Stay Hungry

The Jesus Way is the series we're in. My name is Jared Booye. I am one of the new pastors here and this is my first time teaching at Twin Lakes. Thank you. It's great to be here. Great to be here. If we haven't met, this is my family. This is my wife, Alicia, my son, Van, and we are so happy to be here at Twin Lakes, be part of what I would consider a pretty epic season in the church, seeing it grow. And as always, we want to thank you guys for the warm welcome that you've given us over the last couple of months. You guys have been so great to us. So thank you.

Although we are new, we do have some deep roots here. My grandparents actually attended this church for over 40 years, which is super cool. And get this, my parents met and attended the young adults group, which I now lead and got married right here on the stage where I'm standing. I know. Oh, isn't that sweet? Yeah. Also my dad was the founding member of the duck dynasty, apparently with that beard, phenomenal beard. Second only to Gandalf the Great right there. I mean, come on. Um, but truly we do, we do describe coming to Twin Lakes as like coming back to mom and dad's house. So we are glad to be here. Thank you so much for having us.

So as you know, we are journeying through the Sermon on the Mount and most specifically, the Lord's prayer. Now imagine being able to ask Jesus in person, how do I pray? Well, the disciples did, and Jesus not only taught them how to pray, but he gave them a template by which to pray from. And it's not till three sections in that you read this first request, give us this day our daily bread. I want to teach today from the subject of stay hungry. Can you say that with me? Stay hungry.

So you might hear that. You might think of it like the culture does. And that is those who stay hungry, they work harder and become more independent. But the Jesus way is that those who are hungry, they trust more and become more dependent on him. Amen. So it's interesting because when you think of the word, stay hungry, then you tie it together with a culture and you look at how Jesus talks about it here in the bread or in the daily bread passage, you see that he's saying to stay hungry is to stay trusting. But that is scary, right? Especially in our world. It seemed easier in the old days.

For instance, take this family. This was taken down here downtown at a local church in Santa Cruz in 1968. I mean, this is the perfect setting, perfect clothes, perfect little family. But what you don't know is that this man right here had just finished building a home with his life savings. And literally days before this photo was taken, it caught fire and burnt to the ground. To make matters worse, although he did have insurance, they figured out a loophole and they slipped out of covering it. This man truly lost everything he had. In fact, the clothes that the family is wearing in that picture, they were all donated by the local church.

So at one point when it all kind of hit him, he was alone and he thought he was alone, thought no one was looking. He just had a panic attack. He, he, he, all of it hit him at once. Tears, fear, everything. He just broke down. But what he didn't know is that this 12 year old boy was peeking through the window. His father, a legend, a pillar of strength who could do no wrong, had reached his breaking point and was falling apart. Well, a local pastor heard about this story and he brought him into their home with all five kids just said, come stay with us. Well, there he shared the gospel with the man and he put his faith in Jesus. And consequently, so did the entire family. And it's quite possibly because of that event that I am standing here talking with you today. This was my grandfather Dick Boya and the 12 year old was my father. It's an amazing story and more of that story to come.

Now you may or may not have lost a home in a fire, but how many of you have felt some level of financial anxiety in the last three years? You're not alone. You're absolutely not alone. In fact, Time magazine just did a study and they found that 82% increase in what they call financial anxiety. They actually came up with the term. Now you can chalk this up to multiple factors and various things, but at some level it's a reality that we all face. I think there's two traps that we can fall into when we hit this point. On one hand we can try to control the situation on our own strength. I'm just going to go fix it. And that definitely has a ceiling. On the other hand, we can stand paralyzed in fear, going, just put my head in the sand and hope this goes away.

So how do we avoid these two traps? Well, what if I told you that in the next 30 minutes I am going to unveil the secrets of finding peace when it comes to provision? Sound pretty good? I'm not because I'm not that smart, but Jesus is. And he tells us that it's in the key is in this phrase, give us this day our daily bread embedded within the Lord's prayer, embedded within the sermon called the sermon on the Mount that Jesus gave within the book of Matthew. Now the book of Matthew is really interesting. It's the first book in the New Testament, but it was written to a Jewish audience to show Jesus as the coming Messiah, the second and better Moses.

