In this sermon, the preacher reflects on his journey with the Lord Jesus since 1965. He shares how bringing everything to Jesus allows Him to receive, break, bless, and use it for His mission. The preacher emphasizes the principle of mission, where one must give themselves empty to Jesus and continually come back to Him for more. The sermon focuses on two stories from Luke 9:1-17 - the sending out of the twelve disciples and the feeding of the 5,000 - highlighting the connection between them and the message of mission.

Let me just make sure we are in Luke chapter 9. And let me just set before your hearts again where we are and where we left off. It seems strange a little bit not sitting around the table, but at least I'm around the table. In our study we've come to Luke chapter 9 and we're at the end of what we call the Galilean ministry of our Lord Jesus. For the past couple of weeks we've been stressing what we call the transition between the Galilean ministry and then the Judean ministry, which will begin at chapter 9, 51. Actually as far as the ministry of Christ, you know He ministered on the earth for three and a half years. The Galilean ministry took about one half of that. And so we're just about half way in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. The basic difference from Luke's vantage point of the Galilean ministry and the Judean ministry is the Galilean ministry emphasized the works of Christ. His doing. He was the friend of all mankind and He went about doing good and helping the oppressed and the poor. And so it's a great section on miracles and we've emphasized Luke's point that Jesus was the friend of all mankind. But as Luke prepares us now to move into the next section, that is the teaching ministry of Christ. He does it in such a way that he wraps up all of the big points that he wanted to make in the first nine chapters. I won't spend a lot of time reviewing, but I just mention these couple of things. Number one, Luke began by saying Jesus is the son of all mankind. And then he said He's the friend of all mankind. And then he defined all mankind. He's the friend of all receptive mankind. And then he defined receptive. He's the friend of all believing mankind, those who have faith. And so he keeps narrowing it down. He wants to be the friend of all. The friend of all who are open, who receive Him. The friend of all who believe and take the simple step of faith. And then secondly, as we come to the end of the Galilean ministry, He ended with a flurry of miracles. In other words, last time we looked at the three great miracles. The demon possessed man, remember the one that had legion, at least 2,000, probably 6,000, maybe as many as 12,000 demons in that one man. He healed him, and then that woman who reached out and touched the hem of the garment of our Lord. And then He raised Jairus' daughter from the dead. Big miracle where He summarizes that He's for men, for women, for children. He's for those who are in bondage, for those who reach out in faith, for those who want life, and so on. And so He summarizes that great ministry. We come now to Luke chapter 9 and the first 50 verses. You'll notice in our original outline that the first section goes through 950. And this really wraps up His Galilean ministry. Now this morning we're only going to look at 17 verses. Chapter 9, 1 to 17. And there are two big stories in this section. And what I'd like, by God's assistance, I'd like to show you how they're connected. The first story is the sending out of the 12 disciples, two by two. And then in verses 11 to 17, that's the first 10 verses. And then verse 11 to 17, the feeding of the 5,000, that miracle. Now at first sight you might not see how those two stories are connected. But God's assisting me, I hope that we can look at that together. I'm going to ask you to follow the first 5 verses, please, and we'll read it from Luke chapter 9. And He called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. And He said to them, take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money. Do not even have two tunics a piece. And whatever house you enter, stay there and take your leave from there. And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that city, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. Now this sending out of the 12 two by two is different than what we're going to read when we come to chapter 10 in Luke. In chapter 10 He sent out 70 two by two. But don't confuse that with the sending out of the 12 two by two. Matthew and Mark and Luke record what Luke gives us here in 5 verses. The sending out of the 12 two by two. Matthew gives us this story in 40 verses. And so Matthew adds a lot of detail to what Luke just sort of skims over. Now if we were studying mission together as a topic, you know we would spend a lot more time on this, because this is the first time the Lord sent out missionaries. And so we would want to study the first time in order to get the great fundamentals of how does He send out