The Bread Is In Your Hands (Holly Furtick)

Hi everybody.

Thanks so much for subscribing to our video podcast here at Elevation Church. We trust that these messages are speaking directly to your heart. Beginning January seventh, we're moving to audio only podcast. We'd love for you to still participate in it. All you have to do is search for Elevation with Stephen Ferdick. If you'd still like the video, that's great. You can subscribe to Elevation Church on YouTube and be a part of these sermons anywhere you are.

We'll see you soon. Well, welcome to Elevation.

Hasn't this been an amazing time of worship already at all of our locations.

Those of you joining us online, Merry Christmas. You did it, you're here, you made it.

What a beautiful time we've had together this morning. And I love coming to church, but I love coming especially this time of year, because it forces me to stop thinking about all the things that I have left to do this week and just spend an hour focusing on why we really celebrate Christmas. That Jesus came, he was born in a manger, and we worship him. And so today I'm really excited about the word that God has given me to say to you. Stand on your feet.

Since they had nothing to eat. Jesus called his disciples to.

Him and said, I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days had and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse along the way, because some of them have come a long distance. His disciples answered, but where in this remote place we can anyone get enough bread to feed them?

How many loaves do.

You have, Jesus asked, seven, they replied, and he told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well, and he gave thanks for them also, and told the disciples to distribute them.

The people ate and were satisfied.

Afterwards, the disciples picked up seven baskets full of broken pieces that were left over. About four thousand were present. God, would you've blessed this word today? We love you Jesus name, We pray Amma. All right, give a couple of good Christmas hugs before you.

Take your seat. Thank you worship team. That was amazing.

I think Jenna and John sou should do more duets. Hey, I was really beautiful.

Okay? Is it okay?

If I give you a Christmas sermon that's not from a Christmas Bible passage?

Good because I already am. First, I want to tell you of a short story.

Don't for all those of you don't like long stories. I like long stories, but have a short.

One for you today.

Many of you know that Stephen and I we got married when we were practically babies. Right three weeks after our college graduation, at twenty two years of old, twenty two years of age, we got married and we basically moved out of our dorms and into our first apartment. So during our first year of marriage, we were figuring out everything together.

We were figuring out how to get along.

How to budget, what we did after work, how to celebrate holidays.

What we did on weekends, And we had so many any.

Conversations about how his family did this and my family did that, And little by little I began to realize that there were things in my childhood that I thought were common place.

And they were actually weird. So here's an example.

One night, after I got home from teaching school, I said to Stephen, I said, hey, I need to get groceries for the week.

Let's just go eat dinner at the grocery store. I need to look back at.

Me, and he said, you mean go out to eat after we get groceries.

I said, no, we'll just eat while we shop.

And like by the look on his face, I had one of those moments where I realized my family was not normal. So you see, my family occasionally, not like once a week or anything, but occasionally we would eat dinner at the grocery store.

And I'm not talking about go to Costco and eat the samples. We did that too. I'm talking like sometimes when my.

Mom had a busy week and long list of groceries for our family of five, we would all go to Public's. We're shopping is a pleasure, and while my parents put items in the cart, we would open things up and eat them as we walked along, so a deli meat and cheese slices. You know, you roll it together and Dorito's straight out of the family sized bag, and you're helping me know that this was not normal. I didn't

At the grocery store and she.

Was like, well why, And I said, I want a sandwich.

I don't want to just eat meat and cheese from the deli.

And she said, well, just open the bread and make yourself a sandwich, and I did, and a decade later I realized that other families didn't eat.

Dinner at the grocery store.

The title of my sermon today is the Bread is in your hands.

Let's go back to the disciples for a minute. I shouldn't need to give you too.

Much backstory on this because Pastor Stephen preached on this story just a few months ago and the sermon was called Navigating not Enough.

Does anybody remember that one? It's the one where he.

Talked about girl math and God math and how.

And yeah you remember that one, and how enough is not a feeling, it's a place of faith. It was so good.

If you missed it, you got to go back because this is part two of that message.

And today I want to open.

Up that phrase. Enough is not a feeling, it's a place of faith. So what is a feeling? A feeling, especially this time of year, is tired and irritated, overwhelmed. And we feel these feelings when we're faced with a situation or a season where we wonder.

If we have enough.

And when I find myself in a place of not enough, I automatically think that the solution is more right, more time, more money, if I had more help.

But the problem is in the moment, more is outside.

Of your control. You don't have more. If you could get more, you would get more. So sometimes the solution is right there in your hands. And what you need is the faith to see what you actually have. You don't actually need more. You need the faith to see what you already have and the courage to turn.

