In this sermon, Brother K.P. Yohannan discusses the story of the feeding of the 5,000 from the Bible. He emphasizes the theme of God's sufficiency in our inadequacy and encourages listeners to trust God at all times. Yohannan highlights nine lessons from the story, including seeking the Lord's glory in all that we do, surrendering what little we have to God, and not taking glory for ourselves when God uses us. He also mentions his Journey with Jesus series, which offers booklets on topics such as dealing with failure, discouragement, and brokenness. Overall, the sermon encourages listeners to trust in God's provision and to give generously to others.

Brother K.P. Yohanan encouraging us to be conduits for Christ. Whatever the Lord gives to you, give it away. You want to be blessed, bless others. Give, it shall be given unto you. In full measure, press down and running over. You want forgiveness, forgive. You want love, give love. You want people to smile at you, smile. This is the way our life is. The more you give, the more you receive. Don't hold things so tightly for yourself. Give it away, whatever that is. Approximately 15,000 to 20,000 hungry people and just five loaves and two fish. The disciples of Christ saw this as a problem, but Jesus, well, he saw it as an opportunity. Welcome to the Road to Reality from Gospel for Asia. Today, Brother K.P. Yohanan points to our inadequacy as well as God's sufficiency in all things. With God, all things are possible and the story we're about to look at underscores that truth. As we look again at the feeding of the 5,000, we'll be encouraged to trust God at all times. Just see how much he cares for us and learn how to pass that care and encouragement along to those we come in contact with. Let's be encouraged by Jesus. Here's K.P. once again. Unless you and I believe God, our Father, is so interested in you, every detail. Baba, if one has a problem with God, how much more is concerned about your sari and your trousers and your food and five-star tattwara and all the other stuff that you are worried about? But you see, God stands helpless, his hands bound up, not able to do one thing for you. And he weeps, saying, I wish you would let me lose so I can care and I can touch you, I can heal you, I can bless you, I can reveal myself to you. Please untie me. His hands are tied up. You are saying, what are you saying? Who did it? You did it. I do it. Psalm 78, it says, they bound up the hands of the Almighty. He could not do anything for them. With the choice, the freedom he gave to you, to me, we have to make some decision saying, Lord, I give up. I accept, I receive what you have said in your word and I receive it like a child. I don't argue, debate, question. I simply believe the act of faith releases the hand of God and his promises. So we become inheritors of his promise and walk into his promises. That's what the scripture tells us. We have to be careful not to separate the sacred from the secular to the extreme that will hurt us even in our spiritual life. Dichotomy is good when it comes to holiness and sin and things like that. We have to have a clear understanding from right and wrong. I agree. But in God's dealing with us, we often separate our Monday through Saturday as secular and Sunday as spiritual. The prayer meetings and worship, we make it spiritual and the dealing with our family members or friends, we make it secular. But if you watch the lives of the people of God, the way God dealt with them, he didn't make any segregation in that. He was very much concerned about the way we relate to one another horizontally, the words we use, the attitude, the responses, forgiving, receiving forgiveness, and walking with one another. It's very serious, the instructions and the consequence. What is so spiritual about rice? What is spiritual about it? It is also spiritual when we acknowledge all things are from him and for him. The slaves who were born-again believers serving ungodly masters when they were mistreated, Paul writes, my brothers, serve your masters as unto the Lord. Don't work so hard when they watch you. Your master in heaven is watching you. Be faithful to him. Think about that. Do everything, whether you eat or drink, all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31. So when we make our decisions about our life, do you consider the Lord is concerned about it and ask him to get involved with it? Along with that, I want to make one more point here. That is, Jesus is no more walking on earth. He is the head of the church. We are his body. And the head tells the body to act, hands, legs, eyes. So now Jesus walked on earth. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Right now he wants to do his heart's desire through his body. That is you and I. We are the body. If Jesus were to walk here on earth right now, looking at the 300 million Dalits, having spent eight years in North India, I can tell you places like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and UP, places where many of these people, millions, live in abject poverty and total illiteracy. And their lives are not so wonderful. When I was in Rajasthan for a couple of years in Ajmer, I saw these people, the Dalits called Tottis, going around early morning and cleaning the toilets, open sewer with their own hands and carrying it on their head. And from kilometers you can sense the sting they carry in their body. People made in the image of the Almighty God. What kind of response Jesus would have to these people? What about the HIV AIDS victims? We don't talk about it, but