In the
Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier
One of these
days, at the end of a message, I am going to give a pop quiz--just to
see how many were really listening. That would be cruel, wouldn't it?
Not to worry! I'm afraid of the results myself.
Few people
enjoy taking pop quizzes--or any kind of test for that matter. Some of
our young people would give an "Amen" to that. Tests elevate
our anxiety level, so people will do some crazy things to prepare
themselves for tests.
How would we
like to take one of Jesus' tests? Jesus was first of all a rabbi--a
teacher. And from time to time he gave his disciples tests.
In our Bible
passage for today, Jesus had gone away with his closest friends, the
disciples. He was looking for some peace and quiet, a time to rest and
re-fuel spiritually. But the people of Jerusalem didn't want to let this
miracle-worker out of their sight. They followed him up the
mountainside. This presented a challenge to the apostles' compassion. An
eager crowd of people, all clamoring for more miracles, surrounded them.
How could this tiny crew of 13 men minister to the needs of thousands of
people? The simplest thing they could do is feed them. So Jesus turned
to Philip and asked him, "Where can we buy bread for these people
to eat?" The gospel writer tells us, "He asked this only to
test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do."
Isn't that
interesting? Jesus already had in mind what he was going to do, but he
needed to test his followers. He wanted to know whether they were fact-based
thinkers or faith-based thinkers. There's a powerful concept for
us. That would be a good focus for a seminar. Are we a faith-based
thinker or a fact-based thinker?
Jesus wanted to
test his disciples. How would they react to the challenge of feeding
these thousands of people? Could they see beyond human limits and focus
on God's infinite power?
Inventor Henry
Ford once said, "I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite
capacity to not know what can't be done." That seemed to be Jesus'
aim too. Lots of people are experts in what can't be done. The important
question is, "What can be done?"
When Jesus
asked St. Philip, "Where can we buy bread for these people to
eat?" St. Philip responded as any practical man might--"Eight
months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a
bite!" See! St. Philip knew immediately what couldn't be done. He
was right, of course, but sometimes the right answer is not the same as
a solution.
A young man
once told Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the great minister and motivational
speaker, that he wanted to start his own business but did not have any
money.
"Empty
pockets never held anyone back," was Dr. Peale's response,
"only empty heads and empty hearts can do that!"
St. Philip
focused on their "empty pockets," so to speak, and decided
that the goal was unreachable. They could never feed all those people.
But St. Philip's real problem wasn't empty pockets; it was an empty
heart. He hadn't yet let Jesus' message or his miracles penetrate his
heart.
St. Andrew was
the second person to speak up. Will he pass the test? St. Andrew steered
a young boy over to Jesus and said, "Here is a boy with five small
barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so
many?" St. Andrew was on the right track, but still he hadn't
completely switched from fact-based to faith-based thinking. Remember
how the apostle Paul defined faith in Hebrews 12:1-- "Now faith is
being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
(NIV) St. Philip saw a problem and gave up. St. Andrew saw a problem and
offered a limited solution based on his own resources. St. Andrew's
answer was better than St. Philip's, but it still had not leaped the
chasm of faith. Now it was Jesus' turn to set the apostles straight.
Faith-based
thinkers start by taking their problems to Jesus. As I said, St.
Andrew was on the right track in his thinking. He brought the boy to
Jesus and offered his meager resources. That's the first step in finding
a solution. Dr. Robert Schuller refers to this as "shifting our
focus from the problem to the Power."
On October 14,
1947, pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound
barrier, a feat that many scientists and pilots had judged to be
impossible. Yeager wrote about that history-making moment in his
autobiography:
"The
faster I got, the smoother the ride. . . . We were flying supersonic,
and it was as smooth as a baby's bottom: Grandma could be sitting up
there sipping lemonade. I was thunderstruck. After all the anxiety,
after all the anticipation, breaking the sound barrier was really a
letdown. The sonic barrier, the unknown, was just a poke through Jell-O,
a perfectly paved speedway. Later I realized that this mission had to
end in a let-down because the real barrier wasn't in the sky, but in our
knowledge and experience of supersonic flight."
In that very
moment when Chuck Yeager went supersonic, he laid to rest years of fears
and questions in the scientific community. This one act demolished
limits of thinking as well as physical limits that had been in place
since the beginning of time.