It over to Jesus. Now, I don't want to be too hard on the.

Disciples, because I do think that following Jesus would have been simultaneously the coolest thing ever and the hardest thing ever. But I do have some questions for the disciples, particularly about this story.

Now, you might have noticed in your Bible that this.

Story is called the Feeding of the four thousand, and that's because just two chapters back, we have almost the same story, but it's called the Feeding of the five thousand, and the two stories are almost identical, so much so that if both if both Matthew and Mark, they tell both stories, so they both tell the Feeding of the five thousand feeding in the four thousand. Some people would argue that maybe they were the same thing and people

And Jesus felt compassion for the people. He wanted to give them something to eat.

Now I get it this time why the disciples were baffled when Jesus told them to feed the crowd.

And in this particular passage, Jesus just looks.

At them and he says, you feed them, and they're like, Jesus, it would take more than half a year's wages to feed all of these people.

And Jesus said, go see what you have.

And then the disciple Andrew, does anybody remember this story? He finds a kid with five loaves and two fish, and they bring that to Jesus and he takes it and he blesses it, and they all eat and they're satisfied. The Bible tells us it wasn't just five thousand men, but it was five thousand men plus the women and children, and they had twelve baskets full leftover.

A miracle. I mean, the.

Disciples must have been flying high to be a part of feeding that many people, right. So two chapters later, Mark gives us the account of Jesus feeding the four thousand, and I'm like, how much time could there have been between these two stories?

So I googled it.

Most scholars think, of course, you think I looked it up in like a commentary or something.

I googled it. Most scholars think that it was about.

Six months, so only six months after the disciples found themselves in almost the same exact place.

Crowds gather so large they have to go out to a remote place.

Jesus teaches and heals, and so much time passes, they run out of food and they won't be able to make the journey back home.

Okay, look at the passage again.

Jesus says, I have compassion for these people. They've already been with me three days and have had nothing to eat, have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse along the way, because some of them have come a long distance. His disciples answered, but where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?

Seriously, not one out of the twelve.

Things to say, Jesus, let's go, We got seven loaves.

Do that thing again, will multiply the bread. And then another disciple maybe starts singing.

Dun dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun dun, And then they're like, and I believe I.

See wo there's twelve of them and not one of them. Now, maybe they really.

Did forget about the feeding of the five thousand just six months before. Maybe they had seen Jesus do that many miracles and they weren't thinking about that one. And I do know that in my life there are many times where I forget the things.

That God has done for me. Right like when I think of.

The miracles that God has done in my life and the things that I have seen God in the life of this church, it's insane. I still to this day can smell the smell of the Providence High School drama dressing rooms.

That's where we first started.

And I remember peeking out from behind the curtain because back then I was one of the background vocalists.

You didn't know that about me, did you.

Because we didn't have anyone who could really sing yet, and so I was getting the job done. And I remember peeking out from behind the curtain and wondering if people were going to show up because we'd added a second service, and every week they did. And I remember during COVID wondering if people were really going to watch

Completely forget all that I have seen.

God do with my seven loaves of bread. So maybe they did forget. That's still a possibility. But just go with me here, because my December imagination was going, and I started thinking, what if they didn't forget about the feeding of the five thousand? What if they actually remembered how much work it took to feed five thousand men plus women and children. Because look, in my house, I am in charge of feeding five people. I always planned for a straight teenager or two as well.

And some nights I cook a lot. I like to cook, so some nights I cook, some nights we order food.

And my strategy is always never throw food away, because unless it's bad, which in my house my kids know, it has to look bad or smell bad, otherwise you can eat it, or if it tastes bad, spit it out. It's fine because I don't throw it for it away because there's somebody who's always hungry in my house, and so I always make sure that there's enough food in

And so as I was.

Feeling like I did not have enough during this busy Christmas season, it made me wonder if in this moment, the disciples problem was not enough bread, but if their problem was not enough compassion.

Stephen told us in his message.

That the disciples saw crowds. When Jesus saw people, he had compassion for the people.

He said, they've been here three days.

They won't make it home if you don't give them something to eat. And when we're faced with a not enough moment, our first prayer should be, Lord.

Change what I see.

I think the disciples wanted to eat their seven loaves and go home and get a shot and get some sleep.

But Jesus had compassion on the hungry people, and he knew that he had more to give them.

Jesus wanted this crowd to go home full physically and spiritually, because he knew that often our physical needs are directly connected with our spiritual needs, and he wanted to feed the people through the hands of the disciples.

Lord, change what I see. I want to see people, not problems.

