Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: It may come as a shock to you that seven in 10 Americans express trust issues with national leaders of our day. In a recent study that was conducted, there were seven in 10 Americans who say that there's no one that they would trust from a national leadership standpoint to save them from an end-of-the-world event. Among the residents that were surveyed in this, Nebraska emerged as the most prepared, with 51% of people who live in Nebraska responding and saying that they have begun Doomsday preparations for themselves.

Montana and New Mexico are right behind them with percentages of people that are preparing for the end of the world by stocking up on supplies. The study went on to say as they were interviewing people that the supplies that people are buying typically include water, warm clothing, and food. Additionally, one in 10 think they need some extra cash for when the end of the world hits. I don't know what you're going to use cash for when the end of the world hits, but they are saving it.

In this study, the majority of the respondents said that they have currently spent between $1,000 and $5,000 in making preparations, with a lot of people in Montana and New Mexico having spent up to $10,000 preparing for Doomsday. I'm not going to ask, but I can't help but wonder how many people in Tennessee are doing the same. The difference in them and us is we're not going to respond to a survey that comes out. You're just going to do it.

The reality of it is that there are people preparing, and maybe that's you, preparing for a moment and a time when you believe there will be no help coming for you. When you will be on your own and you will face what we would consider an impossible situation. But it's not just Doomsday preppers. It's not just those looking for that day, the end of our world as we know it. You may feel like you're facing an impossible situation today in your life, with your family, or with your health, and you need help.

There are times when we all need help. Can I get a witness for that today? Some of us, all of us at some point, but some of us right now need help. Just this past week in our B-Kids ministry, which is our elementary kids ministry, they did the same prayer cards that we do each week. As you fill these out and drop these off, our B-Kids in B-Kids worship fill these out. Our kids today expressed some of the needs that they have. I want to share a couple of those with you.

"I need help not to yell at my mom when I don't get my way." Some of you might say, "That was my teenager that wrote that." No, this was a little kid that wrote that. "God, can you help me to not get so mad at my brother? God, can you help me? I need help being nice. My Nana's mom has stage four cancer and I pray for her to get better. Another prayer, would you help my dad with his concussion?"

The kids are expressing what we encounter as well. Maybe for you, you have a need that you're walking with right now. You're wrestling financially as the cost of living and gas and everything seem to skyrocket, then your car breaks down. You've got some other expenses because they always come in threes, don't they? You've got these expenses or unexpected things and you don't know how you're going to make it this month.

Maybe you're looking for a new job or looking to make a career change. Maybe you sense that God's calling you to do some sort of ministry and it just feels impossible in this moment. Are you praying for a child or a parent or even a sibling that is far from God? You've been praying for a long time and nothing's changed. Maybe you're facing divorce or you've lost a loved one and it just feels like right now it's more than you can handle. You need help.

No matter your age, whether you are a child or an adult, there are moments in our lives where we need help. Sometimes it feels like help is beyond reach. Lloyd Ogilvie, who's written a book on the Gospel of Mark that I've read as we've been walking through this series, has this statement in this book. He said he has a friend who has a write-off book. It's just a little pad of paper, a little notebook that he carries with him.

Everywhere he goes, his friend writes down things that he thinks he could potentially write off on his taxes. Some of you may have that. Some of you are like, "That's a great idea. I need to get one of those." But I wonder today, do you have a write-off book, not for your taxes, but for that situation, for that person, for that diagnosis, or that sickness? For that thing that you're walking in right now where you're just thinking it's impossible. God's not going to do anything. I need to just write that off.

Today I want to challenge you because I believe the passage we're going to look at in Mark chapter 6, there's this moment where I believe the word that God has for you today is to challenge you to get rid of the write-off book. To be reminded that although you may feel like it's impossible, although you may feel like it's hopeless, God wants to meet you in your time of need. In the midst of the last few weeks, we've been learning about the miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.

In all four Gospels, there's miracles that are recorded over and over and over. But just last year as I was reading through the Gospel of Mark, I was like, "Man, this book is full of miracles, moments where Jesus stepped in and did something that was impossible and it was by the power of God that he did this." Today, this miracle that we're going to look at is this story where Jesus miraculously multiplies what was brought to him and he takes just a little bit of food and he feeds thousands of people.

