Trusting Jesus Is Enough

Well, good morning. My name is Mark and I'd like to welcome all of you here, both in the auditorium, those over in venue. I'm so glad that you are here today as our church gathers together. And, you know, despite vowels and encouragement to stick around, I have to announce that right after I finish preaching today, I'm going to start a three-month sabbatical. Yeah, wow. So, let's begin by closing in prayer, shall we? I also figure that since I'm going to be away for a while, I can pretty much say whatever I want, and you have all summer to forgive me. Actually, in my... Truth be told, I'm going to miss you a lot, but, you know, in my family, there's a tradition we precede every goodbye with what we call the airing of grievances. So, if there's any time after that, we will have a sermon today. Actually, I don't have any grievances. I love this church so much, and it is such a privilege and a blessing to be able to serve here. I just can't express that enough.

I will say that if you have any grievances or complaints over the next three months, I strongly encourage you to email those to renerunnae@tlc.org. That's R-E-N-E, René, @tlc.org. He would love to hear from you. You know, it's times like this that even though I'm only scheduled to be gone for a little while, you tend to think about the things that matter most. You know what I mean? I mean, if you were going to leave your church family for three months, what would you say? What would you want them to remember? Goodbye. Thank you all. What would be the thing that you would want them to remember most? I mean, what would be your bottom line, so to speak?

Well, again, for me, it begins with how much I love and appreciate this church and our opportunity to be a part of that. I mean that with all my heart. But as I've been given this parting shot of sorts, and as we're also wrapping up our series, "Trusting God in Troubled Times," I want to leave you with one big idea today. Because whether it's in troubled times or great times, in prosperity or adversity, in sickness or health, whatever your circumstances, it all boils down to trusting Jesus. Everywhere and in everything, our sense of peace and joy and blessing comes down to trusting Jesus is enough. And that's what I want to talk about today.

So grab your message notes. You'll find them right inside of today's bulletin. And while you're doing that, let me ask you a question. Does the name Henrietta Mears ring a bell for any of you? Yeah, legendary woman of faith. And even if you've never heard of her, her life has probably had some sort of impact on you. Henrietta Mears was a Christian educator and author. She graduated with a degree in science in 1913 from the University of Minnesota and got a job as a high school teacher. But she was also a very talented Sunday school teacher. And she took a sabbatical in 1927 and that included a trip to California where the leadership of an up and coming church called Hollywood Presbyterian Church asked her to join their staff as their director of Christian education.

They had about 450 people attending Sunday school each weekend. But after only two years on the job for Henrietta Mears, their Sunday school attendance rocketed to over 4,200 people every single week. Amazing person. And in the years that followed, Mears became perhaps the most influential mentor of Christian leaders in the United States. It really came through a winning combination of Bible study, hospitality, and motherly encouragement. And among our most notable proteges were Dawson Troutman, the founder of the Navigators, Billy Graham, you might have heard of him, Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and countless future pastors and seminary professors.

In fact, one of those seminary professors was my very own Greek and Hebrew professor, John Caker, and I was meeting with him this week and we were talking about when he was part of the college group at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. And he said one day Henrietta Mears was having a Q&A session with the college students and one of the students asks her, "If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?" And without really having to think about it, Henrietta Mears answers, "If I could live my life over again, I would trust God more." Now think about that. This is a remarkable woman of faith, a tremendous spiritual legacy, and yet when it was all said and done she says, "Man, if I had one more turn at life, I would trust God even more."

Now obviously, we only really get, on one trip through this life, one opportunity to learn to trust Jesus. And that's why trusting Jesus is such a huge theme in the New Testament. And I want to show you today a passage in Matthew 16 so you can find that in your Bible if you like. But in order to appreciate the story in Matthew 16, you really have to be aware of what precedes it. And so I want to give you the lead up to today's passage for just a moment. Chapter 14, Jesus asks the disciples to feed over 5,000 hungry people. And when I mean over 5,000, I mean way over 5,000 because that's only counting men. When you factor in women and children, you got to think it's at least 15,000, 20,000 people or more. And Jesus says, "Hey guys, let's give them some lunch."

