wrapping it up for today, I just wish there was some way to accurately share what your church has brought and the kindness that is echoed many more times over as a waved ripple of hope.

That day showed many people in this community some of the hardest things, but MetaCurch, you have shown some of the best.

I hope you and yours are well and that we can connect again soon.

When a heart breaks, love breaks out.

And Jesus has not called us to turn a blind eye to the pain and the very real problems around us.

And yet, if we focus solely on the problems, we can be so overwhelmed by their scope and their size that it paralyzes us in non-activity.

Instead, we are called to be keenly aware of those problems and yet know that those problems reside in the hand of God, the only one who can do something about them.

And God has called each and every one of us to go and see.

So many people say, I just don't feel passion in my life.

My life is dull, it's unsatisfying, it's purposeless.

Let me suggest something that could change your life.

The passion that you're looking for in your life is found by activating Jesus' form of compassion.

A go and see where your heart breaks, yes, but it breaks for love to break out.

You can't solve all the problems in the world, but you can go and be with the people.

Every person that God places in front of you, every person in your family, in your home, every person at your work, every person in your friend group, every person at your gym, every person is an opportunity for you to be moved to compassion on their behalf.

And that life of compassion that we so often steer clear from, that life is where the passion and purpose and power that you were created for resides.

Jesus didn't just preach this, he lived it out.

There is one problem that underlies all other, and it is the sinful heart of man.

We make a mistake when we say, you know, I've got some things, but gosh, there's 20 million people starving.

There's a million people being trafficked.

It's a mistake.

Our sin is not a separate problem, it's the problem of all problems.

All the way back to a tree in a garden, our broken, sinful hearts are the problem at the root of every other problem.

In other words, there's no problem bigger than the heart of man.

Jesus sat in the heavenly realms, serenaded morning, day, and night by echoes of his own praises, sitting in perfection, needing nothing, and owing you nothing.

And yet Jesus saw the brokenness and the sin in our lives, the sin that separates us from God now and eternally.

And he did not think, what could I do?

It would just be a drop in the ultimate bucket.

Jesus was moved to compassion.

And in what scripture calls the fullness of time, he looked down on sinful man and he said, It's time for me to go and see.

His compassion moved him from heaven to earth.

He lived a perfect life and yet died our death.

Galatians 4 says, When the time came to completion, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

All we like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way, separated from our shepherd.

But Jesus came to pay the price and bring you back into relationship, to give you hope now and security tomorrow, and all he asks is for you to trust him, to believe that Jesus is who he says that he is, and that he's done what he says he's done, that he died your death that you deserved, that I deserved on a cross, but that death could not hold him, that he rose again, ascended to heaven, promising one day to come back for us.

Jesus' heart broke for you.

And love broke out from heaven to earth.

Right where you're at, would you close your eyes, bow your heads?

There's nothing magic about that.

Just create some space for you and for the people around you.

And I wonder if you're here today or you're watching online and there's never been a moment where you know you have believed in Jesus.

In other words, if you cannot answer the question confidently, what comes after you die?

If that's you, I want to ask you in this moment of courage to simply look up here at me.

To just show me your eyes.

Let me know who I'm talking to, who I'm praying with.

Amen.

All it takes is faith.

Jesus has done all of the work, he paid all of the price, and all he asks is for you to believe.

And if you're ready to do that today, I want to help you pray a simple prayer, acknowledging that faith.

You can repeat after me out loud, or you can say it in your mind where God can surely hear your thoughts.

Pray something like this Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God.

I believe you died for me, and I believe you rose again.

I thank you for a new life.

If you just prayed that prayer, you are in relationship with God both now and forever.

And now you have the opportunity to follow after Jesus, a life of compassion and conviction, alive, being led by your shepherd.

Let me pray for you.

God, I thank you for those who have received you in this moment.

I rejoice alongside all of heaven.

God, I look forward to new family members, new brothers and sisters in Christ.

God, I pray that we would allow our hearts to be broken and that love would break out.

I pray we would be the people who go and see.

God, that we would get proximity to the people who are hurting and we would allow your love to do the rest.

God, I thank you for this movement.

And I pray as we follow you that you would build us into a mighty, mighty work of God on the earth.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.