The word for us today is that God is still at work doing the impossible. He still provides. He responds when you need help and when I need help, and he wants to meet you in your time of need today. So I want to answer the question over the next few minutes: how does God respond when you need help today? The first way I want you to see God responds when you need help today is God responds with compassion.

He responds with compassion. I want you to look in Mark chapter 6 beginning in verse 30. It says, "The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all that they had done and taught. And then Jesus said, 'Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.' He said this because there were so many people coming and going and Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."

God responds with compassion in your time of need. When the disciples came back from this mission that Jesus had sent them out on, Jesus said, "Hey guys, you've been watching me do this. You've been with me while I've been doing this and preaching the kingdom and healing people and all of the miracles that have taken place, casting out demons. I want you to go and now you're going to experience God's power at work in and through you." So they had returned from that. That's what he means when he says ministry tour.

They came back and exactly what Jesus said was going to happen, that's what took place. The sick were healed, demons were cast out, God moved in powerful ways as they preached the kingdom and people crossed from death to life. They came from the darkness into the light. They placed their faith in God. God had used the disciples for an incredible time, but now Jesus, as he got them back together, was like, "All right, fellas, this has been pretty intense. You guys have been running full speed for a long time. It's time for some rest."

He said, "We're going to go get in this boat and we're going to go to the part of the lake where it's just kind of secluded, it's quiet, and you guys, we're going to debrief this and you guys are going to get some rest." It says the disciples had been so busy that they hadn't even had time to eat. Have you ever been too busy to eat? I haven't. No, I'm just kidding. I have. I do remember when Christy and I first got married, she worked as a nurse in the hospital and the shifts that she would work would be 12-hour shifts.

There were many times where she would take her lunch with her or she would have food to eat and she'd get to the end of that 12-hour shift and she'd still have her lunch with her. She hadn't had time to eat. I'd ask her, "Did you not eat lunch?" "No, no, I didn't have time to. I got started before I even walked in the door and then as soon as I left was when I finally had a break." That's kind of the picture of where the disciples were in this moment and Jesus saw this and he was like, "Guys, you've been going too fast. You hadn't even had time to eat. Now let's get away so you guys can rest."

But they couldn't get away. As soon as they got in the boat, they could see that the crowds followed them down the lake. They were following where they went. They couldn't shake the crowd. People were eager, they were excited to see Jesus. They had heard about Jesus and they'd probably heard even as the disciples were on this tour helping people, and they'd come back. They were excited about what God was doing. There was a large crowd waiting on them at the shore.

Think about that. You're tapped, you're exhausted, you're hungry. You ever been hungry before? Just ask your spouse if you're not sure. You have, we all have. That's where the disciples are living. So they head off to get away and to kind of refresh and guess what? More of the same is waiting on them. The people are there, eager when they pull up to the bank, to the shore that they were going towards. Several years ago I heard a pastor talk about just this experience of being run out of energy and kind of trying to get away and have a little bit of time to go running.

This particular pastor liked to run. He had his earbuds in one day and he's running down this trail near where he lives. He said somebody stopped him and they kind of grabbed him and they're like, "Hey, pastor. I was in church a couple weeks ago." He's like, "Man, that's great." He goes, "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin? Pastor, I've just been wanting to know that." And the pastor was like, "Are you serious?" And he joked about it later on. He said, "That's exactly why I run with earbuds in."

I can imagine, can you just imagine you're in this moment where you're trying to get to this place of rest and all of a sudden, here all these people? Most of us would probably be annoyed and irritated if we were in the disciples' shoes in this moment. But not Jesus. Look back in verse 34. Did you see what he did? When they brought the boat to shore, he stepped off the boat. He saw the crowd. He didn't try to avoid that. He didn't tell the disciples, "Hey, let's push off and go to this other place. I know where we can go and get away from everybody."

He stepped off the boat and he looked at the crowd. Not just to acknowledge that there was a lot of people there, but with spiritual eyes he looked at the crowd and he saw that they were in need. He recognized, the words that Mark uses is that they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus' reaction was not irritation, it was not frustration. He didn't all of a sudden become shady or ghost them. No, he stepped into that moment and he had compassion on them, it says, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

We don't know much about sheep or shepherds, but when sheep are without a shepherd, they wander. They get lost. They're uncertain, they're anxious, they're needy. Sheep when they're without a shepherd, ultimately are in danger. Now I want you to remember kind of the climate of what's just happened. John the Baptist has just been murdered. He's been killed. The political climate is full of upheaval and uncertainty. There's a lot of tension in the air between Jesus and his followers and everybody else.

