[0:00] I want you to open your Bible to Mark chapter 6, Mark chapter 6.
[0:19] ! And we're going to look at a very, very familiar passage of Scripture.! But I hope and pray that maybe we'll see some things that are different and some things that we could apply to our life.
[0:32] In fact, when I was preparing this message some weeks ago, I came in from my study there at our home, and Jerry was in the den, and I said, you know, I'm working on a deal.
[0:46] From Mark chapter 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000 men. And we know that in that day they talked about men because the wives were probably there, maybe some children there, so probably more than 5,000.
[0:58] But it speaks of 5,000 men. And I said, this thing is so simple, it's profound. I mean, it is just so simple, and yet it is absolutely profound.
[1:12] Now, I want you to look with me. In Mark chapter 6, I want to begin reading in a moment. In verse 33, Jesus had sent his disciples out to do work. They'd been in Nazareth.
[1:23] He had not done much work in Nazareth because the people didn't believe he was anything special. That's just Mary and Joseph's boy, as far as they were concerned. We know his brothers, and we know his sisters, and who is this Jesus teaching all these things.
[1:36] And so because of their unbelief, he couldn't do much there. Did a little bit. But then after that, he sent the disciples out, the apostles out. And he sends them out to teach the gospel.
[1:47] He sends them out to do miracles. And so they go out, and they work for some time. They come back, and they report to Jesus what they've seen. They report to Jesus about the miracles.
[1:59] They report to Jesus about the things that have happened. And so they've worked hard. Well, Jesus says to them, it's time for us to have a little R&R. It's time for us to rest a little bit. So we're going across to a secluded place, and we're going to rest.
[2:12] And the word got out to the people that Jesus and his apostles were going to this particular place. Now, that's where we pick up the story in verse 33.
[2:22] So look with me in Mark chapter 6, verse 33, and the Scripture says this. The people saw them going, and many recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the cities and got there ahead of them.
[2:40] When Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
[2:55] And he began to teach them many things. When it was already quite late, his disciples came to him and said, this place is desolate, and it's already quite late.
[3:10] Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered them, you give them something to eat.
[3:25] And they said to him, shall we go and spend 200 denarii on bread and give them something to eat? And he said to them, how many loaves do you have?
[3:36] Go look. And when they found out, they said, five and two fish. And he commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass.
[3:47] They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, he blessed the food and broke the loaves.
[4:02] I love this part. And kept giving them to the disciples to set before them. And he divided up the two fish among them all.
[4:15] They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up 12 full baskets of the broken pieces and also of the fish.
[4:29] There were 5,000 men who ate the loaves. Now, I want to draw your attention to something. In the Greek language, they have emphatic words.
[4:46] And we have them in our English language. We just don't mark them like they do. We speak them sometimes, words with emphasis. But in the Greek language, they mark emphatic words.
[4:57] And sometimes they mark those by where they are in a sentence. Sometimes they mark them by the end of a word. But an emphatic word is just like it sounds. It's emphatic. It has an emphasis to it.
[5:10] You ought to read it with emphasis. You ought to understand it with emphasis because it's drawing attention to something. So I want you to look with me down here in verse 42.
[5:22] And the word all in verse 42 is emphatic. So that scripture says they all ate. Not just the 5,000 men.
[5:35] But probably some of their wives and their children. But they all ate. Which also would mean that the disciples ate.
[5:47] And also would mean that Jesus ate. In fact, if you drop back up to verse 31 in this passage of scripture in Mark 6, it says they had been so busy.
[5:58] Look at the end of that verse. It says they did not have time to eat. So Jesus had not eaten. The disciples had not eaten. Those 5,000 men had not eaten.
[6:08] And the scripture says in verse 42, and they all ate. But now look at the next words. And were satisfied. Now, beloved, that's a great word.
[6:22] Don't you love to be satisfied? Man, I do. I like satisfaction. And it's almost hard to explain, isn't it? I mean, there's somebody... How do you explain satisfaction?
[6:34] Well, this word, they all ate and were satisfied. It's a word that means to be full. Actually, like an animal eating.
[6:45] Just eating and eating and eating. And so they just couldn't eat anymore. But it's more than that. It's a mental word. It's a physical word. And so when Mark in his gospel uses that, and they were all satisfied, it means they were fulfilled.
