God Loves Every Human Being

Matthew 14:13, "When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick."

This applies to the vision of our house and the role you can play in this vision. Jesus sees multitudes, He sees nations and the world. God is not a little God. He is the Creator of Heaven and earth, He loves every human being and every human being has value in His eyes as they are made in His image and likeness.

When God sees your city, He does not look at it by percentages or through mathematics. If one person there does not know Him and is hurting and suffering, God will leave the 99 and go find the one.

Sin Is Still Sin

Even though we have great technological advancements, our phones are smarter, and cars are faster, sin is still sin. Sin has not become less sinful. The devil has not stopped being the devil and demons have not stopped tormenting people. Sickness still kills people, addiction still steals from people and depression still destroys people. God is still the only solution through His Son, Jesus Christ. That is why when God looks at you and at our generation, He is moved with compassion because He is a Father.

Let us not have the view of a Christian who can label people, but the view of the Father towards our cities. Let us not think like the disciples did but like Jesus who had compassion on the multitudes.

The Scripture says Jesus saw the multitudes, had compassion on the multitudes, and healed the multitudes. Therapists, doctors, and medicine all have limits. Only the Creator can fix what is broken. Only Jesus can deliver the captives. You can have a program on your computer that tries to control your urges but only Jesus can help you be delivered from them. You can go to a psychiatrist to help you deal with your feelings but only Jesus can help you to find forgiveness in spite of all that. The world tries to help you manage your sin but only Jesus delivers us from it.

Jesus is not outdated because although the advancement in technology, medicine, and science is incredible, none of them have come one degree closer to solving the sin problem. There is only one name that can do that, and that name is Jesus Christ.

Jesus saw, had compassion on, and healed the multitudes but there was something He could not do without His disciples: feed the multitudes.

The Limitation Of Convenience

Matthew 14:15, "When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food."

Outwardly, this looks like a great idea but it was based on convenience instead of compassion. We have to be careful as the body of Christ, not to make our church capacity and convenience an idol. You make your convenience an idol when you delay revival because of it. You stop people coming to know Jesus and receiving healing, deliverance, and salvation because you are waiting for a bigger building. We love convenience.

A man who makes convenience his idol would throw big catches of fish back into the lake because he only has a small frying pan at home to cook it, and buying a bigger pan feels too expensive. Similarly, many of us postpone what God wants to do to another season because we have ‘a small frying pan’. The problem is not with our ‘frying pan’ or facility; the problem is with our mindset. There is no compassion in convenience. Compassion will take you out of convenience and convenience will take you out of your calling.

The Cost Of Compassion Is The Cross

Convenience cannot be your number one goal. Anyone who has been a parent knows you cannot raise children at your convenience. You cannot have compassion if you are addicted to convenience. When you want to fulfill the calling of God in your life, there is going to be a cost. The cost is not you dying on the cross but enduring inconvenience.

Jesus’ compassion for the multitudes caused Him not to be addicted to convenience. Convenience is not bad, but don’t let convenience rob you of your calling. You cannot fulfill your calling and live in convenience. You cannot be mature and be addicted to convenience. The first thing the love of God does in your life is to break you out of your convenience.

It is not that God cannot move but it is our limited mentality that tries to force Jesus to conform to our convenience. A convenient mentality reduces the vision of Jesus to the level of our comfort. Convenience requires Jesus to consider our feelings first.

What would have happened if Jesus had chosen convenience instead of the cross? I am so glad Jesus didn’t choose convenience, He chose my salvation. Therefore, if I have to embrace a bit of discomfort to express His compassion to a dying world, I will do it with pleasure. Compassion cannot live in the heart addicted to convenience. I have to be in love with Jesus Christ and His heart has to impress on mine.

If you spend your life at the feet of Jesus, He will pour out the love of the Father into your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then, you will begin to think of souls and the price you can pay. The compassion of Jesus will stretch your heart and you will see revival through your life.