There's a lot of stuff that's taking place. Pressure was rising. It wasn't easing up. It wasn't getting easier. The people here would have been feeling it. So would the disciples, and so would Jesus. Instead of being tired and hungry and the disciples being worn out, and instead of trying to avoid this moment, he steps into it. It says he had compassion on the people. I want you to circle that word "compassion" if you write in your Bible. It says Jesus had compassion on them.

Did you know that compassion is not a feeling? It's not a thought. Compassion is an action. He didn't just say, "Well, bless your heart. I feel so bad for them. Somebody should start something to help you." No, he did something. That's compassion. It wasn't a social media post or saying what ought to be. Compassion is doing something about it. Jesus takes action. That's what it means when it says he had compassion. He stepped off the boat towards the people and he went there and he saw deeper than their physical needs.

He knew what they had been through on this journey to get to where they were in this moment and he saw them and he didn't see them as a bunch of griping, hot, and angry people that had just walked a long way. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion on them and he stepped towards them. That's what this whole moment is about. Jesus acted. He showed compassion. But did you notice in the text what he did first?

He didn't set up a food line. He didn't say, "Hey, I know you guys have needs. We're going to take care of that." Do you know what he did first? Did you look back in the text and see what Jesus did first? It says he began to teach. Even though they were hungry, even though it had been a long day, even though there'd been a lot to get to this point, the disciples were exhausted, he was tired no doubt. Don't skip ahead to the bread and the fish. We'll get there in just a minute. Don't miss what came first.

He began to teach. He began to address and to speak into the spiritual needs. Can I just say to us, there's a big push in our day for social justice and to do everything. And we do. We need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But can I tell you that if we skip over the spiritual reality, if we just see with physical eyes and we're just meeting physical needs and that's all we're thinking about or all we're caring about, we miss the reality of how Jesus sees us and sees people around us.

God steps towards you today with compassion. He's not just trying to fix your stuff. He wants to show you compassion. And as you learn from God through his word, God brings about faith and perspective for us in life. D.L. Moody, a great preacher of yesteryear, said, "I prayed for faith and thought that someday faith would come down and strike me like lightning." Well, you and I pray, we're like, "God, would you grow my faith? Would you help me? Would you give me more faith? Would you help me to believe you more?" And that's not a bad thing.

But often we feel just like he did. I thought it was just going to strike me like lightning. He says, "But faith did not seem to come." He said, "One day I read the 10th chapter of Romans and here's the words that are in that: faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." Not just initially to come into the faith, but growth in your faith does not just come by trying to get more faith and somehow you get blindsided by faith one day. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

He said, "I had by this time closed my Bible and prayed for faith." We would think that's admirable. That's what we need to do. But look at what he says when he read those words. He said, "I now open my Bible and I began to study and faith has been growing ever since." Look, God steps towards you in compassion and the first thing that he does is he speaks into your spiritual need. Don't skip over this moment where Jesus is teaching the people and he's unfolding, he's giving them the bread of life.

Because that's where God meets you first and foremost as well. He wants to speak into your life. Bible says he's going to, if you're in Christ, he's going to provide, he's going to meet you in your time of need. But don't skip over this because God wants to speak into your life from a spiritual perspective. If you want your faith to grow, if you want to walk and be more like Jesus, then open the Bible. And when you do that, you now have spiritual eyes and ears and a heart that are growing and you're able to see what God sees and you step off the boat not to an irritated crowd of people. You step off the boat and you have compassion in the same way that God has compassion for you.

You see, Jesus' compassion is what drives his response and he starts with the spiritual need. Can I say to you, that's one thing I love about the Care Center, which is a ministry of our church? You may have heard about the Care Center, but if you've not heard of it, essentially the Care Center is a compassion ministry where members of our church serve and help provide physical food to people in need and in a time of need, but they also help provide spiritual food in that time through prayer and building relationships.

Don and Kathy Popovic, who are part of our church, lead that team and several of you serve on that team and even many of you who have been served by that ministry. But it's open to anyone that needs help and each time the Care Center opens, both physically and spiritually, the compassion of God is shared. So I love to hear how God is at work through this ministry as people receive help but they also receive spiritual food at the same time. It's not just a food pantry.