[7:07] Something had taken place that made them content. They could walk away from that time and say, this was more than food.
[7:21] That something's happened here. Something's gone on here. It's really kind of a profound word. And when I got to studying that, I thought, what was that that satisfied those folks?
[7:36] Now, it'd be easy. Well, it was the food. But no, it means more than that. It doesn't just mean that. It means there was a contentment. There was something going on in them. And then I begin to ask myself the question.
[7:48] And you'll discover as I teach, I ask questions. And I do that not so we can give an answer, really, but so we can think a little bit. Well, the scripture that we just read says they were all satisfied.
[8:00] All right, so that tells me that Jesus was satisfied. Jesus was experiencing contentment. Well, what was it about this that Jesus was contented with?
[8:13] I mean, it's no big deal for him to take some loaves of bread and some fish and feed people. That's miracles. I mean, this is God, right? So when the scripture says they were all satisfied, not only were the people satisfied, but Jesus was satisfied.
[8:28] There's something going on here that Jesus would have walked away from that experience because I believe he ate as well. There's something going on there that when he walked away that evening and finally was able to lay down, he was able to say, boy, am I content.
[8:47] And the apostles, that night, they would have laid down maybe under the stars or maybe in a tent. We don't know exactly. But that night, they would have said to one another, don't you feel satisfaction?
[9:05] Aren't you satisfied? And then obviously the people were satisfied. So I began to walk back through this passage of scripture and I began to try to find the things that brought satisfaction to Jesus and the things that brought satisfaction to those disciples and what brought satisfaction to those people.
[9:30] And I'm going to tell you, as I began to understand this passage of scripture, more and more, I finally got to the place where I closed my Bible and I lay my notes aside and I just kind of took a deep breath.
[9:48] Man, am I satisfied. Now friends, listen. Every one of us, listen carefully, every one of us can walk out of here in a few minutes and say in the depths of our heart, I'm satisfied.
[10:09] I'm content. I don't walk out of here with questions. I don't walk out of here with emptiness. I walk out of here with satisfaction.
[10:20] Does that sound like something that might be good for us? And wouldn't it be good to every one of us, we get home after a while, to be able to just kind of take a deep breath and say, I am headed toward satisfaction as never before.
[10:33] Well, I want us to do that and I want us to begin with what was it that satisfied Jesus? I really love that. Jerry and I have 10 grandchildren and we've had a project over the last few years and that project was we would take a Bible, we bought 10 copies of the New Testament that are wide margin and we decided that each of us would read through those 10 copies of the New Testament, word by word, verse by verse, read through every word and as we read through we would make notes to our grandchildren and say some particular things that would become something important in their life and so all of my notes are written in black and all of Jerry's notes are written in red and so you can take any one of those copies, we finished them up here just a few weeks ago, you can take any of those copies and open them up and you can find my notes about the New Testament and you can find Jerry's notes, mine are in black, Jerry's are in red and as the kids get to particular places in life, they finish high school, they go to college, they turn 16, some particular point, then we give them that Bible and we talk about what it is and all that kind of thing.
[11:35] Well I've spent the last few years heavy in the New Testament. Well here, a few weeks ago, I finished up my last Bible and I told Jerry, I said, you know, I'm just going to jump in Genesis 1-1 and I'm just going to start reading through the Old Testament and you know what I've been reminded of?
[11:57] We're really sinful. Y'all notice that? I mean, we are really sinful and yet, we come to this point and the Scripture says, and they were all satisfied.
[12:11] satisfied. Well, what was it about Jesus that brought satisfaction? Well I think Jesus was satisfied because He offered life.
[12:30] He was satisfied because He offered life. I want you to look with me at this. Let's go back to verse 33. So the people saw them going and many recognized them and ran together on foot from all the cities and got there ahead of them.
[12:45] Now look carefully at verse 34. When Jesus went ashore, so they're in a boat around the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus went ashore, now look at this, He saw a large crowd, now look, and He felt, you see that word?
[13:02] And He felt compassion for them. Now stop right there. He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion. Now, beloved, that word compassion is an interesting word in the New Testament.
