Supper with the Gentiles

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Don Filcek; Matthew 15:32-39 Supper with the Gentiles

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. I'm Don Filsack.
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I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm glad to be gathered together to worship God on a misty Sunday morning.
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The weather, it just kind of seems like this time of the year you just don't know what you're going to get, but a little warmer out there at least, right?
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Is that good? Our church name, Recast, I think most of you know this, but it's an acronym for our core values.
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It's got a little bit of a double meaning. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus tells the disciples they've been fishing all night.
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They're the professional fishermen, and they've been fishing all night, and they got blank. They didn't catch a thing, and he tells them to recast the nets to the other side of the boat.
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It's early in the morning. They're pulling in their nets. They obey him and follow him, and they bring in a haul, and so that's where the name comes from.
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It's an acronym, but it also has a little double meaning because it's an acronym for our core values, what we hold dear here, and the way that we roll as a church.
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Every church should have at its core the mission to somehow glorify God or to worship him through Jesus Christ, and we value that, but this is kind of partly how we do that.
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The R and the E stands for replication. The C stands for community, the A for authenticity, the
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S for simplicity, and the T for truth, and that's where our name comes from.
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And regarding our core value of truth that really ties everything together, we seek to follow
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God's word as so much more than just a book that we use to support our agenda, our way of doing things.
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We don't come up with our plans and our ideas and then go to find in Scripture where we can support it there, but instead we let
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Scripture dictate how we do things. This is the book. The Bible is the book that defines us as a church.
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It is a book that has the power to make us into something for his glory, as a church as well as individuals.
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This is a vital, important part of our lives that we see as central and fundamental to who we are.
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And in keeping with that core value of truth, that God's word is truth, I most often preach through books of the
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Bible paragraph by paragraph. I have the conviction that the author of these books received a revelation from God and that the very words themselves were inspired by God.
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So I don't think it's a mistake that after hearing about the feeding of the 5 ,000 just a few weeks ago, that we're now looking at the feeding of the 4 ,000.
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That's not accidental in the flow of the book of Matthew. Matthew has indeed been repeating himself.
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He's given us many instances where Jesus drew a crowd and healed them, many instances where he drew a crowd and taught to them.
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And now we're gonna see a second event where a large crowd was gathered and he fed them.
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He has been repeating himself and that is not an accident. As a matter of fact, the differences between these two events found in Matthew chapter 14 and then here in Matthew chapter 15, the 5 ,000 and the 4 ,000, the differences between those events are meant to draw our attention to a common theme that we might not get if we just read either one of these accounts alone outside of the context of this.
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And so you see that Matthew has a purpose, an intention in the reason that he writes what he writes and the flow of Matthew chapter 14 and 15 is like this.
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Jesus heals a group of Jews. Then Jesus miraculously feeds 5 ,000
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Jews. Then he teaches about the lack of faith on the part of his Jewish disciples. Then Jesus criticizes the
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Jewish leaders for their fear of outward filth from the world outside instead of the filth that's in them.
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Then he teaches about the faith of an outsider, a Canaanite woman, where he's already, he's criticized the faith of his
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Jewish followers. Now he's commending the faith of a Canaanite woman. Then he heals a crowd of outsiders,
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Gentiles, which we saw last week. And now this week he miraculously feeds a crowd of 4 ,000
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Gentiles, outsiders. The movement in these two chapters is from the
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Jews to the Gentiles. The focus is from where we start with Jesus doing great things for Jews and at the end doing great things for those who the
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Jews thought were on the outside of the faith. Those who they thought were not recipients of the
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Messiah, not recipients of the kingdom. And these two miraculous meals surround an amazingly deep and complex section of scripture that has one central focus for us that hopefully you've been hearing time and time again through this series in the last few weeks, and that is simply that Jesus came for all people.
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Jesus came for all people. Jesus came for all kinds of people, not just the Jews. His blessings, his gifts, his power, and ultimately his salvation extends to any and all who will put their trust in him.
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Any and all, all kinds, all sorts, all types, all made in the image of God, and all can receive him by faith.
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And just like the miracles of healing last week, those were a foretaste of the healing our great king will provide in his kingdom.