missionaries. But we're not studying missions, we're studying Luke. And so the Lord helping us, I'm going to try to stick to His emphasis. Why does He emphasize what He emphasizes? And how does it tie in with the great message that's on His arm? Let me try to give you what I think is the heart of what Luke is trying to accomplish. For about eight chapters, Jesus has been showing Himself as the friend of all mankind. In other words, His disciples have been along for the ride. They've been spectators. They've been watching. They've been observing. But actually the whole ministry was Jesus. He was doing it all, and they were just only slightly related to the work. On one occasion, Peter lent his boat, so he's involved in the work. Jesus uses it for a platform, for a pulpit, and so on. But up to this point, they're not really involved. Jesus told Peter when He first called in, He said, someday you'll be a fisher of men. Now you're a fisher of fish, but someday you'll be a fisher of men. But that hadn't happened so far. If there was a healing, Jesus did it. If there was a problem to be solved, Jesus solved it. They were just there to observe. If there was a need, Jesus filled that need. He's the one that cast out demons. He's the one that calmed the storm. He's the one that healed every kind of disease. He's the one that cleansed lepers and raised the dead, and so on. So they were watching Jesus for about a year and a half. They were watching Him minister and do all of these wonderful things. But now at the end of the Galilean ministry, Jesus said, okay boys, it's your turn. You've watched Me for a year and a half. Now don't read this la la la. They're about to take a graduate course in missions. This is their solo flight. They're ready now to be launched out. And so this was their first taste of real ministry. Luke only gives us a little bit of the commission. Verse 1, He called the twelve together, gave them power and authority over all demons and disease, and He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. Put yourself, if you will, in the shoes of the twelve disciples. They thought this was just going to be another Monday or Tuesday or whatever day it was. Jesus had been doing these. I wonder what He'll do today. I wonder if He'll raise the dead or cleanse the leper or heal somebody. Let's go. And here's what Matthew said. Jesus gathered them together. This is Matthew 10, 8. And Matthew said, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons. Freely you receive, freely give. Right. Picture yourself there. He said, all right, now you've seen me do it. Now I'm sending you up. If I were there, I would have said, you're coming with us, right? You're not sending us out alone. And Jesus would say, no, I'm not going with you. You're going out two by two. And when you go out, here's what you to do. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, cleanse the lepers. Imagine. And when they received that, for a couple of years, they'd been watching the Lord do all of those things. But now the commission is there. That's why Jesus spelled out so clearly in Luke's commission, where their adequacy was. Verse one says, he gave them power and authority. Authority is the right to do something. Power is the ability to do it. We need the right, but we also need the power. I think a lot of people have the commission, but they haven't learned to appropriate the power to perform. They haven't learned what it means to live by the life of God. Luke was saying, in effect, I'm going to use Jesus' words now. I'm sending you out, but I will equip you for everything I expect from you. I'm going to give you the right to go. I'm going to give you the power to do what I tell you to do. I'm not just telling you to cleanse lepers. I've given you the power and the authority to cleanse lepers and raise the dead and so on. And then in verses two to five, basically what he's saying is, don't worry about your provision. Don't worry about your needs. I'm going to provide for you while you're gone. Don't have a surplus. You got a pair of sandals, that's enough. You don't need two. Don't carry a money bag with you. Don't worry about any provision. I'm going to take care of that. Travel light, trust me. That's basically what he said. It's very interesting that when the Israelites left Egypt, the same kind of a commission was given. You're going forth as pilgrims. Take a staff, get dressed up and get ready to go, but don't take more than you need. And I'm going to be with you. And so he's sending his disciples out as pilgrims. He said, when you go out there, there'll be those that accept you. Blessings on them. There'll be those that reject you. Don't worry about them. Don't waste time with rejecters. Just shake off your shoes and leave. I'll deal with them someday in the future. You go to those that receive you, and if they don't receive you, just move on. And so he sent them out two by two to do the impossible thing. I don't know if when you read the Bible, you try to put