[13:17] It actually means a yearning in the bow. Sometimes it was a word that was used to describe a sickness, a virus that would come and would cause somebody's bow to be upset.
[13:30] And so when Jesus saw that crowd, something happened to Him, something physical was going on within Him. He saw the large crowd, but then in a very physical way, He looked at that crowd, and He felt compassion.
[13:42] He felt a hurting. He felt a yearning in His bow for them. Now, why did that happen? Well, look with me in the Scripture. He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
[14:00] Now, beloved, what's that mean? For Jesus to see sheep without a shepherd? A lot of us probably know, but let's talk about that for just a moment. Sheep without a shepherd always means death.
[14:17] It always means death. Now, I've never owned sheep, but because of this past Scripture, I've studied some about them. And there's a little book that came out years ago that is one you probably ought to read.
[14:31] It's simply called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, written by Philip Keller. It had been out for a long time. It's not very big. You can read it pretty quickly. But in that little book, he talks about a cast sheep.
[14:46] And what Philip Keller says is that sheep will go to a particular place to eat. They'll be taken by the shepherd, but then the shepherd leaves, and they will eat everything right around them.
[14:58] Eat it down to bare dirt. And they won't move very far. They'll just eat everything right around them, even to the point that eventually they eat their own excrement.
[15:10] And that causes great disease because there's not a shepherd around to move them to more grass. And so they'll eat that, and that causes disease, and then they lay down, and the next thing they know, they roll over on their back, and at that point, they're called a cast sheep.
[15:26] And that sheep dies. So when Jesus says he looked upon that crowd, he saw that crowd, and then when the Scripture says that he had a yearning in his bow, there was a churning, there was something physically going on that he could feel, he felt, the Scripture says, he felt a yearning in his bow, he felt compassion because they were dying.
[16:02] Now, beloved, let me share something with you. There's only two types of people in this room. That's all. Color doesn't matter anything.
[16:14] Our economic situation doesn't matter. Backgrounds, intelligence, none of that matters. There's two types of people in this room. There are those who are alive and those who are dead.
[16:29] And those in this room who have never given their life to Jesus Christ are dead. You have no life. There's no spiritual understanding.
[16:43] In fact, the Scripture uses that word dead. We were dead in sin. Now, it uses a word, actually, that means a corpse. We were a corpse in sin.
[16:54] A corpse has no feeling. A corpse has no understanding. You can't speak to a corpse and understand anything and then respond back to you. And so, the Word of God says, because of sin, we are dead.
[17:10] We were dead in our sin. In Ephesians, we're told, but God, but God, but God made us alive in Christ.
[17:26] See, so those here today who have given their life to Jesus Christ are alive. They communicate with the Lord. They communicate with one another. They communicate spiritual things.
[17:38] The things of God are important to them. The church is important. People being saved is important. Missions is important. All the stuff of God. Love, joy, peace, patience, all the fruit of the Spirit, that's important to them.
[17:49] Why is that? Because they're alive. See? But then those who are dead, those who have never truly given their life to Jesus Christ, those who have never acknowledged their sin, acknowledged that Jesus died for them, those who have never placed their faith in Jesus Christ, they are dead.
[18:03] And they don't care about the church. They don't care about the things of God. They don't care about the fruit of the Spirit. And in fact, to be real honest with you, many of those who are dead in this room right now aren't even hearing it because they are dead.
[18:16] And only God can bring life. See, only God. Now, I want you to look at this. Look at this passage of Scripture in verse 34. When Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
[18:32] Now look, and he began to teach them many things. And that's when Jesus offered them life.
[18:45] You see, I don't believe Jesus was satisfied that day because of the bread and the fish. I don't think Jesus was satisfied because people ate.
[18:58] I don't think Jesus was satisfied because of the disciples experiencing pretty cool stuff. We'll talk about just a minute. I think Jesus was satisfied. When the Scripture says, and they were all satisfied, I think Jesus' satisfaction came because he offered life.
[19:18] My friends, I tell you, today Jesus offers life. Every person here who has never trusted Christ his Savior, Jesus offers life. And now listen, he is satisfied because he offers you life.
[19:39] Now you've got to decide what you're going to do with that. Jesus has done his part. He can't do anything else. He's gone to the cross. He died on the cross. Gave his life. He was buried.
