Jesus Has Got This! John 6:1-15

Last Sunday, I gave this sermon at my old church, St Andrews Mt Pleasant, just outside Charleston, SC. They were in a sermon series on ‘Encounters with Jesus’, and we were considering the feeding of the 5000 in John 6:1-15.

Watch the Video here:

Or you can listen to it here:

The takeaway:

Bring all you’ve got;
Leave it all to Him;
Jesus has got this!

Questions for discussion:

• ‘We don’t write the script for our lives… do you agree?
  
  I mean, we try, we want to… but then actually the critical lesson comes through to us, sometimes excruciatingly painfully, that however hard we try, we are not in control of our lives. That realisation or discovery comes through, perhaps, a divorce, a job loss, the death of a close friend or family member, a cancer diagnosis, a disillusioning church experience, a betrayal, a shattered dream, a wayward child, a car accident, an inability to get pregnant, a deep desire to marry that remains unfulfilled, a dryness or loss of joy in our relationship with God. I’ve covered a lot of bases there, maybe not every base, but listen, I am talking to you. Jesus is talking to you today.’

• In what ways are you insisting on control and believing you can write the script of your life? Is it scary or comforting to admit you aren’t the ultimate Script Writer?

• Huge question: How much do you want of God?
  
  These guys were desperate. Jesus is so, so compelling. “If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.” (John Piper) What ‘small things’ are we in danger of stuffing our souls with?

• ‘In the Chinese picture-letter alphabet, the symbol for crisis is a combination of two characters – one meaning ‘danger’ and the other ‘opportunity’. We can look at it either way.’ Might that be a comfort (as well as a challenge) for your current situation?

• Andrew was always bringing people to Jesus (John 1:42; 6:9 12:22). Albert McMakin brought Billy Graham along to hear a gospel message. Who might you bring to Jesus? Are you intentionally praying for them and looking to invite them along?

• Bring all you have to Him! What are your ‘five loaves and two fish’?

• If you’re struggling with direction but fully surrendered – and the full surrender part is crucial – then this prayer is so beautiful:
  
  “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.” (Thomas Merton)

• “God cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him.” (C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory) Do you recognise any area of life where you are seeking to bargain with God?

• Bring all you’ve got; leave it all to Him – surely leaving it all to Him doesn’t mean we sit back and wait for God to act. What does it mean?

• That old Burundi man who had lost everything said: “I never realised that Jesus was all I needed until Jesus was all I had.” So poor yet so rich… and yet how many people in Mt Pleasant have ‘everything to live with and nothing to live for’… What can we learn from that dirt poor rich man?

• “Is he going to help himself to me, or am I so taken up with what I want to do in my life?” (Oswald Chambers) Worth reflecting over…

• What was the starfish message?

• “[Anything you have…] is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end — the gift of God.” (Tim Keller) Does that offend, or does that recognition mean we have more grace for the less privileged?