John Chapter 6:10-18

Do you realize that it's almost un-American to be thankful with what you already have? That you're always supposed to be striving for more.

You're always supposed to be wanting more. The problem is that's a very unbiblical attitude. The Lord tells us to be thankful for what we have.

And then we have Paul telling us that he has learned to be content. Now that tells us a couple things. Number one, that you can learn it. And number two, that you need to learn it. It's not something that comes naturally. A lot of us desire more and more and more and bigger and bigger and bigger. But we need to be thankful for what we have and not be complaining for what we don't have. You know, try to go 24 hours without murmuring, without complaining. You know, share with your husband, share with your wife, share with your kids, share with your parents. Hey, I'm going to try to not complain so much. Would you keep me accountable to not doing this?

You're going to be surprised at what rolls out of your mouth in the next 24 hours. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Cartersville, North Carolina.

One of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A. Brown is with us. Welcome to the program today, brother. Hey, Bob. Even in life's difficulties, we need to remember and be thankful for what we have. Today, Pastor David helps us to be thankful for all that God has blessed us with as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter six. So now here's David McGee blessing us with his teaching in the storms. We're in John chapter six. We looked through the first nine verses last week. He talked about, and we kind of, we kind of left Philip hanging.

So we better go back here and rescue Philip. We'll pick it up in verse 10. And they've, they've just in verse nine, there's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, make the people sit down. And King James says, make the men sit down.

Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down in number about 5,000. Now it says in here, so the men sat down. So maybe you're wondering, well, what did the women do? Did they just keep standing? Well, understand something. And I've read some commentaries that say, wow, there was 5,000 men.

There was probably 10,000 people or 12,000 people or 15,000 people. The problem with that is they don't really understand their Jewish history. They don't perhaps understand the Hebrew scriptures. Why? Because if you go back to verse four, it says, now the Passover, a feast of the Jews was near.

Why is that important? Well, if you remember all the Jewish males had to go up to Jerusalem three times a year, if you remember the feast that required the males to come to Jerusalem. Does anybody remember what those are? Obviously, one of them would be Passover. The other one would be Pentecost and the third one would be Tabernacles. These three feasts every year, all the Jewish males were required to come to Jerusalem.

So this is why there's a whole big gathering of men and, you know, no sports are involved. This is because they're going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. And what's interesting too is when you look at these three feasts and as you read through scriptures, take note of them because these are three times of the year that Jesus would go up to Jerusalem to minister to the people.

We'll see that in this book. We'll see later on in John another Passover where he goes into Jerusalem. We'll see another feast of the Tabernacles in John chapter 7 where Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. And there's some neat, neat stuff that if you understand the Jewish feast, just opens up the New Testament to you.

So it's an awesome thing to remember that. Now, you remember that Passover as well was the time when Jesus Christ himself was crucified as not only a Passover lamb but the Passover lamb. And then you remember the feast of Pentecost, which was Pentecost is 50 days. It came 50 days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover. And you remember that that was the birth of the church that we see in the book of Acts.

Again, all the Jewish males were there. So it was through this setting, through these dates that so much of this ministry happened. And it's interesting because when you go back into the Hebrew scriptures and it talks about appointed times, that word there in the Hebrew indicates dates or rehearsals for something. So we see again that this was all according to the plan of God. In verse 11, and Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those sitting down and likewise of the fish as much as they wanted. Now, this is interesting because Jesus gave thanks. Jesus gave thanks. We should give thanks. We should give thanks every time we eat. When you go out, you should still give thanks. And guys, don't be shy about it.

Don't try to hide it. You never know whom you might be blessing as they watch you live out your faith in such a real way that you ask the Lord to bless your food and you give thanks for the food. And on occasion, I don't do it every time, but on occasion when I'm out in a restaurant, I use it as an opportunity to witness in the sense that I'll stand up and I'll speak loudly as I ask the Lord and I'll thank the Lord for the food and thank you Lord for this restaurant, for the jobs that you've provided, for the people working here and for the food we're about to receive. And Lord, I just ask that they would all come to know you as savior and Lord through your death on the cross, they can be forgiven of sins. And Lord, we just thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.

And I'm just giving them the gospel. And I've never been kicked out anywhere. I've gotten some weird looks, but I've also got some people that came up and said, man, praise God.

That was awesome. We've had people applaud. I don't do it for those reasons.

