Good morning. Let's open this morning's service
with the hymn from the Gospel Hymn Spiral hymn book, number
21. Let's all stand together. The
covenant, ordered and sure. Let's stand together. Number
21. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past, made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose his own in
the person of his Son, and ordained that I should be one with him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home, He would keep God's holy law and
retrieve me from the fall. Christ, in love so willingly,
stood as my great surety. For my price He offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and He brings us to the Lamb. By His mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood. Ties of grace and ties of love
hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Ties of grace and ties of love
hold me to my God above. I'm thankful that our being held
to Him is not dependent upon us. He is faithful. Good morning. I understand there was a bad
accident westbound on I-4 and everybody coming from that direction
had to either divert or glad you all made it. Those of you
that had to come through there, I think that folks may be still
on their way. We're going to continue our study
in Mark 6 this morning. If you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bibles. And I've titled this message,
Little is Much. Little is Much. This is the story
of the Lord taking two fishes and five loaves of bread and
feeding 5,000 men. We don't know how many were in
the crowd altogether, but there were at least 5,000 men in that
group. And it's a very encouraging message
to me that the Lord takes little and makes much out of it. So
let's ask the Lord for his blessings. Our merciful heavenly Father,
thank you that you have once again blessed us with this unspeakable
blessing of being able to come into thy house open thy word,
call upon thy name, and look to thy dear son. Lord, we ask
that you would enable us to that end. We have no strength or ability
within ourselves. Lord, we're very hopeful that
you would be pleased to rend the heavens and come down and
visit with us and be pleased to reveal thyself. Cause us,
Lord, to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of all
of our salvation and all our provisions here in this life
and in the life to come. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, you have your Bibles
open to Mark chapter six. We'll begin reading in verse
31. And he said unto them, come ye yourselves apart unto a desert
place and rest a while. For there were many coming and
going that they had no leisure so much as to eat." How encumbered
this life can become and how comforting it is for the Lord
to say, come ye out from among them and be separate. Come to
a desert place, a solitary place. and there I'll meet with you
and give you rest. And that's our hope this morning,
isn't it? That the Lord would give us rest for our souls in
the midst of all the conflicts and all the busyness, I guess we should say,
of this life. And they departed onto a desert
place by ship privately. You remember what the ship is
always a picture of the church. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is on another little ship with his disciples going to a solitary
place where they can be together. And the people saw them and departed
and many knew him, saw them departing and many knew them and ran afoot
that they're out of all the city and out went them and came together
under them. I hear a multitude of people
who knew who the Lord Jesus was. They knew what he had done and
they wanted to be in his presence as well. And Jesus, when he came
out, saw much people and was moved with compassion for he
saw them. as sheep without a shepherd. Now sheep, sheep are dirty animals. Sheep are defenseless animals. Sheep are dumb animals. And here
the Lord likens His people to sheep. And God's people are glad to
identify themselves with that animal. Lord, I'm dumb, I'm dirty,
I'm dependent, I'm defenseless, and I need a shepherd. And the
Lord is moved with compassion towards those who are able, by
God's grace, to see themselves as sheep. That's the motivation in the
heart of God to make much out of little. It's his love for
his people. Scripture says that he's loved
us with an everlasting love. Never been a time when God hasn't
loved his sheep. And greater love hath no man
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And so
the Lord Jesus Christ seen as the shepherd who laid down his
life for the sheep and greater love has no man than that. And
herein is love, not that we love God, we measure love by the degrees
of our own love, don't we? But our love is so frail, it's so fickled. Adam texted me this
week and said, speaking of their new baby, and said, I didn't
know that the heart was capable of such love. And I wrote him
back and I said, and if you, being evil, know how to give
good gifts unto your children, how much more your Heavenly Father
give good gifts unto them that ask Him. Oh, His love for us
cannot be compared to our love for Him. His loving us is what
caused Him to give god's soul love that he gave and here we
find once again our lord moved with compassion i'm in need of god's compassion
i'm in need of his pity i'm in need of his care and uh... all god's people are those who
uh... who who stand uh... independent
and strong. One thing about growing in grace
is you get smaller and he gets bigger. You really do. When we talk about little being
much, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1
that God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound
the wise. He hath chosen the weak things
of this world to confound those things which are mighty. He hath
chosen those things which are not to bring to naught those
things which are. that no flesh should glory in
his presence. And so as we grow in grace, when
the Lord saves us, he makes us small. And then as we grow in
grace, we become smaller. And the smaller we become, the
bigger he gets. And that's why Paul said, we
are the true circumcision which worship God in the Spirit by
the power of the Spirit of God. The Lord told Nicodemus, you
got to the Spirit of God. Without the Spirit of God, you're
none of His. And rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence, no confidence in the flesh. I find myself, the older I get,
having less and less confidence in myself, becoming smaller and smaller.