Compassion Conquers Convenience

Convenience says there are too many obstacles. Compassion says this is an opportunity. There is a cost to overcoming challenges on our way but there is a greater cost of a lost opportunity to see miracles, young people being raised and hundreds of people going from darkness to light, sickness to healing, being demonized to being delivered because we are addicted to convenience.

Is the church about you or about being through you to the world? If it is about me, then it is about my convenience. But if the church is about His vision, then I have to be willing if necessary to lay my convenience at the altar and pick up His compassion for the world.

Something new is happening. The devil showed up at the Grammy’s and God showed up at the university. Woke garbage showed up at the movie theatres but so did Jesus Revolution and Come Out In Jesus’ Name. There is a hunger for the move of the Holy Spirit, healing, deliverance, and miracles with Bible teaching, and discipleship around the world. What if all this is a setup for launching a Bible college online for people to be discipled? What if this is a setup for people to open their homes to revival and become hubs across the world?

Sometimes, when a problem is permitted, you have no option other than to explore something that is innovative and different. God can do a miracle with that. You might think something is an obstacle but God sees it as an opportunity. You might see something as a limitation but actually, it is an invitation for God to do something He always wanted to. When you get to the end of yourself, you can use your 5 loaves and 2 fish to multiply the power, glory, and effectiveness of God to touch the world.

In Our Lack, Jesus Is The Multiplier

Matthew 14:16, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat". 

A limitation is a time for innovation. In your limitation, God is saying we can work together; I am the solution. Our limitation is an invitation for God to do a miracle. God will do this miracle when we submit instead of making excuses.

In your limitation, what if instead of coming up with an excuse for why nothing can happen in your life, you actually find some faith? What you have might not be enough in your hands but it is just enough in the hands of the Master, Jesus.

Producing The Supernatural

Matthew 14:17 -18, "And they said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish". He said, "Bring them here to Me."

Stress doesn’t produce the supernatural, surrender does. Stressing over the fact that you have very little, complaining that God didn’t give you enough, and comparing your little with somebody else’s doesn’t produce miracles. Tears don’t produce miracles. Not complaining and surrendering what you have to Jesus produces miracles. God isn’t looking for a lot. The supernatural is God adding His super to your natural. God never compares your natural with your neighbors. He says yours is enough if you surrender it to Me.

Jesus did not tell the boy who gave the loaves and fish to go and feed the multitude with them. He told the boy to give the loaves and fish to Him, (John 6). Then, Jesus did the miracle.

Supernatural Serving

I want to highlight something for those serving in a local church, giving of their gifts and talents. It is important you realize you are not serving people, when you are serving people; you are pleasing God. When you are serving people, you are pleasing God. If you miss the God component in serving people, you will always be disappointed. First and foremost, we do whatever we do for God. If people don’t like or receive it, it does not throw us off or make us stop, because it is God we are seeking to please. If you are serving only to impress people, you will get discouraged.

The supernatural process of serving is that you give your gifts to Jesus first, He blesses them, gives them back to you in a broken form, and then you give them to the people.

The church is full of imperfect people. The church attracts immature people who are in the process of sanctification. You and I are included in this. What keeps you grounded in the church is you fix your eyes on giving your five loaves and two to Jesus, not to Peter, John, another disciple, or the crowd.

Not My Will But Yours Be Done

Jesus was not beaten and crucified because He wanted to be but because He wanted to first honor and fulfill His Father’s will. Sometimes, service and ministry will take you to a garden of Gethsemane where you honestly don’t want to do it and your motivation fizzles out. If your motivation fizzles out, it is because what fuels it is wrong. The wrong fuel for motivation is to be seen, to explore your gifts and touch the world. All that motivation is great until you reach the garden of Gethsemane, where you have to do things you don’t like.

In the garden of Gethsemane, the devil bombards you with thoughts that you should drop what you are doing, it is not worth it, nobody appreciates it, and you are not being rewarded. But if you go on your knees and tell the Lord it is not your will but if it is His, then let His will be done in your life and you will receive strength to deny yourself and serve the world for Jesus.

Don’t bring your gifts to the church first; bring them to Jesus. Some people bring their offerings to the church because they want the leader to know them.

