John Chapter 6:1-7

God is part of the equation. It's not just how you're going to get through something or what's going to happen to you in a situation. It's how you and God are going to get through a situation, about how you and the Lord are going to get through this trial or that trial.

It's important that we remember that because our solutions, our answers come from God, so we need to remember that He's part of the equation. Now, the disciples, I know we have this lofty view of the disciples, that they were probably just about sinless and mighty men of God from the get-go, but that's simply not true. Now, they were men that got radically changed in the three years they were with Jesus, and then they went out and they changed the world.

Jesus changed the world with 11 men, so I know that we can change our community with a couple of dozen, no doubt about it. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Cartersville, North Carolina. Today, one of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A. Brown, is with us as Pastor David begins his teaching A Little is a Lot. Tell us about it, brother.

Hey, Bob. In dealing with life and its problems, remember that God is part of the equation, and we can trust Him. Today, Pastor David discusses this more as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 6.

Well, let's jump right into David McGee's teaching A Little is a Lot. So, we're in John chapter 6, verse 1. After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

Now, it's interesting. John records a lot of locations and times in the Gospel of John, and when it says the Sea of Galilee, it's the Sea of Tiberias. There's other names.

Gennresseret was one name, an early name. It's Hebrew for harp because the lake itself was kind of harp-shaped. Now, and the Sea of Galilee is still there. Understand, it's the same Sea of Galilee. These places that the Bible talks about are real. The Bible is a real book. There's people out there saying this, that, and the other, but it's a real book. Verse 2, then a great multitude followed Him because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased.

Now, this is interesting. It says a great multitude followed Him. What's going to be interesting is as this chapter unfolds, how Jesus dealt with the multitudes. Did He water the message down so that He could appeal to more of them so that He might get the opportunity or the platform to speak to them? That seems to be the present-day mindset of the church.

Water things down. Don't offend anybody. Stay away from anything that might offend anybody, and stay away from words like sin and death and hell and repentance. Well, Jesus is our model. Is that what Jesus does in this chapter?

Well, we're going to see as the chapter unfolds. Verse 3, and Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. Now, the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Now, this miracle of feeding the 5,000 is listed in all four gospels, and it's interesting.

Look at the way that verse 4 is worded. Now, the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. We can see from that verse that part of John's audience who he was writing to was not just the Jewish people, or he wouldn't have explained what Passover was. He was explaining what Passover was because part of his audience was Gentile.

Gentile is a word for non-Jewish people. Now, verse 5, then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming towards Him, He said to Philip, Where shall we buy bread that these may eat? Now, guys, we need to look at this exchange closely because there's some really, really good stuff in here. Jesus looks at Philip in the midst of this, the people being hungry, knowing they're hungry, knowing they're out kind of in the middle of nowhere, and Jesus looks over and goes, Hey, Phil, what we going to do, man? And can you imagine if you were Philip standing there, how much you would be freaked out? I mean, you know, Jesus has turned to you. There's all these people they need eating, and Jesus turns to you and goes, What are we going to do?

You have to get a sense of that in order to really grasp the passage. I mean, what if, what if right now I said, Okay, hey, great. Hey, you know what? Here's what we're going to do. After service, we're all going to go over to Brian's, and we're going to have lunch.

Praise God. I didn't say anything to him about that, but, you know, we're all invited over there, and we're just going to have a great time. Can you imagine what Brian's thinking right now? He'd be sitting there going, I got to go.

I'll be back. Can you imagine what his wife would be thinking right now? That gives you just a small, small picture of what would be going on with Philip. I mean, I think it's safe to say at this point, Philip's probably freaking out. He's probably freaking pretty hard. You know, we have a saying in our family, freakability is high. You know, one of the kids get really excited.

We're like, freakability is high. Be careful in there. We have a verse, John chapter one, if you remember verse 45, and this shows you the heart of Philip. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip said to him, Come and see.

Come check it out. I like that passage. I like that verse. And it endears Philip to me because it shows a heart of somebody that's inviting somebody to the Lord. And you know, it really blesses my heart. And boy, some of you, it's like a full time ministry to you or something because every Sunday you come by, you're like, Hey, this is my neighbor. And next Sunday, hey, this is somebody I work with.

And hey, this is somebody that's just walking down the street that wasn't, you know, being careful. We snatched them, threw them in the van, brought them to church. Praise God.

And so that doesn't happen that much. But so, and that blesses me. And let me tell you what happens sometimes is I see you come in with these people and at the end of the service, I see the people up at the altar getting saved and I see them on the way out looking much different than they did when they came in.

Their face just almost glowing. Guys, that's an awesome ministry for you. I guarantee that the Lord would desire that each one of you be an inviter. Hey, come check it out.