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We saw those foretastes last week of healing, but the miraculous things that we see today give a foretaste of the eternal provision of God for his people forever and ever.
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So as I read this familiar text, some of you are familiar with it, the feeding of the 4 ,000, keep in your minds that this text is about Gentiles.
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Jesus is not feeding a random group of church people. This is not a church picnic gone bad where everybody forgot to bring food.
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This is Jesus responding to the people who, to their culture, to their time, to their era, were on the wrong side of the tracks.
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This is the way Jesus works among those who are perceived by culture to be far away from his kingdom.
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And he is offering more than a full stomach for an evening to this gathering, but he is showing his power to provide in a way that brings glory to his father and highlights his power to sustain anyone who would put their faith and trust in him to follow him.
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So open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 15. We're going to be looking at the very end of that chapter, verses 32 through 39.
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If you don't have a Bible, Mike's got some back here, and if you can just raise your hand, he'll bring you one. But we want everybody to have a copy of God's word on their lap.
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And he's already got them open to that passage, so he tries to keep it easy for you. So I appreciate that he does that.
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But follow along, navigate in your device, whatever, if you've got a phone that you can use, but get over to Matthew 15, 32 through 39.
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And again, recast, God is going to speak to us through his word, this is the revelation from him of himself, what he desires to communicate to us this morning.
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So follow along as I read Matthew 15, 32 through 39. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said,
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I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat, and I'm unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.
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And the disciples said to him, where are we going to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?
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And Jesus said to them, how many loaves do you have? They said, seven, and a few small fish.
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And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and fish, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them into the crowds.
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And they all ate and were satisfied, and they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
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Those who ate were 4 ,000 men besides women and children, and after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went into the region of Magadan.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that opens our eyes to the flow of the life of Jesus Christ, gives us examples and models for the way that we are to live our lives, and ultimately reveals to us the one who came to save us from ourselves and from our sin.
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And Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity to worship you and to just, even just to hear your word this morning,
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Father, that you would produce within us a hunger that can only be fulfilled by you, a hunger that really can only be satiated by your word and by truth, and Father, that we would recognize and be moved to recognize that when we are longing for something, and many of us in this room in reality have longed for something this week.
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There's been an emptiness or a brokenness or just a sense of unfulfilled something that sometimes we can't even put a finger on, that ultimately that longing is for you.
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And Father, that we would take short strides between meals, that we would eat frequently from your word, and we would commune regularly with you in prayer, and Father, that we would worship you in the things that we do, and just being mentally aware of your presence with us throughout the week certainly, but also especially now as we have an opportunity to worship you.
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Father, that none of this would be a showing off of our voice, none of it would be a showing off of our skills, but it would be just strictly a worship of you, recognizing how glorious and how beautiful you are, and how you are the one who takes care of all hunger in the end.
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In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, you can go ahead and be seated, and I'd encourage you to get comfortable.
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If you need to get any more coffee, juice, or donuts, you can take advantage of that. Get up at any time during the message or stretch out in the back, but please keep your
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Bibles open in Matthew chapter 15, verses 32 through 39. If you lost your place, I'd ask you to go ahead and find that again,
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Matthew 15, 32 through 39. That's going to be the outline. We're going to go right through verse by verse, and so check that out.
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And I want to start off with a question, kind of obvious question really, rhetorical question. Have you ever been hungry?
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Have you ever been hungry? Well, I take for granted that everybody in this room has experienced some level of hunger. Maybe at some point during this message, you're going to start feeling hungry.
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It depends on what time you ate breakfast and how many donut holes you've had so far since you've been here. But I mean really hungry, though.
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Have you ever been really, really hungry? The kind of hunger that consumes your will, that consumes your mind?
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I am guessing that many of us have never experienced that. I don't know that I personally have ever plumbed the depths of real hunger.
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I fasted here or there for a day at a time, but I've never truly experienced hunger of the body.
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There's an author named Karen Kingsolver, and in her novel about the tragic fate of a family of missionaries in Africa called the
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Poisonwood Bible. Any of you ever read that book? I'm just curious if some of you, I think maybe a couple of us have. But the tragic fate, she follows this missionary family that moves to Africa a few decades ago.