And again, I don't do it every time, but I do it often just to prepare you if we're ever out at lunch together or anything. But it's an important thing because it reveals our thankfulness to the Lord. But Jesus gave thanks for what he had. He just had a little bit. Notice he didn't go, well, Lord, you know, it's not enough.

You know, I don't know how you think we're going to make it with this. He didn't do any of that. He gave thanks. No complaining, no murmuring. He gave thanks for what he had. And that's the first life lesson. Be thankful for what you have. Be thankful for what you have. Do you realize that it's almost un-American to be thankful with what you already have? That you're always supposed to be striving for more.

You're always supposed to be wanting more. The problem is that's a very unbiblical attitude. The Lord tells us to be thankful for what we have.

And then we have Paul telling us that he has learned to be content. Now, that tells us a couple of things. Number one, that you can learn it.

And number two, that you need to learn it. It's not something that comes naturally. A lot of us desire more and more and more and bigger and bigger and bigger. But we need to be thankful for what we have and not be complaining for what we don't have. Now, we've tried this before, but, you know, try to go 24 hours without murmuring, without complaining. You will be convicted.

You know, share it with your husband, share it with your wife, share it with your kids, share it with your parents. Hey, I'm going to try to not complain so much. Would you keep me accountable to not doing this? You're going to be surprised at what rolls out of your mouth in the next 24 hours.

We've done this before. Amazing thing is we, right after the service, I challenge people, you know, 24 hours, try 24 hours not to complain. Right after the service lady comes through and she goes, that sanctuary's too cold.

You made it about six minutes, honey. And also, you know what's awesome is when you become grateful for what you do have, I think it frees the Lord up to bless you even more. But while we're yet learning to be grateful for what we have, I think it holds back the hand of blessing in our lives, that we don't recognize the Lord in the blessings. And the other thing you see in here is that the disciples are giving the stuff out. They get to receive the blessings of God and then to distribute the blessings of God.

What a cool job. You understand we get to do that? We get to distribute the blessings of God. We get to go to people and say, hey, are you aware? Have you heard this awesome stuff that Jesus loves you, that Jesus died for you? And we get to distribute the blessings of God as well.

Now we didn't come up with the stuff. God gave it to us and then we turn and we give it to others. What an awesome thing. Now the blessing when he gave thanks was an interesting blessing. The Hebrew blessing is blessed art thou Lord our God, king of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth. This had been the blessing from time immemorial.

It's kind of interesting, isn't it? That Jesus is going, blessed art thou king of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth. Now the connotation there is usually that wheat comes up, it grows, it produces kernel. So they crush the kernels and they form the bread.

In this situation, he kind of skipped that whole process. And 5,000 people ate off of what had been a small amount of food. Amazing thing. And it is a miracle.

You know, I've heard some really wacky, weird explanations for this. This was a miracle. This was a miracle of God and an awesome thing. Verse 12. So when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain so nothing is lost. Therefore they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.

What an interesting thing. First of all, you see that nothing is lost. They're gathering up the fragments so that, you know, nothing is wasted. And I think it's important for Christians not to be wasteful, especially with food.

But look at this. You know, when God is in something, everybody gets filled. Everybody gets filled. As we gather here on Sunday morning, we look into the word of God. And the word of God is so rich and so powerful, and we just get filled with his word. We get filled not only with the word of God, we get filled with the God of the word. And people come in here hungry and hurting and having a bad week or having a bad day or having a bad morning. They come in here and they receive the richness of God's word.

They receive the milk of the word, the bread of the word, the washing of the word. Not only are they satisfied, there's usually a little bit left over in there. There's usually some leftovers. What do you think you're supposed to do with those leftovers? Go give them away. Man, when you go home and you see your neighbor, you see somebody at the store, you see somebody at a restaurant, you know, give it away. Give it away. Go, man, you know, I got so much at church this morning. I just, oh, oh, Jesus is Lord and he'll take care of you and honor him and be thankful. Here, take some of this.

I got too much. Because they may be starving to death. Oh, they may have been in church this morning. But they might be starving for the word of God, the word which you have received this morning that you can bless them with. And simply by hitting some of the points, maybe jotting some notes down on Sunday morning or Thursday night, you can go minister to somebody else and feed others from the leftovers. They might be leftovers to you, but you know, if somebody's starving to death, man, they're like, oh, this is great.