So follow me on this. Moses and Jesus, they both come up out of Egypt. They both pass through the waters, the Jordan river, the Dead Sea. They both spent 40 days, 40 years in the wilderness being tested. They brought a law from the mountain and both brought bread from heaven. So you see this, this theme of bread is actually woven throughout the biblical story and it traces all the way back to when the Israelites were being tested in the wilderness. God brought bread from heaven. They called it manna, which is what is this? That's literally how it's translated. It was what is this? It was like this flaky sort of bread, but it sustained them.

But I think that this daily bread passage was most, our best illustrated in Jesus's most epic miracle that we find in John 6. If you guys have your Bibles, you want to turn there, you want to follow along. I do have the verses up on the screen. We're in John 6 chapter one. Jesus on the shore of the sea of Galilee is working his way up into the hills. He's got his disciples with him. He's teaching. He turns around and there is thousands and thousands of people following him from the surrounding villages. Not only that, but he sees that they have a need. He sees that they're in need of food. They're hungry, which is interesting because he saw the need before even they knew they had the need. How many of you know that Jesus knows what you need before you even do? Amen.

Well, to solve this problem, what does he do? Well, he turns to his disciple, Philip, and he says, Hey, Philip, where shall we get bread or where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Now talk about being put on the spot. Imagine being Philip. It's like me, you know, you take care of it. How about you do something, Philip? Now Philip did what I think we all might do. And he, and he said, well, when he realized the need, he actually said a half year's wages is not enough to buy for each person to have one bite. Well, what does he do? He turns to money. Now maybe Jesus queued him in with the word buy, but it kind of makes sense because you know, it seems like our provision fears could be solved with money.

If I gave you a million dollars this morning, you no longer have fears of provision. Well, maybe we're in the Bay area, so you might need like four. Like Jared, let's up the game here. Do you know where we live? Yes, I know it's expensive here. So the question is though, will it actually leave those fears? Let's ask these four people. What they have in common is that they all won millions of dollars in the lottery. What they also have in common is that all four of them lost every penny and are now back to being poor. Check out what Bud Post says. Speaking of his winnings, he said, it was an absolute nightmare. And I love how simple this was. I was happier when I was broke. John, Jack Whitaker, get this, won $314 million. And after all of it was said and done, he said, I pretty much lost everything I held dear in my life.

You see, financial fear is unique because when we have a little, we're afraid we don't have enough. But when we have a lot, we're afraid, we're going to lose what we do have. Either way, fear is present. See, John tells us that Jesus was actually testing Philip. He was redirecting Philip's trust from money back to him. So to stay hungry is to stay focused on the source. Notice the first word and give us this day, our daily bread. It's a request. When we start by asking Jesus for our needs, basically what we're doing is we're saying, Hey Lord, we want you to provide and it re-orients us and reminds us where our help is actually coming from in all reality.

I love the words of the psalmist that says, I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? He's asking the question. My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. We were driving when my son was just a little boy and we were driving up between Vacaville and Sacramento. If you've ever been up there on the 505, it's like this. It might as well be the Sahara desert to a little boy. It's just open fields and nothing's out there. And van notices that my gas gauge was on empty and we're cruising along and you could see him start to think, Hmm. And he goes, Hey dad, yeah buddy. Have you ever run out of gas? Oh yeah. It's pretty scary. Yeah. It's pretty scary. Oh, okay. Okay. And you can see his mind really nice. Hey dad, do we have any diesel in the back? Like extra? No, buddy. We got to get to a gas station. Oh, okay. Now he's nervous and I'm not going to let him off the hook. Cause I'm like, this is a good teaching opportunity.