yourself in their place. My imagination, I have a lot of fun trying to picture some of these things and putting myself in the place of these disciples. I can picture Peter and Andrew. They probably went together. I don't know how the twos were broken up, but probably Peter would go with Andrew. And I can see him walking up to the first leper. And this leper probably, as Luke describes it, a full-blown case. And just picture whatever you imagine in your mind of leprosy. And this leper says, have mercy on me. And Peter looks at Andrew, and Andrew looks at Peter and says, remember the command, cleanse the leper. You do it. He said, no, you do it. I can just picture, they're real human beings. And this is an impossible thing. And so they take the simple step of faith and whatever words they use. The Bible doesn't tell us, but maybe like in the name of Jesus, be cleansed or something like that. And all of a sudden, just what they had seen their master do. They now behold for themselves. And this leper, his skin begins to change before them. And maybe limbs grow back or however it was. And can you imagine the impact on these disciples as they begin their commission, cleanse the leper, heal the sick, raise the dead. And it must have built as they kept doing it. And then it worked. And then they would go to someone that was sick and it actually worked. And the Bible says that they preached the gospel and many repented. There was revival. And they were having a ball, I think after a while. I think at first they must have been awfully frightened. This isn't going to work. And I don't think that we can do this. But more and more, especially I think when they went into the first house where there was a bereaved widow or widower or parent and their child or their loved one lay dead. Cleanse the leper, heal the sick, raise the dead. Imagine the faith that it must have taken to walk up to that corpse in the name of the Lord to just tell that body or the spirit to return to the body. And it did. It worked. And they were having these miracles. According to one of the gospels, all the disciples did this. The reason I call attention to that is imagine the condemnation on poor Judas. Because you know about Judas. Judas saw the power of God. He probably raised the dead. He saw God heal many, many people and so on. He was part of this great team that went out. And so they saw these great miracles as God worked through them. The Bible says that when they came back, they met with the Lord Jesus and they just started bubbling over. You should have seen what happened. Lepers were cleansed and sick. The palsied were healed and the crippled walked in the dirt and so on. The Bible says that they were most excited about casting out demons. Somehow that thrilled them. Later on, that happened again with the 70. In chapter 10, chapter 10-17, it says, Lord, even the demons were subject to us. You could just picture the excitement. Even the demons were subject to us. And then Jesus said, do not rejoice. That demons are subject to you. But rejoice that your names are written in heaven. But they were so excited about the physical side, the healings and the miracles and so on. It must have been exciting to see them come back and give this report. Now, we don't know how long they were gone. Commentaries differ. G. Campbell Morgan thinks they were gone for about a year. I think the least estimate is about six months. But they were gone for a long time. According to chapter 9, verses 6 and 7, we know they were gone long enough to go through all of the villages. And it took time to do all of this healing and preaching and so on. So, just an estimate. I don't know for sure, but say about a year. They were gone and they saw His power. They saw His provision. They didn't have food. They didn't have money. And God provided. A year went by. And the Lord had been teaching them this great lesson. Probably, in my view, the most exciting year of their lives up to this point. Later on, it's going to get more exciting. But up to this. Now, glance, if you would, at verses 7 to 9. Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was happening. He was greatly perplexed because it was said by some, John had risen from the dead. And by some, Elijah had appeared. And by others, one of the prophets of old had risen again. Herod said, I myself had John beheaded. Who is this man about whom I hear such things? And he kept trying to see Him. The point I want to make about that passage is that these disciples were gone for about a year. And I don't think there's any problem or any question about the fact that they were Christ-centered. Herod heard about their ministry. But he didn't say, who are these 12 men? What is this that they're doing? He didn't say that. He said, who is he? I want to know who this man is. And so they were Christ-centered. When they did a miracle, they did it in the name of the Lord Jesus. And they focused on Christ. So that Herod wanted to know, who is this? Now evidently, his conscience