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It's a novel. But she gives a very poignant description of a deep hunger.
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She says this, and I quote, hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow daily hunger of the belly.
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Those who have known this kind of hunger, that is hunger of the body, cannot entirely love ever again those who have not.
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There's something about the experience of a genuine hunger that has an impact on the psyche of an individual, that there's a hunger that you and I experience between meals, sometimes just an hour after we've eaten, right?
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Some of you could just be filling up the corners all day, right? I mean, that's just the way that we roll here in America.
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But hunger is a real thing. God created it. Have you ever considered that? God created hunger.
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It's a mental and physiological response to our need for sustenance, our need for food, our need to be sustained by something outside of us.
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It's a common experience to all humanity at some level. And in our text, in our text we encounter hunger, but not only do we encounter hunger, but we see the
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Son of God, the King and Lord over all of creation encounter those who hunger.
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And in our text here, we get to see a response of Jesus to those around him who are famished and are at risk, even the text tells us, of fainting from hunger.
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The context from last week is that Jesus has now spent three days, we actually get that here, we don't realize how long he was there, up on that hilltop on the eastern side of the
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Sea of Galilee in Gentile territory where there were pig farmers and it was the Decapolis where the ten cities of Gentiles lived.
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But he's been up there on this mountain and the people were bringing others out to him and he was healing them.
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And it was for more than three days that they were coming to him and he was sitting down and they were bringing them one by one and putting people at his feet and he was healing them.
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We know that from this text that there are more than 4 ,000 people gathered there on that hilltop to come and see
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Jesus. They are all Gentiles by presumption, I mean there may be a few Jews in here, but the idea that they're in Gentile territory probably prohibited many
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Jews from even coming to that area. They are untouchables to the Jews, they are dirty and filthy idol worshippers according to the religious leaders of Jerusalem.
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This is a territory where good Jews didn't go, do you hear me? This is very well documented historically that the
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Decapolis was a territory where they wouldn't even walk through here. Why would they? They would have no reason to go there.
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And Jesus stayed with them, healing the blind, the lame, the crippled, and the mute. We saw that last week. But now, as time has gone on and the rations are running low, some people maybe just in their desperation to get their loved ones who are sick out to Jesus forgot to even pack a lunch, but the food is running low and Jesus called his disciples over to identify the problem to them.
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The people have run out of food so that they are at risk of fainting if they were to leave. Jesus uses that word fainting.
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He says that they're famished to the degree that he's afraid they won't even make the walk home to their homes before they would pass out because they're famished.
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Now contrast this whole scenario where Jesus says, hey, this crowd needs food. He says it to his disciples.
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I want to contrast that with the feeding of the 5 ,000 that we saw a few weeks ago in Matthew chapter 14 because contrasting that is valuable to our understanding of what is going on here.
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What is Jesus trying to teach? The 5 ,000 were Jewish men. These 4 ,000 are
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Gentile men. And Jesus as a good teacher is always teaching to his disciples.
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There's intention behind the things that he does here. Back in chapter 14, it was the disciples that brought the plight of the masses to Jesus.
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They're the ones who brought up the issue. Jesus, there's a crowd of 5 ,000 Jews here and they've got nothing to eat.
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What are we going to do about it? There was a push in the heart of the disciples to take care of the problem.
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They brought the issue to him. They came to him with concern for the 5 ,000
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Jews. They noticed that they had nothing to eat and brought it to Jesus' attention. But now
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Jesus must bring the plight of the Gentiles to his disciples' attention.
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I don't believe that that's just merely coincidence that in this text, Jesus has to say they're about to faint.
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They don't have enough food. He has to bring it up to them. Jesus has compassion.
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The word compassion, there's a deep feeling for these Gentiles, but the disciples, I believe, do not.
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As a matter of fact, a few years later in the book of Acts, this is years down the road, Jesus has already been raised from the dead and Peter has seen these things with his eyes and he's now a follower of Jesus Christ with clarity, with an understanding.
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And as a few years later in the book of Acts, we see Peter proudly declaring to God that he has not defiled himself with Gentile food.
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And God has to bring him direct revelation. God has to speak to Peter to even get him to go into the house of a
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Gentile and share the gospel. This is years after this event. So Peter wasn't getting this.
