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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. This is day two of our look together
through John chapter six. Yesterday we began our look at this great miracle of
the feeding of the 5,000 and we learned lesson one in this miracle, the lesson
of the yardstick.

Am I measuring life by my abilities or by God's will? By God's abilities. If I
measure by my abilities, I'm never going to try to do anything more than my
abilities and probably a little less.

But if I measure my life by God's will, by his direction, I'm going to have the
strength to attempt great things for God, knowing that I couldn't do them on my
own, but he will give me the strength. That's the lesson of, I called it
yesterday, the lesson of the yardstick. Today we're going to take a look at a
different lesson.

I call it the lesson of the scales, the weights and scales. And you begin to
learn this lesson in John chapter six, verses eight and nine. Another of his
disciples, these verses say, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "Here is a
boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go
among so many?

" Lesson two that Jesus is teaching is the scales, the weights and measures
lesson. And it is this, little in the hands of Jesus becomes much. You may have
heard that before.

It's worth hearing again. Little in the hands of Jesus becomes much. I want you
to notice there's two perspectives here in the same wrong answer.

Philip looks at the situation and he says, "It's impossible. It would take too
much. We don't have the resources.

" Andrew looks at it from the other side and says, "It's impossible. We have too
little. We can't do it.

" The truth is, just because you look at a problem from all the different human
angles, the positive, the negative, the plus, the minus, that doesn't mean you
figured it out. Philip was looking at the crowd and not Christ. Andrew was
looking at the few loaves and not the Lord.

They still had the same problem. They weren't looking at the Lord. Andrew's
comment is one of those telling comments in the Bible and I relate to it so much
because he just goes one sentence too far.

You ever done this in your life? He comes to Jesus and he says, "Jesus, here is
a boy with five small barley loaves and two fish. " What if he just stopped
there?

It would have been one of the great heroic moments of faith in the Bible. Andrew
had enough faith to believe that Jesus could feed the 5,000, but instead he just
goes one phrase more and he says, "But how far can they go among so many? " He
brings the resources, but he says to Jesus, "It's still impossible even with
this.

" Sometimes we outthink ourselves when it comes to faith. I certainly do. I see,
well, God could do this, but, and then you add on why he can't.

And then, of course, he doesn't because you've determined that he won't. But the
one thing that Andrew did do right, the one thing that I can do right, even all
my doubts, my ups and downs, is he brought the boy to Jesus. If I'll bring my
problem, my impossible situation, my few resources to Jesus, then he can meet
the need.

Philip looked at it and said it would take too much, but no need is too great
for Jesus. Andrew looked at it and said, "We have too little, but little in the
hands of Jesus becomes much. " And when I look at my life, when you look at your
life, I'd encourage you to ask yourself, "What have I decided is too big for God
to accomplish in my life?

There's nothing too big for God to accomplish. " Or ask yourself, "What have I
decided is too little for God to work with? " That's the one that gets a lot of
us.

We often look at life and say, "There's just not enough. " We say, "When I get
more," and you fill in the blank, "then I'm going to," and you fill in that
blank, "When I get more time, then I'm going to get involved in ministry. When I
get more energy, then I'm going to really play with my kids.

When I get more support, then I'm going to be a better husband, better wife.
When I get more money, then I'm going to really give to the Lord. " I have a
little secret for you.

It's probably not secret at all. You've already discovered it. You'll never have
enough.

The needs are too great, and our resources are too small. That's why you have to
start with what you have and trust in Him. It's interesting.

This miracle that Jesus works shows us the biblical pattern for how God takes
our little and makes it into His much. It's the same pattern in the Old
Testament of Gideon defeating the Minianites with an army of only 300, or David
defeating Goliath with just a slingshot. How does God take our little and
magnify it, use it for His much?

Well, there are four things in this pattern. First, God magnifies our need, then
He reduces our resources, and then someone trusts God with what little they
have, and then God uses that little to show how great He is. Here's how it
works.

First, God magnifies the need. He shows us there's something here that I cannot
possibly accomplish on my own ability. There are 5,000 people to be fed.

This is impossible. Now, sometimes we fool ourselves. We think the need isn't as
great as it is, but in God's way of working, He shows us how great the need is.

He magnifies it. He lets us know this is impossible with human strength. He
starts by magnifying the need, not denying the need, magnifying it, and then God
reduces our resources.

Just a little boy, just a few loaves, just a few fish, or with Gideon, it was
just a few people in His army. God actually reduced His army down to 300. With
David, it was just a slingshot.

He realized He couldn't wear Saul's armor. There was no human way to do this. He
reduces our resources so that we can't make the mistake of thinking that it was
our power and not His power.