[19:50] He is resurrected. He has covered all of our sin. He became our sin so that we might be his righteousness. He has done everything he can do. Jesus has full and complete and total satisfaction.
[20:03] But the question is, what are you going to do about that? Are you going to give your life to Christ? Jesus was satisfied because he offered life.
[20:17] Now there's a second truth that I want us to see in this passage of Scripture. Not only was Jesus satisfied, but the Scripture indicates when it says, and they were all satisfied, that the disciples were satisfied as well.
[20:32] Now this is where I kind of fit right here in this passage of Scripture. Scripture. And there are a lot of you here this morning who are disciples of the Lord. You know the Lord Jesus. And when I think about being a disciple of the Lord and being content, being satisfied, being fulfilled, that's something I really want to listen to and want to get my life into.
[20:55] So here's the deal. The disciples were satisfied because Jesus used them. They were satisfied because Jesus used them.
[21:08] Now I'm just going to tell you, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are not being used by the Lord Jesus Christ, you are extremely dissatisfied.
[21:22] But if you become a disciple whom God uses, you become one that God truly works in their life. You will become one full of contentment.
[21:35] You'll become one full of satisfaction. You'll be so much in love with this church and so much in love with the pastor and so much in love with what God's doing missions around the world. I'm telling you, you'll lay down every night saying, man am I content.
[21:49] Boy, I'm satisfied with life. Life can be bad and you can say, but I'm so satisfied with life. Life can be hard and you'll still find yourself saying, I am so satisfied with life and full of contentment over what God's doing.
[22:03] See, I'm convinced when disciples, real true disciples become individuals used by the Lord, boy, they're faithful to their church. They love their, they don't stay home. They want to be here.
[22:14] They want to be a part of it. They enjoy it. They get involved with what it's doing because they're satisfied with that, see? Now, I want you to look at this. The disciples realize that the people need to eat.
[22:27] Now, go with me to verse 35. When it was already quite late, his disciples came to him and said, this place is desolate and it's already quite late.
[22:40] Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. Now, look at this in verse 37. But he answered them.
[22:53] Now, the next word is emphatic. Emphatic is an emphatic word. The word you. It's an emphatic word. We've already talked about that. So when you find an emphatic word, you've got to read it with emphasis.
[23:05] All right? And so go back with me now to the beginning of verse 37. But he answered them, you give them something to eat. These people are hungry, Lord.
[23:17] Yeah, you give them something to eat. Are you telling us that we've got to go find 200 denarii? Which is basically a year's salary. And feed all these people.
[23:29] Look at the rest of this. But he said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and spend 200 denarii on bread and give them something to eat? And he said to them, how many loaves do you have?
[23:41] Go look. And when they found out, they said, five. And two fish. And then you know what happened after that. All right, now I want to share with you three practical truths right here for every Christian.
[23:57] Three practical truths. Here's the first truth. When you see a need as a believer, God intends for you to meet the need.
[24:12] God didn't show you a need for you to come and tell Pastor Mike about it. God didn't show you some kind of ministry that's needed so that you'd come and tell somebody else to go do that ministry.
[24:24] No. I mean, this is amazing. The people are hungry. And you go back to this passage of Scripture that we just read and you go back up here to verse 35. It was already quite late.
[24:35] The disciples came to him and said, this place is desolate and it's quite late. And send them away so they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. And he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[24:51] You give them something to eat. So, so, so, beloved, listen, I'm just telling you a truth. You need to get out of this passage of Scripture is when you see a need, God is telling you to meet the need.
[25:08] When that pops up, you see it, you've noticed it. God is telling you, you meet that need. You find the people, you support the people, you help the people, you, you, whatever it takes, you meet that need.
[25:20] Now, there's a second truth I want you to see. God has already given you what you need to touch the lives of people.
[25:33] Now, now, now, look with me in this passage of Scripture. And he said to them, how many loaves do you have? And if you'll let me kind of paint a picture here, I love to do this in the New Testament.
[25:50] Here's Jesus and his disciples and they've come up, Jesus, these people are hungry, we've got to send them away so they can find something to eat. And he says, you give them something to eat.
