Poured Out In Serving | Mark 6:30-44

All right, that's what it's all about way to go Elise, and I really love Julie's cameo appearance Wow Hey, I just want you to know our senior minister Adam Woods will be Finishing a time of sabbatical this coming week, and he will be back next Sunday, and I'm raring to go I can tell you that Which basically means you're stuck with me one more So Are you ready for it, you know, it's coming So one Sunday this preacher gets done preaching two services and he goes back to his house and He goes to the office in his house and he says to his pet parrot He Says to the parrot. Hey, did you watch the sermon online and the parrot squawked? I watched What'd you think of it the parrot said it's okay The preacher said just okay and the parrot squawked I heard better And the preacher said really from whom? and the parrot paused and said the student minister last Sunday That darn parrot Didn't Austin do a great job last week last Sunday. Yeah.

Thank you, Austin He loved telling a parrot joke I could tell Hey today, we're gonna conclude our sermon series for this month called poor me And please recognize the spelling Right The Apostle Paul referred to himself often as a drink offering and he said things like I am pouring myself out like a drink offering In the Old Testament when the the priest would offer a sacrifice for the sin of the worshiper they they would offer a sacrificial lamb and they burn a lamb on the altar, but they were also Commanded to offer a drink offering and so the priest would pour out a bottle of wine on the hot rocks and You know what would happen, right? Sizzle and steam, baby It sounds unreasonable I know But you pour that you pour that wine on the hot rocks It's sizzle and steam baby, right but that sizzle would fade and the steam would vanish And all you would be able to see is the sacrificial lamb That's a pretty cool illustration, right? And so Paul's like hey, I'm just a drink offering I'm just a drink offering All I'm doing is causing a little bit of sizzle and steam so that I might get your attention to focus on Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen Poor me Not poor p-o-o-r you get it right poor like pouring yourself out For the glory of God and the good of others so far in this series what we've learned is Mary Inspired and challenged us that a poor me attitude is ready to give and and to give big Last week Austin reminded us that if you're gonna have a poor me Attitude you're gonna be like that Man from the Gerasenes that was healed of demon possession and he went to he was ready to serve or to share his message and The message is basically the Messiah has saved us from our mess Well today in this episode Jesus is going to let us know that if you are going to adopt a poor me attitude He expects you to be ready to serve other people Ready to serve other people The Apostle Peter writes in 1st Peter chapter 4 each of you Each of you should use whatever gift you've been given to serve other people to serve I'm really excited about today the episode that we're gonna look at today is from an episode in the life of Christ from Mark chapter 6 Mark chapter 6 I've got the I've got the text on the screen for you today And what I want to do is walk through this story. You know this story.

It's the feeding of the 5,000 feeding of the 5,000 by the way this story is Recorded in all four Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John in fact, it's the only story Recorded in all four of the Gospels aside from a resurrection That tells me there's something in this story. The Lord does not want us to miss and As we talk about the feeding of the 5,000. I just need you to know this is more than a picnic This is ministry training This is ministry training Let's walk through the story.

Shall we mark chapter 6. I want to start with verse 30 Verse 30 says the Apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught all right Earmark that one right they reported the Jesus all that they Had done and taught Then because of so many people were coming and going they did not even have a chance to eat Now this a section is setting up the context. Okay. Here's the context just prior to this Jesus sends out his 12 interns in for their first missionary trip and So they leave and they go out to preach and to heal and to you know, and to serve right in The meantime while they were gone Jesus gets report that his cousin John the baptizer had just been murdered Yeah, and Jesus grieves The disciples barge in Unable to read the room and they can only focus on their success And so Jesus grieves, but the disciples focus only on their success Everyone's exhausted Jesus grieving They're hangry because they haven't eaten and That's the context of this story Jesus grieves, but the disciples only focus on their success Look at the next passage verse 31 against then Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat He said to them come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place So here's the point Jesus invites and the disciples follow In this passage that we're going to look at today the disciples don't get many things, right But here's an episode they get something, right? Jesus invites and they follow And and the point I want to make here as we gear up to start talking about serving others our Serving of other people needs to be out of the overflow of our time with Jesus All right Our serving of other people really needs that come out of the overflow of our time with Jesus.