was really giving him a problem because he had killed John the baptizer. Now he thought he would come back from the dead. And of course, he'd be very much afraid. But the point is that they were Christ-centered, these disciples. And now came back from their great mission. They had learned, I can't do it. God does it. God does it through me. And he provides through me. But the same Jesus who was ministering is now ministering again. As far as the truth of missions is concerned, this is such a basic principle. And we talk about missionaries, but you know the Bible doesn't. There's no such thing as a missionary, when you really think about it. There's only one missionary in all the world. His name is Jesus. There are missionary channels. Now of course, that's just semantics. And you say, well, it means the same thing. But oh, what a difference in direction. There's only one missionary, it's the Lord. There are missionary channels through which the Lord works. And a real missionary is one who allows Jesus to be Jesus in and through him. And that was basically the lesson that he taught them in that year. Now how does that tie in with this next story? The feeding of the 5,000, verses 10 to 17. Well, the disciples came back after a year of seeing those great things and being involved in those great things and watching the Lord use them and work through them. Look at verse 10, please. Chapter 9, 10. And when the apostles returned, they gave an account to him of all that they had done. And taking them with him, he withdrew him by himself to a city called Bethsaida. The point is, they gave an account to him. Now there's a good side to that and a bad side to that. The good side to that, and I wish churches would follow it today, is they gave an account to him. They served the Lord and reported to Jesus. In our day, there's such an emphasis on giving an account to men and record keeping and statistics and all that kind of thing. How many trusted the Lord? How many showed up? How many were baptized? How many joined the church? How many tithed? How many do this and how many do that? And all these numbers. Tell it to the Lord. We don't have to keep records on all these things. And there's no place in the Bible where they did that. They did the right thing. They came back and gave an account unto the Lord. That part was good. But I think there was another part. And the fact that another gospel writer records a mild rebuke makes me think, I don't want to be hard on these boys because I admire their faith. I mean, they went out and did... I'd have been scared to death to do what they did. But 9-10, and when the apostles returned, they gave an account to him of all that they had done. Now, maybe I'm underscoring that in a way that's not fair to them. If that were all the record, it would be innocent enough. They're just saying, wow, let's tell the Lord all that happened. But I don't think it's telling him all that happened. I think it's telling them all that they had done. And I think it started off, wow, look what God's doing through us. But if you're used long enough, and God blesses you often enough, after a while, it's like the mouse and the elephant crossing the bridge. And then the mouse looks up to the elephant and says, we sure shook that one, didn't we? And there's this sense that, look what I did. And I healed the leper, and I raised the dead, and I cast out the demon, and so on. And the fact that Jesus had to calm them down, even the demons were subject to us. Jesus said, don't rejoice in that. You're missing the point. The demons are subject to you. He said, I saw Satan in eternity past fall from heaven like lightning. That's not a big deal. Your names are recorded in heaven. Does that thrill you? Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Jesus said, that's what should thrill you. Not that you were involved in ministry, and so many came, and so many were healed, and all of that. And I think it got a little bit to their head. I'm reading in, but here's what I think happened. We cleansed lepers. We healed the sick. We raised the dead. We cast out demons. You should have seen it, Lord. It really happened. And this guy was crippled. He stood up, and he... And Jesus looks out in the crowd. Five thousand more than you. Interesting. Seize them. That's the time. He is now going to give an illustration. And say, I want to show you again how you survived for the last year. And the real message was that I did it through you. And so he brings this great illustration of the feeding of the five thousand to reignite the great truth that I can't do it. He won't do it. He will do it through me. He will do it through you. And so together in union, we can do it. I think it was that same scenario in the Old Testament that we have. Remember when the seven-year war for taking Canaan. And they went in and God said, march around Jericho. And oh, what the Lord did. He circumcised the whole army three days before. In other words, he put every fighting man in the place of a