The Solution You Need

Kylen Perry: All right, Porch. How are we doing? Are we doing okay tonight? It's great to see you. It has been an amazing start to the evening already. Worship was incredible. I'm so excited that we're not done singing. We're going to sing some more, but we always love that in the middle of our time, God gives us even more reason to sing as we listen to his Word.

We're really grateful that you would be here as we move toward that time. Not just those of you in the room, but there are so many of you tuning in online right now. So we want to give a special shout-out to everyone who's streaming right now or maybe streaming in the future at some point, but particularly our Porch.Live locations. We love what God is doing around the nation. Special shout-out to Porch.Live Boise, Midland, and Wheaton.

Hey, we're really particular about who we invite to guest speak here at The Porch, because we hold the Word of God in really high regard. We believe it really is from the mouth of God himself and it is speaking to us today. So, we're really intentional about trying to protect this platform and put before you people who you may know or you may not know, but you should be listening to, because it's not they who speak; it's Christ who speaks through them.

Tonight I'm grateful, because we have a dear friend here, the one and only Trip Lee, who has come to speak at The Porch. If you don't know who Trip is, Trip is a rapper, a former pastor. He's an artist, but he is just a man who has very clearly walked with Jesus. You can tell it when you spend time with him. He looks like Jesus, he thinks like Jesus, he speaks like Jesus, and I think he preaches like Jesus. So, would y'all do a great job of welcoming my friend Trip to the stage right now?

Trip Lee: How is everybody doing? You know, sometimes before I come up people will ask me how I want to be introduced, and I'm super low-key. It's like, "Whatever feels good." But I think from now on I will say, "Please don't say I preach like Jesus," because not only is that a high bar; it's the highest bar possible. All I can do is disappoint you from this point. I'm really grateful to be here. I love The Porch. I love when I get to be with y'all and worship with y'all. I'm going to pray before we get into God's Word and pray that he will give us grace.

Father, we come before you in Jesus' name, and we come before you in the name of Jesus, Father, because what you've told us in your Word is that there's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved. Father, you've told us it's through Jesus that we have access to you. Father, you've told us that it's through Jesus that we have access to forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and joy at your right hand forevermore. We're so grateful for Jesus.

It's in the name of Jesus we come before you now. We ask for your grace, Lord. We want this to be time well spent in your Word. We pray you would speak to us. As our brother just said, we want this to be a time where you grab ahold of your Word and put it in our hearts by your Spirit. We pray you would do that. Father, we pray you'd give me grace to only say what you've already said and that people would leave impressed with your Son Jesus. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

This first sentence that I'm going to say is going to be the oldest-sounding sentence you'll probably ever hear me say. In fact, after I say this sentence, some of y'all might want to start calling me unc, even though I'm not unc age yet. But I think we're giving computers too much power in our lives. I think we have given computers way too much power in our lives.

There were times where, as new technology would come around, we would use different tools for different things. Now, for some reason, we've decided the worst possible thing that could happen is a human doing anything. Sometimes I will see people with some new robot or AI they designed, and I'm like, "Bro, do you want a job? Why would you design your replacement?"

As a musician, even within music, there are amazing things that have happened with music technology that allows people to do things they could never do before, but sometimes it gets to a point where if we make everything on a computer, where no one actually plays any instruments by themselves at all (as somebody who loves electronic instruments), there is something that's missed with a human touch.

Or when I talk to my friends who are dating. Praise God I'm out of the game, but when I talk to my friends who are dating, and they talk about how difficult it is to meet people, I ask them the ways they're meeting people, and none of them have to do with looking human beings in the eyeballs. All of it has to do with what we're doing on these little computers in our pockets. (Don't call me unc just yet.)

There are some limitations that technology has, especially stuff like ChatGPT. Sure, there's stuff that can help you. If your mom is texting you to ask how your week is going, maybe ChatGPT doesn't need to write that text back. There are limits. Your mom knows what you sound like. There are some kinds of human nuance that cannot be captured. So, even as technology is amazing, we understand, at least right now, there are some things where it's nice to have a human touch. It has limitations. It has some things it can't do as well.

Everything that is helpful that we are aware of has its limitations. It has areas where it's helpful and areas where it's not as helpful. It's a good thing for us to understand that everything has its limitations. Here's a problem: when we begin to take that perspective that everything has its limitations and apply it to the Lord Jesus.