I want to say it like this presence before production Presence before production Time with Jesus first and then we're really equipped to serve And I kind of want to say it like this If you're not spending time with Jesus, I'm not sure he wants you serving anywhere And if you're not spending time with Jesus, I don't know that he wants you witnessing anywhere and You ought to be like mark and if you're not spending time with Jesus, I'm not sure you ought to be preaching touche But do you smell what I'm grilling The prerequisite is time with Jesus first and out of that We serve presence before production That reminds me I Heard a story one time of a couple from church wanted to have the preacher over for dinner The preacher went over for dinner and They had a great supper after the supper. They went into the family room. They sat together For a couple hours just catching up connection telling stories It was a fantastic evening and then the preachers like hey, well, I got to preach tomorrow.

I better get and so he leaves As soon as the preacher left the the lady of the house went right into the dining room started picking up and cleaning up after dinner As she's cleaning up after dinner she realizes that her favorite treasured antique serving spoon is missing and She quickly concludes that preacher stole my spoon That preacher stole my spoon She immediately goes in the family room where the husband was and says you're not gonna believe this I think the preacher stole my spin And her husband's like no, he did not steal your spoon. You've misplaced it or something. He didn't steal your spoon a Whole year went by with her thinking that preacher stole my spoon Well after about that year later they decided over let's have him back over Preacher comes back over for dinner and I tell you what as soon as dinner started served She couldn't stand it anymore.

And she just blurted out. Did you steal my spoon? and The preacher said no, ma'am But I did hide it in your Bible Really it's been a year and you haven't found your spoon Presence before productions That was bad, I'm sorry, I mean that was good and you can use it this week Look at the next section Wow But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them Because they were like sheep without a shepherd So he began to teach them many things By this time it was late in the day. So his disciples came to him.

This is a remote place They said and it's already very late send the people away So that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages to buy something themselves something to eat So here's the point Jesus sees and wants to serve But the disciples fight it Jesus sees the the crowd full of compassion wants to serve that the disciples see the people And want to send them away In fact the language here send them away in the text is a command They commanded Jesus to send them away Wow and This send them away is actually coming from a poor me attitude POOR And Jesus wanted to convert that poor me attitude to a poor me attitude Really this is one of the clearest pictures in Scripture That describe the default difference between God and man God Sees and wants to serve Man typically sees and wants to avoid Biggest difference and really the biggest difference here is That Jesus is modeling living by the Spirit the disciples are demonstrating living out of the flesh Clearly you can see it right a Jesus living by the Spirit sees these people and is filled with compassion like sheep without a shepherd and and by way the Spirit he wants to He wants to serve them and he wants to feed them and teach them and shepherd them the disciples Living out of the flesh see them and want to send them away And The disciples living out of the flesh prefer That these people and their problems leave so that they could get back to their own comfort and Jesus's preference. Well, he prefers something else and The takeaway truth here with this point is simply this as a follower of Jesus My preference matters least in the kingdom of Jesus If we could get that as a follower of Jesus my preference matters least His matters most Right All right, that was heavy let's move on. All right Verse 37 But he answered You give them something to eat They said to him that would take more than a half years wages Are we to go and spend that much money on bread and give it to them to eat? How many loaves do you have he asked go and see when they found out they said five and two fish Here the disciples or Jesus test and the disciples fail Jesus is testing them and they fail John's version says that he specifically pointed out Philip and he said hey Philip Where can we go and and buy bread for these people because Philip was from that area? so he would have known where the Costco was and In Jesus did this it says he already knew what he was going to do he did this to test them and Philip blurted out it would take more than a Half a year's wages for anyone to have a bite I Wish Philip would have said something like I Don't know but you do Lord I can't see how this is gonna happen, but you can Lord I I can't we can't but you can I wish Philip would have said that But they fail They failed to realize who they were doing life with They failed to realize what Jesus was capable of They feel they failed to remember what he's already done in the past And they only focus on what they could or could not do and in fact eventually they had to come to the point and say Lord we can't and That's when Jesus would have dropped the hammer Exactly Do you remember how they started this story They came into the room all full of themselves look what we did and Jesus is like really Let's see what you can do And here's the point here's the takeaway truth really honestly Until you and I get to the point to realize yeah The Lord's gonna ask us to do some impossible things some heavy things some big things But until we get to the point to realize we can't But he can and It's not about what we can do.