baby eight days old. And he said, now in your pain, march around. And they marched around and around until they were weary. They couldn't even stand up. And then he said, attack. And he just showed them they couldn't take Jericho. And so God gave them Jericho. And then it came time to take Ai, the next battle. And they looked at Jericho and said, we took Jericho. We can take Ai. Ai's little, Jericho was big. And so they only sent out half the army. And oh, how they lost at Ai. And God was saying, look, you didn't win at Jericho. You can't win at Ai. This idea that big things we'll give to God. Little things we'll do ourselves. I can't handle big things. I can't handle little things. I've got to give it all to the Lord. And so it's the same kind of a thing. They came back and they were all excited about how God used them. And so now if you'll look please, verse 12. The day began to decline. The twelve came and said to him, send the multitude away. That they might go into the surrounding villages, countryside and find lodging. Get something to eat. Here we're in a desolate place. He said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said, we have no more than five loaves and two fish. Unless perhaps we go out and buy food for all these people. There were about 5,000 men. He said to his disciples, have them recline to eat in groups of about 50 each. And they did so. They had them all recline. And he took the five loaves, the two fish and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. And he broke them. And he kept on giving them to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they all ate and were satisfied. And the broken pieces which they had left over were picked up, 12 baskets full. Let me set the scene before you in terms of the rest of the record. Of the 5,000. But the Bible tells us there were 5,000 men. John 6, 10 says, plus women and children. The women and children were not commanded to come to Passover. But they were allowed to come to Passover. There's a good chance this was the feeding of the 10,000. Or if you had the kids, if they were all, if they did what Lillian and I did. We might have the feeding of the 50,000 here. I don't know how many kids they were running all around. But the point is that there were very many people. And the Lord determined to re-teach his disciples what they had learned already during that year. Now when God teaches us, he does it in two ways. You'll see this in your own life. Number one, he makes you know it up here. He makes you know it in your mind. Doctrine. He teaches you the truth until you say, okay, I admit it. I know it. I acquiesce. You think the test is over. It's not over when you know it up here. God says, it's not enough to know it. I'm going to make you feel it. I'm going to make you know it way down in the depths of your being. Now the full record shows, from Luke, it looks like the disciples came and said, you know, there's a lot of people here. It's getting late. You better send them away. But if you read the sister accounts, you'll find out in John chapter 6, early in the morning, Jesus set them up. Early in the morning, it was Jesus who came to the disciples. And he came to Philip and he said, there's a big crowd out there. How are we going to feed them? And he planted that question in Philip's mind. And then John adds, he himself knew what he was planning to do. This he said to test him. So we know this is a test. We know it. And Philip, now he gets the question, how are we going to feed them? And then Jesus lets him think about that all day long. And you know, old Philip, you see him all through the Bible. He's the guy with the calculator. And so he takes out the calculator and he counts all the fish and he counts the bread and he counts the people and he counts the money and he adds it up and it doesn't work. And so he takes out the calculator again. He discusses it with the disciples and back and forth. This goes on all day long. And he figures it's about one loaf. We don't have a word. We say five loaves. Literally in the Greek, it's five breads. And we don't have a word for plural bread. And so we say loaves, but it's not loaves. It's like five biscuits. This is a little boy's lunch. He's going to eat this whole thing for lunch. And he's got five little biscuits. And so Philip finally figures out there's about one loaf for every thousand men. The women and the children don't get anything. And there's about a half a fish for every thousand men. And it's not going to work. And so toward the end of the day, Philip and the disciples come to Jesus and said, we figured out, you asked this morning, how are we going to feed them? We figured it out. Luke 9, 12, send the multitude away. That's how we're going to do it. Send them home. They said, we figured out eight months salary is not enough to feed these people. Eight months salary would not be enough to give everybody a little bit. And so they finally realized up here, we can't do it. That's not the end of the lesson. We can't