And he's like, then he goes into fix it mode. Dad, let's pull over at the next exit. We go back to Vacaville. Do you have your cell phone just in case? And he's super nervous. But what he doesn't know is that I've actually driven this road hundreds of times. And I knew down to the mile where the gas station was. In fact, when we pulled into the gas station, you could see all that fear just kind of go out and he goes, Oh, you knew all along. And I, I love that because that's I do that with the Lord all the time. Have you ever felt like it was on you like Phillip here in a situation where maybe you even prayed and it just feels like God's being silent or he's not helping you?

You see, Phillip had to feel the weight of the impossibility of that situation in order to see God do the impossible. Why? Because God does impossible things. Jesus does impossible things. Amen. I've seen it in my life and you might've seen it in yours. That's what he specializes in. But how do we know that this was a test? Well, it says here that Jesus knew what he was going to do before Phillip knew. He wanted him to stay focused on the true source. And by the way, he wants you and I to also focus on him. It's scary. I know I've been there speaking from personal experience because when we have to trust him, we have to release control. But Jesus ultimately is calling us all to shift our trust from whatever we think is going to bring us security back to him, just like he's doing with Phillip here.

And when we get in those situations, you can remember that he's saying, I already know I've got you. I've got you. I've got you. So how did he meet this need? Well, other people get involved, so you're going to love this. So Andrew, one of the disciples jumps in, he goes, I've got a potential solution. Uh, we, Jesus, there's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. Awkward moment. Like thousands of people, five barley loaves, two fish. He even realizes it. He's looking at the disciples and he, dude, no, not the fish line. And they look out and he goes, well, but what is that to feed such a huge crowd? But I do have to commend Andrew for his faith, right? He had some faith to step out there. Hey, let's, what about this? This might be a possible solution.

Then there's also the little boy. Now it's kind of feel bad for the little boy because he's the only one that packed a lunch. Come on. Like he, he followed proverbs and he stored up and he saved. He's, I'm going to go hear Jesus today. I'm bringing my lunch. The little boy was the only one prepared out of thousands of people. Well, whether he was willing or not, he gave his food to Jesus. And it was through that sacrifice that Jesus met the need. So Jesus takes the bread and he prays and begins to engage his disciples. Then he starts to pass it out. And now everybody's, there's bread flying. There's fish everywhere. Everybody's having a feast. Jesus multiplies and miraculously feeds thousands of people with just the small amount of bread.

So get this at the end of the miracle tells his disciples, Hey, go pick up all the leftovers. So disciples go out and guess how many baskets they picked up? They pack 12 baskets. How many disciples, 12 disciples, Jesus took care of everybody's need. So through the faith of Andrew, Jesus, we got a boy here. Through the faith of Andrew, through the sacrifice of the boy and through the service of all the disciples, Jesus takes care of everybody's needs. I mean, honestly, he could have pulled bread out of anywhere. He could pull out of his own robe or satchel or whatever. He could have put bread right out of the ground, but he chose to use other people. It's kind of mind blowing.

And it reminds me that to stay hungry is to stay connected, to community. Notice give us this day. Our daily bread is not an individual prayer. When I realized that I thought, Oh, this is, this is interesting because Jesus is asking us to pray. When we pray for provision for ourselves, he's asking us to pray with other people in mind. Why? Because it's often through other people within the community that, that God provides for us. It's through their generosity, the God provides for needs. In fact, the apostle Paul when he was writing the church of Philippi, he said it was because of your gift that I was able to go out and spread the gospel. And he says, the God who takes care of me, because of that gift will supply all of your needs.

And this has been the story back all the way since the church started acts two, it says they add all things in common and they shared with those who were in need. This is what Christians do. Now I have some interesting news, uh, which is kind of, it doesn't bode well for my generation, but apparently millennials don't give. Just saying, there was a study done by a group called CSN and they said that millennials make up 7% of the giving to churches, which is super low. And yes, millennials, we need to up our game. I almost tried to get myself out of the categories. I'm right on the cusp, but I'm in it and yes, we need to up our game. But I think it's difficult honestly for people who don't have a lot to think that they can even, you know, maybe I can't even afford to give. Right?