[26:04] You feed them. And I see them kind of with a, how do we do that? Kind of look on their face. And then he says, what do you have?
[26:22] And then he makes this statement, go look. What do you have? Go look. Can I ask you this?
[26:34] And again, this is not one of those questions everybody stands up and answers, okay? But, when was the last time you looked at your life with the idea of God using you?
[26:50] When was the last time you, I was thinking about this today, early this morning, I was going through this, and I got to thinking just about me and, and, you know, I've got new glasses, I had cataracts removed, I can see a whole lot better, y'all don't look yellow anymore, people used to look yellow for a long time.
[27:12] And so I've got that removed and I've got, I can see at a distance but I still have to use my glasses for notes and up close, that kind of thing. Well, I put my glasses on a while ago and to come up here and Jerry said, you know what, you put your glasses on, you look just like your dad.
[27:25] And I laughed, I said, well, he was a pretty good looking old boy. And I, you know, when you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see the personality God's given you?
[27:42] God can use your personality. Do you see the intelligence God has given you? I don't mean knowledge from books and school, that may be the case and so God can use you with that, but I'm just the intelligence you have, just the abilities you have, the ideas, the thoughts.
[28:06] When Jesus says, go look, really what he's saying to those disciples, hey, it's already out there, you got to just go find it. It's already there, just go look.
[28:17] Now, I love this, this is absolutely beautiful. And he answered them and said, you give them something to eat and they said to him, shall we go and spend 200 in their hour on bread and give them something to eat? And he said to them, how many loaves do you have?
[28:31] Go look. And when they found out, we don't know how much time was in that when they found out. I had to work the crowd a little bit, I guess.
[28:43] But when they found out, they came back and said, five loaves, two fish.
[28:59] That's it. Well, beloved, listen, the truth is, every once in a while, you ought to take a look at your life and just see what God has given you to use in the lives of others.
[29:22] He's given you intelligence. He's given you ability. He's given you personality. He's given you a way to touch the lives of people. And he didn't provide those fish and that bread.
[29:35] He didn't provide that just so they could say, well, we got a little bread and a little fish. Now, here's a, a third thought that I want you to take.
[29:48] God will take what you give him and make it go further than you ever imagined. I want to tell you a story about a couple named Mark and Ann Hall.
[30:04] not long ago, I used this story and I told it and a lady came up to me afterwards. She said, that's my cousins. And she said, I know exactly what you're talking about.
[30:16] So you may be related. I don't know, Mark and Ann Hall. Mark and Ann were a young couple when I was pastor at the Village Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. They joined our church and they looked like Barbie and Ken, handsome, you know.
[30:30] I mean, just good looking. She had this long, blonde hair, just a beautiful young lady. Mark, rich, black hair, well built, just great people. And so, we were planning a trip, a mission trip to Cambodia.
[30:43] And I was telling all the people about it and what it was going to cost, what we were going to do and evangelism and all these kind of things. So Mark came to me and he said, and he was a physical therapist. He came to me and he said, Pastor, he said, do you think God could use a physical therapist in Cambodia?
[30:59] I said, absolutely, Mark. No doubt about it. Why don't you go with us? So he starts making plans. So we get to Phnom Penh and we'd been there all just a couple of days.
[31:13] Now this was year 2000 so everybody didn't have laptops and phone machines, all that kind of stuff like we've got today. But there were a few computers sitting around that people were using in their homes and stuff. And so Mark came to me and he said, Pastor, he said, I've got to come back to Cambodia.
[31:30] I said, Mark, we're going to. We're already making plans. We'll be back. He said, no, no, no. I've got to come here. I've got to be here. This place has got to be my life.
[31:43] I said, well, Mark, what about Ann? He said, Pastor, God called her to missions when she was in middle school. And we met at Oklahoma Baptist University and fell in love and knew we were going to get married.
[31:59] And she said to me one day, God has called me to do missions. And I told her, I'm not going anywhere. We're staying right here.
[32:11] I'm going to be a physical therapist. We're going to have our living. We're going to do well with our children. And I'm not going anywhere. He said, Pastor, Pastor, I've got to write a letter to Ann on email.