Come check it out for yourself. I've been church didn't like it. Well, this is, this is different. This is a different church.

Hey, you guys are all about the money. We don't pass a plate at this church. Now that usually gets their attention. You what?

You don't pass a plate. Yeah, just come. We want to hammer you for finances and invite people and, and keep inviting them. Don't invite them once. Keep inviting them.

You know, cause here's what will happen. You'll invite them and maybe they're at a point when everything is just great in their life and they don't feel a need for God, but you keep inviting them and keep inviting them and somewhere along the line, something happens. Maybe they something happens at work with a family member or something like that. Then all of a sudden they realize they have a need for God. And then you come up and go, Hey, I know I've asked you 57 times and 57 times you said no, but I want to invite you to go to church with me again. And that might be the time that they say, yeah.

And that might be the Sunday. They come forward to receive the Lord as her savior and everybody in here can be an inviter. We, you know, the cards, the, the, the church cards that we have on the front, they say, you are invited to, and on the back, there's a map. Now, originally they had that for me just so I could find the church every day and figure, Oh, that's where it is.

I forgot. No, I'm kidding. But the reason we have these is so you can give them to people and invite them to church. And there's a map on the back to make it easier to invite people to Jesus. You invite them to church, I'll invite them to Jesus.

Or some of you may be bold enough to invite them to Jesus right then and there, but this it's an important ministry and God will honor your efforts in that ministry. A verse six says, but this, he said to test him for he himself knew what he would do. Jesus will test you. Most of you probably been walking with the Lord long enough where you realize this.

Jesus will ask you questions to test you in some areas. Well, what are you going to do about that? I'll be careful that I'll be careful.

Freakability doesn't get hot. What are you going to do about that? I don't know what I'm going to do. Calmly trust the Lord. Cause see the Lord knows how you're going to get through this. He's just wondering if you know how you're going to get through this and in the exchange, if you're going to trust God. So you understand, and I know I'm using modern lingo and skews that, but you know, I understand God never gets freaked out.

Do you understand that? God never gets freaked out. God is never caught by surprise. God is never looking down and go, Oh my goodness. I didn't see that one coming.

What happened there? That never happens to God. What a comfort that is. He knows in advance what is going to happen. And when we get freaked out, do you know what we're saying to God? You know what you're really saying to the Lord when you get anxious and aggravated, you're saying, God, I don't trust you or I don't trust you.

I don't know what you're doing and I'm not sure I can trust what you're doing. That's what that is speaking to the Lord. And certainly we don't want to send that message to him. And what happens is we, we forget. We forget that God is part of the equation. That's our first life lesson in dealing with life and its problems. Remember God is part of the equation. God is part of the equation. It's not just how you're going to get through something or what's going to happen to you in a situation. It's how you and God are going to get through a situation about how you and the Lord are going to get through this trial or that trial. It's important that we remember that because our solutions, our answers come from God.

So we need to remember that he's part of the equation. Now the disciples, I know we have this lofty view of the disciples, that they were, you know, probably just about sinless and mighty men of God from the get go, but that's simply not true. Now they were men that got radically changed in the three years they were with Jesus. And then they went out and they changed the world. Jesus changed the world with 11 men. So I know that we can change our community with a couple of dozen, no doubt about it, but the disciples, God bless them. You know, they were in an exchange and, and, and we have to understand the exchange. We look back, we have the advantage of hindsight as we look back on the exchange and go, well, you know, Jesus is going to do that.

Jesus is going to do, we understand it. They didn't know that every day. They probably were pretty freaked out, seems to be the word of the day.

They were pretty freaked out about what was going on. And we've talked about this before, but it had to be interesting ministering with Jesus because he just did stuff that was different. I mean, you know, when you look back and you read and you see some of the stuff that Jesus did, you have to go, Hmm, wow, that's different.

And so every day they probably woke up and they probably thought, I'm not sure what's going to happen today. And why was Jesus doing this? Oh, this is important guys. This is so important because Jesus was, we recognize he was teaching the disciples. We recognize that, but we need to recognize something else too. That while they were learning from him, Jesus was very systematically going through and he was unlearning them.

Why? Because they'd picked up so much stuff that had nothing to do with God, with his character. They picked up all these notions of God that had nothing to do based on the Bible, based on God's true character and personality. And the Lord had to take them through these times and unlearn them. Why do I mention that?

Because not much has changed in 2000 years. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor, D. A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we're excited about God's word going forth and we want to pray for some listeners in these cities, Susanville, California, Talmadge, Truckee, Victorville, Westwood, Yankee Hill, and Yreka, California. God, we pray for the people listening in these cities today and the surrounding areas. We pray that they would put their trust and hope in you, that they would be encouraged and how much you love them. And Lord, that they would look for other people who you place in their life to share this good news with as well. And God, that they would get plugged into a Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, brother.