It's a ministry of compassion like what Jesus is telling us here, to be the hands and feet, to neighbor well in the name of Christ. That is a picture of how God responds to you in your time of need. He stepped towards you today with compassion and he starts with your spiritual need. The second thing that God does in those times when you have need is that God works to build your faith. He works to build your faith. Look back in the text at verse 35.

Jesus, after he was teaching them, it says late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and they said, "This is a remote place and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy them something to eat." But Jesus said, "You feed them." "With what?" they asked. "We'd have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people." I want you to know that in your time of need, God is at work to build your faith.

As it got later in the day, Jesus and his disciples were in this moment where he'd been teaching them and his disciples were like, "Jesus, dude, it's getting late and there ain't no food trucks around here. There ain't no Cracker Barrel here. You need to get them out of here, man, because we're going to have an angry, angry crowd if you don't do something about this." We're not in the catering business, so let's get them out of here. But Jesus, even though the disciples were just surveying the situation and just saying this is what we see, Jesus saw beyond that.

He said back to them, he said, "You guys feed them." I mean, can you imagine that? They're hungry, they're tired, they just got back from this journey. They didn't bring a cart with food on it. And so Jesus is saying, "Hey, you take care of them." And the disciples look at each other and they're thinking, "With what? What do you want us to do?" Can you hear the snicker? They knew that it was going to take a small fortune to feed all of these people. They didn't have enough food or money to do it.

Now don't forget, take a timeout, don't forget that the disciples had just returned from a ministry tour where they had repeatedly done the miraculous with the power of God strengthening them. They had healed the sick, they had cast out demons, they had done incredible things that validated the kingdom of God and people had come to faith. But in this moment, it just was what it was. We look around, we don't see anything. There's nothing we can do here. We don't have any money.

We don't see God at work here. We just see we ain't got nothing, so send them away, Jesus. Think about how often our calculations are based only on what we can see. Think about how often you assess your circumstances based only on what you can see. What we can do, what you're capable of. Even after they've seen God move in power and answer prayer, even after we've seen that, we still just look at how much money we have, what we think we can do, what options we can come up with, and we don't see God in the midst of it.

I can't tell you how often I've done this in my own life. It's so evident that God is moving in our church time after time after time. God does the impossible in you, for you, and through you. It is amazing to see how God is at work. But oftentimes when I hear about something that's impossible, I look around, I'm like, "Well, what can we do? What can I do? What options can I come up with?" Anybody feel me on that? I mean, you can see God work and then you just start to look around like the disciples and it looks impossible.

No need to pray about this, no need to ask Jesus for help, just get them out of here, Jesus. Yet Jesus looked at this moment not as an impossibility. He looked at it as an opportunity to trust the Father. And can I say to you, can I say to us, that's how he wants you to see the impossibilities that you face today too. Don't just take stock of what you got and what you can do and what you think you can handle and not see God. So could it be that right now in this moment when your finances are tight and that relationship is strained or things are tough at work or you got something else going on, your diagnosis is not good?

Could it be in this moment that instead of an impossibility, it's an opportunity for you to trust God just a little bit more? You see, the miracle of provision that God wants to do in your life is not just about giving you and me what we're asking for. It's not just about whatever you need in that moment. We just want the pain to go away, the circumstances to get better, the money to stretch, or whatever it is. But God's doing more than that. God is at work to build your faith today.

Listen to these words from Isaiah chapter 41. Now look, this could have been one of a hundred different verses throughout scripture that say the same thing. But I love this because for you and me today, this is what God has declared is true, even in your time of need. Look at what he says. He's telling his people, "Do not be afraid. Don't be afraid. Why? For I am with you. And don't be discouraged. Why? For I am your God." Look at what he's going to do. "I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand."

You know what victorious right hand speaks of? The fact that when it's all said and done, he wins and he is standing in strength and in power that he's demonstrated in Jesus Christ. And he says, "I'm going to hold you up when it's all said and done." So for us today, church, look, what God has declared in this book, either we believe that it's true or we don't. And I get it, part of faith is learning that God proves himself faithful and you trust him just a little bit more as you walk with him, as you endure circumstances.