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Do you see what I'm saying? And Peter didn't quite fully grasp the things that God was trying to do in their midst, in the flesh, among those who they perceived were outsiders.
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How many of you would admit to maybe being thick sometimes to the lessons that God wants to teach you? Me and Dave and maybe a couple of other people.
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Sorry to call you out there, bro, but you know. I think all of us can tend to do that, right?
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Like we tend to be a little bit thicker to the things that God wants to teach us and is trying to say to us.
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The disciples are not getting this lesson even though they are living right in the middle of it. And I think for me personally, sometimes the most obvious lessons in our lives are lost on us until we look back to see what
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God was teaching us in the past. Do you find that often you learn better from the mistakes you made in the past or the things that God was teaching you?
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I find that sometimes my learning is a couple years delayed from the things that God is trying to teach me.
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I'm a little bit thick that way. And I'm kind of slow and so it's like, oh, I see what he was doing a couple of years ago in my life and now
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I can take on, I'm growing in a way that I can take on those lessons that it's hard to do in the middle of it.
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But Jesus has moved, hear me carefully, this is a message for all of us and to me honestly this has cut me to the quick this week.
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Jesus is moved to compassion by hunger. Just let that sit for a minute on you.
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We who probably have plenty of food to go back to right now in our cupboards and our refrigerators and Jesus is moved to compassion by hunger.
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I don't see the part in the text where he asks everyone how they ran out of food.
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I don't see the part where he judges them. I don't see the drug tests in this text.
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He didn't gather the crowds around him and ask, how many of you have made really poor life decisions? I want you to stand over there.
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How many of you are working to try to better yourself over here? Food for these guys. Do you see that in the text?
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Do you see that? He doesn't do that. As a side note, maybe even surprising to some of us, he didn't even ask them to work for their food.
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He didn't even ask them to work before he feeds them. What's motivating him here?
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Doesn't he know he could be taken for a ride by some of these people? Doesn't he know that some of them might just be there for the food?
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He has compassion on the crowd that is hungry around him. His compassion on a crowd of outsiders and it's meant to be a deep lesson to us.
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I hope we take this on this morning. I've said many times that compassion is a feeling that leads to action.
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It is seeing the plight of another and acting in a way that alleviates that plight. Now I think all of us have recognized that there are times when we've just had to act and we haven't felt it and sometimes the compassion comes later and sometimes there's compassion, but I would suggest to you there's never such a thing as compassion without the action.
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I like to call that pity. I like to use the word pity for that and I think that's a weaker word than compassion.
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Pity is watching someone's plight and feeling bad for them and then forgetting about it and walking away from it.
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A compassion is a movement to act to alleviate the suffering of those that you see around you.
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Now we could get into all kinds of political conversations about what is the best way to solve the problem and all that.
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I'm not going to do that. Jesus isn't. Jesus has just moved to compassion and that's something that I think maybe is a good starting point for all of us.
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Maybe we could just take that on to see our Lord and Savior, move to compassion by the suffering and pain of those around them, those who are just even just experiencing hunger pains.
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I don't think the disciples are ignorant and they say something that seems to be ignorant in verse 33. They are at most only a week or two removed from the feeding of the 5 ,000 where Jesus provided food for 5 ,000 people out of just a few loaves and a couple of fish.
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And now they say to Jesus, where are we going to get bread? How many of you think that sounds like a pretty thick comment in light of things that have already transpired in their lives?
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It seems like you might put two and two together. Large crowd, Jesus is healing them, they're hungry, he feeds all of them miraculously.
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Now, a couple of weeks later, large crowd, Jesus is healing them, they're all hungry.
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What do you think is going to happen next, folks? Are these guys dumb or what? They watch
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Jesus miraculously provide. But I believe that this is a further indication that the disciples did not expect
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Jesus to do that same miracle for these Gentiles.
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Not for these people. Sure, he's been healing them, they've been observing that, they've been seeing that, they've been a part of that.
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But surely the miraculous provisions of Jesus are for the Jews alone, right?
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He will surely save some unique blessings for only the Jews. He cast demons out of the
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Gentiles, he's healed them, but he certainly won't give them the bread that belongs to the children of God, right?