I want to have compassion for the hungry people around me. Every day, sometimes all day long. We're all dealing with hungry people. The person you work with, the lady bringing you up at target, your kids, your kid's teacher, your mother in law, your neighbor, your spouse, the person standing too close to you on the subway. And it's complicated, and I know it's not easy, But each moment we have the opportunity to choose to see faceless crowds or hungry people.

When you see hungry people, you will.

Feel empathy and you will be moved to compassion. Something inside of you, somehow sees someone's pain and responds to it. When you see faceless crowds, you're thinking about yourself. And this time of year, it is so easy to just get through. You're tired, you're worried, you're running out of time.

But here is what I want to say to you today.

The level to which you are able to feel the presence of Christ this Christmas is directly related to how you treat the people in your every day life.

This is not an easy message.

I don't think a lot of people are going to be like aymen, this is a hard one for me.

But what I want to he's about how I want to say it.

I am learning that I feel closer to God when I am kinder to others. Write that down, because that's the main thing I want you to remember from this sermon. I feel closer to God when I am kinder to others.

Now, I was raised in church, and I was taught.

So many wonderful things about the Bible, and I was raised to understand the importance of reading my Bible and praying every day. And I was taught how important it is to attend church and serve and tithe and give, and all of these things help us to hear God and to know God and to grow in our faith. Those things are the essentials of our faith and elevation.

And if you're one of those people, thank you.

We're still in the process of receiving our year end offering, and last week many of you came forward and you gave, and that money enables us not only to spread the gospel further with the messages of this church and the amazing messages from our pastor and the songs and all, but it also helps us to truly be able to show the compassion of Jesus to people who are actually hungry and living in poverty.

It enables us to provide disaster.

Relief where it's needed, and fund education programs and so much more. It's amazing what God can do when we give him our loves. Right, however, you can do all of those things and miss the point. I heard a preacher once say that the greatest indication of your relationship with God is how you treat others, and not just how you treat the people that you love, although some of us treat the people we love the worst.

But it's how you treat the people you don't understand. It's how you treat the people you don't agree with.

It's how you treat people who have perhaps treated you poorly.

In Luke six. In Luke six, Jesus.

Says, if you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that?

Even sinners love those who love them.

Love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid.

Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and.

You will truly be acting as children of the most High, For He is kind to those who.

Are unthankful and wicked.

You must be compassionate, just as your father is compassionate. Because the scary thing is that the people that Jesus was the most harsh with in the Bible were the religious people, people who followed all the rules and attended church and prayed the prayers and made the sacrifices because these people have begun to think that doing those things made them closer to God and also.

Better than everyone else.

And there have been times in my life when I thought memorizing scripture and participating in Bible studies and abstaining from certain substances would make me feel closer to God. And don't get me wrong, because all of those things play a huge role in my growth as a Christian. But the actual growth comes when I apply all of those things that I'm learning to my relationships and my

When I'm kind to others.

Jesus says later in the Book of John a new commandment. I give you love one another as I have loved you, So you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. The way we treat others is what sets us apart as believers in Christ.

So let me ask you this, if the.

Only way for people in your life to know that you are a Christian was not by how often you went to church or how many Bible verses you knew, but was by how you.

Treated other people? What would they say about you? Now?

Listen, Our outward actions do not change our status with God. The way I treat others makes me feel closer to God. But we're all covered by his grace, Thank God, because we all have moments. Right, not too long ago, I went to home Goods and I think it was a Saturday because God and everybody was there.

And I drove around and there was only one parking space available.

And I drive a really big mom Suv, but I'm really good at parking it, and so I whip.

Into this space and it was close, but it's a big car. That's how you drive it. And and so you know, I whip into this place.

And the owner of the car that I got really really close to, like probably inches, she happened to be sitting in her vehicle and she watched the whole thing, and she looked at me and she was like, you almost get my car, And I'm you know, I've been driving around looking for this space for a while.

And so I looked back at her and I was like what, because.

What was the best word I could think to say in the moment, you know, the best thing that could. We all have moments, moments we wish we could take back, moments I'm not even.

Gonna share with you here that are a lot worse than what happened at Home Goods. We all have moments that we know are covered by God's grace, but we hope that they're covered by people's grace too. And there's always forgiveness to be found in Christ. But we have to realize that our outward actions and our responses to others can affect our ability to sense the presence and the peace of.

God in our lives.

And if you're wondering this Christmas why you don't feel close to Christ, why you don't feel peace in your heart, maybe you should check how you're treating other people. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose the people that God has placed in our lives and on our paths.

We don't get to.

Choose the family that we're born into. Maybe you didn't have to eat dinner at the grocery store. Married didn get to choose those who came to worship Jesus that night in the stable. But we do get to choose how we see the people in our lives, and I know that the people in your life are messy. It's

I get it.