But God's wanting us to build our lives upon what is true. And so he's at work in the midst of your moment, of your circumstance to build your faith, even when you're in a time of need. In those moments when you're pressed and you're feeling it, could it be that God is wanting to grow your faith and for you and I to learn to depend on him like we never have before? Don't think that because you're in a place where you need help that God's not with you, that he doesn't know your circumstances and he's not at work.

In those moments, God is at work to bring faith into your life. He may be giving you just what you need, even if you can't see it. You know, I was thinking about this reality this past week and it's hard to believe that it's been nearly six years since Christy and I and our family moved here to Bayside. That God called us here. And I'm so glad that he did. You know, in those days when we were in the process of trying to prayerfully discern whether God was leading us here and that whole process, I'll be honest, at first I felt a little bit like the disciples in this moment.

I only could see what I could see. There was after all so much familiar and comfortable about where we were then. I mean, we were serving in a church that's just a few miles away from the Lord's University in Starkville, Mississippi, right? I mean, that was... But you know, I'll never forget as Christy and I prayed and asked God to speak and listened for his voice in that process, tried to discern what he was saying to us, God met us right there.

I'll never forget as we walked through that, we recognized Bayside faced a lot of uncertainty in the moment. That there was the reality that I may come and be the pastor but at the same time, I could not do what needed to be done in our church. God had to do that. And God has to continue to do that. It had to be a supernatural movement of God. I knew there was risk. May not work out like I'd envisioned or I'd hoped. But I also knew and what we learned through that process is when God speaks and leads, that moment of stepping out in faith and saying yes to God has truly been one of the best decisions we've ever made.

Not only has my faith grown, but God has proved himself faithful time and time again. And it was one of those moments, and I've had so many more since that time, when God showed me that the first step is not to measure your resources or your abilities or your stuff or whatever, but instead it is to listen to God speak to you, to determine what is his will and what is he saying and trust him to meet that need. And look, it's no different whatever you walk through. I have to relearn this at least once a month.

It's part of the journey of faith and God's inviting us to trust him. That's what he wants. He wants to build your faith, even in those moments where you're in need. The last thing that God wants to do, the last way he wants to respond in your time of need, is that God provides for your needs. God meets your needs. He provides for you. Look in verse 38 of chapter 6. After Jesus said, "Man, you guys feed them," and they're like, "With what?" Jesus said, "How much bread do you have? Go and find out."

Well, the disciples came back and they reported. They said, "We have five loaves of bread and two fish." Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. And so they sat down in groups of 50 or 100. Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up towards heaven, he blessed them, and then breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share.

And they all ate as much as they wanted. And afterward, check this out, the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftover bread and fish. It says a total of 5,000 men and their families were fed. God provided in a moment of need. Now Jesus asked them, "How much bread, how much fish do you have?" And they came up with five loaves and two fish. The Gospel of John tells us that Andrew was kind of checking around and there was a little boy that had his lunch and that's what he had.

He had five loaves of bread and two fish. Now that might work for a family of four, depending on the size of the fish and the loaves, depending on how many teenage boys you got in the house. That might work. But that's not going to work for a crowd of 5,000 plus people. This is here in the text to let us know that this was an impossible task. Surveying reality, the disciples were right. There was no way they were going to have what they needed to be able to provide for all these people gathered in this moment.

But yet in this moment, there are these fish, these loaves of bread and these fish that are offered. And the little boy gives it to the disciples and they bring it to Jesus and then Jesus blesses it. Can I just say, that's a word. The little boy, if you go and read the Gospel of John chapter 6, that little boy bringing what he has and offering it to the disciples is a word for you and me. Look, just bring what you got. God knows your details, he knows your circumstances.

You just bring and offer what you have even if it's just five loaves and two fish and trust God with it. So Jesus took the loaves, he took the fish, and he blessed them. That just means he prayed over them. And then he started breaking it to share and he started giving it to the disciples and he kept giving the bread, the food to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. Now they had groups of 50s and 100s and so the disciples are taking it to everybody and it just keeps multiplying and it keeps multiplying.

The text is very clear that it is a miraculous increase. They're not having those little communion things that we eat. That's not the bread they're talking about. It's not a little bitty square of bread and everybody got a square. Mm, that was good. No, that's not what happened. It says that there was so much, that it miraculously multiplied and there was so much that just so the disciples would get the picture of God providing for your needs, each one of them had a basketful left over at the end.