Now has Jesus ever asked you to do something that seemed completely impossible? Can you think of a time, a situation in your life where you're just like, "How in the world can I do that, Lord?" And if you're like me, your mind immediately goes to all the reasons why it can't happen or even how Jesus doesn't seem to appreciate the difficulties involved. Well, that's exactly what was going on with the disciples when Jesus decides to put on this humongous lunch. And the disciples respond, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." So what does Jesus do? Well, most of you know the story. He takes those five loaves and two fish and miraculously he multiplies them. And the Bible says that every single person ate their fill. In fact, they even had leftovers. They scooped them into 12 baskets, which among other things probably served as a reminder for those 12 disciples.

A little while later in Matthew 15, Jesus asks the disciples to feed over 4,000 hungry people. And again, 4,000 is just the men. Now it would have been so cool if the disciples said, "Ah ha ha, I know what you're up to. We've seen this before, Jesus. I know we kind of blew the exam the last time, but this time, sure, let's go for it. Let's do your kind of multiplication thing. It's going to be, we're going to watch more carefully in fact to see how this actually works. Let's go for it." Not exactly the way it went down. The disciples respond, "Where are we going to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?" I mean, I love these guys because they're just like you and me. You know, I know that you were there for me in the past, Lord, but how about today? You know, that's a completely different story.

Can any of you relate to that? I'll bet you one thing. If you asked those guys, those guys that watched Jesus feed thousands and thousands of people with just, you know, a couple fish and loaves of bread, if you asked them what they would do differently if they could live their life over again, I bet you they say, "I would trust Jesus more." Man, I would spend less time freaking out and more time resting in the reality that God is actually in control because here's the thing. With the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000, in both instances we see what I call the arithmetic of grace. You might want to write that down. The arithmetic of grace. And let me explain what I mean by that.

Let's say you had to jump over the Grand Canyon. How much good would your ability to say jump eight feet do you? Any? No. Considering that the narrowest part of the Grand Canyon is four miles, eight feet in a whole lot. Now, some of you I can see, you're athletic, and let's say you can jump, you know, 12 feet. Is that going to do you any more good? No. The Olympic record right now stands at just over 29 feet. That is a very long jump, but it isn't going to do a bit of good compared to the size of the span that you have to cover. Now, let me ask you, how much good do you think those five loaves and two fishes actually did in serving the needs of thousands and thousands of hungry people? About as much as your eight or 12 feet would do in jumping over the Grand Canyon.

The point is this. In the miracles, those two feedings, it was all Jesus. It was all Him because here's the arithmetic of grace. Our impossibly small resources plus His abounding grace equals all we need. All we need. And this is huge because I think we suffer a lot of worry and anxiety because we tend to think that we actually have most things under control and that God's job is just to give us that little extra push that we need to get us over the top. You know what I mean? And so, for instance, perhaps we think, "God, you know what? I've come up with 75% of my rent. All I need is for you to give me the additional 25 and I'm good." Or, "God, I've got most of my life dialed in. You know, I just could use maybe a little extra patience there, maybe just a little bit more energy there, you know, a little something, something special with that situation. But beyond that, God, you know, I'm good. You know, I'm golden. Just help me fill in the gaps, Lord."

Or worst of all, perhaps in a time of prosperity, we actually delude ourselves into thinking that it's all because of our amazing resourcefulness, all because of our business smarts. We just kind of, we're self-made. But all the while, the reality is this, you and I do not have control over our next heartbeat. You didn't get yourself up this morning. It was God who watched over you in the helplessness of sleep, who rose you up to face a new day that He's provided for you. The reality is it's all grace, all we have, all that we are able to accomplish. It's like the Apostle Paul says in Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live and move and exist." It's all a gift.

So as we try to pull together what we've been learning about trusting God in troubled times, I picked this passage because it really sums up so much of what I think we've been learning over the past five weeks. And the first thing that today's scripture shows us is this. It's that trusting God means trusting Jesus. Trusting God means trusting Jesus. Now, why is this so important? It matters because God is not some sort of abstract concept. God is personal. God is relational. And Jesus Christ is God with us. God in flesh. God revealed. And you know, many people, they prefer to have a version of God that remains abstract, you know, conceptual, because you can manipulate an abstraction. You know, you can mold it into your own liking, but with Jesus Christ, you really have to take Him on His own terms, don't you?

