The Spirit of Faith Promise Giving

Now, if you would follow me to Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6. And we'll read 10 verses here and then we'll have a word of prayer. Mark chapter 6. This is one of the stories that I love. One of the many story of the Bible. But uh we're going to deal with the little lad who gave his lunch or his um five loaves and two fish to the Lord. And we'll see what the Lord did with that. So the aim tonight and I'll go ahead and share this before we start reading is to show the practical heart of faith promise giving. What is placed in Jesus hands by faith is multiplied beyond our power for God's glory. Now let's read the story.

Mark chapter 6 and we'll start in verse number 34. Read down through verse 44. The Bible says this. And when Jesus uh uh uh and Jesus when he came out saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep, not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him and said, "This is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them away that they may go into the country roundabout and into the village and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat." And he answered and said unto them, and I'm going to draw your attention right now to this next phrase, and it's one of the vital parts of the message.

He says, "Give ye them to eat." And they said unto him, "Shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread, and give them to eat?" He saith unto them, "How many loaves have ye? Go and see." And when they knew, they said, "Five and two fishes." And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by 50s. And when he had taken the five loaves and two fishes, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them. And the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat and were filled.

Notice verse 43. And they took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about 5,000 men. Let's pray. Father, once again, I I've been praying and Lord, I I present myself to you as a vessel, asking that you would use me as I seek to transmit to your people this simple message, tying everything together tonight. Lord, just encouraging that and the focus is going to be understanding that the little that we give to you, Lord, not only are you glorified, but you use that and you multiply that for your glory. I pray that you'd help uh anyone here who has any doubts about faith promise giving or even in the matter of what we spoke briefly on also Wednesday, the matter of giving of yourself first to the Lord.

I pray that you would work, Lord, have free reign tonight in their hearts. I pray for your glory for it's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. And amen. Now in my haste I forgot to do something very important and that is to introduce my mother. Now she slipped out on me. See there? I prayed, she was there. I prayed. Now she's not there. But anyway, I do have the honor and privilege. She slipped down to take some pictures of the girls teaching the classes. So she'll be back. But very grateful for those who prayed. She did arrive today safely and she was down mingling uh amongst everyone but I'm very grateful that my mother is here also and uh thank you pastor service for allowing her to come and stay with and brother Dwarte and and whatnot.

Thank you so much for letting that happen. Uh it sure is a blessing and she's very happy and just loving my mom mom's a very person uh p uh people person and very grateful that she's able to come and to visit during this time. Now, as we focus back at this incredible passage, the miracle begin does not begin with the boy's lunch. Okay? The miracle that we will see Jesus multiplying, it began with a need and a command. A need and a command. Just kind of bringing you up to spa to to speed here. We find that Jesus had planned to take the disciples over to the other side of the lake and uh the multitude outran them.

So that when the disciples and the reason they were going across according to the context was that they had been busy. Jesus had previously sent them out um had ordained them and sent them out to preach to perform miracles. And so they came back and John the Baptist had just been killed. But they're rejoicing about everything that they had done. And so Jesus called them apart because they hadn't had time to rest or even to eat. So they get in the boat, they cross the lake, and when they get to the other side, here's this huge multitude of people. And when Jesus looks up, he is moved by compassion, and he starts taking care of their needs.

Now, that's kind of the introduction to where we're going to be looking at tonight. So we find now the multitude is hungry and the disciples do what most of us do. They start calculating. Did you notice here in verse number um 35 it says and when the day was now far spent his disciples came unto him and said this is a desert place and now the time is far past. send them away that they may go into the country roundabout and into the villages and buy themselves bread for they had nothing to eat. Now Jesus does what not only he or what only he can do. He commands then he calls for what they have and then he multiplies that.

Now right here I find the spirit of faith promise. The spirit of faith promise is this. The promise to give is based upon the faith to receive. Not what I what can I spare, but Lord, what can you do through me if I will put what I have into your hands? Now, first of all, I'd like to focus in on the command that confronts our limits. For notice in verse number 37 when the disciples come to him and say hey listen time to go ahead and send everybody away and let them go and and we don't have and he says give ye them to eat. First of all Jesus points to the the disciples to responsibility not to excuses.

Now since Sunday and then Wednesday we have been focusing on our responsibility as believers to do what? to get the gospel not only here in Honolulu around Aahu but unto the ends of the earth. That is our responsibility as believers. Now the disciples, they look up, they see the crowd and immediately you know what they see? Impossibilities. Hey, there's no way in the world that we can take. There's not enough money. There's not enough resources. There's not enough time. It's almost as you know, uh, Lord, have you have you seen how many people are out there? But yet the Lord confronts them and says, "Give ye them to eat."

You know, faith promise starts when Jesus command becomes more real than our calculations. Faith promise giving does not make sense. It doesn't. You can calculate and we will see that the Lord does want us to review the resources we have. He tells them here shortly. I'm kind of skipping ahead of myself here. But whenever we present that it must be Lord, it's beyond my human understanding. But I understand that I can give what you have entrusted me and I'm trusting you to continue entrusting so that given to your hands you can multiply that faith promise. Giving isn't denying reality. It's actually admitting reality and then obeying anyway because Christ wants us to do that.

So now on Wednesday spoke about the basis of faith promise giving. Do you remember the basis for faith promise giving is grace and a willing sacrifice? A surrender of oneself. Lord, I'm yours. I'm giving of myself to you. Now, when God burdens you for missions, your first response often is, I can't. There is no way I can do that. But it really actually could be this. Lord, you said give. how me. Show me my part. And this is where prayer has hopefully played into during this week. You're praying, "Lord, show me. Lord, I know that this is a way that I can be obedient to you in getting the gospel around the world.

And so, what do you want? What can I present to you?" So, Jesus didn't ask them, "How much money do you not have?" He didn't ask him about the money. And an interesting fact about the penny worth, you know, and before I get to the penny worth, do you know what the question or what Jesus instructed them? The question was this, how many loaves have you? Which brings me to my second uh point, which is the question that discovers what we have. Mark 6:38 when the disciples Jesus told them give ye them to eat they automatically turned back shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat in 38 he said unto them how many loaves have ye immediately the Lord directs them to inventory okay they said brother Charlie isn't it by faith how is inventorying by faith you You know, often times we kind of put up hurdles to obeying God.

You know what? I've heard so many people say, "I would I would I would do more for the Lord if I had more time. I would do more for the Lord if I had more resources. I would do more for the Lord if I had and the disciples when they throw out an impossibility, 200 penny worth of bread." How much is 200 penny worth of bread? Does anyone know? I'm sure several of you do know, pardon me, $2. $2. Well, no, it it's a little bit more than $2. So, um, if we were to and and here's the thing, all right. Um, a penny worth a penny according to Matthew chap 20 can kind of refresh everyone's memory when Jesus is telling a parable about a master who was hiring.

He hired men to work for him for a daily wage of a penny. Okay? So a penny was a day's wage. All right, everybody following? Okay, so bringing that into our term. So that would be 200 days worth of money to purchase bread. Now 200 days of work to purchase you could purchase a considerable amount of bread with bringing that into our terms. Let's just say just for the you know just for a a nice round figure. Let's say that $100 is a day's wage nowadays. Okay. 200 penny worths or a $100 times 200 would be $20,000. Correct.