Wow! What a Lunch

John chapter 6, I'm reading to you tonight from the King James Version, a familiar story, miracle of our Lord. Thank you, choir, very, very much, appreciated your ministry of music tonight. It blessed our hearts, amen? The song said, open up your heart and open up your ears and your heart for the Word of God as well tonight.

Don't let this keep bothering you. If I see it bothering any of you, I'm going to throw my hanky at you or do something. Praise the Lord.

So, John chapter 6, "...that these may eat. And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would or was about to do. Philip answered, 200 pennies worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There's a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were sat down, and likewise all the fishers, as much as they would, when they were filled." I love the way the writers just go right along and just matter of factly describe a miraculous miracle.

Verse 12, verse 11 says, he distributed, and verse 12 says, when they were filled. In other words, no big deal. What else would you expect? When they were filled, he said unto the disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

Therefore they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Now all I can say in a response to that is this, which is the title of my message. Wow, what a lunch.

Wow, what a lunch. Shall we pray? Lord, tonight we thank you as we look into your word, as we see that you are the all-sufficient one. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Lord, take our lunches tonight. Bless it.

Break it. Let it go forth and let it be distributed to a lost and dying humanity and world. Lord, we thank you.

We thank you that you are the all-satisfying one. You are all-sufficient unto us. Little is much when God is in it.

Hallelujah. Lord, we thank you that you dwell within us. You dwell within this church.

You take the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the mighty. You're doing it right here in this church and in this city, and you're doing it in our lives. And we thank you for it.

Bless your people. Challenge us tonight through your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

Now, this miracle was motivated by the compassion of Jesus for the physical hunger of the people. Some who had actually walked. Now, there was a Passover, and so the crowds were gathering for the Passover, and that was the cause for many of them coming.

But for many others, they knew that Jesus had gone off with his disciples. The word had spread regarding him, and so some of them walked about nine miles to reach him where he was. And so Jesus was motivated by their desires, their physical, their spiritual hunger.

But I want you to note the relationship between the size of the crowd and the size of the only lunch around. There was no bagel vendors available. Five loaves of homemade bread and two slimy fish.

Seven pieces or elements of fish, enough to feed perhaps one family or one hungry lad's appetite. Now, compare the lunch with 5,000 plus growling, hungry stomachs. The disproportionate was enormous.

Now, the size of the lunch, in comparison to the size of the need, reminds me of the size of the church in relationship to the multitudes of lost and hungry souls in need of the bread of life. We are, as far as the strength of the church is concerned, we are the church with a little lunch. Or, if you please, the one lunch church.

As far as our size is in comparison to the unfinished task of world evangelism, the evangelism of the city, the evangelism of the world that we are commanded to undertake, let me illustrate this by giving you some staggering figures. The population of the world at the time that Christ ministered in this miracle and when he was on earth, the population of the world was estimated to be at 250 million people. When Martin Luther sparked the Reformation, the world's population by that time had doubled and it stood at 500 million people.

Or, in other words, it took about 1500 years for the world's population to double the first time. In 1793, a man by the name of William Carey, who is noted as the father of modern missions, went to India. And in going there, he also sparked a missionary movement of many others, individuals, as well as church organizations that realized that the gospel needed to be taken to the ends of the earth.

And at that time in 1793, the world's population had doubled again and it stood at one billion people. In the early 1900s, there was another great missionary conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. And again, the church was gripped by the fact that the gospel needed to be taken to the ends of the world because they saw the burgeoning world population, which at that time in the early 1900s had doubled again and it stood at two billion people.

Since then, in less than what, six or seven decades, the world's population has exploded and today it is approaching five billion souls. Every week, every single week, 52 weeks of the year, every single week, 2.5 million children enter this world and are added to the world's population. Now, perhaps it's hard for you to grasp the enormity of those figures, but there's a few other figures you ought to let sink into your mind and into your soul.

Out of that five billion people, it is estimated that two, fifths of them, two billion people have no, absolutely no witness of a gospel among them. There is no church among their language or in their culture. There is no missionary there.

There is no pastor there. They do not have an existing church among them, two billion people. By the year 2000, there will be 22 mega cities with populations of 10 million plus in the world.