[32:26] And he said, there's a computer back up here in the room. And he said, we've got an email address at home. And he said, would you sit with me while I send her this email? I said, well, sure. So I sat behind him and I looked over his shoulder and the letter was something like this.
[32:44] Dear Ann, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I know God called you to missions when you were in the eighth grade.
[32:57] And I've rejected that ever since we met. And I've refused that. And I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. God has called us to Cambodia.
[33:10] And when I get home, we'll talk and we'll make our plans about what our next steps might be. Punch the sin button.
[33:22] I'm thinking, whoa, is this going to be interesting or what? We get home. That was in the days they'd still let everybody come down to where the planes were unloading, you know.
[33:32] And we got off the plane. Mark was just in front of me. He steps off of that plane. He starts walking up this little hallway. And I saw Ann coming from back down the hall.
[33:46] And she was running with everything in her. That long hair flowing. And she jumped in his arms and said, oh, let's go to Cambodia.
[33:56] They ended up going through International Mission Board. They've been in Cambodia since about 2001, I think, maybe 2002.
[34:07] So they've raised their family there. God has used them in ways you cannot imagine. Hundreds of people have come to Christ.
[34:18] Churches have been started all over Cambodia because of their ministry. Mark leads a ministry now of putting purified water in places all over that country that God is using in a phenomenal way.
[34:33] Now, friend, listen. All they did was give their five loaves and their two fish to the Lord and God has used them beyond anything you could ever imagine.
[34:47] That's what happened there. Lord Jesus says to those disciples, what do you have? What have you got? Five loaves and two fish.
[35:06] There's a third truth I want you to see and that's why were the people satisfied? The people were satisfied because they ate what Jesus touched.
[35:21] I love this picture. The disciples come up and they bring that bread and that fish to Jesus.
[35:33] What do you have, boys? Well, we've got some loaves of bread and we've got a couple of fish. And I love the way the Scripture explains this. It says that Jesus took a loaf of bread and he looked up to heaven and he began to break it.
[35:56] He just kept on breaking it. He just kept on breaking it. Kept on breaking it. You see those disciples' eyes getting big? He just keeps on breaking it.
[36:07] He gets another loaf. He just keeps on breaking it. The Bible says after a while he got through that and he took the fish and he just all of a sudden there's fish sandwiches in those baskets.
[36:21] He just keeps on breaking that fish. He's breaking that fish. And these were probably little sardine type fish. These weren't big bass. He just keeps breaking it. Breaking it and breaking it and breaking it and breaking it.
[36:37] Now, those disciples, they take that fish and that bread and they start feeding all those people. And they get through and they come back and they've got baskets left over.
[36:55] And the people are satisfied. Now, why was that? Just bread and fish? No. Bread and fish Jesus touched.
[37:08] That's what satisfied them. friend, I've got to ask you, do you bring into your life only that that Jesus touches? Is your life full of the things that Jesus touches?
[37:25] Holiness, purity, righteousness? Or are we letting stuff come into our life that Jesus would never touch? only when we fill our lives with that that Jesus touches do we find that contentment that's talked about in that passage of Scripture.
[37:51] Boy, I tell you what, I finally get down to verse 42. I love that little sentence, just one sentence.
[38:03] they all ate and were satisfied. Those who found life were satisfied.
[38:15] Those who had that life and began to look at their lives and God can use me, they were satisfied. And all those people that took all that that Jesus touched, they were satisfied.
[38:37] And I can look at that verse and say, Lord, that can be me. I can have that contentment. Lord, I can have that fulfillment. Well, I've got life.
[38:49] Lord, I remember the day that you gave me life. I know when that happened. I was in John Nolan's driveway, who was Jerry's mom and daddy, and I was inside my little car, and I had taken her in from that date.
[39:00] And I remember sitting in that car and saying, Lord Jesus, I'm such a sinner and my life is such a mess. Would you forgive me and would you come into my life and save me? The only time I've ever seen my dad cry was I went home that night.
[39:17] He was in his office behind the bedroom he and mother had. And I walked into his office and said, Dad, tonight, Jesus Christ, came into my life.
[39:33] And he stood up from his chair with tears in his eyes. He said, I have known for some time that you were close. Oh, how I thank God that he has come into your life.