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You don't take food that is meant for your children and give it to the dogs, do you?
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Some of you might remember that message just a little while ago. Fresh in the disciples' mind, they heard him say that to the
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Canaanite woman by Tyre and Sidon. Certainly, you wouldn't give to the dogs what belongs to your children.
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You wouldn't let your child starve while you feed your animals. If that sounds like the way
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Jesus responded to the Canaanite woman back in Matthew 15, 26, and 27, who gets the blessing from the table of God is really a deep question of this entire section of Scripture.
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And I think it's in the minds of the disciples. I think it's prohibiting them from perceiving that Jesus is about to do something among these
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Gentiles. And the Canaanite woman had responded well, in great faith,
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Jesus said, saying that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. So will
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Jesus invite Gentiles to the table now? Is he going to feast with them? Is he going to bring them into his meal?
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Certainly not, says the disciples. The disciples thought for sure that Jesus would leave the Gentiles under the table like the dogs they were, hoping and waiting that some scraps might fall to them, but certainly they're not going to be invited to a seat at his banquet, not at his table, not to feast on his bread.
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Jews don't eat. Gentiles. But I believe that verses 34 through 35 unsettled the disciples.
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What happens next? I'm speculating at this point, but barely, because of what we see and can learn from the disciples and the way that they interact, the way that they're still acting years down the road with this conflict between Jews and Gentiles, all the way leading into the foundation of the early church that a lot of the letters, a lot of the
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Pauline epistles, a lot of the writings that we read in the New Testament are resolving and taking care of this issue of animosity between Jew and Gentile and uniting in one church under Jesus Christ.
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So I don't think it's a far cry to say that they're not getting this yet. The text alludes to their lack of expectation that Jesus is going to feed these people, but then he proceeds in almost the exact same way to the feeding of the 5 ,000
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Jews. And I don't think that was lost on the disciples. They have only seven small dinner rolls and a few small pickled or dried fish.
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It looks like they're starting with a bit more food than at the feeding of the 5 ,000. By the way, in case you have the little bit of a liberal tendency in your mind or you've read some things or you've heard some things on the radio, the feeding of the 5 ,000, feeding of the 4 ,000, same event, just one kind of estimated the other.
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Go ahead and read on this week through chapter 16 and see Jesus referenced both accounts.
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He actually says, were you not paying attention when I fed the 5 ,000 and collected this much leftover and weren't you there when
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I fed the 4 ,000 and collected this much leftover? And he gets it right and uses a different word for basket in both.
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It's obvious that there's a different type of basket that's involved here, which is very unique and interesting. When you get down to the level of Greek, you actually realize that these are two very, very clearly different accounts, two different events that happened.
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But he's got different amounts, starts with different amounts. But it's not enough to feed 4 ,000 famished men plus women and children, right?
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Jesus directs the crowds then to sit down on the ground and he gives thanks for the bread and the fish.
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He offers thanks to God for this meager portion that he's given. And in this act,
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Jesus modeled for us a thankful spirit for what he had. Giving thanks before we eat is indeed a good practice and I think it's something that probably most of us do, but it honestly can become quite rote and routine.
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How many of you that just become kind of a routine for you and it just be like that's what you do? How many of you pray before you eat just pretty regularly?
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I'm not trying to call you out in your workplace or in a business meeting or whatever. How does that look and what is right and what is wrong?
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But I would challenge you to be sure that you are genuinely thankful for the goodness of God and the things that he gives us in satisfying our hunger each day.
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I encourage you to be thoughtful about that. Don't be flipping about that. Even if that means breaking up your routine or praying something different or just taking a little bit of time to do something different with that time that you pray before you eat, just to express gratitude or be really thoughtful about where your food comes from.
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We're a culture that's far removed from where our food comes from. That's a documentary or some other thing. Some of you are into documentaries apparently.
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We are a culture that's very separated from our food, but just to contemplate and consider all that went into obtaining the food that is in your cupboard is a pretty amazing thing.
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There's a lot to be thankful for there. There's a lot of processes that are in place and a lot of things that comes right down to God watering the earth, something we are not in control of.