I'm just asking you to think, if you feel far from God this Christmas, you might need to ask God to help you change the way you see His sons and daughters, because you can have boundaries and be kind at the same time. You know that phrase hurting people hurt people. I want to change it a little bit today and tell you hungry people hurt people. Have you ever been angry in the worst mood because you haven't eaten anything, And if you would just eat something, everything

The people that.

You encounter this Christmas, your family workers, your co worker, your family workers, your family members.

Your co workers, the person.

In front of you in mine at the grocery store. They're all hungry. And I know you're hungry too. But I believe that God sent me here today to tell you that there is bread in your hands. Look back at the scripture. I have compassion for these people. They've already been with me for three days and have nothing to eat. If they send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.

The disciples answered, but where in this remote place could we get enough food to feed them?

How many loaves do you have, Jesus asked seven.

They replied seven was not much. They would have needed thirteen for each of.

Them to have one, but they had seven, and so they gave their seven loaves to Jesus.

You know that you.

Don't have to give everyone a feast. You don't have to stop and pray with the waitress at lunch today, but you can smile and say thank you and give her a nice tip whether she got your order perfectly right or not. You don't have to be an annoying Christian to have compassion on the people around you. You can be kind within your own giftings and within your own personality. And I just want to say that extroverts aren't better Christians. They just like talking to people in

I have a job to do. I have hungry teenagers to feed.

And sometimes I have my audio book in and I'm playing candy Crush.

At the checkout.

Okay, like I'm that, But sometimes I do that at home too, and I'm checked out. How can you even begin to.

See the people in your life?

How can I even begin to see the people in my life when I'm instantly staring at my phone? And so while I'm up here preaching to myself, I feel like I should say to some of the people in this room that are running around and trying to make everything perfect and getting the gifts under the tree and wrapped and beautiful, and the holiday meals and the class parties and the Secretsanda and the family Christmas card and all of those wonderful, beautiful things. But you know what

On your to do list. Be like my mom. She said, you want bread, there's bread right here in the cart. God didn't ask the disciples to prepare a five course meal, He said, how much bread do you you have? What's in your car? How can you see the people around you?

Sometimes compassion is simply stopping to encourage someone that you know is going through.

A difficult season. It's that simple. Two weeks ago, on a Saturday night, I was really stressed.

I had a list a mile long to take care of, and I was also trying to prepare a sermon for you know, a lot of people, and I was trying my best just to you know, tackle one thing at a time. And I think I did a pretty okay job not taking it out on my kids and my family. But by the time that I went to bed, my stomach was in naughts. And I don't know if any of you ever go to bed and you're just praying.

You're like, God, just help me not forget anything that I've committed to do.

And I woke up the next morning to a text from a staff member and a friend. Her name is Daytona, and she texted me and she said that she had woken up in the middle of the night and felt led to pray peace over us, and she just typed out a prayer about the peace of God having authority over me.

That was bread.

I woke up to bread right there on my phone because someone else stopped for a second to think about someone other than herself. You don't have to be a preacher or a Bible scholar or you know, Mother Teresa to feed the hungry this Christmas. And if you're listening to this message and you're thinking, great, now I have to add more to my list. I need to find a soup kitchen for my family to serve out.

You're totally missing the point.

Obviously, if the opportunity arises for you to serve at an organization like that, you should do it. But the point is having compassion is less about signing up to serve and is more about what is right in front of who is right in front of you. A good friend of mine has been letting a teenage girl in her neighborhood live with her for weeks this Christmas because she has nowhere else to go except the foster care system. That is the compassion of Christ.

When you have the faith to pray, Lord, here is my bread. Use what I have.

God will always present you with an opportunity. And Mary's prayer the one that she prayed after the angel came to her and told her that she was going to carry the son of God. She starts off by saying, my soul magnifies the Lord. My heart rejoices in God, my savior, for he lifts the lowly. And then she goes on to say this beautiful thing she says, for he has filled the.

Hungry with good things.

God has compassion for the hungry, and the good news is he wants to feed them through you.

The power came from Jesus, but the bread was in their hands. Here's the funny thing. Look at verse six.

He told the crowds to sit down on the ground when he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well. He gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them.

Where did the fish come from? The disciples never mentioned any fish.

But maybe someone saw the bread going around and they just threw their fish into the lot. When you give God what you have, when you give him what time you have, when you give him the ability you have, the resources that you have, you will always have more than enough.

Someone's gonna throw some fish into the pile. He always enough. The key is to see what you have, count your loaves this morning and thank God for them, ask him to bless them. So this looks like you wake up in the morning and you say, God, here's my bread today.