Start With What You Have

Matthew 14:19-20, "Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides woman and children".

God will increase what we have. God multiplies what is given away, not what is stored away. When Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fish, they still didn’t multiply. He broke them. They only multiplied when the disciples gave the loaves away. It is through releasing what we have that we receive what we need. You can be gifted, anointed, and called by God but that will not increase until you serve, give, and exercise.

Spiritual Exercise

For example, all of us have muscles. Some of the muscles are obvious, while some are hidden under layers of different substances. Typically, you don’t go to God and say give me muscles. You go to the gym and exercise the muscles you have so that they increase. When you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you receive gifts. A lot of Christians don’t even know the gifts they have because they are buried under layers of excuses and laziness. If you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, there is so much more inside you than you realize. In the same way, you don’t become fit by watching fitness videos, you become fit by exercising. When Jesus blesses what you give, you can multiply it by releasing it.

People ask how they can grow in their spiritual gifts. The answer is you have to start using the little that you have where you can. Stop looking for a lit place to be seen in and look for a dark place to shine in. Light does not need a well-lit stage. Light lights up dark places. You are a light. Your gift is an answer to somebody. You need to find a need and fill it.

Willingness To Serve

The Bible says in John 7:37 that out of the innermost being of those who believe will flow rivers of living water. God is looking for you to have an outlet, not just an inflow. Many Christians have become bottles. They gave to Jesus, He blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them but they are not seeing any results because the water has to come out. Notice, it is water that comes out of believers, not rocks.

Have you noticed rocks are stubborn? Rocks need things to be big enough for them or they cannot go in or out without causing damage. Some people in the church are like that. They have this gift, education, and cannot do anything else in the house of God. Water is flexible. Water is fluid. You don’t have to open the door for water, a crack will do. We have to be flexible to serve where the need is.

Give what you have where you can and it will begin to multiply and grow. Then, God will give you opportunities and greater grace. Instead of coming to church to ask if there is room for your gifts, ask if there is a need you can serve in. Don’t use the church to build your name but use your name, gifts and strengths to build the body which Christ Jesus died for. The gifts will grow and the anointing will increase if you begin to give of yourself.

Dead Sea Christians

The Dead Sea in Israel is 30 miles long, and 9 miles wide with a shoreline 1,300 feet below sea level. Seven million tons of water evaporate every day there. It is the lowest point on earth. The salt content is 10 times saltier than the oceans of the world. The Dead Sea is so salty that only bacteria can survive there. Nothing can grow there and fish cannot live there but it looks beautiful. You can float and have fun in it but there is no fruitfulness in it. The River Jordan flows into the Dead Sea but nothing flows out of it.

There is another sea in Israel called the Sea of Galilee. This sea is very different. It is smaller being 13 miles long, and 7 miles wide but it has life in it. It is the lowest freshwater lake on earth and 20 types of fish live there. The Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee and flows out. The same Jordan flows into the Dead Sea and it doesn’t flow out.

Even though we are the salt of the world, some of us are too salty. Some of us are so salty only bacteria live in us. Salty people share one characteristic – they don’t volunteer, serve or give. Statistics say that 20% of the church does 80% of serving.

Your Invitation

I invite you to begin to serve. Don’t be preoccupied with what gift you have; look for where there is a need. There are too many people trying to discover their gifts and too few people trying to deny their selfishness and build the kingdom of God. Your gift will become evident with time.

Some people complain that they don’t have a passion for serving but you are old enough to do something you don’t like and put a smile on it. Many people don’t like their jobs but still do them. You’re not a baby. There are a lot of things you have to do in life because there is a need, not because you like it. Look for the need and later on, you can find the passion. Then, hopefully, you can find something you are passionate about. Do you want to make some progress? Stop making excuses. Put excuses aside and humble yourself. God is responsible for your miracle but you are responsible for your obedience. Give God what you have without moaning or worrying, and trust God for what you need. Lord, I will give You what I have and I will trust You for what I need.

Sermon By Vladimir Savchuk; Blog By Edward Gardiner

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