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I don't know if you noticed that. We're not in control of that. That is directly from God himself. And so just contemplate and consider some of those things as you're praying and thanking him for sustaining you.
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How many of you know that you have to have food? You have to have it. It's one thing that's common to all of us.
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You have to have food or you're not going to make it. It's another indicator that we are sustained by that which is outside of us.
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We are not as powerful or as autonomous as we think we are. Jesus took the bread and the fish.
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He gave thanks and he began by breaking them into small pieces and he gave them to the disciples to dispense to the crowds.
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You can go back and hear my contemplating a few weeks ago on what the miraculous things that were going on.
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Was it multiplying in the basket as he set it down? Was it multiplying as he picked it up?
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Was he breaking it and then it was a whole one again? I don't know what all that looked like and then you get into the laws of thermodynamics.
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Was he creating matter? We joked a little bit about was there a school of fish that fish here and there was just disappearing from that school of fish as he was, you know, making more.
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I don't know how that worked but he did this miracle, this amazing thing. And I want to stop right here in verse 36 for a minute and take in the scene because I think there's something that's deliciously ironic in this scene.
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The disciples were raised to be disgusted by Gentiles. They considered themselves a superior ethnicity.
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They considered themselves more favored by the Almighty and they further had a strong fear of being defiled by those idolatrous outsiders.
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And here the disciples are being used by Jesus to feed huge crowds of those people.
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We had Michael Brown from the Gospel Mission in a couple of weeks ago to speak while I was out at a retreat. I had a chance to listen to him on the podcast.
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We do record all of the messages and you can check those out online and I would encourage you if you weren't here for that one, go back and listen to that one.
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He did a fabulous job talking about prayer. It was very powerful. And he mentioned that there are many people who will give money to the
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Gospel Mission downtown but will say, sure, I'll write a check. How much do you want the check for? But don't make me come down and interact with people.
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Don't make me come down there and interact with those kind of people. I imagine that the disciples would have rather been down in Jerusalem offering prayer support or even financial support to the ministry effort among the
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Gentiles in the north, right? But here they are up to their armpits in Gentiles.
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Hungry Gentiles, needy Gentiles, smelly Gentiles. Gentiles who
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Jesus has compassion on. Gentiles that Jesus loves.
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And everyone ate from the miraculous provisions of Jesus and they were stuffed. They were satisfied, the text tells us.
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And the word there is like over full, like loose in your belt kind of meal that they had here.
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They were hungry and Jesus quenched their hunger, they were satiated.
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And once again, just like the feeding of the 5 ,000, Jesus plans for leftovers.
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I don't believe that we can read too much into the 12 baskets. Some of the commentaries, even maybe some of the notes at the bottom of your
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Bible, if you have a study Bible or whatever, they might go into a little bit of numbers there.
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Twelve is the number of the Jews, seven is the perfect number of fulfillment, bringing the Gentiles or whatever.
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I think that there was literally seven baskets left over. I think there were literally 12 baskets. We're hearing a historical account about the things that happened there in this place.
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And so there's this, but what can we learn about the fact that there were leftovers? I think that what we learn is that Jesus provides abundantly for his people, above and beyond what we need.
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The main point I want to make is that in the gathering of leftovers, Jesus shows himself to be a great and awesome provider, showing that all will be able to eat their fill when they come into his eternal kingdom.
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Hunger will be no more on the new earth under King Jesus. And Jesus sent away the crowds of Gentiles.
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They came broken, sad, and hungry, and they leave healed, joyful, and satisfied.
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So how do you come to Jesus? Last week I suggested that you, A, shouldn't come alone, right?
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Do you remember that? Don't come alone. Because these Gentiles came bringing others.
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They brought the sick. They brought them on stretchers. They brought them carrying them on their back and carrying them any way that they could get them to Jesus.
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But also, you should come recognizing your brokenness, knowing your need, and knowing that Jesus is the place where healing is found.
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Do you come to him in your brokenness? Come to him knowing. Many of us have been trained, maybe from youth, to run away from him because of our brokenness.
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We hide from him until we can clean up and get ourselves in proper working order, and then we'll come to Jesus.
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No, there's only one way you can come to Jesus, and that is in your brokenness. Otherwise, you'll be running for your entire life.