millions and millions are dying. Do we care? Do we have space to pray for them? If Jesus were here today, how will he respond? The five million people living in the slums of Bombay alone and the hundred thousand children walking around on the streets of Calcutta, not knowing who their parents are, the Adivasis and the tribals, the millions of precious people living in the leper colonies. He saw the multitude, they were hungry. He saw the sick and the deceased and the people that were forsaken and he had compassion on them. Is there any space, any room in your heart? You say, what am I supposed to do? Let me ask you, do you have a list of things you pray for? I imagine you do. Do you have these people on your list to pray for them? Are you one that is praying, Lord, show me my role so I can do something to serve? We got 175 dull schools with some 7,000 little children. Many of these kids come to our school totally naked, three, four, five-year-old children coming, never wore a teacher cloth on their body. They need to be washed up and give the uniform and give them books and give them some hope. And I began to think about it recently, what a privilege it would be for all of us, including my own family, to take some of these children, saying they are going to be my children. I will pray for them. I will give them finances or help whatever I can and someday when they grow up and know the Lord and serve God, what a blessing I can say, wow, 50 of those young people now living and serving God because I had the opportunity and the privilege the Lord gave me to do something for them. Jesus cares and He cares about our needs, our problems, but at the same time He wants us to care about others. Thought I want to point out from this passage is Jesus asking Philip and his disciples, Philip, yes, Lord, we got a problem. Yeah, I know, look at all these people. And God asking a question to a man. Think about it. What are you going to do? Well, Philip carries a calculator. You know what a calculator is? One, two, three, four, ten plus ten is, so immediately takes out the calculator and says, well, I mean, we got a very large crowd here. Even if we have this much money, it's nothing. There's no way. It is impossible. You're asking me what to do about it? It says in the message, this verse goes like this. It was to stretch Philip's faith. Jesus asked him how on earth they're going to do it, and Jesus did it to stretch Philip's faith, for he already knew what he was going to do. Hey, think about it. Are you one, I should ask this to my own heart, am I that individual who lived by logic and reason? I mean, Philip can go to a court and argue his point and prove it. He's correct. I mean, how can you feed all these people? There's no way. Impossible. I agree. He's right. But Jesus now is trying to train his disciples for three and a half years to get them ready for the life that is before them. That's what he's doing with us also. And Philip was given the privilege, the opportunity to respond. Something like this, Lord, you are asking me, what's wrong with you? I mean, I saw you doing this miracle. This leper got healed and this man, 38 years, just walked away. And the demon possessed people, they got well. And I mean, you're asking me what to do with it? Lord, with you, you are the answer. But that didn't agree with the logic. The Lord lovingly prepared his disciples for the road ahead. And as we study this passage, he's preparing us for works of service as well. Before we return to K.P. O'Hannon here on the road to reality, I'd like to briefly tell you about K.P.'s latest book. As you heard K.P. speak about the suffering children of Asia, I'm sure you could hear his love and concern for them. In his book, No Longer a Slumdog, K.P. observes that hope is growing in hearts of those dear children and lives are being transformed. You'll read about the next great wave of transformation in some of the darkest corners of the world. Look for that online along with his series of booklets called Journey with Jesus. We're at winasia.org. That's winasia.org. Or if you're in Canada, go to gospelforasia.ca. Well, with the second half of this week's study, once again, here's K.P. with a brilliant Old Testament example of trusting the Lord. The twelve people went to spy out the land. They said the truth. Ten of them said impossible, giants, impossible. But Joshua and Caleb saw the God of the giants. Faith is not against reason. It is beyond reason. My brothers and sisters, when we face the onslaught of the enemy, struggles and problems and difficulties, or tremendous challenge before us beyond our imagination to find answers, let us not be like Philip. I repeat, let us not be like Philip. Let us be childlike in our response. Faith is the key for the God to do the impossible through us. Logic says it cannot be done, but faith says no problem. We all live by our experience from past and present, and then we listen to others and we say there's no way we can handle it. What are you praying for? What are the struggles you are facing at this time? What is that one thing or two or ten, twenty, thirty, whatever you're saying, I don't see how I can handle it. Well, you only know where you are. For our brothers on the mission field, some places it's the opposition and the problems we face we sometimes do not know what to do. Maybe it's the worry and care you live with about your future. Maybe a bunch of people, unsaved relatives that you've been praying and praying and nothing seems to happen. How can this be? Well, the simplest answer is by faith. You