But therein, therein lies the hope of being blessed of God,
that no flesh should glory in His presence. He's not going
to compete with man. He's not going to share his glory
with another, the scripture says. So here he's moved with compassion
for he saw this multitude of people as sheep, sheep without
a shepherd. God glories in using small things,
doesn't he? Moses is spoken of as being the
most humble man. And yet look how God was pleased
to use him. Out of all the people that the
Lord could have chosen to bring Christ into the world, a humble
maid by the name of Mary and a humble carpenter by the name
of Joseph brought into this world in a
humble place. a barn put in a manger. Humility is a good thing. It's a beautiful thing, actually.
And pride is so ugly. We see that first and foremost
in ourselves, don't we? Pride rears its ugly head in
our own hearts. We're appalled. We're turned
off by it, aren't we? Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
5 before we continue in this passage. 1 Peter chapter 5. Verse 5, likewise ye younger
submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one
to another and be clothed with humility, esteeming one another
more highly than ourselves. Let me ask you a question. Do
you know anybody that's in need of grace more than you? More than you? God's sheep will say, no, I know
myself better than I know anybody else. I know my own sin more
than I better not know anybody else's. Oh, how I need a shepherd,
how I need a savior. For God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you. in due time casting
all your care upon him, for he careth for you. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden. Lord, I've got a burden I can't
bear. It's not the burden of trials and troubles and difficulties
in this life. Those will change. Those will
change. It's the burden of sin. That
only gets heavier. It doesn't go away. It doesn't
get better. As you grow in grace, the burden of your sin becomes
greater and greater because the more of Him you see, the more
of yourself you see. And the more dependent you become
upon Him, and the more humbled you are, and the more you realize
God really has chosen the base things of the world, the things
that are not to put to naught those things which are that no
flesh, no flesh should glory in his presence. How contrary
this gospel message is to the world. It's just the opposite,
isn't it? All right, go back with me. The prophet Zachariah put it
like this, despise not the day of small things. You know, the
world loves big things, don't they? Laura Grace and I were looking
at some golf clubs yesterday and all the clubs had big on
them. And I said, that's the marketing thing, you know, with
Big Bertha and big gun and big this and big that and you know
I said that's the world you know we just want things big don't
we big and powerful and uh... and the Lord is pleased to use
small things that he might get all the glory alright go back with me to uh... to our text in Mark chapter 6.
So he was moved with compassion in verse 34 because they were
as sheep not having a shepherd. Not they thought themselves to
be sheep not having, they were as sheep not having a shepherd.
He saw them that way. And so what did he do? He did
what he's doing right now, I hope. What he's doing right this very
minute. We're just reading and quoting from God's word and comparing
the spiritual to the spiritual in hopes that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself will take these words and make them effectual
in our hearts. They shall be all taught of God. Father, I thank thee that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, the independent,
the self-righteous, the big, the strong, the ones who are
able. And what have you done? You've
revealed them unto babes. Babes, an infant. That's what
we are. What are babies capable of? Adam,
you again. What's a baby capable of? Crying
and pooping, right? That's about it. And that's what
we do. We mess ourselves up. And we
cry out to the Lord, oh Lord, save me. Have mercy upon me. I'm but a babe. The world doesn't see themselves
that way. They think they've got some abilities. I can make
a decision. I can live for God. I can present
something to God that'll be pleasing in His sight. And the child of
God said, oh no, I've got nothing to offer God. If the Lord Jesus
Christ doesn't present himself to the Father and stand in my
stead on my behalf and present himself as my righteousness and
put his blood over the mercy seat as a covering for my sin,
I've got no hope of standing in the presence of the Holy God. So what is it that moved the
Lord Jesus Christ to make much out of little? Compassion. for his sheep, for his people. And he taught them many things,
many things. That's why we go verse by verse
through books of the Bible here, because we want to be faithful. As Paul said, I've not shunned
any of the counsel of God from you, taught you everything God
says. We don't pick and choose what
we want to teach or what we want to believe. We believe that all
scripture is given by inspiration of God and all scripture is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction
in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished
unto all good works. So Lord, we pray that you would
teach us many things. And everything that he teaches
us comes back to Christ, doesn't it? Comes back to Christ. That's why Paul said that he
is all and in all. In all the teachings of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ is the yea and amen and all the promises
of God are sure and confirmed in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
we don't find Christ in a passage of scripture, we have not rightly
understood that passage of scripture. And when the day was now far
spent, his disciples came unto him and said, This is a desert
place, and now this time is far past. Send them away, that they
may go into the country round about and into the villages and
buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. Oh, these disciples, they're
just looking at the physical, weren't they? And they didn't
go to the Lord and say, Lord, what should we do? They went
to the Lord with their recommendation. Isn't that what we do, isn't
it? Lord, here's the way I think you should do it. And the Lord
says, no. My ways are not your ways. My
thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my ways above your ways." I'm not doing this
according to the wisdom of man. I'm going to do it my way. Might
we learn from these disciples not to go to the Lord with suggestions
on how He should do things, but rather to go to Him pleading
for His mercy to help us in whatever way He sees fit. Lord, whatever
you see to be right. In verse 37, He answered and
said unto them, You give them to eat. Give ye
them to eat. You feed them. And that's what the Lord has
said to me. You give them to eat. And just like the Lord did
a miracle here, the Lord's gonna have to do a miracle now, isn't
he? He's gonna have to take the stammering, frail words of this
man and turn them into the Word of God. That's a miracle. If all you hear is my voice,
you haven't heard from God. And the Lord says, you feed them. And they said unto him, shall
we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat?