When we begin to think of Jesus as somebody who can be powerful and can be helpful but has his limitations, or when we think Jesus can be helpful in these areas with these kinds of problems or with this size of problems, but not with these things, then we have deeply misunderstood who Jesus is. We may think, "Well, I know God is able. I just don't know that I see a way that he could fix this situation at the moment." So we're overcome with burden and anxiety.

I can't count the number of times where I was very stressed out about something and thought it was the end of the world, and then God fixed it, and I was like, "Phew! I should have known, Lord," and then I moved on, only for that thing to pop up again, something very similar. It's like, "I have no idea. My life is about to end." And sure enough, the Lord swoops in once again, over and over again.

Today, I want us to lean into that truth that Jesus is not limited. With that in mind, here's the main thing I want you to walk away with: the size of your problem does not change the source of your help. Here's why that matters. Here's why I want us to grab ahold of that: because I do not want us to think that Jesus is really helpful but there are some things where we need to call on somebody else or some areas where we just need to give in to despair.

Brothers and sisters, there are some areas in your life that you have given over to despair when in reality the size of your problem does not change the source of your help. So, I want to look at a part of the Gospels. If you have your Bible with you… You probably don't. You're probably letting a computer have your Bible, your phone. Either way, open your Bibles to John, chapter 6. We are going to look at a part of the gospel of John that I think illustrates this for us, and we're going to see three reasons why the size of your problem doesn't change the source of your help.

1. He already has a plan. No matter what size your problem is, first, Jesus already has a plan. It is great when you have a big problem that you bring to somebody and you trust them to try to figure out how to fix it. Recently, there was an issue with my wife's car. Now, let me tell you, there are a lot of things I'm great at. Fixing cars is not one of them. There are some things I know how to fix. Usually relationships, not cars.

So, I can take it in, and I can say, "I don't know a lot about cars, but I know that ain't a sound this is supposed to make." So, do you know what they did? They sent me back a link after they looked at it that identified the problems and their recommendations for fixing it. Now, of course, no matter what's wrong with your car, they're like, "And it's going to cost you $49,000." I'm like, "I didn't think windshield wiper fluid was that expensive."

But it's nice when you bring a problem… It takes some of the stress away. You're no longer in it alone when someone is willing to figure out what to do. But there's something even greater than that. The greatest response to bringing someone a complaint and a request is when they already know what to do before you even bring it. They don't have to figure it out. You don't have to brainstorm together. They already know what to do.

Recently, I got something from Uber Eats. Uber Eats is great when you're lazy, which is often. Also, I've never gotten an order that's right. Not one time. And I keep going back, like a sad little child. They get it wrong every time, and then they don't know how to help you. There's really nothing they can do. Here's the opposite. There's this company I buy music gear from. It's called Sweetwater. (It's a free ad.)

When I buy something, I don't like to buy stuff I don't know I'm going to keep, because I am not good at sending stuff back. If it made to my house, it's just here now. It's just a part of my life. Do you know what they did? I said, "Hey, this actually wasn't the right one." They said, "You know what? We've already emailed you return labels. Just bring it back. We'll take it back for free." I said, "You have a customer for life," because before I even brought the problem to them, they already had a solution.

All I'm trying to say is when you bring a problem to somebody and they've already done something about it, that's even better than somebody who's willing to figure it out. That is exactly what happens here with Jesus. We're going to be familiar with this story in the gospel of John when Jesus feeds the 5,000. So, John, chapter 6, starting in verse 1. This is what God's Word says.

"After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias). A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick. Jesus went up a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near. So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, 'Where will we buy bread so that these people can eat?' He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do."

For a little bit of context… It says, "After this…" Jesus had just been teaching after healing the sick. Jesus had been doing stuff that nobody had ever seen. They thought Jesus was just a regular dude from Galilee, and then he was at a wedding, and they were like, "Jesus, where's the wine?" He was like, "Hey, fill them up with water," and then all of a sudden it was wine. They were like, "I thought that was Jesus. How did he do that?"