do it. Now God's going to make them feel their inadequacy. And he says, all right, now put them in groups of 50. Another gospel writer says groups of 50 and 100. So there could have been anywhere from 50 groups to 100 groups of at least 50. Tell them to recline in groups of 50. He's bringing them again in object lesson form through their last year. They went out, God did it through them. And now he's saying, watch carefully what's happening. Jesus takes the little boy's lunch. However much that is, you figure it out. I don't know how much this little kid could eat. He takes the five breads and the two fish, verse 16. He blessed them, break them, broke them and kept giving them to the disciples. He divides the boy's lunch up 13 ways, 12 for each of the disciples and he kept some. I'm going to use Peter because he sort of represents the whole group. And also, I don't know what your visual image is of Peter, but this guy was a fisherman and he's hauling ropes and pulling nets and rowing. I think this was a man, a big brawny, strong man with arms like legs and legs like people. This was a big man and he holds out his hand. Now, I don't know what one 13th of a little boy's lunch would look like in Peter's big paw. But picture it. And he puts in that much. The smallest group is 50. And he's got to go feed these people. And I would sure, if it was me, I'd go to the smallest group and I'd look for the smallest one. The smallest one's 50. There's some groups of 100. You're in the first row. How would you do it? You got that. Would you give everything to the first guy? Would you break that and give this much to you? How would you do it? And he is embarrassed. God has set him up and put him in a situation where he's totally embarrassed. And he walks up to the first row. My guess is he gave, maybe divided it in half. I don't know. Gave some here, some here. And then he went back to Jesus, probably in a cold sweat. I would have been. And Jesus gives him a little bit more. Go feed them. They're going to learn this thing. I don't know how long it took. They're going to learn the message that I am sufficient. You can't do it. It's coming through me. And the only way you're ever going to feed the hungry multitude is if you continually return to me for more. And I will do it. What a miracle this was. Now, we don't know when it multiplied. Did it multiply in Jesus' hand? Did it multiply in the disciples' hand? Did it multiply as they handed it to the people? The Bible doesn't tell us all of that. We know it was a tremendous miracle. The loaves, it was barley bread, by the way, which was inferior. They gave that to animals. This was evidently a poor child in his lung. And they all ate and were satisfied. So evidently he changed the quality. And look at what he did. As he multiplied it, it was ground, it was kneaded, it was baked, it was cooked, it was handed out. The fish, as it multiplied, the fish were caught and scaled and cleaned and cooked. He did all this in a moment of time. And so they were watching this tremendous miracle. And I don't know how long it was before they caught on. Now, I want you to consider again that little morsel in Peter's hand. That little one-thirteenth of a little boy's lunch represented the all-sufficiency of the Lord. That's what it pictured. Now, we have the Lord as much as Peter had the Lord, or they have the Lord. And sometimes I feel like Peter. And I look at, since that was bread, and since Jesus then after this gave the great sermon on the bread of life, that represented him. All-sufficient, that's the Lord. When I hold the Lord, sometimes, in fact most of the time, to be honest with you, it doesn't feel like enough. It doesn't feel like I have enough Jesus. When I face a situation or I face a problem, it never feels like I have enough Jesus. After it was over, after the distribution, when there was fifty times more collected than they handed out in the first place. They had more than they started with. Fifty times more at the end than they started with. And after it was all over, let's say God said to Peter. You're holding sufficiency. I want you now to carry everything you've distributed. He'd have been crushed. Look what that man handed out. We got ten thousand people and they all ate and were satisfied and twelve baskets left over. He couldn't possibly carry what he distributed. It never feels like we have enough Christ. But look over your shoulder at what you've already been through. Look over your shoulder at what you've already handed out. It's amazing that it's always enough. It never feels like enough, but it's always enough. It's always adequate. And in the distribution, the measure of Christ is not in the possession, but in the distribution. And as you look back and see how much God has used you. How much God has blessed you? How many times God has provided for you? How many times God has rescued you? How many times God has ministered unto you? Then your heart says, oh, yeah, he's enough. But then you face a problem today