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Come to him. He knows who you are. He knows what you've done. He knows everything about you. He knows even better about your motives than you know yourself.
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And he's eager. He's eager for you to come for his forgiveness, for his cleansing, and for salvation in him.
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How do you come to Jesus? Do you come to him with bringing others? Do you come to him in your brokenness?
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But now this text is telling me to ask you, do you come to him hungry? Do you come to him hungry?
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Do you have a desire in your hearts to be filled and satisfied with that which he can provide?
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I don't want to mix the metaphor too much. We are reading a historical account of Jesus giving real food to a real crowd of real people.
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So should our application then be that we should stop grocery shopping? Cut it out. You don't have enough faith.
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Quit going to Trader Joe's. Some of you are already addicted and they haven't even been here for like two weeks now.
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But stop it. No. That's not the message. You know, Jesus will just fill your cupboards if you trust him enough.
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So that wasn't the conclusion that Jesus allowed the 5 ,000 or the 4 ,000 to take away.
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It's obvious because notice that he sent them away. He didn't say camp out here and I'll feed you for the rest of your lives.
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Camp out here and I'm the great provider who will just take care of every meal for you. He didn't allow them to remain with him waiting for the next miraculous meal.
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Instead they went away satisfied, but they were going to get hungry again. They were going to get hungry again.
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Once again, I don't believe that this story is recorded for us with a temporary application in mind. It is not trying to communicate that if you're on a desert, a deserted desert island that you can't starve to death.
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Can a believer in Jesus starve to death? Could that be an actual fate for one of his children? I would answer yes.
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And then you could ask fairly, but doesn't Jesus have compassion? I mean, he had compassion on these
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Gentiles. Why doesn't he feed everyone all the time? Why is there drought? Why is there starvation?
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Why are there difficult things that happen? Now, I don't have access to the entire mind and will of the Almighty, but I have his
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Word and I know that this text teaches that he has compassion even toward those who are outsiders to culture and society.
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But I also trust him as the one who can and will eventually solve the issue of hunger. But I don't believe that he'll do so until he returns to bring all things under his kingship.
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Just like all effects of the fall of mankind into sin, we broke it. You know, we're responsible.
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We broke this place. And so, from that break of this calling that God put us to tend and to care and to cultivate for the earth, from that time that we broke faith with God, scarcity, starvation, and unmet hunger will not be taken away until the great and glorious day of the
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Lord when he comes to reconcile all things. But I would suggest to you that hunger is a good metaphor for our own spiritual neediness.
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There's a biological feedback loop when you need food. Your stomach growls. Your sense of smell increases.
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Your stomach will actually ache and you will begin to think more about food.
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We have this regular and routine need to get stuff into our bellies. But think in terms of your spiritual hunger.
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Do you recognize the signs of spiritual hunger in you? I studied a little bit the stages of hunger and somewhere around day two or day three without food, there is a miserable pain and discomfort that people relate to, communicate that sets in to the stomach and they call it hunger pangs.
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But it's literally like just a double over kind of stomach pain day two or three.
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But somewhere between day seven and ten, those pains all go away and people report almost having a euphoric feeling.
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After that point that they've basically gone without food for seven to ten days, they report kind of saying, you know,
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I think I could do this forever. I'm settled into this now and it's not that bad.
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It's actually a little bit of like kind of endorphins and stuff pulsing through and it's like I got this. And their body begins to just metabolize themselves and so it's like your body just gets used to it and says,
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I guess I'm not getting any food so I'm going to have to go to these other sources for energy and becomes more efficient at it.
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Is that where you're at spiritually? Have you starved yourself to a point that you are starving but not really cognizant of the side effects?
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You're not feeling it anymore? We need a relationship with God. There is a hunger in every human heart for meaning, for purpose, for love, for satisfaction and all things that this world cannot provide you.
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It cannot be satiated truly by the things of this world. We can turn to all kinds of things to try to satisfy the hunger of our souls but Jesus is the only one who can solve that problem of hunger.
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And notice that he is not the hope for the Jews only. He is willing to reach out and provide hope, help and healing and satisfaction for any who would come to him and trust in him.