Not only that. After that, there was somebody who was sick whom he healed. He just told them, "Take up your mat and walk," and they were healed. Then right before this, somebody came and talked about their son who was sick. Jesus healed him remotely. Jesus was just like, "He's good," and the dude was like, "All right. I believe you." He went back, and they were like, "Your son is good." He was like, "When did he get good?" It was the exact time that Jesus remotely was like, "He's good now."

Jesus is doing things nobody can imagine. So, understandably, when Jesus crosses over the sea with his disciples, people are following him. When we see something incredible, something big, a spectacle… Even if it's not good, we cannot take our eyes off it. Some of y'all are the people I'm mad at in traffic who just want to look at a wreck for no reason. Some of y'all "hate follow" people on social media. You hate everything they say, but you can't stop looking.

We like a spectacle, whether good or bad. With Jesus… He had been doing things nobody had ever seen before, so there's a gigantic mass of people who are following him around. To be clear, Jesus did not invite all of this crowd to follow him around. He did not announce a parade. They just wanted to be close to whatever this miraculous greatness was.

What we'll see in the Gospels is there's more than one way to follow Jesus. There are good and bad ways to follow Jesus. We'll talk about that more, but I do want to say that right now, even though Jesus is not walking on earth, there are still good and bad ways to follow Jesus that do not acknowledge who he is. There are ways of following Jesus only in name. There are ways of treating Jesus like a vending machine.

There are ways of treating Jesus like a gumball dispenser, where you show up to church, twist the knob, and expect good blessings to fall out. That is not the kind of follower Jesus is after. We'll even see in this text that some of these people who are following after Jesus are not the kind of follower Jesus is after.

So, Jesus responds by going up to a mountain with his disciples, getting away from the crowd to sit down and teach his disciples. One of the things this shows us is that Jesus is not like these influencers we see, where his end goal is gathering people around himself for personal gain. Jesus' end goal is not crowds in and of themselves. Jesus wants to lead those crowds to a particular place.

John also mentions that this is happening during the time of the Passover. I mention that because it's very interesting that this time of the Passover is a time where they celebrate God sparing his people because of blood on the doorposts and that the Passover is really pointing forward to this Jesus who would save his people by covering them in his blood, that this very special time in the calendar is even there to point to Jesus.

What it means is that the Jewish people are also filled with a kind of patriotic pride right now, so when they see someone doing something amazing, they're thinking about it in a patriotic way. You'll see how that shows up. Look at verse 5. "So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, 'Where will we buy bread so that these people can eat?' He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do."

Imagine being with your friends, and you look up and a gigantic mass of people are following you. That is a scary sight. What we see from other accounts of this is these people had been following Jesus not just for a few minutes but for hours. They had walked miles after Jesus. Jesus sees them, and he cares about them. He doesn't just say, "Isn't that crazy? These people are following me." No, no. He cares about them.

He's not just worried about getting his "likes" up. He cares about the well-being of the people. Jesus loves people. Because Jesus loves people, that shapes how he interacts with them. You know, sometimes when we think about what Jesus asks of us, we think it's because Jesus wants us to just give, give, give to him. It's because we're not thinking about the way Jesus is always acting toward us in love. This is just a random mob of people. Jesus is thinking of them in a loving way.

We sometimes think our main relationship to Jesus is he throws us instructions, and we'd better follow them, because he is Jesus, after all, but in reality, everything Jesus ever asks of us is in response to something Jesus has already done for us. There is no circumstance where any human being would make the first move with God. Everything is a response to him.

My wife and I were talking to one of our single friends recently, and she was complaining how she wishes that she had a dude to be talking to but that dudes just want to be pursued, that none of these dudes want to make the first move. (That's another conversation for another sermon. If it's you, I see you.) There are times in relationships where everybody is waiting for somebody else to make the first move and nobody wants to.

This can even happen in marriage, where something happens and it's like, "She'd better apologize first because she was worse. I'm not going to apologize first." Or you're in conflict with somebody, and you're waiting on them to text you back first. That can happen in every relationship. I want you to know God has never and will never wait for you to make the first move. God has always made the first move. God knows your needs deeply, and he already has a plan to meet them.

So, not only is Jesus aware of the needs of the crowd, that they need to eat, but he already knows what he's going to do. When he asks Philip, "Where will we buy bread…?" I want you to imagine this, because Jesus already knows he's about to do a miracle. He leans over to Philip, like, "Hey, do you think Uber Eats delivers this far out?" He already knows what he's doing. This is a teachable moment. This is a test.