and you go, I don't know if that's enough. I don't know if Christ is sufficient. You'll see he is. He's enough. He's adequate. And the measure of that is in the distribution. There's a lesson here that we all need to know. As he closes up the Galilean ministry, his great emphasis is this. I want to work through you. I'm the great missionary. I want to minister through you. It's not you. Just become available to me. And I will do it through you. They came back a little proud. He said, all right, let me show you again. And he gave this great miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Chapter 9, 17, they all ate, were satisfied. The broken pieces which they had left over were picked up 12 baskets. Don't throw me out when I say this. Jesus is not enough for what you will face. The Bible teaches that. Here's the truth. Jesus is more than enough for everything that you'll ever face. That's the idea of the 12 baskets. He's so sufficient. And they needed to know that. So Jesus, first of all, he makes us know it. We say, all right, Lord, I admit it. I'm not adequate. He said, that's not enough that you admit that. I'm going to bring you to a situation where you're going to feel it. I'm going to make you know it. So that you know it, not only by doctrine, but by experience. And God said, I'm going to teach you that. As I close, let me just emphasize the great principle of mission. Since this is on mission. Took me years to begin to learn this. Every now and then I get an invitation to speak. Some place. And my heart always sinks. When I have this opportunity, my heart always sinks. Because I say, I don't have anything to give. Every time I give myself empty. And that's what Jesus said to Peter. Give yourself empty. And what's my hope? Come back to Jesus. And then what? Give yourself empty. And then what? Come back to Jesus for more. What a principle. And you never run dry. Because Jesus continually gives you more and more. I feel sorry. I remember in my legalistic days. Where I really emphasized works and man's part. And all that kind of thing. Oh how I struggled. I was a young pastor. How I felt for that poor congregation. That dear flock that tolerated me. But in those days, I wasn't looking to a full savior. And I had a million topics. I said, well, I preached already on missions. And I've done discipleship. And I've done stewardship. And I've done sharing and love and forgiveness. And what am I going to teach next week? And I would go snaky trying to figure out what to share next. Because I've already covered the family. And I covered, now what? And I was running out of stuff. 1965, the Lord turned my eyes to the Lord Jesus. One message. Him. Him. And now I'm beating off opportunities with a broom handle. And my only problem is, what shall I leave out? You never run out. Because you come back to Christ, He gives you more. You come back to Christ, He gives you more. As we close, let me, once again, take the feeding of the 5,000. Here are the principles. Everything we bring to Him, He receives. The little boy's love. Everything he receives, he breaks. Everything he breaks, he blesses. Everything he blesses, he uses. That's mission. Bring it to Him, He breaks it. He blesses it. He uses it. That's how He closes the Galilean ministry. They said, let's tell you what we've done. So I feed them. Oh, we can't do it. Let's do it again. I'll do it through you. I'll do it through you. And so that's the great message of the Galilean ministry. He wants to be a missionary again, only through us. He's the one that does it, but through us. Well, we're closing. Comments or questions? Just for interest, Matthew's account gives... See, Luke's going to jump over this, but Matthew's account... You know the story that follows the feeding of the 12 baskets? It says they gathered 12 baskets of crumbs. The next story is the Seraphim woman. And she said, just give me one crumb. From, remember, the dog eats the crumbs. Here's these disciples, and they don't get it. They got 12 baskets of crumbs. It's all I need. And that story follows these 12 baskets of crumbs, I thought, is very interesting. But that's another lesson, yes. That's why we tried to emphasize at the beginning of the healing ministry, that all of the miracles, and by that, he healed physically to illustrate a spiritual event. The picture passes away. The spiritual principle remains. And so today, the principle is spiritual healing. That picture has passed. And it has nothing to do with faith. It's just that that's how he... He did it once to illustrate the principle. The picture passes away. Well, let's bow. Once again, we thank you that you are so gracious to use instruments like we are. Thank you, Lord, that it's all you. And we look back and we see in a marvelous way how you've used us. We're just amazed. And at the moment, it just never feels like enough. But it's always enough. It's always more than enough. Oh, Lord, teach us how to embrace you. And you're all sufficient. Work it in our hearts, we pray.