Thank you for my health, thank you for my job, thank you for my family, thank you for the home that we have to host people in. Thank you for the car that I have to go Christmas shopping in. Here's my time, God, here's my day. Change how I see and interact with people today.

Show me what I have in my hands. We're not going to get it right every time.

We're human beings with feelings and emotions, and we're navigating our own hunger while simultaneously trying to feed others. But the faith to feed is directly connected to your proximity to Jesus. Think about the order the disciples gave Jesus the bread. Jesus blessed it, gave it back to them, They passed it out over and over again until four thousand people were fed. Last Christmas, I was making a big meal for our family, and you know, first I

And then I made a.

Cheeseboard because I wanted us to have, you know, appetizers, and so I was snacking on the grapes and the cheese, and I had to make sure the.

Crackers weren't stale.

And then I sliced the bread and that we were gonna I was gonna warm in the oven, and so you know, I ate the little in piece. And I was making mashed potatoes and I had to taste those to make sure that they had enough salt.

And you know what.

By the time I sat down to that meal with my family, I don't know if this is ever having you. I wasn't really hungry at all because the people in the kitchen have the most access to the food.

And don't you think that the.

Disciples were eating the bread and the fish as they passed it out?

Of course they were. They got to it first. As long as they stayed close to Jesus. There was plenty for everyone. And when you're feeding others, it's an act of service, of course it is, but you benefit from it.

And I'm giving you permission this Christmas to lick the bowl. Watch God do something through your hands. He will supply you with everything you need. He will not only give you the compassion for the people you interact with, but He's also going to give you the energy to distribute.

It if you remain close to him.

Stay in the kitchen this Christmas and experience the feeling of being full while you serve. Watch the energy shift in your heart and in your home, while you see the people, and you watch God do what he does with.

The bread that you have.

Before Jesus, they had seven loaves after they gave what.

They had to Jesus. They had so much left over they couldn't even eat it all.

They no longer had seven loaves, they had seven baskets full. And the basket was the Hebrew word for the basket meant it was like the basket that Paul hid in.

It was a basket big enough for a man to fit in. They had seven basketfuls left over.

And I want to tell you that joy and peace and contentment is what's going to be in your baskets this Christmas, and you won't even know where it came from. To stay close, the prophet Isaiah said, the Virgin will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Don't miss out on the nearness of Christ this Christmas.

Fight for it with everything you have.

Let the pain and the disappointments that you face this season draw you closer to Christ. Let the hardship and the questions that you have draw you closer to Jesus, because everything flows from that close relationship with Him.

Before I close, I want.

To remind you also today that God's kindness and compassion is for you too, And maybe you should try being a little kinder to yourself this Christmas as well. Sometimes the person that you're the least kind to is yourself. You can't stop thinking about all the ways that you have messed up, and the enemy wants nothing more than to get in between you and Emmanuel. So the enemy's going to say to you you should be farther along than you are now.

When he does, you press in to Emmanuel and you remind him how far God has brought you.

When the enemy says to you, your kids deserve better than you, you remember that just like God placed Jesus in Mary's hands, God sovereignly placed your child, your children in your lap. And the breadth that's in your hands is enough for you and for them. When the enemy tells you that you've made too many mistakes, you tell yourself that Jesus came to earth and died so that his grace would not only cover all of your sins.

But empower you to live for him.

John ten ten Jesus said, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, But I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. The message of Christmas, this of Christmas is that Jesus humbled himself by becoming flash and coming to earth, the word became flesh.

And it dwelt among us. His love for you is that great.

Em Manuel, God with us, looks at you with the love.

And compassion and patience of a father. Today. He paid a great price for you. He took our guilt.

And our sin and our shame so that we could have life to the full, not running on empty, running on full.

Let him satisfy your soul today.

As I close, I thought I could take the remaining moments that we have to just reflect on what we've heard today and on the wonder of Christmas and the Holy night when God became flesh came to earth that we might experience his love and compassion for us. Lev Thank you for your word to us today. Would you seal it on our hearts. Thank you for your kindness to us. Lord, Thank you for your nearness to us

We love you, Lord.

Thank you for your love and your kindness and your patience with us. Thank you for your grace that covers us, and most of all, we thank you for Jesus that he came to earth as a baby so.

That we might know you and Jesus name.

I pray Amen, thanks for joining us today. We pray that God has spoken to you in a unique and powerful way through the message. Well, we are in our year in Offering season as a church where we get the opportunity to reflect back on all the ways that God has been faithful to our ministry this year, but also to look ahead at what we're believing God for

God bless and we'll see you soon.