What is the purpose of tests? The purpose of any test is to show you how far along the student is, to prove worth or skill level, to show what stage of development you're in. So, Jesus is trying to see if Philip really understands his power, to see if Philip responds like he's talking to a regular human who's asking him to do a bit of problem-solving.

Jesus is asking Philip, "Hey, where do we think we can buy these people bread?" not because Jesus wants to know where Philip is at but because Jesus wants to show Philip where Philip is at. Usually, when Jesus asks a question of his disciples, he's trying to show them where they are. Like, when he asks, "So who do men say that I am?" he wants to show them that they don't fully understand who he is yet. That's what tests are for.

I remember one time when my first son was really young. I was like, "When I was a little kid, my dad used to cut my hair. I'm going to cut his hair." Do you know what that exercise showed me? That I should not be cutting his hair. He looked horrific. He looked so bad that I thought about just keeping him at home for several months so nobody would ever know what I did, because I was going to have to take him to a barber and take the hat off, like, "My bad." It showed me where I was at, though.

God still tests his people from time to time. There may be things that happen around us that show us where we are, and the goal is for us to grow. There may be something happening in your life right now where the problem in front of you seems insurmountable. You cannot imagine how you're going to come out the other side of it. God is using that to show you where you are.

When we fail a test, it's not so God can shame us or guilt us. It's not so you feel bad. It's God giving us an opportunity to grow. It is a blessing. God is so gracious that instead of just letting us stay at a place where we need to grow, God does things to show us where we are so that we see we need to grow. This is not God shaming us; this is God loving us so much he's calling us forward.

Some of us, when we look at the things happening in our lives, consider them a bunch of random circumstances. Sometimes Jesus is doing something on purpose to show you exactly where you are, and it's gracious of him to do it. It's out of his kindness. Verse 6 says, "He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do."

Before the disciples even knew what the problem was, Jesus already knew what he was going to do about the problem. There are so many times when we are caught off guard by situations. I want you to know, like Jesus in this text, God is never caught off guard. God has never been sucker-punched by a circumstance.

This is how it works with people. By the time you get your problem to somebody else's attention, they have to begin to brainstorm what to do. God already knows. When we bring things to God, he already knows. He already knows what to do about it. Isn't it a joy to know that you will never bring God a problem that he didn't already know about?

I remember somebody asking, "Why do we pray?" It's not so we can bring God up to speed. You will never be the first one to break news to God. He already knows. You know, sometimes, when you're in a bad place, people want to ask how they can help, but you don't even want to go into it. You're not sure they'll understand. You never have to feel that way with God. He already knows. He knows before you do, and it's because he loves you.

You know that closeness you feel with a friend when you don't even have to explain it all the way and they already understand you? I want you to do that times a million, and that's how God understands you. He already knows your problem. The disciples were beginning to learn the power the Son of God had. They were starting to follow. So, he already has a plan. The size of your problem doesn't change the source of your help.

2. He already has enough. Sometimes some of us may dream about what we would do if suddenly we were incredibly rich. People will be like, "If I was a billionaire, you know what I would do? Well, first, I would buy this, this, and this, and then that one teacher who said she believed in me… I'd buy her a Maserati." We go through all this stuff, these things we'd like to do, these things we'd like to buy, these people we'd like to help.

We like to do this imaginary game because, for most of us, we live in a reality where all of our desires can't be fulfilled. There are projects, there are dreams, and there are desires that we do not have the resources to go after at the moment. I want you to know this is an experience that is completely foreign to God. In order for God to wish he could do something if he had the resources, he would have to stop being God. Scripture says the earth is the Lord's and all that's in it. Everything belongs to God. He always has enough. Always.

I bring this up because of how Philip replies when Jesus asks him about the bread. This is what Philip says when Jesus asks, "Where can we get bread?" Verse 7: "Philip answered him, 'Two hundred denarii worth of bread wouldn't be enough for each of them to have a little.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 'There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish—but what are they for so many?'"

This might be a good time to make clear how big this crowd was. When we think of Jesus feeding the 5,000, we usually imagine that there were 5,000 people there, total, when what the text says in verse 10 is that the men numbered about 5,000. At the time, crowds were counted by the heads of the household, but the crowd certainly would have included women and children. I mean, we know children were there because he says, "There's a boy here." There were women and children. That means this crowd was probably 20,000 or more.