When I was a young millennial myself, I did something that was stupid, but it was, yeah, I learned a lesson. So I was with some friends in San Diego. We were walking down the street and I saw this guy who came out and he was just hitting people up for money all the way down. So I saw him from a distance. And I came up with this idea in my head. Oh, this is going to be good. I'm going to ask him for money before he can ask me and I'm going to get this guy and everybody's going to laugh. It's going to be funny. So we get there and we're working down on, I'm playing it all out in my head. Everybody's laughing and everything. And I go, Hey, do you have any change? Got this guy's going to be a good zing. You know, everybody's going to love this. To my surprise, he looks at me, he pulls out his pocket like some trash and like lint and like some coins. And he goes, yeah, how much do you need? I was like, Oh, I felt terrible. I was broken. I was just convicted. I'm like, and nobody was laughing. I was like, this is not good.

But I always remember that story because it reminded me, a very valuable lesson that no matter how much we have, we can still be generous. See, the new Testament doesn't give us like a specific, you have to give this amount. The old Testament talks about a 10th. You know what the new Testament is? The new Testament lies. Give cheerfully, give generously. That's it. See, when we trust God to meet our needs, it really does empower us to meet other people's needs because we're parting with the thing that we need. But if we trust that God's going to take care of it, we can fully give that away. And that's one of the things I love about Twin Lakes. When I first got here, we got the chance to be a part of like the project with the Hope Center. Working with René on that was so great. And it was so moving to see that this is what Christians do. This is what Twin Lakes does too.

People's pantry has been feeding people since like the seventies from a closet back here behind the stage. That just blew my mind. I brought in some friends to help me with some of the creative from the agency world. Couple of them were not even saved. And they were so moved by the fact that we feed 480 people or families a week. It's just, it's absolutely phenomenal. And it is really what Christians have done throughout history. And that's what marks us really since the beginning of the church. So this is how God provides just like he did in this miracle. So he worked through the community to meet their needs.

Now, after everyone was miraculously fed, something crazy happened. The people went ballistic. They were so excited about this and they said, surely, this is the prophet we've been expecting. Now, what are they talking about? Well, Moses prophesied generations before. He said, there's going to come a Messiah, a new and better Moses, just like me, that's going to come and deliver you. And when he brought bread from heaven, they knew this is Jesus. Let's get him. In fact, Jesus says that they were, Jesus knew that they were going to make him King by force. And he slipped out. Why? Because he knew they didn't want a Messiah King. He knew later we find out in the chapter that they wanted a bread King, someone to bring them bread somewhere along the line. Their, their trust shifted from Jesus to the bread. And that is like the human story, right? That's the human dilemma.

Like when we don't have anything, our hands are open and we're like, Lord, please, we need, we need provision. We need you to provide. And then the Lord's like, okay, gives it to you. And then immediately, while speaking from personal experience, we grab ahold of that. Ah, okay, great. Thanks God. Got it from here. I'm good now. Right. And this is what was going on with the Israelites back when God brought manna from heaven. God says, don't store up. The only time they could store was before the Sabbath and it would preserve for that day. And a lot of people tried. They said, okay, we got to store up and they snuck it and they start packing, you know, stuffing it in the tents, put it in the pillows, you know, whatever. And what happened? Well, they woke up the next morning. It's rotten. It couldn't save them. So why is that? Because God wanted them to rely on him.

To stay hungry is to stay reliant on God. There's a third part of this prayer and that is the word daily. Now, this word's interesting because it's the original Greek is actually, this original Greek word is found nowhere else in Greek literature, except for right here in the Lord's prayer, which makes it kind of challenging to decipher what it actually means. But the word is epi-usios and it means basically it's a compound word with epi meaning necessary for existence and ucias is existence. So necessary for the moment, sorry, necessary for the moment and ucias is existence. So when you put them together, you get, give me what I need for the moment to exist. So what you're getting, the point here is that we're not asking for a week's supply. We're not asking for a month's supply or a year's supply. We're asking Jesus for what we need today to trust him.