Here's a prime example of what I'm talking about. It's right at the beginning of Matthew 16 starting at verse 1. Now, bear in mind again the lead up to this passage. We only covered two of the miracles that Jesus performed, but in actuality, if you read this, He was performing all sorts of amazing miracles. And in the wake of all this, it says starting in verse 1, "The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested Him by asking Him to show them a sign from heaven. He replied, 'A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given except the sign of Jonah.' Jesus then left them and went away." Now, the sign of Jonah is likely a reference to the fact that Jesus would be in the grave three days before His resurrection, but even well before that. Nothing that Jesus did was ever enough for the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And despite the fact that He had fed thousands and thousands of people with basically crumbs, they still demanded more proof.

So when they say, "Give us a sign from heaven," what they're really saying is, "Give us a sign from God." We'd like to see the sky's part. We'd like to see the face of God, and we want to hear His voice say, "Yep, that's my son. You can trust Him. Have no doubt about it." Reminds me of a time in my life when I was really struggling to trust God, just dry spiritually, and I don't know what else was going on, but I remember that during this time, I didn't feel like my prayers were being answered. In fact, I kind of wondered if they were even being heard. And so one day, feeling kind of depressed, I decided to go surfing down at La Selva Beach, and the waves must not have been any good because there was no one there. I mean, no one in the water, no one on the beach, and so I paddle out, and it was one of those kind of silvery days where the ocean is glassy and gray, just like the sky, and there were clouds, and the sun was kind of piercing through the various gaps in the sky, and it looked just like that, in fact.

I'm looking out at that horizon, and I say, "God, please just give me a sign. I need to know that you are here." And just then, a seagull pooped right on my head. Okay, that didn't really happen, but that's the way it should have gone. I'll tell you what actually happened. Have you ever had a thought that pops into your mind with such clarity that it's like you almost hear it? Okay, it was one of those moments for me, and the thought that popped into my mind when I was looking out, asking God for a sign, was this, "What more would you have me do? What more would you have me do, Mark? Create another sky? Another ocean? More demonstrations of my power, my love, my creativity? What more, Mark?" And I remember thinking, in fact, I might have even said this out loud because no one's around, "Oh, yeah, I guess there's all that, and so much more."

You see, here's the thing. There's a difference between having doubts and being demanding. You know, we have tough times, and that brings upon us doubts. You don't know how you're going to make ends meet, or perhaps you have an illness, and you don't know what the outcome is going to be, and it's normal to become anxious and to doubt. But when we keep asking God to prove Himself over and over and over again, we can go from saying, "Help me, God," to "Show me, God." And that was the great sin of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that day. And they would never, ever say that they doubted God, not in a million years, but by rejecting Jesus. They were essentially demanding that God do things on their terms, not God's. You see, they had a very different kind of Savior in mind. Jesus didn't fit the profile, but the fact of the matter is, trusting God means trusting Jesus. And it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. It's just a very simple daily dependence on Jesus. In whatever situation you're facing, just trusting Jesus is enough to meet those needs.

Well, as our story unfolds, there's another thing this story teaches us, and that's this. It's not if I trust, but what I trust. You see, whether we actually trust is never the issue. It's what we trust. That's what's at stake. And again, it's not like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, you know, didn't have faith. They had lots of faith. It's where they put their faith. That's what was at stake. That was the problem. So Jesus leaves them, Matthew says, and that's a chilling statement in and of itself, that He left them. And He gets on a boat with the disciples, and they set off for the other side of the lake. And picking up the story at verse five, when they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. "Be careful," Jesus said to them, "be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees."

Now, when Jesus says, "be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees," He's talking about their teaching. He's talking about what they stand for, what they trust. But the disciples, as we're going to see in a moment, they totally miss this warning when Jesus says, "Hey, watch out for these guys because they can torpedo, they can corrupt your faith." Now, why is Jesus so concerned about these guys? He's genuinely concerned. Well, first of all, it's because the Pharisees trusted in their religious zeal. We often imagine these Pharisees as kind of kooky guys that no one would really want to follow, but they had genuine appeal, especially with the common people in Palestine at the time. They were the religious conservatives of their day. And now they were well-intended, but they were so serious about obeying God that they actually made up additional religious rules, you know, just for good measure. Apparently, not even God was conservative enough for them.

