In our reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus feeds the five thousand and then goes off by Himself to a mountain. The disciples hang around a while, then they get back on board their boat and row across the lake, heading home to Capernaum. After three or four miles of rowing, the sun goes down, the wind whips up the waves into a chop, and then suddenly, the disciples see Jesus walking on the water toward them, and they are frightened. But as soon as they invite him into the boat they arrive quickly at the shore.
Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who had three children living at home. The man worked at a good job and the woman stayed home taking care of her children. They attended a good church and eventually the man became a Christian believer. In the course of time, while the woman was pregnant expecting their next child, the day after he became a believer, the man was laid off from his job and at almost the same time the landlord called to say that they were planning on selling the house. It was very stressful for the woman, so her body decided that it was time to give birth to the child – three months early. However, the woman knew a great doctor who convinced her body to hold onto the child as long as the woman stayed in bed, which was VERY stressful at the time, but she loved the life inside of her and followed the doctor’s orders.
The man and the woman did what people were supposed to do. He created a resume and they made many copies of the resume and sent it to 120 different employers and recruiters in the man’s field. After a week or two, a recruiter called on a Thursday to say that he had possibly found the man a new job – would he be interested. The man was interested, so the recruiter promised to call him back on Monday.
Monday came and went, Tuesday passed, and pretty soon it was Friday again and the man and the woman had not heard from the recruiter. The man was busy filling out applications for jobs and so the woman called up the recruiter – only to find that he had suddenly been transferred three states away to a different office. The man and the woman were heart-broken. How would they pay their bills? How would they pay for the birth of their next child? Where would they live? How would they pack and move?
But about that time, a customer of the man – a brand-new customer who had only me the man one time before – that customer called on the telephone and said, “I’ve been trying to track you down. Come visit me.”
The man went to see him. The customer said, ‘You need to start your own business. “ The man said, “I have no money and I’m in debt as it is.” But the customer said, “Do you have any projects you could do if you had money?” The man said, “Yes, but I’d need $7500.” The customer said, “I’ll loan you the money.”
And the man and the woman started their business.
It was very, very difficult. That next year, they only made $5000 – and their rent was $15,000. They borrowed money on credit cards and struggled to collect money from customers before they had to pay their suppliers. The man drove hundreds of miles a day visiting customers. The woman set up appointments from her bed and called suppliers to get parts. And the child decided to stay in her body two weeks longer than she was supposed to, but was finally born very healthy. The hospital agreed to be paid over three years.
When the little girl was two months old, the house finally was sold and the man and woman moved to a new house, even better than the first house. Life was very hard – every month it was always touch-and-go to see if they would have the money. And they stopped eating at nice restaurants and ate at McDonalds. The man was injured and they lost another $30,000 that summer. But through it all, they prayed to God and God took care of them.
They had many close calls. Once, they needed $6000 and had no place to get it. A credit card statement arrived and their line of credit had been increase by $6,000. Another time, a $5000 piece of equipment was destroyed by accident – and that afternoon a check arrived from an investor for $5,000 in the mail.
Once, they need exactly $751.48 to keep their bank account from bouncing. That afternoon, 20 minutes before the bank closed, two checks arrived totaling exactly $751.48, which were quickly deposited. Another time when they were desperate, two friends from church were caught trying to thread a $300 check in their screen door.
Their church helped them move. Their church kept them sane and loving each other. And the church people babysat the children once every couple of weeks when they would sneak out for a couple hours at Long John Silver’s.
And about three years later, their business grew rapidly and they were able to pay off many, many debts- not all, but many debts. And it wasn’t anything they did – it was just trusting that God had put them through those struggles for a reason and that God would take care of them. And God did take care of them.
They eventually moved again and this time they bought a house. They paid off more debts, and they spent more time with each other and watched their children grow. And they got more involved with telling people what God had done for them. And then one day, after the man had changed jobs a couple of more times, he moved to Quiet Dell and the man became your pastor, and so when I tell you that God will provide you whatever you need if you will just trust God, I know what I am talking about!
I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that God is asking you to invite the Holy Spirit into your life, but you have built up a castle to protect your Self from the outer world. You keep the doors and windows securely locked to protect your castle self from intruders, because you were hurt so badly by other people when you were younger – by family, by friends, by strangers, by acquaintances – by yourself and your actions. And buried inside your castle are rooms into which you do not allow people to enter, for you fear that those people may change those rooms in your house, may parade the things you’ve buried in those rooms in front of the public, or may use what they find there to burn down your castle.