And then comes the crucial moment. The third thing in this pattern, someone
trusts God with what little they have. Now, in this case, it was a little boy.

He handed his lunch over to Jesus. Sounds like that man, he wouldn't have had a
lunch. He'd had no trust, but he gave it to Jesus.

He trusted Him with what little He had. Now, I wish we knew His name. I think in
heaven we'll get to meet Him and know His name.

We don't know it now. And the truth is, God often works like this. You see it
all through the Bible.

Nameless people, untold stories, but great glory that goes to God. And then the
fourth thing happens. And I love this.

Then God uses the little that we have to show how great He is. He doesn't
discard what we give Him and say, "Now I'm going to do something greater. "
Jesus didn't say to the little boy, "I'm going to throw away your loaves and
fish.

Look what I can do. " No, He took what little the boy gave Him, and He used that
to do something greater. He did it in a way that everybody knew it wasn't the
boy's loaves and fish.

It was Jesus. But He also did it in a way that everybody knew that the fact the
boy trusted Him with those loaves and fish made all the difference in the world.
I have a friend with me today for drive time devotions.

Pastor Joel Sanagoga from Rwanda is here. And the telling thing to me as I'm
walking together, he's listening to what I'm teaching today, teaching on this
miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, is that here I am, a pastor in Orange
County, California, where we seem to have a lot materially. And sometimes we
trust so much in what we have that we don't do great things for God.

And my friend Joel is in Rwanda, where oftentimes they look, and it is evident
that they have few things materially. And yet, Joel, I just want to ask you, in
a country, in a situation where everyone realizes that the needs are not all
met, the resources are not all there, how have you, how has your church learned
to trust God even when there's a lack of resources? Very hard question, but good
one.

God will always use the little that you have, just like you have been saying in
this talk. It has always astonished me that in the short experience of our
church, two years, we have seen great things happen, things coming right on the
time they are needed. And it's amazing, you know, it's actually, you realize at
the end of it all that it is needless to worry because the Lord is in control.

And it has taught us lessons of dependence on God and very daring in faith, not
fearing to take on giants because, you know, He has always done it and He will
show up today. He has made a whole world of difference and has really, you know,
some of these things have transformed my life. He never fails to show up.

Never fails to show up. Joel, I'd like to ask you a question about this story of
the feeding of the 5,000. When you look at your country, Rwanda, and you realize
there are many hungry people, how do people in your country, Christians, take
this story and apply it to their lives in a way that gives them faith in a
situation where it feels like, God, we're even hungry, we don't have enough to
eat?

Well, if you would like me to cite an example, Tom, I would. And I have two
stories. One of the stories is a guy, he came to our church and he had been a
Christian before, but, you know, fell into sin with a young girl and after that
decided to remain with her as a wife, but unofficially they never had any
weddings or never been married in church.

And these guys, after that, they were both domestic servants in different homes
and they were sent away. And there was this house that was under construction
and the guy that kept the security of the house because the owner had not come
to use it. This was a house with no glasses, no glass shutters, no floor, and he
offered to give them accommodation as a couple.

They started living in this house and they visited our church when they were in
that kind of state. Little did I know that the wife was pregnant. They come and,
you know, they confessed to the church and received Christ or recommitted their
lives because both had been Christians.

Then they later told me they were married. They never, after falling into sin,
they never, you know, each one didn't go their way. They stuck together as wife
and husband and now it approaches the time of having a baby.

And the guy is in a dilemma. He doesn't earn even a coin at the end of the day
or the end of the month. They are starving.

Now, I'll give you one hour, go and pray and think, come back telling me what
you can do and I will help you do it. He came back later and told me you might
know, some stuff. We bake back home in Kikari or in that region like Kenya or
Uganda, you'll find the things they call chapatis or samosas.

And he comes and tells me I know how to make samosas and I know how to make
chapatis. I said go, come back to me tomorrow telling me that you have got
someone to buy them. And he went and he went to this grocery shop and they were
ready to take an order on a daily basis, 120 chapatis, 160 samosas.

I said if you told me you know how to do this, go back, pick a pen and a paper,
write for me the ingredients that will do that and amount to the quantity that
is required, that is equivalent to your order. He went, did exactly what I asked
him, lined them up, asked him to do the arithmetics. How much will it cost?

How much will he sell it at? What will be your profits? And I realized, Tom,
that this guy had the potential to earn a profit of 3,100 francs per day.

Profits. He just wasn't utilizing his gifts. He just was not using it.

And because I was hard on him, I awakened his mind to think and be sober. There
is something in his hands that he could use. There was a skill in his hands.

And it's amazing. He started with one chop supplying one grocery store. Today,
he has bought a bicycle.