State Farm Arena where the Atlanta Hawks play in Atlanta holds 16,000 people. This means this is like a large arena concert-sized group of people walking after Jesus, which gives a little context for the way Philip responds when he's like, "Hey, how can we buy them bread?" Philip is looking at an arena of people, like, "I don't know if I can do that."

He says, "Two hundred denarii wouldn't be enough." That's about half a year's wage. Philip is taking at face value the vastness of the crowd compared to how much it would cost. That's like half a year's wage. So, he's saying, "Even if I took every dollar I made for six and a half months, I still couldn't buy enough bread for everybody to get a few nibbles."

Have you ever been to something where there wasn't enough food for everybody, like a party or something? You're like, "I know they said just get two wings apiece, but what are we doing?" A Super Bowl party where you're like, "I knew I shouldn't have trusted him to provide food. When has he ever shown himself to be responsible?" Sometimes there's not enough for everybody.

Philip responds as if the only way that everybody could be fed was if there was enough in front of them. I'm sure, after this happens, Philip's understanding of Jesus is changed. But you may say, "Philip responded very reasonably. What was he supposed to say when Jesus asked, 'Where are we going to get bread?' Was he supposed to just ignore what he saw in that sea of people?"

Here's what I'll say. God does not call his disciples to ignore the evidence of their eyes. He doesn't call us to pretend that there's not a big problem that needs to be solved. God calls us to see with more than just our eyes. He doesn't call us not to see with our eyes but with more, to consider other factors such as who he is. So, with whatever big thing is going on in your life, there is more to the story.

Maybe your career plans are falling apart. I want you to know if Jesus is in the picture, there is more to the story. Maybe your mental health is falling apart. If Jesus is in the picture, there is more to the story. The problem is not that Philip could see with his eyes. The problem is Philip only saw with his eyes. We assume that God is bound by the natural world, by all of the things we're bound by. God works in the supernatural. He is unlimited.

Then Andrew responds as well in verse 9. "There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish—but what are they for so many?" He's like, "I mean, I've seen a kid with a sleeve of Ritz crackers, but what are we going to do with that?" That's basically what he said, because that bread and fish wouldn't have been enough to feed a family let alone an arena, and that's the problem.

I was at a wedding recently, and there were only 130 people there, but at the reception it was taking too long for the food to be served, and I felt a mutiny boiling around me. People were hungry. This is an impossible number of people to feed, but here's the thing: Jesus is not a millionaire who might run out of money; he's God with an indispensable amount of resources. If Jesus made everything, how could we think he couldn't gather enough food for people? Jesus has been feeding every living creature for all of human history. Of course he can feed a big crowd.

When we limit what God can do with a big problem, we begin to seek power in other places. There are some believers who are caught up in political power, at times, because they think that God's power, God's ways, are not enough to do things, so they begin to seek power in other places…maybe political power, authority in other ways. They think, "Let me do what I think God can't." This is what it says in verse 10:

"Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down.' There was plenty of grass in that place; so they sat down. The men numbered about five thousand. Then Jesus took the loaves, and after giving thanks he distributed them to those who were seated—so also with the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were full, he told his disciples, 'Collect the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.' So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over by those who had eaten."

So, he tells them to sit down in the grass, 5,000 grown men trying to sit Indian-style for the first time in 10 years, with kids running around. You know, kids don't sit down when you tell them to. It takes several times. Jesus takes the loaves, thanks God for the food, and begins passing them out. I don't really know how the logistics work. I don't know if it was like when magicians keep pulling more ribbon out of their mouth. I don't know, but somehow, as these very few fish and loaves are passed out, everybody gets some. They never run out. People go back for seconds, as much as they wanted, and the people are full.

When you have to feed a lot of people, everybody is not usually full. And there were leftovers. So, it's not only that Jesus was able to provide enough. Jesus was able to provide more than enough to where they had even more than they started with. This is the power of Jesus. He already has enough. So, with whatever big problem you have, and you wonder, "No, no. Jesus has done A-B-C before, but I'm not sure he can do this," everything is in his hands. Everything belongs to God.