Right now, Mexico City has a population under the age of 14 equal to the size of New York City. Although Hindus and Muslims and Chinese make up 75% of the non-Christian world, only 5% of today's foreign missionaries live among them. But you and I have but to look at this great city or you have but to look in your neighborhood or in the office where you work or in your own family to realize that in the natural, we in the church can feel and understand how Andrew felt when he brought the little lad with his little lunch.

And he posed the question that I pose to you tonight regarding the church of Jesus Christ and the responsibility that is ours to take the gospel to the world. And if this is a missionary message tonight, I guess it is. We feel, I cannot help but feel like Andrew tonight when I think of those figures I've just quoted to you.

And I think of the size of the church and I have to say tonight, but what are we and what are these among so many? But tonight I have a stirring in my heart. I have and I do carry a burden. And it's this that we will find in this church and we will find in every church, but especially in this church, we'll find that lad with a lunch who will come forth out of the crowd and give that lunch to Jesus.

Because I am convinced that just as Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks and he distributed to the disciples and it says, and they were filled. And not only were they filled, but they were satisfied. I also believe that Jesus wants to take and he wants to bless your lunch and your life and your witness and use it to feed this city and to feed a dying world.

And I believe that there is a lad here tonight. There are many lads here tonight. There's a lad with a lunch.

Now you may be a lad, but you may be a lad spiritually speaking in that you've recently come to the Lord. You may be older in age, but you're young in spirit and you feel like a lad. But whoever you are, I want you to know that you have something tonight in your possession that is much more significant and potent and powerful and potentially useful than you could ever imagine.

And God wants some of you to come out of the crowd and out of your fears and out of your hiding and some of you out of your backsliding and give up all of the excuses of why you cannot give up your lunch and let Jesus take it and feed a whole big bunch. Hallelujah. When Jesus took the lad's lunch, think of it now.

When Jesus took that lad's little lunch and he lifted it up and here's the lad standing. He'd given up his lunch and now Jesus is lifting it up in front of the crowd and I can see him standing behind Jesus and he sees this enormous crowd. And Jesus lifts up his lunch and he says, Now Father, I thank you for this food that we, 5,000 plus, I thank you, Father, for the food that we are about to partake of.

His eyes must have bugged out or he must have covered his mouth and probably could not hold back to help to snicker when he heard Jesus say, Thank you for this meal that we are about to partake of. And that makes about as much sense to some of you if God told some of you what he wants to do in your life and through you, if you'll let him, you probably will have a laugh down inside you and say it's not possible. But my prayer is that Times Square Church will not only touch this city, but will touch the world for Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah. You know how many nations we have come in. You've heard the countries represented.

But in addition to that, we have people sitting right here that have a burden. One of our gentlemen here has a burden. Charles has a burden to go into the South Bronx in a ghetto and raise up a neighborhood church there and thank God for that.

And one of these days, maybe we'll be able to send him forth. We have another couple that want to go to Poland and minister. Others of you, God may call you.

And I believe that we ought also to be not only a church that reaches this city, but we ought to be a sending church that we will commission and send people out to the ends of the earth. Hallelujah. That's my prayer.

But I believe also that some of our best leaders and future workers are sitting right here tonight. You may not know it. Some of them are walking the streets right now.

We pray that. I pray that almost every Tuesday during our pastor's prayer meeting. And I say, Lord, raise up off of these streets some workers.

Some of you sitting here right tonight, you may not believe it. And there may be a lot of work that the Holy Spirit has to do in you yet, but still I want to challenge you. You're a lad with a lunch.

And the seeds of the power of distribution are within you. And one of these days, hallelujah, bread's going to start rolling out of your life like the baskets that fed, the one little basket that fed that Galilean multitude. I remember one night.

We have a Teen Challenge fellas sitting up here, don't we? Are you here tonight, fellas? Yes, God bless you. And I remember I was in a Teen Challenge meeting one time with fellas like that and I went to take the offering. And there were a few people there besides the Teen Challenge fellas, but most of them were the Teen Challenge fellas.

And I started to take the offering and then I realized who the audience was. And I realized that they didn't have anything to give. And so the Spirit of the Lord prompted me and I said, Now, fellas, when the offering basket comes by, I know you don't have a lot, but I want some of you to do something tonight.

I want you to put yourself, I want you to put yourself in the offering basket tonight. By faith, I want you to give yourself. And in fact, Paul wrote, he wrote to the Corinthians about their giving.