How many doomsday preppers do we have in here? I'm looking for your hands right now because I'm going to come to your house. When things go down, you know it. Well, you're in luck. In 2008, a man by the name of Larry Hall purchased an old military silo. Now this thing is in the Midwest. This thing used to house a nuclear weapon and he converted it into Armageddon ready luxury apartments. Yeah. Yeah, you too can buy in for $4 million. You can buy in and you get a lifetime supply of food and water, full time security, on call doctors and physicians, a full gym, an underground pool, and yes, even underground golf, which I'm still trying to figure out how that works. I think it's digital. Some of you right now are like Googling and putting down your down payment. I know it. This thing is amazing, but it's not a new concept.

In fact, Jesus, when he was talking to these people, they would have known about a place right outside of Jerusalem called Masada. Masada is very interesting. It is Herod the great's doomsday prep city, and it is unbelievable. It's built up on a top of a mountain and you can go there today. Alicia and I went, we actually walked through all the rooms and the caves and the views. Unbelievable. It's right at the top of this hill. And there you can find over 29 warehouses, storehouses of food, 12 cisterns, which are big caves filled with water. There's a cliffside palace that Herod can just chill in. There is a defensible walls the whole way up. Everything Herod needed to survive for the rest of his life comfortably. You know, what's interesting about Masada. Is Herod never went there. He never resided there. It couldn't save him. He died before he could even get there. Very interesting to me.

It reminds me of when Jesus told the parable and I always wonder if maybe he was referring to Herod told the parable about a man who had his grain silos filled to the max. He worked all of his life. He got everything dialed. All of his 401k was good. Everything. He had his investments and he just said to himself, I did pretty good. Now I can just chill. I can sit back. I can eat, drink and be merry. I'm good. Basically God, thank you so much. I really actually have taken care of myself. I'm good. But God says to him, he says, you fool. Tonight your life is demanded of you. He died before he could even enjoy his stuff and also his stuff couldn't save him from death.

So if you're like me, you're thinking, what? But Jared, like isn't investing and, and, um, you know, saving and working hard. Aren't these good things? Absolutely. Okay. You can, you can, this is baked into creation, right? The principle is that by the sweat of your brow in Genesis, very early, you will eat your bread. And essentially if you don't work, you don't eat. Proverbs says that hard work and prosperity lead or sorry, hard work and good planning lead to prosperity. So I don't think these two ideas actually trusting God and working, saving and investing are mutually exclusive. Why is that? Because if you step back, just take a step back. You'll realize that everything we have, our work ethic, the ability we have to work, our hands, our strength, even the air we breathe is on loan from God. Right?

So working hard, saving, investing should always be sort of harmonized with trusting God daily, not in our own stuff to save us, not in our own strength, but trusting him for what we need. See this expands the whole idea of daily bread just beyond money. It's everything. It's everything you need to live the life that God has called you to live. Spiritual, emotional, any needs that you have, that's your daily bread. Lord, give me what I need to live the life you want me to live.

So when I first came to Santa Cruz, I was starting a business. I had this young family just bought a house and everything was in order. I worked so hard. I put together all my ducks in a row. I mean, I had this ironclad business plan. I mean, you would be so impressed. Oh, this is incredible. The only thing it was missing was a client, business advice from Jared, get a client. That's kind of a key component, right? So I remember my dad coming to visit and he was, he and I were talking to you and I said, you know, dad, I just don't know if this business is going to work. I don't know if I can make it happen. And my dad asked me, he goes, um, Hey Jared, have you prayed about it? I was like, if I prayed, not at all, actually, no, I haven't, uh, very convicted at this moment.