And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. When you grow up in a religious environment, not necessarily a Christian environment, but a religious environment, you pick up a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the true nature of God. And you pick it up and you carry it around. You carry around stuff like God's always angry with me, or God only loves me when I'm doing right, and God hates me the rest of the time. You begin to pick up these things.

And let me tell you something. God wants to unlearn you of those things. Now, that's painful. It's easier to learn something than it is to unlearn something. But that's part of what God wants to do in your life is He wants to unlearn you of some things. And we see this with the disciples because the disciples, they came up with plans that had nothing to do with what God was trying to do, nothing to do with the intent of Jesus. Remember when Jesus said, well, I'm going up to Jerusalem. I'm going to be crucified. And Peter goes, oh, not so, Lord. Just act with me.

I know what's going on. In this situation, which is recorded in all four gospels, in Luke's account, it says, when the day began to wear away, Luke chapter 9 verse 12, when the day began to wear away, the 12 came and said to Him, send the multitude away, that they may go into surrounding towns and country and lodge and get provision, for we are in a deserted place here. And then Jesus takes it one step further in verse 13. But He said to them, you give them something to eat. I love Jesus.

I love these exchanges with the disciples. And look at the solution of the disciples. Send them away. Go away. That was the solution on more than one occasion.

You recognize that? Remember when the kids are coming to Jesus, send them away. Send them away. Get them out of here.

He can't be doing that with kids. And Jesus corrected them. And that's their solution here. And, you know, that seems to be a way a lot of ministries seem to be kind of built around. Send them away.

Get them out of here. That's the way some people run their churches, I think. They come up with a plan. They go, hey, God, here's our plan.

Bless it. Well, that's backwards, isn't it? You betcha it's backwards. You know, what we've done here is we respond to what God is doing. We see what the Lord wants to do, what God is already doing, and we go, okay, Lord, we're with you. We're following. Let's do that. Praise God.

I would be rather trying to figure out how to follow God and what God is doing and bless that and ask God's hand to be upon it than try to design something and work something up and hope God blesses it. So at this point, the disciples are going, well, nothing can be done. We can't do anything. There's too many people. We don't have this. We don't have that.

Let's just send them away. But, you know, sometimes God will have you to do something that doesn't make sense. He'll ask you to take that step of faith and then He'll meet you in that step of faith. And you know what?

As your pastor, last 15 plus years of ministry, I've seen God bless so many times stepping out in faith and then God honoring that step of faith that He led you to take over and over and over. And you know what? I am, let me tell you something. I am silly enough to dream big dreams and have big visions.

You know why? Because I serve a big God. I don't serve a big God. Oh God, I know you're still so small, but can we talk you into helping us out with it? I don't serve that kind of God. I serve a big God, a huge God that is able to do more than we can imagine. So verse seven, Phillip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.

I love this stuff. That's a half a year's wages. A denarius was about, it was a common penny, maybe some of you have that in your version, which was the laborer's day pay.

It was about half a year of salary, if you will. Now guys, we were just told that Phillip's being tested. Now what is Phillip doing right now?

Well, let's back up. Did Jesus know how Phillip was going to respond to the test? Yeah, he did. He knew how Peter was going to respond to his test and he knew he would fail. And if you remember, he said, but when you return, I'll pray that your faith is strengthened. See, for a long time as a Christian, I thought God tested me so that he could find out what I would do.

Boy, there's a real problem with that, isn't there? Theologically speaking, God knows everything. So God knows how I'm going to respond to a test or to a given situation.

So why do we have these tests in trials? Ah, so we can find out what we're going to do in any given situation. Life lesson here is tests are for us to see what is going on more than for the Lord to know. God knows everything. When you get in the middle of a test, he's not up there going, I wonder what they're going to do.

I wonder how this is going to go. He knows. Now the awesome thing, the awesome, awesome thing is every trial, every test that you go through, God knows. God knows how he's going to deliver you out of that test or that trial. He knows how he's going to deliver you through that test or that trial.

And the trial itself can be a win-win situation. Now I understand we go through some tough times. I go through tough times. You go through tough times.

But there can still be a winning situation in that. We know that in part because Romans chapter 8 verse 28, many of you know the verse, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Your attention please. When you go through a trial, one of two things happens. Either you do well, you stand strong, or you fail. Now if you stand strong and you do well, you know, maybe something happens and before you would have yelled at somebody or yelled a particular phrase at somebody or something, and you don't do that, it's really encouraging in the Lord, isn't it?