You think, "No, but this person… I can't change their mind." That person belongs to God. "No, but I don't have any money in my bank…" That money belongs to God. "No, but you don't understand my discouragement." Your heart, your soul, your mind belongs to God. Jesus already has enough. Ephesians 3:20: "Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever." Nothing limits Jesus, not even the needs we present to him. He can do far more.

So, when you pray to God, I want you to keep this in mind. When you think about your needs, I want you to keep this in mind. This being about Jesus feeding people… Maybe you're in a season where you're not struggling with having too little food or clothing or necessities. That's not what you don't have a lot of. What about joy? What about strength? What about health? What about wisdom? What about opportunities? What about faith? I want you to know that Jesus has more than enough to pass out.

Have you ever seen people who are the kids of super-duper billionaires? Sometimes what will happen is they'll go after their dreams, and there will be people in their comments all the time, like, "Why are you doing that? You're rich." Not allowing them to try anything, because they're like, "No, no. You have a family member who has billions of dollars. You don't actually need to do all this. They have unlimited money."

Billionaires sometimes give a lot of money to different causes because it doesn't hurt them. I want you to know that everything in all the universe, everything that exists, belongs to God. He can give as much as he wants and it doesn't hurt. He's rich in grace. He's rich in mercy. He's rich in all resources. So, the question is not…Does he have enough? The question is…What's best for us? He already has a plan. He already has enough. The size of your problem doesn't change the source of your help.

3. He already has a kingdom. Verse 14: "When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, 'This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world.' Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself."

Remember, earlier I said there are good and bad ways to follow Jesus and respond to Jesus. I think the people responded interestingly. They were impressed by the sign they had seen, and it was clear to them, "This is not just a regular guy. This is not just a spectacle; this is something incredible that must have come from God." When they say, "Truly this is the Prophet," they were probably thinking of Deuteronomy 18 where it says:

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, 'Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!' Then the Lord said to me, 'They have spoken well. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.'"

That's probably what they had in mind when they said, "This is the Prophet from God." But what's interesting is it seems like they started to merge the category of prophet with king. I told you it's Passover. They're feeling patriotic. They're feeling excited about their nation. So, they're expecting Jesus to be an earthly king, and that's interesting, because that doesn't at all match up with what we see in Deuteronomy. They weren't demanding to hear more about the words of God; they were demanding the kinds of things you might want from an excellent politician.

This shows you could be waiting for something, longing for something, and still not even understand what you're waiting for when it's right in front of your face. They wanted to make Jesus king by force. Now, you think, "How could they make Jesus king by force?" Remember, this is a mob of 20,000 people. They're saying, "We're about to snatch Jesus up and make him king." Jesus, of course, responds by withdrawing to the mountain, because Jesus was not interested in earthly political power as his reign. He did not come for temporary national leadership; he came to redeem and renew at a deeper level.

We are a little bit after… Election season isn't that far back, when politicians thirstily beg for us to love them and care for them so they can get elected. I want you to know what Jesus is doing is the opposite of political rallies. Jesus gathers us to serve us. Not that there are no politicians who have good motives, but there is not an ounce of self-serving in the way Jesus leads.

There's no pandering. There's no compromising the truth for the sake of popularity. There's no worrying about if they should say true things because of how it will affect. There's no ruthless self-serving. This is Jesus not saying just what people want to hear but gathering us in order to serve us. What's really clear is they misunderstood the kind of reign Jesus came to bring. They said, "Let us give you this earthly kingdom."

In John 6:26, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don't work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him."

In John 6:35, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life… No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. But as I told you, you've seen me, and yet you do not believe." They wanted Jesus to be king instead of King of Kings. They didn't want Jesus to rule as the eternal King of the universe; they wanted him to be a king of Israel.

This is like Jesus saying, "I've come to save your souls, to bring new heaven and the new earth, to do away with all sin and pain," and we're like, "No, no, Jesus. We want you to be president. We want you to try to work out a deal with Congress." They're disappointed that Jesus wouldn't be a king because they do not understand the glory of being under the reign of the King of Kings.

When we are disappointed with Jesus, it's because our sights are set too low. When we are disappointed that Jesus hasn't given us all of these little earthly things we want, it's because we're missing the fact that Jesus is after more than just those earthly things. Not less…more. When Jesus says "No" to something we ask him for, it's not because he doesn't want to give us great things; it's because he has given us something better instead, and he knows what's best for us.