And so he goes, maybe try praying. And I said, okay. So I went to my office that I just leased, got on my knees. Instead of working, I just prayed the next day, Lord, I don't know. Here's my business. Here it is. And, uh, the next day, believe me, I've prayed and things like this haven't happened. But the next day I got a call and it snowballed from there. Now I hit like a plateau. I, things just started to grow for me. My business started really to take off. It was everything I personally had dreamed of. My bar wasn't that high. It wasn't like a Steve jobs or anything, but I employed people over in Silicon Valley, made a ton of money. I was like, this is going to be the best. And I got to the end of it. And man, I hit like a dark tunnel because when I got there, I was like, this was my level of success, my personal level of success. And I felt so empty.

I moved to quiet, grew a big beard. They called me castaway. It was terrible. They called me Wilson. Yeah, that was it. Just, I just got depressed and anxious. What is life about? In fact, that's what got me into seminary and eventually got me here to twin lakes. But, but what I learned during that time was that God will take care of me. God will take care of me. And it's not my stuff. That's going to take care of me. I just don't want you to lose the simplicity of this and the profound nature of this prayer. Give us this day, our daily bread, to stay hungry is to stay focused on the source, knowing that God will supply your needs. To stay hungry is to stay connected to community, being generous to those around you and to stay reliant on God, trusting him for what you need today.

I want to take you back to the story of my grandfather because his story didn't end at the first fire. It actually, during the Cold War, he went up and built a cabin in Canada, the deep wilderness. I mean, he was so gnarly and this was, yes, it was a plan B. It was a backup plan. It was an escape plan if things went crazy, but he soon fell in love. It came to a passion project for him. He fell in love with Canada, fell in love with fishing. So every summer they lived up there for three months out of the year with the family. There was no electricity. It was a three day journey by car and boat, no plumbing, every, but just nature and family.

Now in 1991, I got the chance to go up. I was 12. My dad, my dad, myself, my grandfather, and my grandfather's brother. And after a third, you know, three day trip, we get to the shore right there in the lake and my dad goes in, starts up the fire, the stove. But what he didn't know is that there was a rat's nest that had formed between the chimney and the roof. Yeah. And as a 12 year old, I called out and said, dad, there's some smoke coming off the shingles. Well, he said, nobody, you're, it's okay. It's steam. He came out and looked and you could see the blood just drain from his face. And he said, Oh, and then for the day, they tried to stop the fire for the next four hours. Despite their efforts, my grandfather's cabin burnt down. This time I was the 12 year old watching my grandfather lose the second home in his life. But there was something different. My grandfather didn't panic. He didn't break down in tears. He didn't lose himself. There was a solidarity for sure, but there was a peace.

See, my grandfather's life changed dramatically after the first fire. When he put his faith in Jesus and I interviewed my aunts, uncles, I said, is this true? And he said, yeah, he changed. His whole perspective of things changed after that first fire. He knew he couldn't trust in his stuff. He had to be generous. His life was, his life demonstrated that throughout his time. And this, this taught me a valuable lesson. It radically shaped my worldview and told me what it's like to fully trust God. I looked at this man as someone who has shown me those things, those I had to go back to that. To stay hungry is to stay trusting.

When I ask you a couple of questions, do you believe that God knows what you need and will take care of those needs? Are you willing to release control of your life and trust him with your provision? If that's a yes, this could be a new season in your life. This could be a renaissance for you and a new period of time where you fully experience that peace and trust. That's what I want for you because I've been in both of those traps, control and fear. And there's a third way. And that is the peace of God. So during this next song, we want you just to reflect. It's called daily bread. It's new. You don't have to feel obligated to sing it. We just want you to take some time and reflect, maybe reflect on some of these things. Reflect on what it means to stay hungry, which means stay trusting, to stay focused, stay connected, and stay reliant on Jesus. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your provision in our lives. Thank you that we can look back and see that you've taken care of us. I pray for each and every person in here, no matter what they're facing, Lord, that you would be with them, that you would give them the peace that they need to trust you. We love you. We praise your name. We praise your name.