Now, bicycles back home are not used for sports. It's for business. And it has a
carrier and he puts three buckets, two buckets in the sides and one bucket on
top to supply on a daily basis.

Two months after he started this business, the owner of the house finished his
house. He did the floor, put the shutters and sent them out. They had already
had a baby.

Yes. And they would have had no place to go. No place to go.

But now, he was in position to rent a house for his family. Joel, thank you for
sharing your country, how you look at this scripture and how it impacts your
hearts and lives. God magnifies our need.

He reduces our resources. Someone trusts God with what little they have. I'm
sure you'd agree that's the crucial moment, trusting God.

And then God uses the little that we have to show how great he is. And so, look
what happens. John 6, 10 to 11.

Jesus said, "Have the people sit down. " There was plenty of grass in that place
and the men sat down, about 5,000 of them. Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks
and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.

He did the same with the fish. Can you imagine? Just imagine with me, I'm not
sure this is how it was, but how the disciples felt what was happening during
Jesus' prayer.

He had them sit down, he gave thanks and then he distributed it. What were they
thinking while he was praying? There are 5,000 men there.

It says 5,000 men because they counted the men in that day in a crowd. 5,000
men, that meant there were probably at least 5,000 women and 5,000 children, at
least 15,000 probably there that day. And Jesus was praying.

I can just imagine Matthew peeking out as this is going on as a former tax
collector counting, "One, two, three, four, five, could this ever happen? "
Phillips shaking his head during this prayer, "This will never happen. " Peter
just biting his lip, hoping somehow that it could happen.

And it did happen because Jesus was there and he decided for it to happen. And
so the Bible says in verses 12 and 13, "When they had enough to eat, he said to
his disciples, 'Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.

' So they gathered them and they filled 12 baskets with the pieces of the five
barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. " In verse 7, we saw Philip
calculated to just give each one a bite, how much it would take. And here, "Each
one had as much as they wanted and there were 12 baskets left over.

" The lesson of the loaves is so simple. You begin with what you have. You give
it to Jesus Christ and then you let him do the rest.

Now some people get caught up in why there were 12 baskets left over. There's a
number of reasons possibly why. There were 12 tribes of Israel and Jesus was
teaching something here about how he came to bring the promise as the Messiah to
Israel.

But there were also, and I think this is the more important thing that happened
that day, there were also 12 object lessons here for the 12 disciples, a basket
for each of them. Each of them as they gathered, went out, each of their baskets
were full, 12 baskets. Remember that these disciples sometimes had to glean from
the fields in order to have enough to eat.

They didn't have jobs while they followed Jesus. They depended on what they had
earned before. And so this bread could feed them for the next few days.

It was an object lesson for them. They could trust Jesus Christ. In verses 14
and 15 the Bible says, "After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did,
they began to say, 'Surely this is the prophet who's come into the world.

' And Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force,
withdrew again to a mountain by himself. " Now it's interesting here to me that
the people's reactions make it clear that this was a true miracle. There are
some people who say there was no miracle that happened that day.

That because the boy shared his lunch and Jesus began to share it with others.
Others shared their lunch and it was just a sharing thing that everybody was
fed. Well, if that's how it happened, why did they want to make him king?

Why did they call him a prophet? It was only because there was a miracle that
happened that day. But the people's reaction also shows us, it makes it clear
how easy it is to miss the lessons in a miracle.

These people did not learn the lesson. They wanted to make him king. And their
idea of king was a political leader who would make their lives on earth better.

Who would get rid of the Roman government. A political king who would make their
lives on earth better. Not a savior.

Who would prepare their hearts and lives for God and eternity. They had a
short-sighted view of what God wanted to do in their lives. And we all have that
at times.

We have to admit it. When we see God do great things, we need to look for him to
do greater things. Not just to meet the little needs.

In fact, we're going to see in the next few days that even the disciples of
Jesus didn't learn the lesson. They still lived in fear. They still had
questions and struggles.

And so I want to get the lesson. I want you to get the lesson. Here's the
lesson.

You begin with what you have. You give it all to Jesus Christ. And you let him
do the rest.

Let's talk to him right now. And as we pray, I encourage you to pray, Jesus,
Jesus, help me to trust you with what I have. Help me to trust you with what I
have.

Instead of holding back what I have because it doesn't seem to be enough. Help
me to trust you with what I have. Instead of holding back what I have because
I'm afraid to give it.

Help me to trust you with what I have. And Jesus, instead of complaining about
what I don't have. Because there are many things I don't have.

Help me today to trust you with what I do have. I pray this in your name, Jesus.
Amen.

Well, tomorrow we're going to see what Jesus had to teach his followers in
verses 15 to 21.