Still thinking about physical things, weren't they? Lord, would
you want us to go to town and get the food and spend all of
our money and come back and feed them? And he said unto them,
how many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew,
they say five and two fishes. Five loaves of bread and two
little fish. But what is so much? What is
so little among so many? That's what they said in another
place. What, how come we, what is this? We've got five loaves
of bread and two little fish and what is, what is this little
with so many people? And he commanded them and made
them all sit down by companies upon the green grass. He leads his sheep to a green
pasture, doesn't he? He feeds them by the still waters. And God's sheep will travel a
long way to get to a green pasture, won't they? And some of you have
traveled a long way this morning to come to a place where you
can sit down in green grass and be fed to your fill, to your
fill with the bread of life. Make them sit down in companies
upon the green grass, and they sat down in ranks by hundreds
and by fifties. Do everything orderly, decently
and in order. The Lord doesn't, the foolishness
that takes place in some churches, it's not of God. The confusion that takes place
in so many places and the, The contradiction that takes place
in most preaching is not of God. People say, well, God is sovereign
until he comes up against your free will. And now you've got to, you know,
what happens when you have an irresistible force come up against
an immovable object? That's an impossible scenario,
isn't it? That's just absolutely not possible. It's not logical.
You cannot have an immovable object and an irresistible
force at the same place. One's got to give to the other.
And so what does man say? Oh, the irresistible force of
man's free will will stand sure and the sovereignty of God, that
irresistible force, The immovable object of man's free will will
stand still and the irresistible force of God's sovereignty will
have to give way. What a confusing message. Just
the opposite is true. Just the opposite. Our God is
sovereign and he's able to take of these stones and make bread. And that's exactly what he does.
He takes the stone of our heart and takes it out and puts in
a heart of flesh and makes us willing in the day of His power. Oh, what a sovereign God we have. What a gracious God we have.
What a loving God we have. Lord, change my heart. Change my heart. Have Your will
in my life. And verse 41, and when he had
taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ was always,
always dependent upon the father, always looking to his father.
He was faithful to God and took every word that he spoke. He
said, these are not my words, these are the words of the father.
The works that I do are not my works, they're the works of the
Father. Everything I'm doing, I'm doing it in perfect obedience
to God. Now that is what God requires
of you and me. Perfect obedience, all the time,
with all your heart. How you doing on that? Truth is, we've never obeyed
God one single time. Not with all our hearts. All
our minds and all our souls. That's why we need a shepherd. We're sheep without a shepherd.
