August 2, 2020 ~ Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

08/02/20—Highland—Meute

“The Gifts We Have, We Are Given to Share”

Genesis 32: 22-31; Matthew 14: 13-21

Pearl: Persevere in presenting the gifts, dreams, ideas, service that you have up to God.

Function: We have enough to share and to offer, which the Lord will amplify to accomplish good in the lives of each other and beyond to community, country, and world.

Think with me about miracles for a moment this morning. We actually use the word often and we all have likely asked God for a miracle on occasion. I know I have. Over the years I have prayed with many people, including several of you, asking for miracles.

1. What miracle of Jesus is your favorite? The feeding of 5,000 people must be in your top three!
2. How common in our language and day to day life does “miracle” turn up?
   1. You open the refrigerator door and pull out a jar of “Miracle Whip”, a mayonnaise that spreads so nicely across your bread.
   1. Or you pull out a small, flat bag and put it into the microwave, and “Voila!” you have instant popcorn, and you say, ‘What a miracle!”
   1. You go out to the garden and pour Miracle-Gro onto your plants and they flourish so nicely, thanks to Miracle-Gro!
   1. A rocket is shot up into the air and humankind planted a first footprint on the moon, and everybody called it a miracle.
   1. It wasn’t that many years ago that penicillin was discovered and everyone called it a miracle drug.
   1. Soon after that, in the early 1950s Dr. Salk discovered the Salk vaccine to vaccinate against polio and all our parents said it was a miracle.
   1. If a vaccine is found for COVID-19 by December of this year it will be called a miracle that it was developed that fast!
   1. Sometimes people emerge from a wrecked car and those who saw the smashed car exclaim: “It is a miracle that anyone came out alive!”
   1. Births and adoptions often evoke the word “miracle.”
3. The experience of the miraculous is not confined to Biblical times and the first century. The word miracle, and the miraculous is interwoven throughout our modern lives as well!
4. For a moment think with me about the purpose of a miracle. Why do we actually use the word or notion as much as we do?
   1. Is it because of our natural desire and propensity to trust in God, to look beyond self and what we can see and feel and taste: to that realm which is beyond us but very much alive and well and with us.
   1. This is the stuff of miracles—seeing and appreciating a force and a presence much bigger than us and interested in us and interacting with our world to make things better and better.
      1. I see the miraculous in medical science and what is being done with the human body. For the last three to four decades heart surgeries have become almost routine. So many lives are extended on a routine basis now! Miraculous!

Medical science is a demonstration of how we bring what talents we have, what insights we have, and with God’s help we expect the miraculous to happen. We give what we have to God and we expect the transformation of things.

From the feeding of the 5,000 we see that God accomplishes wonderful exploits by making something out of what we consider to be of not much significance, our own gifts, skills, talents, dreams, visions, and so on.

1. When the disciples went to Jesus suggesting that he send home the large crowd which had gathered to hear him because they would need to get their evening meal and return home, Jesus told them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat” (14:16).
   1. Right there we learn something from our Lord about ourselves. You and I have more to give than we realize. I am not talking only about finances. I am also thinking of our words, our actions, our insights and dreams and visions and ideas, and so on.
   1. We have a lot more to share than we realize. We underestimate the significance of what we have to offer.
   1. The Lord does not underestimate what we have to offer. The Lord tells us, “You give them something to eat!”
      1. “You have an idea, run with it!”
      1.  “You know what you should say to the comment you just heard!”
      1. “You thought of reaching out to that person so do it!”
2. So once you realize that you have something to give, the next thing to do is to give it to the Lord.
   1. The disciples said, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Then Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.”
   1. Upon noticing the “little” that we have to offer, the next step is to give it to God. Give it to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
   1. That is a crucial step. Don’t try to do the Lord’s work on your own steam.
      1. Much is required of us but first give your ideas, your skills, your talents, your visions, your dreams to God so that God can reshape, retool, rework, and do what God does with the things that we tend to underestimate.
         1. And God just might need to adjust what you want to offer!
      1. Those five loaves and two fish were not going anywhere on their own. They had to be given to the Master.
      1. Give what you have to the Master first and foremost. Then see what happens.
3. What did Jesus do when the loaves and the fish were given to him? He looked to heaven, to God, blessed and broke the loaves and handed them back to the disciples to share.
   1. So after giving what we have to God, and after God adjusts and perfects it, we receive it back with the blessing of God to act. To speak. To do this or to do that. To serve in some way.
   1. And that is when the miracle occurs! God does amazingly far more than we can ask or even imagine. The Apostle Paul wrote “To him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3: 20-21).
      1. 5,000 people were fed with those few loaves and fish! It was absurd that so many were fed from so little!
      1. This is because God transforms and makes new. We do not do the miraculous! God provides the miracle. God transforms and expands and amplifies what we offer, what we underestimate.

Bring what you have to God and expect the miraculous…the transformation of things.

Persevere like Jacob, hold on and don’t let go to the incomparable notion that God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all that you can ask or imagine!

1. Expand your imagination at all that the Lord can and will do with your simple gifts!
   1. Your gifts of time; talent; treasure; service; love; hard work; prayers; dreams; and visions.
   1. Give them to God; God will bless them and amplify them; then God will give them back to you for your life and sharing to make a real difference.
2. Offer up the things that you tend to underestimate to Christ, counting on God’s expansion, then watch for the miracles to occur!