He said he commended them because he said, you gave yourself first of all. But as I took the offering, I prayed. I said, when the offering goes by, some of you put yourself in the basket.

And, you know, a young man came to me some weeks later or months later and he said, Brother Don, do you remember that offering? I said, yes, I do. He said, I want you to know, I put myself in that offering that night. And when it went by, he said, when you said that, God spoke to me and said, Yes, yes, I want to father you, Lord.

I want to be your lad. I want to distribute your lunch. And he said, I put myself in the offering.

And I want you to know that young man's in California today working for the Lord. Hallelujah. Now, let me turn your attention to this story of this lad with a lunch.

First of all, let's talk about how this lunch was discovered. Now, Andrew said it, but the others knew that there was a lunch or some portion of food, but only Andrew was the one who had the nerve to say it. Now, it was no mystery of how that little lunch was noted in 5,000 people.

There was no miracle. I thought at first that, man, that's amazing that they even discovered that lunch among 5,000 people, but it was no miracle. And you know why? There was no food.

And they all pointed, they knew exactly where it was because their nose told them. When you've been that hungry and you, whether it's smelly fish or whatever, everybody turned around and smelled that loaves and pointed out and said, here it is. But only Andrew came and pointed out.

And perhaps Andrew, you know, who had brought Peter to Jesus and bringing Peter to Jesus for salvation was about as ridiculous as Andrew pointing out the lad with the only lunch within miles of a McDonald's. But you see, it was the grace and the providence of God in bringing that lad there. It was the grace and the providence of God.

We don't know his name. We don't know where he came from. We don't know why he happened to be there, but I'm going to tell you my version of why.

He was the only person who under the circumstance possessed such a prized possession. And regardless of how he got there, the fact was that he was there. Now, let me tell you how I think he got there.

And this is preacher's license. This is preacher's imagination. And you'll have to just let it bear witness to your heart or not.

Paul said, sometimes I speak by, you know, permission. I speak by revelation. Other times I speak by permission.

I'm giving myself a little license here and tell you how he got there. I believe he was one of 12 children. Woke up that very morning to the smell of freshly baked bread.

Went into the kitchen and his mother's making all this bread for this big family. He has his breakfast. And then his mother says to him, now Sonny, he said, I want you to do something.

I'm going to bake five loaves of bread. And five of these breads are going to go to your grandma because your grandma's sick and I want you to take them to her. You go down, get two fish out of the Galilee, come back and I'll have the bread ready.

So he went, got the fish, came back. She packs them a little lunch and she says this to him. Now you go directly to grandma's house.

Don't you set your lunch down. Don't you turn to the right. Don't you turn to the left.

Don't you play with your friends. You go directly to grandma's house and you come back with that lunch. He says, yes mother.

And off he goes with his lunch. And as he's walking along the Sea of Galilee intending on his business, suddenly he looks up on the hillside and he sees the largest crowd that he's ever seen in his life. And he looks at the crowd and he looks at his lunch and he remembers what his mother said and he keeps intent on his mission.

But still there's that crowd there and what he did next, he didn't mean to do. But pretty soon he was moving closer to that crowd than he was to grandma's house. And pretty soon he was on the edge of the crowd.

Pretty soon he was in the middle of the crowd and pretty soon Andrew discovered him. And although this lad with a lunch on the way to grandma's house did not know it, he was the right boy with the right lunch at the right place at the right time and he surrendered it to the right person. And this is always the way God works.

The Lord always has in place his man, his woman, his young person to appear on the scene at precisely the right time to be his instrument of service. It has been that throughout history. God had an Abraham to father a nation.

He had a Moses to liberate that nation. He had a Joshua to lead them into the promised land. He had a David and Solomon to be their king.

He had a Jeremiah and prophets to warn them of their backsliding. He had an Ezra and a Nehemiah to bring them back to restoration and to bring revival. He had a John the Baptist.

He had a Mary to be the handmaiden of the Lord. He had a John the Baptist to announce Jesus as the Lamb of God. He had a Paul to father the church.

God never, never is wanting for a man or a woman with a lunch, hallelujah. And if you will not obey God, if you will not do what God has called you to do, he'll bypass you and he'll always find somebody to accomplish his will and his work. The story is told of Martin Luther when he received that revelation in God's Word that the just shall live by faith and by faith alone.