Oh, we need a shepherd. We need a savior to present himself
on our behalf. So when he had taken the five
loaves and two fishes and looked up to heaven and blessed it,
and if God doesn't bless it, oh, I hope that you will be crying
with me before we meet for services on your way here, when you wake
up on Sundays, when you're here coming on Wednesday night. Pray
with me. Lord, bless your word. Bless
your word. Bless it to my heart. Make it effectual. Otherwise,
what we do here is worse than being in vain. If God doesn't
meet with us, if God doesn't bless it, if God doesn't speak
to us, what we're doing here is worse than vain. It's just vanity. It's fleshly. There's no power
to it. So we ask God to bless it. And
he break the loaves and gave them to his disciples and set
them and the two fishes divided he among them all. So here he
uses these disciples, these gospel preachers to distribute the bread
and that's all they're doing. I'm not baking the bread. I'm
not making the bread. The bread is already here. The
bread is right here. All a gospel preacher is, is
a table waiter. You know, that's what a deacon
is. A deacon is a table waiter. That's what the word means. And
that's what preachers are. They're just taking the food
from the kitchen and bringing it out to the people and putting
it on the table. That's all they are. Nothing
more. Nothing more. Now if he changes the food, that's
why, you know, search the scriptures. And see, the people of Berea
were more noble, the people of Thessalonica were more noble
than those of Berea for they received the word of God with
gladness and searched the scriptures daily to see if what I said was
true. Now, I've been, I've preached to groups before who sat there
just like this. Preacher, you just see if you
can teach me something. And they pride themselves in
searching the scriptures to see if what I say is true. I'm so
thankful that the Lord put those two things together. They received
the Word with gladness and they searched the Scriptures to see
if what I said was true. And that's what I want you to
do. If it's the Word of God, receive it with gladness. And
at the same time, at the same time, be faithful to search the
Scriptures to make sure that these things are true. And if
they're true, believe them. Believe them. And you pray for
me that I would not speak something that's not true. That's my greatest
fear in standing before you, that I would speak something
that's just not true. Verse 42, and they did all eat
and were filled. Isn't that our hope? Our hope
is that we'll leave this place full. We'll come hungry and leave
full. And being filled spiritually
is just like being filled physically. It's just like being filled physically.
You know, you eat a big meal and you eat too much. You say,
I'm not eating again for two days. You ever thought that? You ever felt that way, said
that? And what happens? About six hours later, you start
getting hungry again, don't you? And that's the way it is with
our souls. Oh, Lord, thank you for filling up my cup. But we've got holes in our cups.
They leak. They leak. Brian, you read this morning
from what Psalm was that? Hebrews 2. I'm sorry. That's
why I couldn't remember it. Hebrews chapter 2. I probably shouldn't do this,
but I looked up this word while you were reading. And it, oh, here it is. Here
it is. Look at verse 1 of Hebrews chapter
2. Look at verse 1. Therefore, we
ought to give the more earnest heed to those things which we
have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. Now, on the margin of my Bible,
the translation for let them slip is leak out. Leak out. I heard about a man who was praying
publicly and he was asking the Lord to fill us with his spirit
and a little boy spoke up and said, Lord, don't do it. He leaks. The truth is we all leak, don't
we? We leak out, don't we? And so being filled is something
we have to keep coming back to the table for. We get hungry
because we leak. They did all eat, go back with
me to our text, they did all eat and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets
full of fragments and of the fishes. And they that did eat
of the loaves were about 5,000, now the word men there, sometimes
man in the scriptures is referenced to mankind, but that is the male
gender. So how many people there? I figure
there were 5,000 women and maybe a couple children for each couple
and could have been 20,000 people that the Lord fed with five loaves
and two fishes. Little became much. How little
are you? God only uses little things. What about your faith? You feel
like, oh, my faith is so small. It's not the strength of your
faith that God uses, it's the object of your faith. It's the
object of your faith. Did not the Lord say, if you
have faith, as a mustard seed, a little microscopic seed. You
can say into this mountain, be removed and it'll be cast into
the sea. You know, Lord, I've got such
little faith, but I do believe you. I do, but Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. What did the Lord say to Jairus
when they came back and they told Jairus, bother the master
no more for your daughter's dead. She's died. She's a 12-year-old
little girl. He came crying to the Lord. Lord, come quickly.
And halfway there, and the Lord looked at Jairus and he said,
don't be afraid. Only believe. Only believe. Nothing is impossible to them
that believe. You see, believing is an acknowledgment
of how small we are. Lord, I don't have anything but
my faith. That's all I've got. All I've
got is faith in you, Lord. I don't have, I can't do anything
else. Faith is an acknowledgment of our smallness. Prayer is an
acknowledgment of our smallness, is it not? Prayer is what faith
does. And prayer and faith are not
the cause of our salvation. And that's the third time I know
this morning I've used this example, but a little baby. A baby when
it's born breathes because it's alive. It doesn't get life as
a result of breathing. Isn't that right, doctor? That
baby comes out of the womb alive. Otherwise, it's a stillborn baby
and it'll never breathe. It breathes because it's alive. And that's what faith is. Faith
breathes. Faith cries out for mercy because
it's alive. Faith's a gift of God. So I conclude by asking you,
how small are you? How small are you? God only uses small things. He only uses small things that
no flesh should glory in His presence. He's not gonna share
His glory with another. He's gonna get all the glory,
amen? All right, let's take a break. Okay.