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He's willing to sit down and eat a meal with even the Gentiles. So here are three applications that I considered this week from the text for me.
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Some of them may apply to you. God may be grabbing a hold of you with something else. He might be speaking something else into your heart but here are the things that he kind of hit me over the head with this week as I was studying this.
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The first is that I need to have more compassion for those in need around me. I need to have more compassion.
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It is far too easy to be judgmental in this day and age. It's far too easy to become jaded about those that are in need.
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These Gentiles, you know, you can't take an attitude of these Gentiles are so dumb. They didn't even plan to bring enough food to eat for their trip.
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I mean, give me a break. Notice that the compassion of Jesus doesn't come with caveats and moralizing.
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A person's suffering. When Jesus encountered a person suffering, he was moved to compassion.
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Because a bearer of the image of God was suffering. He wasn't quick to judge why they were suffering.
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Instead, he felt for their plight and sought to help out. The second thing,
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I need to keep coming to Jesus with my spiritual hunger. Even many of us as believers who have tasted of his goodness can be moved to wander away when hunger strikes.
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Do you recognize that you're wandering out into pornography? You're wandering out into gossip. You're wandering out into workaholism.
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You're wandering out into the idolatry of entertainment. All of these things are attempts to satisfy a hunger that only
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Jesus can truly fulfill. Like our physical hunger, our spiritual hunger increases between meals.
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So keep feasting on the word of God. Keep gathering together with his people. Keep memorizing his word.
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Keep listening to podcasts of good preaching. Keep reading good books that bring honor to God. If you have any questions about podcasts, there's a few podcasts you should be listening to.
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If you get a chance to listen at all, you should be listening to a couple of these. And I would love to help you out by recommending them.
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If you're like, I'd love to listen to a podcast, but I just don't really even know where to start. Or if you're just looking for some good books,
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I can recommend some good books to help point you in. You know, you can tell me where you're at on different things.
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And I may even have a book on my shelf that you can borrow to deal with it. But we need a routine diet for spiritual growth.
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And when you find yourself wandering toward other things, consider that this wandering is being produced by a hunger that is meant to be fulfilled in God.
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It's meant to be fulfilled in Christ. So run to him. Lastly, Jesus is the only place we can really find that satisfaction.
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We come to communion to remember that Jesus came and died for his people. His body was broken in our place and his blood was shed to cover our sins.
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He is returning to bring forward a new creation. Sin, death, pain, and suffering will be one day finally wiped away.
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So consider all that Jesus has purchased for you on the cross. And respond with joy if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ.
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But respond with trust in Jesus if you've not yet asked him to save you. If you're here and you know in your heart that you've kind of tried the
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Christian thing, or maybe you're just here checking things out, or you're just trying to figure stuff out, and trying to figure out who Jesus is, and come and talk with me.
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Jesus is eager to welcome in anyone who would come to him needy, admitting their brokenness, saying, save me.
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So if you're all in with Jesus, then come to one of the tables and take communion here in the corner. Take the bread to remember his body broken for us.
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Take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us. But if you're not yet saved, if you're not saved by faith in Jesus Christ, then
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I'd ask you to please just sit this out. Take in the song and then come and talk with me after the service if you're interested in knowing more about how you can start that relationship with Jesus Christ, even today.
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Let's pray. Father, I do thank you so much that you are a
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God of compassion. If it was not for your compassion, I would certainly be lost in my sin.
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I would not be up here preaching or teaching your word. I don't know where I would be.
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But Father, I thank you for your compassion that looks on those who are hurting, that looks on those who are broken. No matter what their background, no matter where they're coming from, no matter what ethnicity, no matter what they have done that they perceive to be too far for your forgiveness, we know that there's nothing that can overcome the power of the blood of Jesus.
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So Father, I pray that if there's anybody in this room who does not know you, that they'd sit out this communion, take in this song, and maybe give them the boldness to come and talk with me or somebody from the band to address the concerns of their heart.
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For the rest of us, Father, who are in, I pray that you'd move us to the compassion of Jesus, that we would look at the hurting and the broken around us, and we would be moved to compassion that does something about it.
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We'd be eager to help, eager to pitch in, and be an assist to the people around us.