He shared it with another fellow monk and this is what his peer told him. He said to Martin Luther, monk, go back to your room and keep your mouth shut and hold your tongue and say nothing of this anymore to anyone. But you see, a fire burned in Martin Luther's bosom and God gave, he was a big man with a big mouth and he could not hold back his lunch because God made him that way and his voice set off a flame that touched the nations of the world.

In the book of Esther, when God providentially placed a beautiful Jewish girl in the palace of the king of Persia, little did she realize that the hand of God was placed upon her and she was in a position to prevent the very first Jewish annihilation or holocaust. And when Esther at one point was reluctant to be God's instrument to appeal and witness to the king, listen to what her uncle Mordecai said to her. I read it from Esther chapter four.

It says, And Mordecai commanded them to take this message back to Esther in the inner chambers of the palace. And this is what Mordecai said, Think not with thyself that thou should escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise from another place.

In other words, if you don't obey, God's still going to save the Jews. He's still going to find another instrument somewhere, but you will have judgment upon you because you didn't obey. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed.

But who knoweth? But who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? And listen to me tonight, whether you're a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord or whether you're one of these pastors or anywhere in between, you have to have the sense that you are the little lad with the little lunch and that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Whether it is in your home or in your office or you're the only one that's saved, you have to have a sense of divine destiny in the place that God has put you. Hallelujah.

Amen. Say amen. Some of you did.

You're looking at me. You're just looking at me. I know you're with me.

Praise the Lord. You have to have a sense of divine destiny. I want to tell you, this church does.

We have a sense of where God has. And every one of you are important here in the house of the Lord. Hallelujah.

Every position, everything that you do, you have come to the kingdom. And this church has come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Hallelujah.

We've been praying for a thousand core people, a thousand committed core people. We feel we need to do the job that is called us to do here in this city. And I pray that you will sense the call of God and say, God, I want to be that Esther.

I want to be that Mordecai. I want to be that man, that lad with a lunch. Hallelujah.

But then let me go on. I want you to note also that the lunch contained, what the lunch contained and what it consisted of. It says there was a lad here which had five barley loaves and two fish.

Now, not only was it divine providence that there was the right person on the scene at the right time, but there was also something right about that lad's lunch. The barley loaves and the fish are representative spiritually of something that God requires of every lad and every servant of God. I see two important things represented by the barley and the fish.

And that is vision and character. Vision and character. Many have the former and they don't have the latter.

Now, Pastor Bob spoke Sunday morning, and I wish he hadn't. He spoke on vision. No, I'm glad that he did because, and Brother Dave talked about working and ministering for the Lord.

And both of them took my message. I already had this prepared, but I guess the Lord wanted to, some of you didn't get it, I guess. Or you weren't here or you didn't get it.

You know, it's like the pastor, one pastor one time, he preached the same message three times in a row. And finally a deacon came up to him and he said, Pastor, do you know that you preached that same sermon three times in a row? He said, yeah, I know. As soon as you start living it, I'll go on to a next one, another one.

The two fish represent the vastness of a need to which God has called the church. Turn to Luke the fifth chapter and you know the story. If you want to look at it there, you can turn.

If you want to in Luke five, when the Lord called Peter, you recall that it said they enclosed a great multitude of fish. When they obeyed the Lord, they obeyed his word. They cast their nets again into the sea after fishing all night, having caught nothing.

And Jesus went on in that fifth chapter of Luke and used an illustration. And he said in verse 10, he said, Fear not from henceforth, thou shalt catch men. And I believe that Peter never forgot the lesson.

And the Lord wants us to catch men. And I believe the size of the catch is symbolic of the vastness of the need. And the Lord wants us to catch men and to fill the church's net full of the unsaved.

Now here at Times Square, you've heard us say it, that we do not believe, we're just not looking for crowds for crowd's sake. If we wanted to do that, my friend, we could have, you know, there's all kinds of celebrities that want to come through here. We could put on a high hype promotion thing and we could fill this or double fill it and they'd be lining up, but we're not going to build the church that way.

And we don't believe in crowds for crowd's sake or numbers for number's sake or using hype to fill a building. But we do have vision in the right sense of the word. And we do believe that God wants us to catch fish and to catch a lot of fish.