So, Jesus is saying, "Look. I'm not here just to fill your stomachs." They wanted Jesus to be a bakery. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. […] This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

Jesus is saying, "Your ancestors had manna from heaven, and they died." He says, "I have something even better for you, the Bread of Life, that you will have eternal life." Jesus did not come to make us sandwiches; Jesus came to make us whole. Imagine being disappointed that instead of just feeding us for a moment, Jesus says, "I will feed your soul for an eternity."

Here's one of my favorite things about Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus doesn't just point us to good things; Jesus says, "I am the good thing." Jesus doesn't say, "I can point you to the Bread of Life"; Jesus says, "I am the Bread of Life. Eat of me. You'll never hunger again." Jesus doesn't say, "I can point you to living water"; Jesus says, "I am the Living Water. Drink of me. You'll never thirst again."

Jesus doesn't say, "I can point you to the way"; Jesus says, "I am the Way." Jesus doesn't say, "I can tell you the truth"; He says, "I am the Truth." Jesus doesn't say, "I can point you to life"; He says, "I am the Life." The entire point of everything Jesus does is not just to feed our bellies but to feed our souls.

If the way you follow and look to Jesus is one where you're disappointed when you don't get every little thing you want, it's because you're overlooking the way Jesus has already met your greatest need. Sometimes we're disappointed because of the temporary ways that Jesus hasn't done exactly what we've asked of him, and Jesus is saying, "I'm actually interested in more than that inside of love and kindness."

Someone may say, "Okay. I know there was this man who was a great teacher who walked the earth and we have great things to learn from him and he can solve my problems with having bad perspectives." I want you to know you're thinking too small of Jesus. There's a much bigger problem we have: sin, death. People will say, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes." You will die. Your life will end.

There's no amount of medicine or food that can keep your life from ending except there's a Savior who says, "I've conquered death." You know, sometimes when people make such big claims, like they can hold death back, it's like, "What are you talking about? How can you show me?" One of the most beautiful things about Jesus is he never said anything that he didn't back up in a way even greater than we would have imagined.

Jesus could have just said, "Look at the way I raised Lazarus. Look at the way I raised Talitha. I'm just talking to people and they're getting out of the grave." Jesus said, "I'm going to go in the grave myself to pay for your sins." Scripture says the wages of sin is death. Jesus said, "I already paid those wages."

The beautiful thing about these unimaginable miracles is if you're tempted for a moment to doubt… This man Jesus, who says he can save my soul… What proof do I have? Because that sounds impossible. That sounds too big that he can wipe away my sins, give me a perfect record, that I can live forever with a glorified body and eternal joy forever. Jesus does these incredible miracles throughout the Gospels to remind us, "There's much more than meets the eye. As soon as you think there's a problem too big, I've solved it over and over and over again."

So, with those problems in your soul, there is a Savior who says, "I want you to come to me, not just to feed you for a moment but for eternity." He calls you. He welcomes you. He loves you. He forgives you by faith. Jesus says, "Trust me, and I will feed your soul forever." The size of your problem doesn't change the source of your help, because there is a Savior who's not limited, and his name is Jesus. Amen. Let me pray.

Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus aware of the fact that there's not enough time or enough words or enough illustrations or enough stories that could ever get close to pointing to your majesty and power. God, the sheer scale of your power that you show means that everything we do is a weak attempt. But, Father, what we know is that your Word is true and that your Spirit uses your Word.

Father, we pray you would impress on our hearts and souls the glory of Jesus, not just as a great teacher and a miracle worker but as a Savior. Thank you for Jesus. Father, I pray our souls will feast on Jesus. God, there was celebration at the Passover. There was a feast to celebrate what you had done. God, thank you for a Savior who says, "Feast on me for an eternity." God, give us grace to be satisfied in him.

God, I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room who see things in their life that seem bigger than Jesus. I pray you would show them that giants are tiny when they stand before the Savior Jesus. Father, for my friends in this room who do not know Jesus, I pray you would help them to see how powerful, how gracious, how loving, and how kind the Savior is, that they would trust in his death and resurrection, Father, and that they would have friends to walk alongside them. We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus, amen.