It's about what Jesus wants to do with us and through us And so the sooner we get to I can't But you can the better right let's look at the next section Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. I Love this because Jesus directs and the disciples form groups And Here's the point. I mean they finally get something right in the story, right? Jesus directs and they form groups and here's the point when you really don't know what to do Just do what you know to do When you really don't know what to do just do what you know to do listen to Jesus Just listen to Jesus listen and obey Jesus It'll turn out all right, it'll turn out look at the next section Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke the loaves Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people He also divided the two fish among them all they all ate and were satisfied Here's how I want to say this section Jesus blesses and the disciples freak out Jesus blesses and the disciples freak out basically Jesus said hey pick up a basket Okay, and Then Jesus lifts the five loaves and two fish to heaven and he blesses it and then he starts breaking it and he starts putting It in the disciples basket, and then he says hey now go feed the people And and I can imagine the disciples are like Okay And as they turned to face the crowd and they started passing out the fish and more fish and more loaves They started to realize what he was doing And their exhaustion and their Grumpy Attitudes turned to complete joy, you know why? They started to realize he was using them to pull off with the greatest miracles in history Jesus was using them to feed and to bless thousands of people and Their grumpy attitudes turned to complete joy He was using them and I want you to picture this I want you to imagine this, you know They were given a basket.

Hey, I went. All right, go head to the group start feeding Well, they'd go to a group of 50 over here. Well How long is that how how long is that basket gonna last that basket would be emptied pretty soon And then what would they do? Back to Jesus Back to Jesus and Jesus would put more in the basket and they fed everybody and they were satisfied and here's the point When you're ready to serve just give to them what you get from him Just give to them What you get from him Look at this conclusion Verse 43 and the disciples picked up 12 Basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish the number of men who had eaten was 5,000.

I Want to say it this way Jesus feeds the thousands But the disciples found the greater reward When you serve I want you to know that the Lord works on both ends When you're out there serving people, yes, they are blessed But the Lord turns it around and blesses you even more. I Hope you've learned that in life When you're out there serving people, yeah, the Lord's going to use you to bless those people But he's going to turn it around and bless you. Listen, this isn't about a picnic.

This is ministry training and Those disciples left that episode realizing life isn't about poor me Fulfilled life a rewarding life a joyful life is the result of poor me So, how do we win with this passage how do you and I win with this passage a Couple suggestions number one Would you stop saying send them away and Start saying Lord send me That's really the biggest difference between poor me and poor me Stop saying send them away and start praying Lord send me a Poor me attitude says things like I'm tired I'm exhausted. I'm spent. I don't have anything in me That's inconvenient That's too expensive Someone else would do it Send them away But a poor me attitude says Lord if you want me to help I'm available Stop saying send them away and start saying Lord send me And here's how we win with this passage.

Just pick up a basket Maybe that's what the Lord wants you hearing today. Just pick up a basket you picking up a basket says, hey, I'm ready. I'm available Even if the baskets empty pick up the basket and don't worry if you have anything to put in Don't worry about whether or not you understand how this is going to happen Don't worry about whether or not you feel qualified Don't worry about whether you think you have adequate gifts to handle it None of that matters just pick up the basket and maybe pray Lord pour into me so I can pour out for you pick up the basket and When your basket gets empty Get back to Jesus Just go back to Jesus With your empty basket and go back to Jesus and get more compassion and get more patience and get more grace and get more Love and get more energy.

Oh, that's yeah, that's a good one Just get back to Jesus What the disciples learned that day You will never be able to out give Jesus and where that came from there's plenty more When your baskets empty get back to Jesus and so here it is comes down to this the challenge I Want to challenge you today Before your head hits the pillow tonight serve somebody today serve somebody Call somebody encourage somebody text somebody feed somebody Give somebody some money then mow somebody Forgive somebody Find somebody that's usually overlooked And come to their side today before your head hits a pillow serve somebody Because life is not designed to live out poor me Jesus says pour me Pray with me Lord, I'm praying that right now Every one of us all of our kiddos in the room all of us adults. I Pray today's message encourages us to pick up the basket and we want to pray Lord Pour into us So we can pour out for you We're available Lord forgive us when we've had the attitude of send them away and Help us embrace the poor me lifestyle That says Lord send me Lord pour me For the glory of God and the good of people in the name of Jesus we pray