And my friend, we believe that God is going to, by the hunger of God's Word drawing people, that this place is going to be filled. And not only is it going to be filled Sunday morning, but God's going to give us an extra service on Sunday. We'll probably have to go to extra services on Sunday.

I believe Brother Jimmy in his outreach on Saturday, it's going to grow and be filled. We may have to have meetings here Sunday night. God wants our nets full.

We've got to have a vision to reach this city for God. Hallelujah. And our vision is to launch out into the deep and let our nets down for a mighty draw, a mighty catch.

But at the same time, look at verse 8 in chapter 5. It says, when Simon Peter saw it, when he saw the size of the catch, more than just casting the net or knowing how to fill a building to be successful in ministry, the character Peter began to see the importance of a character of a fisherman that was as important as the size of the catch. And when he saw it, he fell down before him and said, Oh Lord, yes, I want to catch men. But he recognized that there was something in his life that had to be changed, had to be dealt with in his life before God could launch him forth.

Now, the lad's lunch consisted of five barley loaves. And barley represents total surrender or the giving of everything to the Lord as an offering of dedication. And please follow me on this.

In the Old Testament laws of the sacrifice and the offerings that was required to be offered to God, to the Lord, one of those offerings was to consist of bread. It was the meat offering. It was actually a grain offering.

It was made up of either wheat or barley. And this offering in Hebrew was called a minshka, which means a present or the gift of an inferior to a superior. The word is sometimes translated present, such as the present that Joseph gave his brethren when they came to visit him.

And to fully understand the biblical interpretation of giving our minshka or our offering to the Lord, it must be understood that the kind of offering given to God must be the kind worthy of the person to whom it is given. In other words, it cannot be cheap. It cannot be shoddy.

It cannot be worthless. If you were giving a gift to the queen of England or if you were given the privilege to present a gift to the president of the United States, you would want it to be worthy of a high office of the presidency. So you would choose it accordingly.

Its worth should be in keeping with the high office. And the point or the application is this. God is just as concerned about the quality of our lunch as he is in the quantity of our vision.

And you might be gung-ho to work for the Lord. You can volunteer for every outreach. You can be out on the street every day.

You might be one who desires to share his lunch all day long to everybody you meet. But the Lord says, what about your grain offering? What about the quality of your offering? What about the quality of your lunch that you're presenting to the Lord? What are you offering unto him? Go with me, if you will, to Genesis chapter 4. Go to Genesis chapter 4. I want you to see something that I never saw. I never saw this before.

Genesis chapter 4. We must beware lest the offering that we give to the Lord is like the offering that Cain gave and it was rejected. You see, Cain made an offering to God, but it was rejected. You know why? Because it had no character to it.

It had no holiness to it. It had no worth to it. God did not have respect to it.

Now, most of the time we're taught that the reason that the Lord rejected Cain's offering is that it had no blood in it. And that's true, but there's something else that I never saw. I do not believe that Cain's offering was rejected just because it had no blood in it.

And neither do I believe that we are qualified for service or for ministry just because we're saved or just because we have a desire to work for the Lord or just because we have a vision to work for the Lord. It takes more than just being saved. There was something missing in Cain's offering which was in Abel's offering.

And it was the reason that the Lord had respect unto Abel in his offering. And it was also why Cain in his offering, he had no respect. Let's read it.

Genesis 4, chapter, Genesis 4, verse 4, verse 3. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord, a present unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Cain and to his offering.

It was blood, yes. Excuse me, Abel. And the Lord had respect unto Abel.

I'm just seeing if you're still here. You're just with me. I knew exactly what I was doing, you know.

I'm learning from Bob. You know, he's got a quick recovery. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

And Cain was very wrought and his countenance fell. Look at that fourth verse again. Here's the key words.

And Abel also brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof. Now listen carefully. One of the most important and grievous things that is wrong in the church today is that the fat is missing in the offering.

The fat is missing and God, I got to be careful how I say this now. God wants your fat. No, he doesn't want you fat.

He wants your fat. Follow me. Go with me to Leviticus in order for you not to think this is a Weight Watchers presentation.

Go to Leviticus chapter 1. I was almost going to develop my entire message around this. And I would have had some fun with this, but it's not a laughing matter. Leviticus chapter 1, verse 7, And the sons of Aaron and the priests shall put fire upon the altar and lay the wood in order upon the fire.