That's good stuff. And you can minister to them. Proverbs chapter 11, verse 24 says, there is one who scatters yet increases more. And there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. See, something happens as you give yourself away.

Something happens as you share what's going on in your life. And if you hold back and you try to withhold stuff, this verse says it leads to poverty. But if you scatter, then you increase all the more.

I know that some people have used this in a financial sense, and I think that probably works. It can also be used in a spiritual sense, a scriptural sense of distributing the word of God, because you can only get so full. And if you never pour out on anybody, you can't get filled back up. And the reason sometimes you're not receiving more from the Lord is you're not pouring anything out. And you can continue to say, bless me, Lord. Bless me, Lord. Give me more knowledge.

Give me more wisdom. What are you doing with what you've been given already? Are you pouring out? Are you serving? Are you sharing? Are you loving people? See, as you pour out, God is faithful to pour back in.

So scatter, feed leftovers, give stuff away. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor DA Brown. Hey, Bob. We're excited about God's word going forth with Pastor David, and we want to pray for some people in these cities where we're broadcasting today.

In California, we have Yucca Valley, and in Colorado, we have Burlington, Fort Morgan, Grand Junction, Lamar, Lyman, and Montrose. God, we thank you for the people listening today in these areas. We pray that they would be encouraged in your word. They would realize that you want to bless them.

Lord, you have a good plan for them. God, we pray for those who are sick in the area that you would please heal them. And Lord, we pray for the pastors and the churches, that they would be ignited, and all the good plans you have for them, and sharing your word throughout their city. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 14. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. I also noticed there's 12 baskets. There were 12 disciples. So they each had a basket left over.

Now, they're going to get confused about that later, that they forgot the bread, but that's a whole other story. Truly the prophet. When it speaks of the prophet, this is referring back to Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15. Really a portion of the chapter, but we'll share two verses. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren.

Him you shall hear. And skipping down to verse 18, it says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. So this is what this verse is referring to. It's not saying a prophet. It's saying the prophet. And when the prophet is mentioned, it's talking about the Messiah, the coming one, the coming prince.

And that prophet was and is God. Now verse 15, Therefore when Jesus perceived they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone. Jesus didn't want to be made king.

That's not what he was here for. He was here to give his life away. And we see several instances in the gospels where people wanted to make him king and he walked away from it. There's only one instance in the gospels where Jesus allowed himself to be referred to as king, as the coming prince.

And it's interesting the timing. That was his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And the reason he received that on that one day is it had been prophesied hundreds of years before in the book of Daniel. Jesus was not allowing himself to be made king.

How unhuman and how very godlike. You know, he didn't go, well, you know, hey, if I was king, I could probably do a lot of good in the world. And hey, I'd definitely be the, you know, heavy hitter tithing guy.

And yeah, I think I'll do this king thing. But he realized that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. There's another reason he departed, perhaps a stronger reason. There was a danger to the disciples.

And if he had have lingered, perhaps the disciples would have really been into this king thing. Oh, Jesus, you know, this is, this sounds like an awesome idea. We think you really, you'd be a great political activist and you'd be a great king and you could really change things.

And listen, we took a vote and all 12 of us are for it. Praise God. Go ahead.

Do it. There was a danger of that happening. And I think that's part of the reason why Jesus removed himself from the situation, because he probably would have had the problems with the disciples. And Jesus, again, this is not what I'm here for, guys.

This is not what I'm here for. See, there is a joy in doing what you're supposed to do, doing what you've been called to do, doing what you were sent here to do. There's a joy that's, and a peace that's just amazing that comes with that. Notice something too.

That's kind of interesting. Jesus, they want to make him king and he walks off by himself. Now we've seen this enough in the gospels to realize what he was doing. Whenever he walked off by himself, he wasn't by himself. He was walking off to spend time with the Lord.

Oh, guys. Boy, there's something there. Jesus, instead of wanting to hang out with the crowd, wanted to go spend time with his father. I love Sunday mornings. I mean, I really enjoy Sunday mornings. You know, there's just an excitement in here. And as people are serving and you show up early and people are doing stuff, they're getting ready and people are coming in and they're excited and they're expected. And, you know, you can just tell they're desiring to meet with God. They're expecting to meet with God.

And people come forward at the end of the service. And it's just an awesome time. But you know what's more awesome for me? It's just sitting alone with the Lord. It's just sitting alone with the Lord. Just sitting with my daddy and talking to him. And I hope that you really enjoy Sunday mornings.