From five loaves and two fish, Jesus did the impossible. It's not the first time it's happened in scripture. Throughout scripture there are multiple occasions where the people of God experience the miraculous provision of God. All through the Old Testament, there are moment after moment after moment where in the miracle of a moment, God provides in a way that it was unfathomable, unthinkable. In the New Testament, the same thing happens. And the Bible tells us in the Gospels, Jesus said, "Look, God knows your needs before you do."

Think about that. And it's his joy to provide for his children in a time of need. I love what my study Bible says in one of the notes at the bottom of the page. It says, "Just as Jesus was able to provide enough food for the people to be satisfied, his power also continuously provides for our needs today." Matthew chapter 6, verse 31, do you remember what Jesus said? Jesus was teaching his disciples and he said, "Hey, so don't worry about these things."

What are these things? These things are the basic needs that you have. The things that often keep us stressed and up at night and make our blood pressure rise and they affect our bodies and we're just snappy and crabby with everybody because we're stressed and worried about the stuff that God said he's got. So Jesus said, "Hey, don't worry about these things. Don't worry about these things. Don't be running around thinking and worry what are we going to eat, what are we going to drink, what are we going to wear?"

He said, "These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but not so for those of you who are in the faith. Why?" He says, "Because your heavenly Father already knows all." You know what that means? That means all of them. Every need you have, every thing that you need. He knows your needs. Now look at the next verse, verse 33. He says, "So what's the answer? Worry about it, stay up all night, scheme, manipulate, grab whatever you can do just to make it happen?"

No. He says, "Seek the kingdom of God above all else." What does that mean? That means you step into the faith, you give your life to Christ, you receive the forgiveness of sin that God offers you and makes you right with God. You receive that by faith and then you begin to pursue Christ as a way of life. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about what it looks like when we're in need to live a life of faith. This is what it means. He says, "So seek the kingdom of God above all else, even above the provision."

"You seek the kingdom of God above all else, live righteously." That's not meaning being perfect. It means you walk by faith, you live by faith. And look at what God's going to do. He's going to give you most everything and you need to worry about the rest. And he will give you everything, everything you need. Seek the kingdom of God first and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. There's no need to worry. We've got to remind ourselves constantly. If you're like me, there's no need to worry.

Why? Because God knows what your needs are and it's his joy to meet you and to provide in those moments. This past week, I was running at Harrison Bay State Park. Me and my dog Bell like to go run. And there's some hills in the park. They're not huge hills, but you know, you've got to kind of kick it to get up it. And I was coming down this one hill, Bell's running beside me, we're sort of doing our thing coming down the hill. And all of a sudden there's a curve and I hear all this racket.

It's not a car. It just sounds like huge tires kind of singing. And I look and here comes this guy, older guy on a blue bike. And I'm like, "Man, that dude's trucking." We're coming down the hill, he starts to come up the hill, and he's flying. Now I've ridden bicycles for a long time. It takes a lot of effort even to get over a hill like that. You've got to dig, push, you need to be breathing hard because that's just what happens. Well, this dude is just like... I mean, he's pedaling but I'm looking, I'm like, "Something ain't adding up. He is... the input he's putting in there is not equal the output. This dude's flying up this hill."

Tires like this wide on his bike and I'm like, "Man..." He gets a little bit closer and I realize what's up. It's an electric bike. Of course he's pedaling easy. He's just pushing that throttle with his hand as he's going up. And then it occurred to me: man, that's a life of faith right there. Yeah, you're pedaling, you brought your two fish and five loaves. You're walking by faith, you're trusting that as you seek the Lord and you seek the kingdom of God, he's going to provide for every single need you have.

And when you hit that obstacle, when you have that time of need, you're going to go up that hill and you may be pedaling, but it ain't you taking you up the hill. And that's the trust that God wants you to have. That's what he wants you to hear today, that he invites you. Look, you don't have the strength, you don't have the ability, you can't solve the problem, you can't give yourself the help that you need, but he wants you to know that he will meet you in your time of need.

And a life of faith is sitting on that bike and even as you're pedaling, you're realizing that it's God that's doing the work and that he's worthy of your trust. He's worthy of your worship and of your life. And that's the kind of trust, that's the miracle that he wants to do in your time of need. Let's pray together.