All You Have

God holds us responsible for meeting other's needs. He loves using little things to create big miracles. Yield all you have to Him and He will bless it.


Scripture: Mark 6

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much, and hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright? Well, I’m fine, thank you. Feeling great, Hallelujah. Feel like I’ll live to be 100. [chuckle] Wonderful to be happy in the Lord and to have the chance to share God’s blessed Holy Word with precious friends such as you.

Now, there’s one other high spot in Mark Six that we wanna touch before we go on. I’m just hitting the high spots, in summary of the truth that we got in the Book of Mark, before we go on to something else. One other point in Mark Six that I want to emphasize… And that is having to do with the responsibility for other people’s needs. “There were people that just ran after Him.” It said, “Many people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot out of all the cities, and out went them, and came together unto Him, and Jesus, when He came out, saw much people, was moved with compassion toward them, because they were like sheep, not having a shepherd. He began to teach them many things. Now, the day is about over and the disciples came, and said, “Now, this is a desert place and the time is far past. Send them away that they may go into the country roundabout, and into the villages, and buy themselves food, for they have nothing to eat.” And He answered, and said unto them, “Give ye them to eat.” And they said, “Shall we go, and buy 200 penny worth of bread, and give them to eat?” They said, “This is ridiculous, Lord. That’s a year’s wages for an ordinary person.” “No,” he says, “I’m talking about what you have. How many loaves have ye?” And they said, “Five and two fishes.”

Now, there were 12 disciples and Jesus. That wasn’t very much groceries for that many people. But instead, He’s asking them to feed 5,000 men. It says, “About 5,000 men.” That didn’t count the women and the children. It was a big crowd. Five little pancakes and two dried fish. Ridiculous. Now, here’s one of the hurdles that you and I have to get over, if we’re gonna work with God. God doesn’t work through the ordinary choices of us human beings. God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty and the foolish things to confound the wise, right?

“Not many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble are called,” this is First Corinthians 1:26, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen ye, and things which are not.” [chuckle] Like the groceries that were not there, see? “To bring to naught things that no flesh should glory in His presence, give ye them to eat.”

You see, the challenge that our Lord was giving, was not that they should go and do something, but that they should yield something. Do you see the difference? Not to go out and do something, but yield something to your blessed Lord, so that He can do something with it. I don’t know if you get that or not. You bring that over into Main Street, put it into practice, then it’ll revolutionize your life. What shall I do about this situation? I don’t have any money. I don’t have any talent. I don’t have any strength. What can I do? That isn’t it.

Ephesians 3:20, “God is able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” It’s not what you can do, it’s what God can do that counts. But you have to yield to Him what you have and what you are. He said, this is Mark 6:38, “How many loaves have ye? Go and see.” When they knew, they say, “Five and two fishes.” He commanded them, “Make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. God is the God of order, not confusion.” If your life is confused, and helter-skelter, and not organized, don’t blame God. And don’t try to excuse yourself, by saying, “Well, I’m creative, you know. I don’t organize very well. I’m creative.” Nonsense. [chuckle] You’re not creative, you’re disorganized. “Our God is the God of order.” He sat these people down by companies, in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. You’re not gonna have a mob scene here. “And when they’d taken the five loaves, and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven, and blessed, broke the loaves, gave them to His disciples, and the two fishes divided He among them all, and they did all eat, and were filled.” They had enough, not just a little bit, but enough.

And then they had leftovers. “They took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes.” What do you make of all that? First, God holds me responsible for the need of people around me. That’s an awesome thought. Our tendency, nowadays, is slough it off onto somebody else. Call the Red Cross, call the Community Chest, call the social worker, call the police. Call somebody, but don’t call me. We slough it off on somebody else. God holds you and me responsible for the needs of people around us. He said, “I have compassion on them and I will not send them away, unless they faint, by the way.” God cares about people around you, and he holds you and me responsible for meeting their needs. Ooh, that’s something. Now, He doesn’t ask you to go do something wild.

My guess is that between them, they didn’t have the price, even of a little bit of food for each of these many people. They said with a certain amount of scorn, “Shall we go, and buy 200 penny worth of bread, and give them to eat? You want us to go in debt for a year’s wages?” No, God doesn’t ask you to do that. He says, “What have you got?” He said to Moses there, as God spoke with him in that dramatic scene there, in the desert, while the flaming shrub was sending it’s flames heavenward, and Moses was standing with bare feet. He said, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground on which thou standest is holy ground.” And Moses standing barefoot, and awestruck in the presence of a Holy God. What was the question? “What is that in thine hand?” He said, “A staff, a rod, a shepherd’s staff.”

All that God wants, is for you to give Him what you have. And in this case, it was the total, the sum total of all the food they had with ’em. And when we say ‘loaves,’ we’re not thinking about loaves such as we have, a loaf of bread. These were little, flat pancake looking things, that were baked, probably out of barley flour. And they weren’t very big, and they were hard, and tough. And the fish were dried fish, not much. But He said, “Let me have ’em.” And He took. When He had taken the five loaves, and the two fishes, He blessed, and He broke, and He gave, and there was enough, and more than enough.

Now, beloved, how do you apply that, all of that truth? How do you apply it to your own life? And how do I apply it to mine? Well, each of us has certain abilities, and talents, and each of us has his or her own special limitations as well. And what God is looking for, is not simply that you do something for Him, but He’s looking for the yielding of your whole life, the whole package, that is to say, to Him.

You wanna do that today? This is something of what Paul means, as we hear him speaking in Romans 12, “When I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice.” Why does He say ‘bodies?’ Because your body is the vehicle through which your spirit speaks, and lives, and implements all of your desires. If God has your body, He’ll have the rest of you as well. That’s what Paul is saying. The whole package of life, give it to God. The whole package of life, give it to God. Do you wanna try that out today in your own life?

You see, the motivation is, God holds you responsible to meet the needs of people around you. You, that is, today, are responsible to meet the needs of people around you. What are those needs? Well, we’re in a society, where people are not hungry and starving, for the most part. And yet, it might well be that you’d meet somebody today, that needs a meal. Buy him one. For the most part, however, the needs of people around us are emotional and spiritual needs, relational needs, family needs, job needs, personal needs, emotional, deep problems. And God holds you responsible for the needs of those people. How do you begin to meet them? Well, you don’t meet them by formal religion. And you don’t meet the needs of people around you, by going, and doing something extravagant. What you do is, you yield yourself to God, so that He can walk in your shoes.

So when you walk into a situation, God is there. That’s the fulfillment of that promise in Second Corinthians. He says, “I’ll dwell in them and walk in them.” When you walk into a room, people should feel the presence of God. And if, and when that is true, you’re gonna find that you become God’s vehicle for meeting their needs. And people will say, “Thank God, you’ve come.” And when you get to Heaven, people will say, “Thank God, I met you that day. My heart was breaking,” or, “I was contemplating suicide,” or, “My family was breaking up. My marriage was breaking up,” or whatever it may be. They’ll say, “Thank God, you came along.” God used you. That’s what this passage is teaching. God doesn’t want you, for what you can do. He wants all that you are, including the five loaves and the two fishes.

God uses insignificant things to do His miracles. And you, and I don’t amount to much by ourselves, but with God, all things are possible. You can trust Him to work through you, to meet the needs of other people wonderfully, gloriously, and completely, and there’ll always be something left over for you. Small thought, who do you think ate the leftovers? Well, I think the disciples took ’em along and had a pretty good lunch. [chuckle] Well, we’ll go on with this summarization of the Book of Mark the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today, may we be found giving our all to Thee. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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