I hope that you're really blessed, that you look forward to it and, you know, and you really enjoy it. But make sure you're spending time with the Lord, just you and him. Make sure that you're worshiping him, just you and him.

Because that's an awesome time. When you just sit, you know, go one night or one day or whatever, toss in a worship CD and just worship God at your house. Just worship him. Cut it up. Turn it up.

Pull down the bonds. Do whatever you need to do. And just worship the Lord. Those are some of the most awesome times of worship you will ever experience.

And if you've never done that, you really ought to do that. Jesus again sets the model. And if you don't take time to get alone with God, you're going to suffer for it. You're not going to walk in the power and the blessing that you could.

And if you neglect that time long enough, there could be real danger in it. But get alone with God and it will just, I guarantee you, it'll change your life. Maybe sit with the Bible open and say, Lord, you know, speak to me.

Is there something you want to say to me? I hope that doesn't freak you all out when I talk about God talking. I hope you understand what I'm saying and what I'm talking about. You know, look, guys, this Bible is filled with people who not only heard God speak, but they expected God to speak to them. So when I talk about the voice of the Lord, hearing the voice of the Lord, I'm not necessarily talking about an audible voice. I've never heard an audible voice, but it's that still small voice that the Lord speaks to me through my heart, through my soul.

And that should be the rule, not the exception. So as I, you know, say these things, understand what I'm saying. Don't sit there and go, oh my gosh, he hears voices in his head.

That's not good. No, as Christians, we should be hearing the voice of the Lord. We should be responding to the voice of the Lord. Verse 16, now when evening was, when evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat and went over the sea towards Capernaum. It was already dark and Jesus had not come to them. Verse 18, then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing.

Boy, this is interesting. Quick question. Did Jesus know there was going to be a storm? Yeah. But, but he sent the disciples out on the lake. Yeah. So he knew there was a storm and he didn't keep them from going out on the lake.

Going out on the lake? Yeah. Now for some of you, that may rock your boat theologically. If so, praise God. Because we have this mentality sometimes that Jesus came to keep us from any and all the storms.

That's not true. Jesus did not come to keep us from the storms, but to go with us through the storms so that we could go through the storms. Maybe you're thinking, well, golly, well, you know, it's a dangerous thing. He had them go out in this dangerous thing, but you know what?

The real danger was sitting there on the shore, beginning to think that Jesus had come to be king. Now sometimes, sometimes in life we encounter storms and sometimes, let's be honest, sometimes those storms, they're of our own doing. We do things that place us in storms. We make bad decisions. We make decisions without asking the Lord what to do, and we find ourselves in a storm.

Not always. Sometimes we're in the midst of a storm, not from our disobedience, but from our obedience. Sometimes we're in the storm because of our obedience. Now it's good to stop in the midst of a storm and say, you know, why am I here? What happened that I'm in the middle of that storm?

Is there something that I did, something I didn't do, that I run off without asking the Lord? That's a good question to ask, but don't always assume because you're in a storm, it's because of your disobedience. It could be so the Lord can come to you and reveal himself to you on a deeper level. So don't always assume that because you're in the middle of a storm, it's from your disobedience. It may be, it might not be, but guys, the Christian walk is, well again, it's not always easy. There's storms that happen. And it disturbs me when Christians go, you know, it's really difficult having storms as a Christian. Try having storms when you're not a Christian and tell me which is easier to go through. It's much easier to go through a trial with Jesus than without Jesus. And the people that don't have Jesus, they have to go through the storms by themselves.

They don't have the comfort. They don't have the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ. And sometimes serving God is just as easy as it can be and sometimes it's not. I think people that paint the gospel and say, well, you come to Jesus and all your dreams will come true are doing a real disservice to the gospel because sometimes that's when the battle really begins. So we don't serve God because it's the easiest thing to do. Now I understand in a lot of ways it's by far the easier thing to do. I'd rather follow God than fight against him.

Boy, that gets difficult if you've ever tried that. But the thing is you've got serving God or not serving God. For me personally, not serving God, that alternative is unacceptable. I don't ever again want to walk in that not serving God. So I don't serve God because it's easier or because he'll bless me. I serve God because the other alternative simply is unacceptable. 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. 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 live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time?

Or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream 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.