It's like, oh praise God. You know, I didn't do this. I didn't say that.

I didn't hit him or, you know, whatever. And, you know, I responded well to that trial. And you can take encouragement in the Lord. You say, wow, God is, he's really changing me.

He's really growing. I was faced with this temptation and I didn't do it. I didn't click that link on that website that I knew would stumble me. And you can take encouragement. Or what else happens? Well, sometimes you fail. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you don't come through the trial or the test passing with flying colors.

But understand still, there's something to be gained through that. Because there comes a fresh recognition of the grace of God that you can be forgiven when you do stumble, when you do fail. And perhaps you had forgotten where your strength came from.

Perhaps just for a moment you thought you were strong enough to endure something. And it was time for you to be reminded that your strength should rest in Him. That's what Peter needed to be reminded of. That his strength, his faith shouldn't be in Peter. It should have been in Jesus. So every test, every trial, win, win. Isn't that awesome? That is such a God thing that people in the world don't have.

They can't experience it. Now, here's a way you can lose in that trial and that test. And I see it.

And I hear about it. You can blame somebody else in the midst of your test or your trial. Oh, you know, I wouldn't have been in that place had so and so not done this.

I wouldn't have responded to that in such a way of so and so wouldn't have said that or wouldn't have done that or this or that. But see, God's trying to teach you something. And you can't repent for somebody else.

And rarely you can speak the truth to somebody else and they'll receive it. But it's not like God speaking to somebody. See what we have to step back and we have to see and we go, okay, here's where my fault was, Lord. I didn't trust you in this. I got freaked out. I got anxious.

Help me to trust you more rather than going, Lord, just, you know, get that person out of my life because they just bother me. And what happens is we, we no longer looking at God, we're looking at this person or that person and we're going to miss the lesson. Well, sad to say when you miss the lesson with the Lord, you know what he does? He sends you back to the same lesson.

And I've seen people that are there. They've been trying to learn the same lesson for 20 years. They're just doing, it's like a revolving door or something because they've yet to get the truth that God is wanting to speak to them, except the responsibility in the midst of those things.

Lord, you know, I see what you're trying to teach me. And in almost every situation, there's something that you might've done and you might have said, and you repent to the Lord and those people as well. And it's a powerful testimony. This past week, I called somebody and boy, you know, this, this person, this couple, this whatever has, they've been really hateful. They've gossiped, they've lied. They've said this, they've said that. And, and the Lord laid on my heart and he said, you need to call them and apologize. Whew. All right.

Praise God. I mean, that was a tough one. That was a tough one. And then, and I thought, Oh, okay. Okay. Lord, I know what you're doing.

Be careful when you start a sentence like that. Lord, I know what you're doing. I'm going to call and apologize. And they're going to cry in repentance and go, brother, I just, I'm so brokenhearted at all I've done to you. Well, I called, I apologize.

They didn't actually, they started up again. So, but I had to look at that situation and say, Lord, was I a hundred percent without sin, without guilt, or was there a way that I could have honored you more in that situation? And I walked away thinking, there was a way I could have honored God more. And so I repented to the Lord and repented to them. Now that's between them and God. If they repent, I pray they do, but sometimes people do. And sometimes they don't, but I have to take responsibility.

And while, you know, if I'm out here going, I'm not looking at me, you know, that old saying, you know, when you point at somebody, you got one finger at them and you got three at you. So we weren't, we run around sometimes blaming others for stuff that we need to be in fact, repenting for. And it's interesting, Philip gauges their ability to meet the needle on finances. Perhaps this is what they had in the disciple treasury or whatever. Maybe Judas had given a report and this is what they had after he took his cut or whatever.

But Andrew was looking at the wrong things, wasn't he? And he was thinking small. Oh, if we had this, we could do that, but we don't have that, so we can't do it. Man, that kind of small thinking, that's a disease with Christians.

You can't, I'm not getting them to name it, claim it, and blab it and grab it and all that stuff. But you know what? We need to be able to trust God and trust God when he lays stuff on our heart that he's going to bring it to pass and be careful of small thing. Oh, God would never do that. Oh, God would never bless that. Oh, you know, I'd rather try big things for God and occasionally fail because the results are up to him. But if he lays something on our heart to try as a body or as individuals, let's step out in faith.

Let's see what happens. You know, they're sitting there talking about giving them a little what's Jesus sitting there thinking a few minutes, everybody's going to be so stinking full, we're going to have 12 baskets of leftovers. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you, all of my days. In Jesus' name. Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven, you've been born again.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P. O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor DA, and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our livestream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our livestream link. There you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge, in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.