In the same
way, we serve a God without limits. Psalm 50:10 tells us that God
"owns the cattle on a thousand hills." II Corinthians 9:10-11
reads, "Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the
harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so
that you can be generous on every occasion . . ." On another
occasion, Jesus taught his followers not to worry about what they eat or
drink or wear, because their heavenly Father knows that we need all
these things. When Jesus turned water into the best wine, when he caused
the disciples to catch a net full of fish, when he healed everyone he
touched, and when he fed thousands of people with a small serving of
fish and bread, Jesus was demonstrating the abundance of God's realm.
And that abundance is still available to believers today. God is without
limits, and there is no problem we can bring to God that cannot be
covered by God's abundant grace and mercy. But the first step for
faith-based thinkers is to take their problems to Jesus.
The next
step in faith-based thinking is to follow Jesus' lead. This is
harder than the first step. Imagine Sts. Philip and Andrew swallowing
their pride and directing this crowd of people to sit down and be
patient. What was Jesus going to do? Did they want to be a part of it?
We have no evidence that they hesitated. They did as Jesus directed.
Someone once
said, "Delayed obedience is disobedience."
As a great
Christian once wrote: "Christianity is not a voice in the
wilderness, but a life in the world. It is not an idea in the air but
feet on the ground going God's way. It is not an exotic to be kept under
glass, but a hardy plant to bear twelve months of fruits in all kinds of
weather. Fidelity to duty is its root and branch. Nothing we can say to
the Lord, no calling [Jesus] by great or dear names, can take the place
of doing [God's] will. We may cry out about the beauty of eating bread
with [Jesus] in [God's Realm], but it is wasted breath and a rootless
hope unless we plow and plant in [God's Realm] here and now. To remember
[Jesus] at [God's] table and to forget [God] at ours, is to have
invested in bad securities. There is no substitute for plain, every-day
goodness."
Faith-based
thinkers know that God moves in mysterious ways, that God's ways are not
our ways, and that costly obedience is always rewarded beyond our
wildest imagination.
Finally, faith-based
thinkers get the awesome privilege of seeing the power of God made
manifest in their lives. If we had been on the hillside that day,
would we have ever recovered from the shock of seeing Jesus multiply
those loaves and fishes? Would we ever stop talking about it? "Now
children, I want to tell you the most fantastic story. I wouldn't
believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I saw the Master
feed five thousand men, and an unknown number of women and children with
just five small barley loaves and two small fish."
God is working
in our lives at all times, in big and small ways. But much of God's work
can only be seen in hindsight. As we look back over our lives, we see
our every need supplied right on time. We see prayers answered years
after they were prayed.
In other
circumstances, we thank God for prayers that God, in God's great wisdom,
chose not to answer according to our desires. But faith-based thinkers
don't have to rely on hindsight. The great thing about faith-based
thinking is that it allows us to rejoice ahead of time in the knowledge
that God is loving, just, and powerful, and that God will meet every
need according to God's glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:
19)
So did Sts.
Philip and Andrew learn their lesson? Not right away. But in the book of
Acts, St. Philip is recognized by the early Church as being "full
of the Spirit and wisdom." And in Acts 8, St. Philip becomes an
evangelist to the Samaritans. In their city, he does great signs and
miracles that convert many to Christ and bring great joy to the people.
He is now a man of faith, a true follower of Jesus, and a worker of
miracles. His story has come full circle. He has moved from being a
fact-based thinker to being a faith-based thinker.
Ten-year-old
Ashley Danielle Oubré gave a speech at Washington, D.C.'s Mayoral
Prayer Breakfast in 1995. In the speech, she reminded the listeners of
Jesus' words in St. Matthew 18 that they must become like little
children in order to enter the realm of God. And she encouraged the
adults in the audience to learn from their children how to get along
together, how to trust one another, and how to trust God. She ended by
saying, "You teach us that when we have a problem, we should talk
it out with others and with Jesus. You say that Jesus can solve all our
problems, both big and small. But we notice when people get older and
have problems, they are embarrassed to talk like that among themselves.
We wonder if you really mean it, or is Jesus only for kids? I am still
young enough to believe that Jesus knows how to solve my problems, the
problems of the city, and of the world."
Way to go,
Ashley! You're right. Jesus does know how to solve our problems, our
city's problems, and our world's problems. And all he asks of us is the
faith to bring our problems to him and faithfully obey his lead, and
then we will see him work in ways far beyond what we can ask or imagine.
S
H A L O M