And the priest Aaron's son shall lay the parts and the head and the fat in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. But his inwards and his legs shall be washed in water and the priest shall burn all on the altar to be a burnt offering, an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. Now go to chapter 3 and verse 3. And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering, an offering made by fire unto the Lord, the fat that covereth the inwards and all the fat that is upon the inwards.

In fact, 12 times in Leviticus 3, it mentions the sacrifice and it says, and the fat thereof. And the fat thereof. I think in verse 16 or whatever.

Oh yes, look at verse 16, chapter 3. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar, eat as the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor. All the fat is the Lord's. And in each other offering, you can go through all Leviticus, you'll see it again and again.

Now going back to Cain's offering, it says that Cain brought of the first or brought of the fruit of the ground. And what the Lord wants us to learn from this account is that the quality of our offering reflects the character of the one who is offering it. Abel's offering had fat in it.

This means the choiceless part of the animal. And the Genesis account suggests that Cain took the first fruit that came out of the ground. He grabbed the first thing that came along.

He didn't have respect for it. He didn't have respect for the quality of it. He didn't have respect for the character of the offering, but Abel did.

And Abel picked out the firstborn, but it was not just any animal. He gave the best. The fat is the choiceless.

It's U.S. grade A, number one. He gave the fat thereof. Abel was a man with a right heart and a right motive.

And God does not look upon the largeness alone of our lunch or the largeness of our vision, but he looks upon our hearts. And Leviticus 3.17 says, all the fat is the Lord's. And when the bird offering was offered on the altar, it represents our obligation to God in not just giving one aspect of our lives to him, but giving him everything, giving him the very best that we have, giving him everything that is within us.

He says he wants our fat. Hallelujah. And if we have not presented a pure heart, a holy life to the Lord, it doesn't matter if we stand on 42nd Street and pass out tracks all day long.

If the fat is missing from our offering to God, then God will not have respect for our sacrifice and our offering. Psalms, listen to Psalms 22 and 28 and 29. In fact, if you understand this principle, you'll read the Psalms and you'll read about fat in a different light.

It says, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the governor among the people. All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship. That doesn't mean overweight people.

It says in all they that be fat upon the earth. In other words, they that have given the best that they have and surrendered all of their affections, everything, their affections are set on things above, not on things on this earth. Hallelujah.

And you see, my friend, in many cases, the church may be large, but it's not fat. Our services may be filled with a lot of praise and worship, but we have not given our fat. We have not given our best.

We've not given our hearts unto the Lord. Now, finally, the miracle of the sufficiency and satisfaction in Christ, of course, is represented in the multiplication of this one lunch into a feast. Consider what one lunch in the hands of Jesus can do.

It says, look, if you want to look at John 6 again, Jesus took the loaves. And when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were seated. And when they were filled, now listen, they didn't just eat.

They were satisfied. They were filled. They were satisfied.

And then he said, gather up the fragments that remain, the leftovers, and they gathered 12 baskets over and above unto them that had eaten. And that's why I say, wow, what a lunch. Here then is the all-sufficiency of Christ.

Here is a picture of the one-lunch church, the one-lunch Christian. And when that lunch is turned over to Jesus, what he can do with one lunch. Do you remember when, who was it? Was it Elisha or Elijah? It was Elijah who went to the widow and said, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel.

And she was preparing for her last supper. And he blessed it and he anointed it. And her last supper became an everlasting supper.

Jesus took one little meal and turned it into a lunch. Do you remember? There was another occasion in 2 Kings, and I think it was Elisha, when the sons of the prophets were there. They had nothing to eat.

And along came a man. They set before them about 20 loaves or whatever. And he said, give thanks and pass it out.

And his servants said, what are these among so many? He said, go ahead, do it. He said, do it. So he set it before them and they did eat and left nothing thereof according to the word of the Lord.

And that little lunch fed a hunger, a 100. They were Bible school students. And so that must've been some lunch.

That must've been some miracle. One little lunch fed a 100 Bible school students. Wow, what a lunch.

Let me tell you about another little lunch I observed one time. In 1958, as a Bible school student, I heard about an evangelistic crusade here in New York City in a boxing arena called St. Nicholas Arena. And I heard that there was a preacher, happened to be David Wilkerson preaching to the gangs.