And so we meet everyone on the drawbridge of our castle and don’t let anyone in. And we even do this with God’s Holy Spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to step onto the front porch and redecorate the front porch, but we don’t dare let the Holy Spirit pour into all those hidden rooms inside the castle, because we know very well that if we let that Spirit inside, like a headstrong decorator, the Spirit will change everything and those cold rooms will not look the same.
We are like the people who painted their church fellowship hall hospital blue-green thirty years ago and don’t have the guts to let an interior designer change the color to a nice warm beige with soft padded chairs, because that cold hospital blue-green with uncomfortable chairs is the way it always has been and should be. We don’t want to be changed – and we know that the Spirit WILL change us given the opportunity.
And no where do we resist change more than in the accounting room of our castle.
Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, once said that “Life’s a game and money is how you keep score.” Most people laugh at this, and many people say, “how sad”, but the truth is that most people act like this is what they believe. How do I know this?
Because very few people drive really cheap cars if they can afford not to. And very few people live in really cheap homes if they can afford not to. And very few people buy cheap clothes from Wal-Mart and Gabriels if they can afford to shop at Kohls. And most people prefer to eat at Oliverios and the steakhouses and Muriels and Minards instead of McDonalds and Burger King and Denny’s.
If we were getting honest with ourselves, we might begin to justify our cars and our homes in terms of comfort, but the real fact is that we are trying to show off just a bit. The cheap clothing would keep us warm in the winter or cool in the summer – but stylish clothing tells people that we are doing better than other people are doing. And we eat at those nice restaurant partially because we know that those are the places where the wealthy eat and the people with a bit of power eat, and if we eat there we can tell ourselves we are wealthy and have power. And if we drive an expensive car, we know that people are looking at our car and thinking that we must be successful to afford such a car. And so we truly are keeping score – we just aren’t measuring it by our bank accounts, but by our material possessions. Or perhaps we ARE looking at our bank accounts and keeping score.
I have a friend who paid off his house early. He paid off his thirty-year mortgage in about fifteen years. Then, he put that money into his retirement savings for another ten years. At this point he had nearly a million dollars in his investments and no house payment and two new cars at age 45. Set for life, right?
He was laid off from his job and he panicked. You see, his security had become the fact that every month his retirement account was increasing, and now it was decreasing. Some simple math showed that he could live at his current rate for another 40 years, even without accounting for interest earnings or social security, but he panicked. His security was in that retirement account and he went into a deep depression until he found another job.
Are you the same way? Is your bank account or your 401k account your security?
Jesus and the disciples had no bank account. They had no 401k account. And they had little money. When Jesus told them to feed the five thousand, they panicked. What shall we do? We have a major expense, here! – It might cost us 200 days pay!
There is an implication that the disciples actually had that money with them in some of the Gospel accounts, but they didn’t think that spending that money on this one meal would be a good use of the funds.
And so Jesus shows them that He has resources that He will use even if they are hesitant to spend the money. He feeds everyone with five barley loaves and two fish – did anyone catch that in our first reading that Elisha had also fed people with barley loaves? And when Jesus does this, the people believe that Elisha has returned and they want to make Jesus king. It is amazing how quickly people are willing to take someone who appears to have money and make Him king, as if in some way that person will continue to spend their money on the problems of the nation.
Oh, we wouldn’t do that today.
REALLY?
Why do you think every presidential candidate dresses like a wealthy person? Why do you think a certain billionaire is currently leading the polls in one of the political parties? Why did a certain multi-millionaire once become governor and then US senator in this state in years past?
We are still impressed by wealth and we want to impress people with our wealth. But Jesus’ wealth and Elisha’s wealth was the wealth of the Spirit, the only thing that really counts.
Would you spend $80 if it led to a soul being saved? How much would you take from your bank account and spend on a gamble that five children would come to know the Lord?
I’m not asking the question to get you to give money to us. I’m asking you to look deeply into your hidden room inside your self-castle and ask yourself – which God do I worship, follow, and listen to: God the Creator, the Father of Jesus Christ? Or the god of wealth? You see, God the Father does not need nor want your wealth – God owns the entire planet lock, stock, and barrel. God the Son does not need nor want your time – God has over a billion followers on the planet. God the Holy Spirit does not need nor want your talents – God has access to the best any human can provide. God doesn't want anything you can give.
