The Surpassing Love of the Lord

 Say it with me please, Our vision is to reach our friends and neighbors with the truth, love, and hope of Jesus Christ while growing as His disciples.  NO, I didn’t get mixed up and forget where I’m at in the service today, although that’s not saying that that never happens or that it never will 😊 But, for today, I did intend on beginning with our VISION STATEMENT.

I have a question for you, “How do we apply that vision?”  In other words, how do we live out our vision?  How do the people of Mount Hope put it into action?  Perhaps this is an even more challenging question, How do YOU live out this vision?

I would say that we live this vision out through Inviting guests who become friends, friends who become family. OUR VISION STATEMENT is realized through each and every one of us living out our MOTTO.

 Now you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, I didn’t join in this worship service today to listen to you tell me that I need to sign up to help with…or I need to give to this…or that I need to be active in my faith.”  I MEAN, COME ON, CAN’T WE JUST GET THROUGH WITH THIS SO THAT I CAN GET ON WITH MY DAY?!

 That is essentially where we meet Jesus and the disciples today in our Gospel reading.  Matthew 14:15, (NT WRIGHT TRANSLATION) When it was evening, the disciples came to him. ‘This is a deserted spot,’ they said, ‘and it’s already getting late.  Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’

Can’t you just sense the disciples not wanting to get too involved?  Five thousand people—actually more, because the five thousand counted only men, not the women and children with them (10,000; 12,000; 15,000?). There’s no way to tell, but families weren’t small in those days, and 15,000 counts only one wife and one child per man. The numbers don’t matter so much, though, as the notice that it was no small crowd that came to “a desolate place” without even thinking ahead to food or lodging!

LCMS professor Henry Rowold helps us understand the disciples situation: What must have caught the disciples by surprise was likely not merely that Jesus did what he did, because he’d been doing it for chapters. What must have taken them aback was putting two lordly imperatives together: Follow me . . . feed them. Follow me, up till now a joy. Follow me, as Jesus teaches and leads, yes . . . and as he touches and heals, yes . . . and as he brings the crowds into the wilderness, yes. But feed them? How do we follow that—not just the command, but the Lord?

 The first lesson is this. The Lord uses what the disciples bring, and gives those blessed and charged loaves and fish back to the disciples to distribute, and distribute, and distribute, until all eat—presumably disciples too. In a delegated way, the disciples did “feed them.” They, of course, did not multiply the loaves and fish, but they took what the Lord made of their loaves and fish, and brought the food to the crowds.

Jesus brought his disciples into his compassion (THEY REALIZED THE NEED AND OPPORTUNITY) and into his touch of love and grace—and one step closer to the Lord himself. They weren’t just spectators, they were disciples. And the final touch of grace was in picking up the left-overs, more than the loaves and fish with which they started. The disciples are brought into not merely the task of feeding but into the surpassing love of the Lord, whose grace is not exhausted by hesitant disciples, by desolate wilderness, or by crowds in the thousands.

Perhaps this is our challenge today as well.  It’s fun following Jesus when it’s smooth sailing.  But, what about when our world is turned upside down?  What about when we have to deal with COVID-19, racial tensions and social unrest?  WHO AM I LORD?  We’re just a small church, what could we possibly do?  JESUS USES WHAT WE HAVE AND MULTIPLIES IT TO HIS GLORY!

FOLLOW ME – FEED THEM

 NT scholar NT WRIGHT offers: Think through how it’s happened.  Being close to Jesus has turned into the thought of service; Jesus takes the thought, turns it inside out (making it more costly, of course), and gives it back to you as a challenge. In puzzled response to the challenge, you offer what you’ve got, knowing it’s quite inadequate (but again costly); and the same thing happens.  He takes it, blesses it, and breaks it (there’s the cost, yet again), and gives it to you – and your job now is to give it to everyone else. This is how it works whenever someone is close enough to Jesus to catch a glimpse of what He’s doing and how they could help.  We blunder with our ideas.  We offer, uncomprehending, what little we have.  Jesus takes ideas, loaves and fishes, money, a sense of humor, time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, skill with words, quickness of eye or fingers, what we have to offer. He holds them before His Father with prayer and blessing.  Then, breaking them so they are ready for use, He gives them back to us to give to those who need them.

 FOLLOW ME – FEED THEM

 What are our opportunities today?  What is OUR burden or who has Jesus given us eyes to see who we could bless?

 Maybe our first step is to spend time with Jesus – FOLLOW ME he says.  In just one month, our Fall will begin.  We will continue in our study of God’s Word with our 201 Class where we learn to develop good habits.  The habits of following Jesus every day.

We have opportunities to ‘FEED THEM’ and that will be emphasized as we move to Class 301 where we can discover some of the ways God has given us so that we can give and bless.

Each and every one of us has something to offer – we can INVITE GUESTS, these guests can GROW with us as we FOLLOW JESUS and FEED THEM.  They become our FRIENDS and as we continue to journey they are part of OUR FAMILY OF HOPE!  What a privilege and a blessing!

You give them something to eat!  IMPOSSIBLE?  We’ve all seen the power of the Lord working in our lives, we’ve experienced wonderful things.  But what about when things seem bigger than us?  What about when what we have to offer seems pitifully small?  WE STEP OUT IN FAITH AND OFFER WHAT WE DO HAVE.  Watch the Lord take it and multiply its impact.  They all ate and were satisfied.  PLUS, THERE WAS LEFTOVERS, MORE THAN THEY EVEN BEGAN WITH.

OUR VISION is to reach our friends and neighbors with the truth, love, and hope of Jesus Christ while growing as His disciples.  YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT!  AMEN