And somebody drove me to New York City. I think it was the first time I'd ever been to New York City. And I came into that meeting and I sat there and I watched David preach to those gangs.

And as I look back now, I can't help but think of Andrew when he said, but what is these among so many? One preacher with one little lunch. But that night I watched Nicky Cruz come forward and take a bite out of that lunch. It so happened that the Lord called me to come to New York City to work here as well.

The Lord not only saved Nicky, but he called him into the ministry. Went off to Bible school, came back during his summers and came back after he graduated. One day, the first drug addict came through our doors.

His name is Sonny Argonzoni. He took a bite out of Nicky's lunch, which of course was a part of the original lunch. And the Lord saved Nicky, changed Sonny's life.

Sonny went off to Bible school. He stayed in California. He started a rehab center for drug addicts in a house.

And next door, he opened a church for them. And after about 10 or 12 years, or in fact now after I don't know how many years, if you go there, he now has 3,000 people in his church. In addition, he has raised up other pastors that he has trained and about 50 congregations have come out of that original church.

David has preached for him many times in his conferences. I've preached for him as well. And I recall being there one time.

And I looked out at an audience of some 2,000, 2,500 people that had come together for that night. And I started telling the story about the country preacher with a little lunch. And I looked out at that crowd, and all I could say to them is, Wow, what a lunch.

Wow, what a lunch. I was preaching one time in Puerto Rico. They took me up into a beautiful church up in the country somewhere, and unexpectedly came upon this beautiful church to preach.

And on the platform were 3 of my own spiritual sons, young men that the Lord had saved through our ministry and called into the ministry. And then the 3 of them got up and gave their testimony. One of them introduced one of their spiritual sons, who he got up and gave his testimony.

And he turned around, and he said, Brother Don, or no, he didn't say that. He said, Thank you, Grandfather. And would you go back and thank my great-grandfather, Brother Dave? And then the other one got up, and he said, Brother Don, he said, I have a surprise for you tonight.

And he said, I brought some of my congregation with me tonight. I brought some ex-drug addicts who've been saved through my ministry. And he said, will you please stand? And then 6 of them stood up.

And he turned to them, and he said, Meet your grandfather. And I looked out on that, and all I could say was, Wow, what a lunch. Wow, what a lunch.

What God can do, you see, when you give your lunch unto the Lord. Now, let me finish off the story, if I can, about the lad that came there. I want to give you my own ending.

I told you how I thought he got there. Let me tell you what I think happened at the end. Trying to figure out what happened with those 12 fragments that remained, those 12 baskets.

I think Andrew came along and said, You know, this lad was good enough to give up his lunch. And I heard that he is from a large family and has 12 children in the family. Why don't we take these 12 baskets? He said, Sonny, where do you live? He said, I live down the bottom of the hill.

They said, All right, come on. Let's take those 12 baskets down, and let's just give it to him as a sign of our appreciation. And so here they come down the hill to his house, and little Sonny, he's all excited.

He's just seen this great miracle, and he runs up to the house. His mother sees him coming. She doesn't see the 12 baskets yet, and she sees him, and she says to him, Sonny, did you take the lunch to Grandma's house? And then he remembers.

He said, Oh, no, I didn't. And she says, Well, where's your lunch? And he says, Mother, you ain't gonna believe this. And by then the 12 have arrived, and they've laid out the 12 baskets on his porch.

And he says, Mom, come out. I want you to see my lunch. And she came out.

And the little boy says, Look, Mom, wow, what a lunch. The point is this. The lunch represents the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

And it represents the church in us and in the world. And to the world it appears that the church is nothing but five barley loaves and two fish. In other words, a little lunch spread before 5,000 people, and sure, the church looks small, and it looks puny, and it looks weak, and it looks overwhelmed at times.

But, oh, hallelujah, God can take our lunch as we give it to him. And we feel like Andrews many times. What are these among so many? But Jesus took it, hallelujah, and lifted it up and said, Distribute it.

And it met every need of every person, and they were all filled, hallelujah. And we are still the one lunch church, but he is still the Christ who is able to take our lunches and feed a lost and dying world, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Let's stand and thank the Lord and praise him that he is sufficient tonight for your need. He is sufficient for the needs in this city. He is sufficient for whatever God has called us to do.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Christ of God, and right after this great...