No, God wants you!
God wants to lift you out of the traps you find yourself in and set you free. God wants you to stop loving things and ideas created by mere mortals and wants you to love the Creator of eternity. God wants to take you away from playing in the mud with little twigs and put you in a place where you can create beautiful, wonderful symphonies, majestic, gorgeous works of arts, and overwhelming joyful lives. This is what God seeks to do with you and with what you offer – God wants to turn you into God’s child!
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added onto you.”
When Saundra and I were running our business in Atlanta, it was growing strongly. I made a subtle change to our website. I changed our website from “The Source for Inkjet Ink.” To “The Christian Source for Inkjet Ink”.
Now if I were a televangelist telling you this story, I would probably tell you that our sales climbed even faster. But that would be a lie. It was at that point that our sales began to flatten out and even decline. For that one word change represented a major shift in my life, my values, and my soul. And let me tell you what happened. Follow me here, for this is subtle and nuanced, and I don’t want you to misunderstand.
When I made that one word change, it meant that I had stopped striving for money, money, money. I began to look toward leading other people to know the love of Christ.
Our sales growth slowed and stopped and then sales began to fall. While our sales had been growing, we had been paying off debts rapidly. But now, I had to lay off people. We had to move to a lower-rent building. Eventually, we moved to Ohio to save on the rent. Our sales continued to fall.
But my life grew. Instead of working away from home from 8 in the morning until 9 at night, I spent time at home working with my dear wife and my family. Saundra and I began to spend long phone calls talking with people about the Lord. We still paid down our debts – but perhaps not as fast. We were still always tight on money – but we always had enough. Over the next ten years, my personal income dropped to a quarter of what it had been – but my life grew and grew.
I had to take a teaching job to pay the bills and I learned to teach and led many bright students at Parkersburg Catholic High School to understand Algebra and Calculus – and God. We both worked hard to minister to international students and eventually our eldest son moved to China where he is making a difference in the world. For three years I worked the hardest I’ve ever worked, teaching full-time at Catholic, teaching two evening courses at the local colleges, handling a full-time seminary load of master’s courses, and pastoring two churches, including mid-week Bible studies. And my life grew, all the while I went deeper into debt, this time with student loans for myself and my son.
And it is still difficult financially. But it is not nearly as difficult as it was twenty years ago.
You see, Jesus has always been there to provide us with the loaves and fishes. He has walked through stormy nights and led me to a peaceful shore time after time. Whenever I have followed Jesus, I have found my way off the stormy lake of life into a safe harbor – and things have been peaceful.
And so I tell you this: I do not know what troubles you are facing, what shortages of money, what you are lacking in your life. But I do know that if you stop worrying about what you don’t have – you will have what you need. If you will stop worrying about how bad things will become on your stormy lake – you will find a peaceful shore. If you will stop focusing upon the crowd and stop focusing upon the storms – Jesus will be there to provide you with enough – and plenty left over, and if you look up, Jesus is walking towards you even at this moment.
Turn your problems over to Him and there will be enough.
There was a man who traveled far expecting a particular job, what we would call a $10/hr job today. When he arrived, he discovered that there was no job and he did not have enough money to go home. But the man chose to go to a church, ran into a pastor and talked to the pastor of his problems. The pastor told him of Christ and the sacrifices that Christ had made for him, and said, “my son, surely God has not brought you to me simply to die of starvation. What was your trade in your former land?”
The man told the pastor. And the pastor said, “My son, don’t you realize that that trade is in high demand here, that there is a shortage of that trade and there are many jobs available for workers at a high wage?” And the man immediately got a job in his old trade, making three times what he had come to the town to work for.
When you turn over your money troubles to Christ, never be afraid. For there will be enough – you may never be rich, but there will be enough.
The man told the pastor. And the pastor said, “My son, don’t you realize that that trade is in high demand here, that there is a shortage of that trade and there are many jobs available for workers at a high wage?” And the man immediately got a job in his old trade, making three times what he had come to the town to work for.
When you turn over your money troubles to Christ, never be afraid. For there will be enough – you may never be rich, but there will be enough.
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