know, the people who experience the least miracles, I sometimes think are the people who know the Bible so much. We are educated and finally God is not in the picture. Never can forget about the man who wrote me a letter, which you may have heard it. I like to say it again because I like to hear it. He had some problems with his lungs, went to the hospital and part of his lung was taken out. Now he got part of it and as time went by he hardly can breathe anymore. But he had the childlike heart, not so complicated. When he heard me on the radio, Jesus is right there with you in your bedroom, in the kitchen. He's there with you in the hospital room. He's right there. Why don't you cry out to him? He's able, he can forgive you and save you and he can heal you also. And I will quote a bunch of Bible verses and if you believe I'm praying for you, why don't you cry out to Jesus? He writes, I prayed with you, I felt so well. He went to the hospital, they took the x-ray, new one. The Lord created brand new full perfect lungs for him. I read that and say it cannot be. God cannot do things like that. Because my logic don't agree with it, science don't agree with it. But the poor man was not brainwashed by theologians. He simply believed, simply believed. My brothers and sisters, let us, let us learn to trust God and stand on his promises that he gave us in his word. They saw so much yet they could not open their hearts. Let's move on. Finally, Jesus takes this little fish and bread, I mean that little boy, I tell you what, I admire him. How old he was, I don't know. How, what did they do to get that from him? They tricked him, I think. A little boy trying to, I mean he didn't come and say, oh here, take it. No, I think the disciple Andrew or Philip, somebody must have told him a bunch of stories and somehow they got it and gave to Jesus. They, the nameless little boy surrendered everything he had. He didn't say, what do you want to do with this thing? We're going to feed 5,000 people and more. Wow, I don't think so. This is just enough for me. He just gave it. Can we do the same thing? The Lord took the little and he blessed it and he gave it to his disciples. You remember that? He gave it to his disciples and the disciples to these people and they were fed full stomach, leftover, tall baskets. Can you just imagine one of the disciples saying, you know what, man I'm so glad there's one basket full and look at all these thousands of people. If I'm going to distribute this in the end, I will have nothing left. So I better run with it. That's what many people do. They began to give it out. You know what, whatever the Lord gives to you, give it away. You want to be blessed, bless others. Give, it shall be given unto you in full measure, pressed down and running over. You want forgiveness, forgive. You want love, give love. You want people to smile at you, smile. This is the way our life is. The more you give, the more you receive. Don't hold things so tightly for yourself. Give it away, whatever that is. Before we pray, just a few applications. One, trials, needs are often God's way of testing us to see where we are on the inside. Grow in faith and trust him completely. Two, God is deeply concerned about the suffering, injustice and poverty. Three, let us become agents of his concern and trust him to meet our needs also. Number three, we grow into spiritual maturity through struggles. Therefore, don't despise it. It was to stretch Andrews and his disciples, Phillips, everyone's faith. Jesus did it. Number four, spending time alone with God is the key to being prepared to face life's struggles. Number five, our natural mind is the enemy of faith. Therefore, train your mind to think thoughts based on the word of God. Number six, do what you can. Andrew did what he was able to do. The boy did what he could do. And the Lord will do the impossible. Number seven, surrendering what little we have will result in great blessings for us and others. Therefore, surrender all to him. Number eight, don't hold back. Give it away and you will be blessed hundredfold. Number nine, when God uses us, make sure we don't take the glory. Walk away from the temptation, seeking for man's honor. They sought to make Jesus their king after this miracle and buried there, he walked away. He didn't want to. Given to their words, he sought the Father's glory in all that he did. Good footsteps to follow in. Let's be sure to seek the Lord's glory in all that we do. Nine great lessons to take with us and apply. Thanks for that, KP. And friend, thank you for joining us for The Road to Reality with KP Yochanan. And as we've been encouraged by Jesus today, I'm reminded of KP Yochanan's Journey with Jesus series. On our website, you can look through three volumes, each containing four booklets. Here are just a few of the booklets that caught my eye. When We Have Failed, What Next? There's another one for Seasons of Discouragement called Stay Encouraged. And another one called The Beauty of Christ Through Brokenness. The booklets can be purchased individually for three dollars, or you can save a little money by getting a four-part set for just ten dollars. Look through the Journey with Jesus series online at winasia.org. That's winasia.org. If you're in Canada, log on to gospelforasia.ca. Gospel for Asia is born out of an intense desire to reach those who've never before heard the name of Jesus. Next week on The Road to Reality, we'll hear more stories from the mission field and receive another refreshing message from KP Yochanan. Until then, God bless.