[39:50] And because of that life, I was satisfied. And now the Lord says, okay, Ted, here you are. You're 72, son. I've done some things with you.
[40:04] I've used you. But you're not in the ground yet. You're not through breathing yet. You're not done yet. I still want to use you.
[40:18] My wife, Jerry, went through brain surgery two years ago in May. And some challenging times.
[40:29] It was a benign tumor, not a cancerous thing, thank the Lord for. They removed it, but some steroids gave her all kinds of difficulties. And so God just did miracle after miracle after miracle.
[40:40] Well, I just shut my life down and told her I'm here for you. And so for a year, good year, year and a half maybe, I just took care of her.
[40:53] That's all I did. And I just shut all ministry down, all preaching down, all coaching, just shut it all down. And through miracle after miracle, God has brought her out of this stuff.
[41:06] And so here we are. And here a few months ago, she said, when are you going to start preaching again? I said, babe, I don't know.
[41:17] Let's just talk to the Lord about it. And we did. God, if you're ready for that, here we are. And we could hardly get up off our knees before the phone started ringing.
[41:30] And we have just watched God over these last months just kind of renew what we're getting to do. And I'm so satisfied. Now I'm at this place where I'm saying, Lord, I don't want anything in my life that you wouldn't touch.
[41:48] God, I don't want anything in my life you wouldn't bless. And he says to me, I'll really make you contended now. That's what happened in that.
[42:01] It is so simple. It's profound. God, so where are you today? Do you need Jesus? You need to give your life to Jesus?
[42:11] Be honest. Hell is real. Hell is eternal. No exit signs there. Everybody in hell will be there all through eternity. My friend, if you reject Jesus Christ, you'll spend eternity in hell.
[42:26] And I don't say that with glee. That breaks my heart. that you're dead. And without Jesus, you will never live. And I'm going to ask you today to give your life to Jesus.
[42:39] I'm going to ask you that right there where you are, that you would just tell him, even right now, Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've rejected you, but today I receive you. I want you in my life.
[42:51] I give my life to you. In a moment, we're going to offer the Lord's invitation. It's the Lord's invitation, not mine, not the church's, not my life. It's the Lord's invitation. We're not talking about you coming to the church.
[43:05] We're talking about you coming to Jesus. And today if you say no, you reject Jesus. And Mike will be here and we're going to ask you to get out from wherever you are in this building and just walk forward and say, Mike, I'm giving my life to Jesus Christ today.
[43:24] And then there are those here who are believers. Is God using you? Go look. Look at what God has for you. Look at what God has given you.
[43:35] Look at your spirit. Look at your personality. Look at your understanding. Tell the Lord you want him to use you. Maybe today you'd want to come and just kneel here at these prayer benches. Say, God, I want you to use me.
[43:47] God, take my personality, take my mental state, take everything I am and just use me. Lord, I want you to use me. God, I want you to be to be believer.
[43:58] You find yourself saying, man, I got some stuff in my life Jesus doesn't touch. And I'm sorry. That's not what I want. Why don't you come and kneel down here?
[44:11] Just say, Lord, would you take everything in my life that you can't touch and remove it? Father, forgive me. I want to be one whose life is filled with that which you touch.
[44:27] Why don't you do that today? We're going to pray together and we're going to stand and we're going to sing. Mike will be here and you can come. You can come and pray. You can come and talk with him. But why don't we respond to the Lord today?
[44:41] Let's pray together, all right? Our Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus and we praise you and worship you.
[44:54] And Father, today we ask Lord that you would move among us. Father, there are those here who don't know you. Would you just call them to yourself?
[45:06] Would you use them and work in them and just draw them to yourself? Give them the courage and strength to respond to you.
[45:21] And Father, those who know you, but it's been a long time since they've really taken a look at what they have and who they are. Father, would you just encourage them this morning?
[45:36] And would you bring them to a place of saying, God, show me how you've made me. Show me what you can do in my life. And Father, would you just show us for your glory and for your honor, would you just show us some of the stuff that we have in our life that you wouldn't touch?
[46:00] Help us to confess it to you. Help us to leave here this morning with a life that is clean and pure and holy, that can bring honor and glory to you.
[46:14] Move among us, Father. Don't let us be the same. Move among us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
[46:39] You