Now, the Sadducees, on the other hand, they trusted in their cultural status. They were the cultural elites. They ran the temple, and because of that, they were rich, and they had the political connections too. Compared to the Pharisees, the Sadducees were essentially secular, and they only believed in the first five books of the Bible, and they didn't believe in any kind of afterlife or any kind of resurrection. In fact, the only two that brought these... the only thing that brought these two groups together was their mutual distrust of Jesus. You know, on that, they really couldn't stand each other. And it's fascinating because this same kind of dynamic, I think, exists today. Some on the very conservative side like to look at, you know, the so-called cultural elites and look with a critical eye, right? And those over on the elite side, the secular side, sometimes think of themselves as more sophisticated above the common religious folks, and each group is pretty proud of the ground that they've staked out. They can draw a lot of stock from that.

And yet the key question for you and I is, what do I trust? Do I trust my devote, the quality of my commitments, my status? Do I congratulate myself for being more devout than, you know, that other group, you know, holier than them, so to speak? Well, that's the Pharisees. Or do I pride myself on being better educated or more sophisticated, proud of my status? That's the Sadducees. And Jesus says, "Beware of that kind of corrupting, prideful thinking, because it all boils down to faith based on human effort and human merit." It takes grace out of the equation. That's what it does. And when you do that, you're really back to trusting yourself instead of trusting Jesus. And this is key because we automatically lean towards trusting ourselves, don't we? That's why Jesus, when he compares their teaching to yeast, because yeast can so easily work its way through the whole loaf, right? It's just a little thing. Seems innocuous. It can have huge consequences.

Case in point, we're doing some repairs and improvements at our house right now. And the other day, my cousin Michael, who's our contractor, he says, "Hey, Mark, I got something for you. I want to show you something I found." And I'm like, "Well, what's that?" And he goes, "You know those sticks they sell in the nature stores are called rain sticks, and you can turn them one way and they kind of sound like rain because they got little beads in them or something like that. And you turn them back and they go like that." He goes, "I found one of those in your house." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And he hands me this two by four right here. He goes, "Yeah, I just pulled this out of one of your walls. And check this out, Mark." Now you gotta listen carefully. Are you ready for this? Yeah, looks great on the outside, but inside it's full of termite poop. It's light as a feather. You'd never know, but it's been corrupted from the inside out. In fact, just as a house can by a few termites be quickly infested with termites, Jesus says, "Little yeast." A little bit of that prideful, self-righteous, self-accomplishing, religion can have the same corruptive influence. So Jesus says, "Beware the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." In fact, later in Matthew's gospel, he says their faith is rotten and hollow, just like this two by four. So Jesus is dead serious about this.

But unfortunately, this goes right over the heads of the disciples. I mean, when Jesus mentions the word "yeast," they don't think about the teachings, they think he's talking about actual bread again. And if you've ever found yourself not tracking with the sermon, and I'm really hoping that's not like right now, but if it ever should happen, take heart because these guys were there first. I mean, look at verse seven. They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread." You know, Jesus' warning just blows right by him. Did he say something about yeast? Oh, wait, yeast is what they used to make bread. Uh-oh, we forgot to bring bread. Oh, man, now what? Stuck on this boat with nothing to eat, probably gonna starve. This is horrible. Whose job was it to bring the bread? And on and on they go and they freak out because once again, they're fixated on what they don't have. Now, can any of you relate to this or is it just me?

And Jesus, you know, he's trying to get my attention about something that actually matters and so often it's like, "Hey, man, I'm sorry, I don't have time for that. I only have so many hours in the day, Jesus. I'm too preoccupied most of the time thinking about, 'How am I gonna get my bread, right? How am I gonna get the bread to fix my car? How am I gonna get the bread to pay my bills? Where am I gonna get the bread to fix the walls in the house?'" So many things in life come down to, "Where's the bread?" The last thing that I would want to offer to you today is some kind of glib response to that. Not having enough bread can be gut-wrenching. It can keep you up night after night after night wondering how your needs are going to be met. Perhaps it's emotional bread or spiritual bread you feel you're lacking or relational bread. Whatever it is, if Jesus is who he actually says he is, if Jesus is the bread of life, then I have to conclude that who I have is more important than what I have. Who I have is infinitely more important than what I have. And Jesus calls us to trust in this simple truth that he's enough.

And yet if you're like me, it seems we have to learn this lesson over and over and over again. And the disciples were no different. Picking up at verse 8, "Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, 'You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it that you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread?'" And Jesus is like, "Pull his hair out!" Man, how quickly we forget, right? And when Jesus says, "You of little faith," it literally reads in the original, "You people of little faith." And it's a phrase that he uses about four times in Matthew directly towards the disciples. And every single time he does, it's when they're questioning their ultimate welfare or the reality of God's provision in their life.

And so in frustration, I think, Jesus is essentially saying, "You know, you've seen me feed thousands and thousands and now you're worried about bread? You've seen me heal the blind and the deaf and the crippled. You've seen me raise the dead, but suddenly this situation is too big for me? I mean, really guys?" Now here's a question for all of us, and I ask this humbly. But whatever it is you're afraid of, whatever it is you fear right now, can Jesus handle that? Is Jesus big enough? Is Jesus good enough? Even if it doesn't go down the way you would like, can he still be your bread? Can he still bring you through?

Earlier this week, I was reminiscing about the times that I taught my children to ride a two-wheeler for the very first time, you know, without any training wheels. And for them, it's this scary, impossible thing. I mean, they look at that bike and they see how easily it falls over. And they kind of look at you like, you know, how is putting me on that thing going to make it more stable? You know, I don't get the physics of it at all. All they know is that if Daddy lets go of the bike, it's going to fall over and they're going to go with it, right? Well, here's some footage of the first time my Jack rode a bike by himself for the first time. Now this was several years ago, but of course, since Jack is our firstborn, we've got footage of every minute of his life. The other two, well, you know how that works. But during the many attempts leading up to this moment, I realized that the big challenge was getting my son to trust me. Because again, it's really not about the mechanics. It's about getting them to get over the fears and trust that you're going to be there.

In fact, for months leading up to this moment, you know, Jack had the ability, he just didn't have the confidence. And I kept saying to him, you don't, Daddy won't let you fall. Just trust me. Just keep pedaling. Daddy will not let you fall. And finally, the day you're seeing here after like 17 miles, he finally believed me. And it was an awesome moment that we got to share as father and son, even though he leaves me hanging on the high five there. Like I said, how quickly we forget. Now, how about you? Where is Jesus saying, trust me? This may be a very scary time for you. Perhaps many, most, all of the props that used to make you feel secure have been knocked out from under you and you feel wobbly and shaky and headed for a crash. And yet Jesus says, trust me. This is your opportunity to have that trust go deeper. This is an opportunity to refocus on Jesus instead of your fears and say by his grace, bottom line, if I have Jesus, I have everything I need. And if I have Jesus, I have all I need. And that's the point that Jesus was getting at on that boat with the disciples that day. That's the lesson I believe Jesus has for us today. That's the thing that I would like to leave with you.

How do you trust God in troubled times? By believing Jesus is enough. Because when we have him, we have all we need. Would you bow your heads with me as we pray? Heavenly Father, thank you today for the blessing of being able to gather together thank you God for this very, very special congregation and for the wonderful fellowship that you are building here at Twin Lakes Church. And Lord, I pray for each person here, each person over in venue, each person who may be hearing my voice. Lord, we all have things that concern us. We have needs that are beyond us. We often have more questions than answers, more needs than resources. And then we realize yet again that we have you. We have your beloved son who has promised never to leave nor forsake us. And so my prayer for all of us, Lord, is that we will trust in you with all our hearts. That we will lean not on our own understanding, but in all our ways, Lord, we will acknowledge you trusting that you will make our paths straight. I pray this in the all-sufficient name of Jesus Christ. Amen. God bless you. I love you. May you have a wonderful summer.